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Watchlist Wednesday III

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Since I’ve been buried in writing and revising and gotten onto entirely new watchlists, I thought I’d do another Watchlist Wednesday for the last two weeks.

Hey! This weekend is a full moon weekend (almost…close enough) so I’ll be posting two more parts of the serial on Friday and Saturday…come back and read and comment. *shiny, hopeful eyes*

So, are you ready to crawl inside the mind of a researching writer? No? Too bad. Keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle and hold on. (Those with weak constitutions or some respect for me as a sane person should surf away to a page with sloth babies being bathed. Hang on. Baby Sloths Being Bathed.)

It always starts out so innocent…

Googled the phrase “Swinging for the fences.”

Googled the word “meta.”

Googled the phrase “it can’t be helped.”

Searched for synonyms for the phrase “it can’t be helped.” (It can’t be helped that I did this.)

Googled jackrabbits

Wiki Apache Jackrabbit

Wiki hare

Wiki white-tailed jackrabbit

Wiki Cranial Kinesis

Wiki Precocial

Wiki Imprinting (The funny thing about all these searches–I was trying to find out if jackrabbit was one word or two–I followed a rabbit down the hole. Seriously.)

Googled The Fates

Googled the Moirai

Synonym for walk

En masse –one word or two?

Wikihow –five ways to kiss with pictures. (I’m linking this because you TOO can feel stupid for looking at this page.) (It’s the pictures–they make it over-the-top “hide your screen” awkward.)

Instructibles on how to kiss. (I’m a romance writer.)

How to Kiss -Good Kissing 101 (I’m still a romance writer.)

20 different types of kisses (Annnnd the shame sets in.) (Also, this wasn’t as exciting as promised.)

Googled using song titles in books

Googled punctuating titles

Googled pancake recipe. (Seriously–for a story.)

Checked out several Allrecipe pancake recipes.

Googled “jumping to conclusions”

Googled Southern expression for “jumping to conclusions.”

Googled funny southern sayings

Wiki grade/slope

What does a road grade sign mean?

Mountain Driving guide for truckers (It’s a fallback for if this whole writing thing doesn’t pan out.)

What is road grade % to angle degree?

Wiki Mountain ranges in Tennessee

Wiki Bald Mountain

Guard rail–one word or two?

Wiki guard rail (I was overusing the word and I wanted alternatives.) (But also… guard rails can be interesting.)

Synonym for hothead

Wiki Addiction recovery groups

Wiki List of 12 step programs

Googled anonymous support groups for shoplifting

Shoplifting and Theft class information

Shoplifters Anonymous and Self-help groups

Googled Anonymous support groups

Googled anonymous support groups for Kleptomania  (And, yet, I don’t get invited to parties…I don’t know why…)

Map of England

Googled British Expressions

Googled British Slang

British word for crib (It’s cot…and I was verifying this.)

The Shulman Center for Compulsive Theft, Spending, and Hoarding (Admitting you have a problem with compulsively researching compulsions is the first step. The first step, people!)

What comes after once, twice, thrice?

Twice, thrice, quince?

Twice, thrice, frice?

Thief in other languages

Googled 12 step recovery

Googled Voila <–mostly to get the accent mark that I can’t seem to get if I don’t cut and paste. Someday I’ll learn how.

Googled surname

Googled reconnaissance

Googled British washroom

Googled Ten Commandments

Wiki Ten Commandments

British word for cheering

Words that mean different things in British and in English

Top 100 most beautiful British slang words and phrases. (You know you want the link.)

IMDb Lone Ranger–looking for a character name in the lesser cast members

UK colloquial slang starting with S (I have no idea why S, but I found what I was looking for…whatever it was.)

Moon phases 2013 (I keep making sure I’m ready for the serial) (over and over)

British word for story

Top 100 British and English Slang differences

Definition of shoddy

British slang for calling on the phone

Googled British slang words

Googled the word “tosser”

British word for mailbox

Glossary of English and British slang (I know…I know…I like to verify things…a lot.)

Synonyms for tidy, orderly, and laudable.

British word for retired (I couldn’t find one.)

Maps of Vast Empires that Don’t Exist 

Googled lab equipment for a small lab

Buying chemicals for a lab (Well, hello, NSA!)

Definition of the word “nice” (Sometimes, you just need things defined!)

IMDb Pacific Rim looking for a character name in lesser cast

Why is Baking Soda often used instead of NaOH to neutralize acid spills?

Wiki Sodium Bicarbonate

Googled Cyanide toxicity

Googled Cyanide poisoning

Wiki Cyanide poisoning (as you do…)

Milligrams and fluid ounces?

Medical Metric Conversion and Doses (Uhh…I was trying to figure out how much cyanide was a lethal dose.)

Wiki Wallace Carothers (suicide by cyanide)

Wiki Alan Turing (suicide by cyanide)

Wiki Neil Heywood (killed by cyanide)

Wiki Hit Man: A Technical Manual for Independent Contractors

Wiki Cyanide Poisoning (You can never know enough about cyanide.)

Capitalize my title (When you’re too lazy to capitalize it on your own: go here.)

When is a male and female’s sexual peak?

Sex myths (I was looking for ages when…never mind…just never mind…)

Sexual prime for males and females

Googled Laboratory rats

Wiki Laboratory rats

Wiki Animal testing on Rodents

Youtube Echo and the Bunnymen: the Killing Moon (seriously…for a book)

Youtube Echo and the Bunnymen: Lips like Sugar (no, really, it was.)

Albino eyes

Google images Albino eyes

Google albino mice

Googled the word “assess” because I was writing a very similarly spelled word…and thought, “Really, they’re just one letter off?”

List of breakfast cereals

Wiki Alpha-bits (It’s not all cyanide and sex, people.)

Googled images of cereal boxes

Googled rat diseases and antibiotics

What types of diseases do rats carry?

Rodent-borne diseases

Wild rats and disease

Pet rats and diseases

Rat STDs?

How often do animals get STDs? (And this is when you start questioning life choices, people! This is when we care too much!) (If you’d like do go down this rabbit hole…uhh…scratch that analogy…here is the link to Animals and STDs.)

How to care for a pet rat

Treating rats for fleas

Wikihow How to get rid of fleas on rats

Wild albino rats

Do albino rats occur in the wild?

Wiki Albinism

Wiki Laboratory Rat

Wiki Brown Rat

How much caffeine would kill you? (This was for my WIP…not because I was pushing that line.)

Wistar rats

How to obtain rats

Do lab rats make good pets?

How do labs obtain rats?

Why are rats used in laboratory testing?

Study shows rats would rather free a friend than eat chocolate. (Heartwarming article) (How many humans are like that?) (Seriously, there should be studies done.)

Senses and communication of rats

Do rats have good hearing?

Google Rats seeing in the dark

What do rats see?

Spaying and neutering rats (I’m a responsible fictitious rat owner.)

Plague information

Wiki the Black Plague

Symptoms of the plague

Romeo and Juliet Act 5, Scene 2 (Now, some of you may question this… what does the plague have to do with Romeo and Juliet? The message to Romeo about Juliet faking her death is delayed due to a quarantine…and now it all makes sense…if you’re insane.)

Facts about sleep paralysis

Top ten spooky sleep disorders

Physical effects of sleep deprivation (Once again, for the WIP…not a cry for help.)

Scary facts about sleep

Sleep myths

Cone-based vision of rats

Rats, See the Invisible (Yeah…don’t go down this road. Rats mark everything with urine–possibly because they can see UV.)

Google Rats and Ultraviolet

Rat decontamination

 

And there you go…two weeks worth of Web searches.

Two weeks of shaking hands with watch lists…as you do…if you’re a writer.

So, what do you think? Did you follow any of my links? What’s your latest weird web search? Fess up. This is my third Watchlist Wednesday. Should I do this regularly?

Comment, people! I need validation!

5 Responses so far.

  1. leona says:

    LOVE YOUR WATCH LIST. And now feel as if I haven’t done my writerly duty. I shall endeavor to keep up.

    PS I couldn’t resist the shiny eyes. I’m a writer. Resisting shiny is…difficult at best. 😀

    • You know, I am curious how different I am from other writers in this. I would venture a guess I’m not so different. I tend to get obsessive about the details and go down the road a little farther–also I tend to work on a lot more projects all at once. But I would guess a lot of writers have similarly weird search histories…just stretched over a longer period of time and possibly fewer searches on the same subject.

  2. RYou had me at bathing baby sloths. You know, I have a couple of neighbors who have beautiful hibiscus bushes. I wonder if that’s a sign I should get a baby sloth?

    What do you mean, no?

    Anyway, I love you search lists, and absolutely crack up at the explanations. Cyanide and STDs? Yeah, research for a book. Got it.

    PS I bookmarked the page for British slang terms. I can use it. Thanks

  3. Today’s most unusual research web search: Can rats puke?

    You’re all laughing and thinking, “Wendy, why would you check that?”

    Dudes, they can’t. Rats can’t puke. I’m glad I fact-checked that. Also, now you know too. Some sites claimed that’s why poison is so effective on them. They can’t puke it up.

    You have been edified. Go forth and conquer.

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