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It is so weird to work for a not-for-profit and get letters from the not-for-profits that I support, particularly my undergraduate alma mater. They sent me a very nice bookmark in return for my $10 donation. I think possibly the bookmark and postage cost more than $10. Also I'm pretty sure this bookmark is useless for actually marking pages in books.

Love you, alma mater. Don't ever change.

Relatedly, through a confluence of circumstances involving a tornado and a train, I somehow ended up reading three books at once. I used to do this all the time as a kid, multi-tracking between books depending on my mood, but I haven't done it in years and it's a bit disconcerting. Still, I can't stop; I have to know if Geung makes it home and whether Bruce's roommate Dexter finally succumbs to institutional pressure and becomes a Stepford Air Cadet and where Issenberg is going with this whole sushi-as-globalization thing.

Seriously, guys, I don't want Dexter to be an air cadet, but I'm pretty sure if he doesn't knuckle under he's gonna end up in prison as a cautionary tale to Bruce.

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I've gotten bookmarks like that, although not in exchange for donations - just from well-meaning gift-givers. How is yours impossible for marking pages? Too thick or ornate?

Too thick to use as an ordinary bookmark, but too sticky-outy to clip onto the page like you're supposed to do with it (also too heavy, the poor page just collapses).

It's very pretty, though.

Oh geez, yep, I've had those. You have to wonder what you're supposed to do with it, set it on top of an impressive book that you'll never read and use them as a pointless coffee table display?

In grade 6 had eight books on the go simultaneously ... the last time I tried reading more than one at a time I got woefully confused, thinking the rules of one world applied to the plot of another. My poor brain!

And then there was the time I was following your post-Hallows HP 'Ghosts' fic while following another friend's post-Hallows dystopian wizarding world not-really-webcomic ... that was interesting.

I work in the city centre, thus have the misfortune of having to run the gauntlet of charity workers every time I go outside on my lunchbreak. As you can imagine, this is more than slightly annoying, and my polite veneer of refusal is beginning to wear thin. (I applaud that they want to make the world a better place, but it's easy to have to dodge maybe a dozen in one trip out. So if I have cause to leave the office every day for a week, that's 60 potential "you look like you're a kind person, can I just have one minute of your time" encounters. Before you even consider heading into town on the weekend in your leisure time.)

Anyway. One of the most common charities in my city centre is the NSPCC. And whilst I obviously applaud the work they do protecting children, every time I see them I have to steel myself to not bite back at their requests with "you know, last year I made a donation to the NSPCC and I specifically ticked the 'this is a one off donation and I do not wish to be contacted in the future' and since then you have mostly spent my donation calling me and sending me stuff in the post". Rage!

Everyone knows the NSPCC are secretly witches (http://youtu.be/_1ddxJECccA).* Of course they're being evil!

Such a frightening book. Although not as bad as Great Glass Elevator. If I ever have children, they will absolutely be raised on a diet of Roald Dahl. But Great Glass Elevator they're going to have to tackle on their own, or with their father. The vermicious knids are so terrifying that I refuse to reread the book even as an adult!

The witches gave me nightmares for years. I saw the movie at a daycare for sick kids and I think I had a very high fever at the time. Permanently messed me up! Then later, I found one of the chapters for the book excerpted in the Random House book of humor. Really?! Not funny to me!

Glad to know I'm not alone, since a lot of people think I'm nuts. :-)

Oh god, that happens to me walking home, too. Shut up, Greenpeace, I already love whales! The street teams are hired through other companies, usually, so they get paid on some kind of commission basis, I think, which makes them annoyingly driven.

A Jimmy Carr joke I love:

"I was stopped in the street the other day by someone who asked if I could spare a minute for Cancer Research. I said sure, but I don't think we'll get much done."

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LOL. They might have stepford girlfriends! It turns out that the Air Cadet book is just the FIRST IN A SERIES. :D :D The author, Jack Pearl, wrote a bunch of pulp fiction too. I may have to become a connoisseur.

Awww, CG *pats it* Glad you're liking it.

I've usually been a one-story-at-a-time person, mainly because I read fast enough that I finish something before I can get distracted by another book. But lately I've been jumping between four fandoms, reading fic in one and then fic in another fandom. It's easier to do so with fanfic than with original fiction, I suppose, because most of the characters and backstories have been established beforehand (i.e. one doesn't have to mentally construct a whole universe for each story) but it feels like an unusual change of reading habits.

fyi, today is Leave the Office Early Day.

Alas, not really an option for me :D

Well, if everyone else abandons the ship it may help to explain why.