Link Snack: August 22, 2009

Items of interest this summer:

• If you look at nothing else in this post, you should look at My Milk Toof.  It's an adorable, creative, photo story blog about two teeth - who have personalities and adventures. I've added it to my sidebar under "Fanciful."

• What happens when you give bears some watermelons - from the Museum of Life & Science Animal Department Blog.  I've added it to my sidebar under "Triangle, NC."

• From Planet Green:  75 Things You Can Compost, But Thought You Couldn't.  However, your neighbors might not be too thrilled with the creatures your stale bread, moldy cheese, pizza crusts, hamster droppings, and latex condoms might attract.  Don't worry, neighbors. This list is here just for interest; I'm not actually using it.

• San Diego Zoo's Panda Cam:  Their newest cub was born this month.  [Hat tip to russlings:  About zoos and wildlife, a blog by a member of the NC Zoo society (which is now on the sidebar in the North Carolina section)]

• From the Wall Street Journal:  If you have lots of money, a simple house by the sea - Villa Rockledge in Laguna Beach, California:

In 1973, Roger Jones convinced his landlord to sell him the guest house he lived in and the accompanying beachfront home for $420,000—a hefty sum for a 33-year-old electronic-parts salesman making $35,000 a year. “I was as scared as hell,” says Mr. Jones. The gamble paid off. Added to the National Registry of Historic Places in 1984, the 5,000-square-foot house named Villa Rockledge, perched on the edge of a rock hillside, appears to float above the private beach 50 feet below and offers ocean views from every room—even some bathrooms and closets.  The main room of the house is vast, with 22-foot-tall cathedral ceilings supported by logs as big as telephone poles that have been treated with an unusual mixture of cement and buttermilk to create a grey sheen. Many of the details have been restored: Solid redwood doors are dotted with brass extrusions cast in rough star-shapes that look like barnacles. The kitchen walls are covered with original canary-yellow tiling, while modern appliances are discreetly hidden behind wood panels. A 5-foot-wide ship’s wheel hangs from one of the beams like a chandelier.

In May, Mr. Jones, now 69, decided to sell this home, which he’s painstakingly researched and slowly renovated over the past three decades, for $34.5 million. He says the upkeep and maintenance are too costly for his kids and adds that he and his wife are getting too old to live in a large home...

Make sure you look at the slideshow.  It's lovely.

• Being an Oscar Wilde fan, I'm curious about the upcoming film, Dorian Gray, starring Ben Barnes, Colin Firth, and Rachel Hurd-Wood  [Hat tip:  The Egalitarian Bookworm (Chick?), also added to the Books sidebar]:

 

• Prize for best recent post title:  My Vagina is Not a Universal Translator from Life Under a Rock:

...my revolution starts with not being held responsible for anyone else’s behavior simply because we both happen to be female.

My revolution starts with the idea that what another woman does, does not reflect well or badly on me simply because we are both women...

[Photo from our garden:  Soldier beetle on a cosmos]