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More The Wire:
Article about the late Donnie Andrews, who was the inspiration for Omar Little. Omar is such a larger-than-life character that it hadn't occurred to me he's based on real life people. But no, there are actually stick-up men out there who rob drug dealers for a living. Andrews' story is fascinating.

In his earlier years when he was robbing rival dealers as a young hustler in West Baltimore — experiences that would later form the basis for the popular Omar Little character on the Baltimore crime drama “The Wire” — he vowed to never involve women or children in his crimes.

But after confessing to a murder and helping authorities bring down a crime syndicate, he took on a different mission: working to prevent youth from going down the same path that he did.

The ultimate crossover fanart: Where's Wall-E?

Interesting (and possibly relevant to the Natasha writers):
NONE OF YOUR FREAKING MOVIES GET IT RIGHT: a guide to Russian names.

via frogspace: Media Hint is a new Firefox add-on that somehow acts like a proxy and it actually works, at least on Hulu. We just watched an entire episode of Project Runway. ON HULU. From Germany! Hargh yeah.

Take that, suckers! Can't stop the Signal!

Worlds Collide by SugarFey
Nat/Clint; developing relationship/spies and secret agents; rated E; 13215 words
Summary: Their worlds collided when they met, so they rebuilt a world together.

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Spot the camouflaged critters! (not as easy as it sounds.)

Fannish meta links I enjoyed reading: vickysg1 posted a great Leverage manifesto at het_reccers: an intro into the show with plot overview, character descriptions, fic recs and more. I shall henceforth point to that post when I rec the show to new people.

jae got meta & squee about The Americans; if you're interested in the show, definitely check out her episode reactions. (ep spoilers, obviously)

Not fandom: story about a Wisconsin hunter who adopts a Coyote

Buildering in München /German

30+ of the most beautiful abandoned places and modern ruins i’ve ever seen

Woow! Some of these look almost enchanted.

There are like a DOZEN shows out there that look like they match my interests. Hundreds of episodes unwatched. Why did I have to fall for the one that was cancelled three years ago after only ten episodes?
Whyyyyyy?

note: shows to check out next now that Leverage is finished: Farscape, Elementary, Hustle. And Chuck season 5 (I'm actually still unspoiled for the finale so I should maybe watch that one first...)

But right now I'm rewatching The Wire and The Unusuals because feelings. Was planning on only watching season three of The Wire, but so much of it is setup for season four! (On a side note, now that I read that crossover between the two shows for Yuletide Madness, I'd kind of love to read a long one, with case plot...)
Btw, anyone know of good meta that also references real events and people in Baltimore? I'm wondering if anything like Colvin's secret Hamsterdam project actually happened.

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I'm now proud owner of a Kindle. I got the cheapest one that does little more than display text, but it should be sufficient. (Except it would be handy if it could delete files, but I think I have to do that via computer, which is inconvenient.) I already downloaded and read a bunch of stories from AO3 and so far I'm very happy with it. I think I'll still print out my favorites for re-reading but I love how quick I can grab and save stuff.

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We have snow! Everything looks bright even with the sun not shining, and I finally got to dust off my skis. Guy at the xerox place said it was the first time he'd seen someone come by on skis. :)

Here's an extremely well done animated trailer for a YA book. Looks fascinating:
A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness - book trailer

And I just read that the book was written after an idea by Siobhan Dowd, who wrote The London Eye Mystery which is just a wonderful book! I'd been meaning to rec it here, too. Dowd sadly died recently, before she could finish this book. (If anybody read A Monster Calls, don't spoil me; I plan to read it.)

and a climbing clip:
Awesome Ninja Warrior Bedroom
Sometimes I regret I no longer live in a room with a slanted ceiling. It would've been just perfect for a home bouldering wall.

18 Homes That Belong In A Fairytale

I could lose myself in those pictures. I believe at least some of these are actual homes people live in.

Today's xkcd is awesome: Up Goer Five. A blueprint of a rocket ship, explained using only the thousand most common words in the English language. ('Computer' is one of them while 'thousand' isn't. Huh.)

via disobey_gravity: Interview with Tomoko Ogawa, first woman to boulder 8B+. At the bottom of the article there's a video clip of her climb. Hardcore! At some point it looks like she's hanging from the cave ceiling by just pinching a tiny bit of rock between her fingers.

In honor of Halloween: My favorite of today's Cakewrecks post

And for contrast, here's a Sunday Sweets post from earlier this year, with cakes that are based on t-shirt designs and really insanely intricate and cute.