C.A. VERSTRAETE
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Cool Stuff You Didn't Know You Needed to Know...

dollhouse miniature tree

​Or the page of useful, useless, oh, and unusual things...

I'm always coming across links of things I find interesting or helpful, so I'm sharing them here for others who want - or need - to know these things, too.  

Fiction markets and more...     More to come... 

Fiction: 
* Flash fiction - No Pay: 
* Flashes in the Dark - flash fiction, horror, under 1k, no pay
* Shotgun Honey - flash fiction, noir/mystery, to 700 wds. No pay
* Short Story Saturday - Haunt Jaunts

* Mystery, etc, sites:
* Dark Markets - * Horror Tree
* Killer Characters blog

​* Locus Mag  (F, H, Sci Fi)  - * Mystery Tribune
* Sleuthsayers blog  * Writers who Kill 

Paying:
Markets: Horror Tree - 

* List of open Anthologies -
* Eldrich Shores, Sci Fi
* Literarium.net
* Black Cat Mystery Mag./Wildside Press
* Flash Bang Mysteries - flash to 750 wds.
* Mystery Weekly - email, online and on Amazon


* Reviews:
*Cozy Mystery Bk Reviews - *  Cozy Mystery Review Crew - 
* Escape with Dollycas -  * Fundinmental.com (Sherry Fundin)
* Mystery Book Blogs List  - * The Book's the Thing Cozies
​
Book stuff:
* Book promo, Ebookaroo (99 ct books)

* Synopsis writing guide - Beth Anderson (best I've found)
* Easy synopsis writing - 1 page
* Author book purchase site
* Kindle Kids Book Creator, make illustrated books, program
* Make one link for all Amazon book sites

* Writing articles - Holly Lisle
* Etymology Online
* Discounted, free books: Readfree.ly 
* Indies Unlimited Book Promo Sites (free & discounted books)
* Recommend a book for your library - info on blog

Photos, Websites, Etc.: 

 * Because I forget - Post to Instagram from PC:
In Chrome, go to Instagram.com and sign in. Right click on page, select Inspect . Click small tablet-phone icon on right in the top-left corner of the Inspector window. Refresh. Click + icon at bottom to create post. Close and refresh to return to regular view. 
* Online LunaPic - Photo rotator - free  (so pix stay vertical when uploaded online or to FB) (Other cool effects too!)
* Free animated gifs  * Free online photo editor - PicMonkey
* Animated pumpkin gifs

* Free zombie wallpapers
* Convert audio to MP3 free
* Convert PDF to word (full docs, free)

* Canon XT Rebel camera guide 
* Domain - IP look-up - Whois.net
* 10 Best Domain Registrars 
* Web, subscriber feed - Follow.it
 "Apocalyptic" Science - World Events:
*  Nostradamus predictions for 2021 

* December '21: 3 month volcano eruption in La Palma, Spain finally stops; 12/25: Largest telescope ever launched to study the origins of space. 12/26: Discovery of dozens of planets in galaxy without stars.  12/28: Bird flu kills thousands of migratory cranes in Israel. 
* Aug 18: 23K acres burn overnight in CA. 8/3: More than 46% of CA at 'exceptional' drought, the highest level; wells drying up; some areas rely on water trucks. Extreme fires in Greece and Turkey. Aug. 7: flooding in Turkey.
​July 2021 - Extreme, record-setting heat, East and West coasts; Oregon - 117 degrees. Canada - fires, town evacuated in BC. - July 11 - Extreme drought in CA continues; 3-digit temps in western states  "cook" millions of shelled sea creatures; hundreds die from heat. Death Valley CA, 130 degrees, 4 degrees shy of warmest temp ever. - Birds going blind and dying, cause unknown (virus?).  - Delta Covid variant (India, Brazil) spreads across US. 
* July 16 - "Scores" dead in raging floods in W. Europe - Belgium & Germany. Salt Lake (UT) drying up; swarms of locusts hit fields. July end: Fires across 13 states in west.
​​---------------------
* December: Over 200 "murder hornets" found in nest in Washington state. "Christmas star" convergence of Jupiter-Saturn. 
* May: Covid 19 -over 1 mill. cases, over 80,000 deaths, US. More out of work than Great Depression. 'Murder' Hornets from Japan found in Wash. State.  * New virus in Southwestern US killing wild rabbits.
* April 25, '20 - Home for a month. Shelter at home extends to end of May. Protests in states to re-open. Some states in South reopen some businesses. Over 51,000 dead. Over 900,000 cases in US.
* April: Millions of giant locust swarm in Africa.
* Mar. 11, '20 - WHO declares coronavirus COVID 19 a pandemic. Cases spreading worldwide.
* Jan. 2020: Series of earthquakes in Puerto Rico. Devastating fires in Australia kill billions of animals; koalas near extinction. * 1/21: Contagious coronavirus spreads from China. First case arrives in Wash. State.
* Oct. '19: Flooding in Venice, Italy. Worst in 50 years. * Wildfires in Australia; hundreds of koalas killed. * Herd of elephants die in Zimbabwe from drought. 
* Sept '19:  * Crickets swarm central Texas. * Greenland and Arctic melting at record rates. * Spread of EEE (equine encephalitic disease.) First person dies in Wisc.; several deaths in Mich. * 1 in 4 - nearly 3 billion -birds have disappeared in past 50 years/Cornell Univ. study. 
* Aug '19: (8/21) - (More shocks.) Montana hailstorm kills and maims 11k+ waterfowl and wetlands birds/Wash. Post.  * Brazil's Amazon rain forest burning at record rate. * Brazil - millions of bees dead. *Greenland's glacier gone; water under surface warming. *  Record whale deaths on US east coast. 
July '19: * Herd of 200 reindeer starve in Norway.
* Ebola spreads to 2nd city in Africa; (But ebola cure vaccine works - Aug.)  * Greenland, biggest ice melt ever. Extreme heat waves in Europe, 107 in Paris - hottest month in recorded history.
​  * Grasshopper invasion in Las Vegas, NV; Increased pilot whale die-off.
June '19: * Puffin die-off near S. America; ​
Mar '19: * Scientists grow brain in dish
* Measles epidemics hit states.
* Mt. Everest glaciers melting uncovering bodies.
  * "Bomb cyclone" - Midwest and east coast. Massive floods, Nebraska, Midwest. 
Feb. '19: "Polar vortex" - hit -21 in Wisc. -50 wind chills.
History:
* NYPL Digital Library - sheet music, 1890-1909
* Free historical costume patterns - Mymondermet.com

* Flickr: Library of Congress vintage photos
* Unusual 1850 Victorian "Blood Book" Scrapbook scanned
* Vintage Christmas and other photos
* Vintage Christmas photos, villages, catalog pages
* Weird stuff at Ridiculously Interesting.com
* WWI photo series
* WLS radio top hits by year
* Catholic "incorrupt" saints - mummified bodies...  (from the 1800s even)

Dogs & Pets: 

* Good to know: Acupuncture pressure spot to combat bloat  (if it works?) * CPR for dogs

Miscellaneous:

* Currency converter
* My Belgian genealogy pages ​
Science - World Events:
11/27/18: * Insect apocalypse - insects dying
​* Hundreds of sea turtles die after coming ashore; hundreds being cared for in Mass. due to cold.
* NASA lands InSight explorer on Mars.
11/26: * 
* Hundreds of pilot whales beached and die in NZ.
* Gene-editing of one unborn twin in China.
   * Rain ends deadly Camp Fire in CA; thousands of homes destroyed; Town of Paradise destroyed.
 * Mysterious polio-like disease spreads to 30 states. One adult affected in Wisc.

* Thousands of Swedish residents have embedded micro-chips for banking transactions.
​* 
8/18:  Indonesia earthquake; CA wildfires; Red Tide, toxic algae kills fish, dolphins, hundreds of sea turtles in FL. 
5/22: * Latest Ebola outbreak, million-pop. city; first time virus vaccination use
* 
Nipah virus outbreak India, fruit bats to humans  (previous outbreak Malaysia to pigsm 1999
* New Guinea Flatworms found in Florida; eat earthworms 
* Giant predatory (Asian Flathead) worms invaded France , just noticed
* Amazon – Orlando testing real-time facial recognition 
* Hawaiian volcanic eruption; 3 wks. continues - 100' lava spouts; 6.9 earthquake 5/7/18
* Nearly 200 wild horses dead in SW drought. 5/7/18
* 1st time sighting of neutron star collision, 10/17
* Antarctic Adelie penguin chicks die - only 2 survivors in colony, 10/14
* Hole size of Maine opens in Antarctic ice, largest since 1970s, 10/11

* Total solar eclipse, 9/21
* Devastation of Puerto Rico & Caribbean, Hurricane Maria, 9/20
* Five category 5 hurricanes (Irma, Maria) 9/17
* Giant sunspot releases large solar flares, largest in decade, 9/7
* FDA approves first gene-altering treatment for leukemia, (but $475,000), 8/30; approves 2nd treatment, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, 10/19
* Sixth mass extinction underway 7/17
Swedish co. implants workers with microchips 4/17
* Discovery of 7 new planets  2/17
* Over 650 pilot whales beached in New Zealand 2/11/17
* Large-scale tornado outbreaks increasing 1/17
* Crack in Antarctic ice shelf growing 1/17
* Accelerated glacier melting Antarctica 10/16
 ​ Photos, text (c) 2024 -25 C. Verstraete/CAP unless noted or used w/ permission. Do NOT copy/reuse/reprint, sell or share without permission.
​Content  cannot be used for AI or other purposes without permission.
** 
NO AI TRAINING: Without in any way limiting the author’s [and publisher’s] exclusive rights under copyright, any use of written work and photos on this site to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. The author reserves all rights to license uses of works for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.Legal/privacy disclosures: Affiliate book links may provide some compensation; no tracking or following software is used on site.  
Emails are not shared or stored. 
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  • Home
  • About Me
    • Contact
  • Books
  • Fiction
  • horror-zombie-fiction
    • Fiction-samples >
      • A Zombie Short Story - CA Verstraete
  • Lizzie Borden Zombie Hunter
    • Lizzie-Borden-Zombie-Hunter-2
    • Lizzie-Borden-Zombie-book-reviews
    • Lizzie-Borden-Murders
    • Zombie-Book-Games
  • Dr. Bowen Mystery - Lizzie Borden's Doctor
  • Miniatures
    • dollhouse-miniatures-projects
    • Half Scale Dollhouse
  • cool-stuff
  • Nonfiction
  • The Write News Blog