19 Tattoos That Dominated 2014
If you walked into a tattoo parlor this year, you probably got one of these designs permanently etched into your skin.
Jenny Chang / BuzzFeed
World Map Outline
Ha Nam Mun / Via instagram.com
The 24 Best Fiction Books Of 2014
These are the novels and short story collections that we absolutely loved in 2014. Ranked in no particular order.
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Zach Dodson
These Medieval Doodles Might Be The Coolest Thing Ever
It turns out boredom really is eternal.
Raise your hand if you've ever doodled mindlessly in a notebook.
(RAISES HAND!)
Fox / wearemagnetised.livejournal.com
It turns out that you doodlers are in good company, and that people in medieval times couldn't resist drawing in the blank spaces in their books either.
Leiden University Library
Kwakkel is an English professor at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands, and focuses on medieval manuscripts.
Like this one!
Leiden University Library
I Built A Goddamn Writing Desk With My Bare Hands And You Can Too
The first rule of desk club is make your own goddamn desk.
Ernest Hemingway once said: "Boy am I drunk." If you ever wonder why you're not a famous writer, the answer, my friends, is talent. But also the lack of a goddamn writing desk.
If, like me, you're a goddamn writer who just moved into a tiny east London flat, you'll need a new desk. If, like me, you have no money, your options are thus: Scour vintage markets for an overpriced but ultimately shitty desk, concede the last vestiges of your soul and visit Ikea, or build yourself a goddamn writing desk.
I did the last one. And I'm going to show you how. I'm not a desk expert – I'm barely qualified to sit at one – but you can think of me as the Gary Busey of desk-building: I have no idea what’s going on and Jennifer Garner is afraid of me.
Daniel Dalton / BuzzFeed
Get some timber.
There are several ways to get timber, depending on how broke a goddamn writer you are: You can find it, forage it, steal it, or get something vintage from Etsy, which most of you will want to do because you're all goddamn hipsters.
I don't have time for that shit, so I bought mine from a shop.
I bought redwood, because that's what they had. I learned that the name redwood is a lie. I suppose it has a reddish quality if you squint, or have blood in your eyes, but it's mostly beige/yellow.
Because I have a tiny flat and am overly judgmental, I need a fairly shallow desk. I opted for two lengths of redwood that I could fix together to make a desktop 450mm wide. That's 45cm, or just wide enough to catch my falling tears as I fail at life.
Daniel Dalton / BuzzFeed
Sand that shit.
The man at the shop cut the wood for me, and the ends of the wood were all rough from the saw. You can leave them rough, or you can take this shit seriously and fucking sand them.
If you can't be bothered, it's like Rodney Dangerfield famously said, “you should have gone to Ikea, jackass".
Daniel Dalton / BuzzFeed
Here is a macro photo of a sanding block.
My camera has a macro setting, isn't that cool. I got this sanding block from my local DIY shop – it has many different sides, like my ex, Julie. All of them terrible.
By which I mean they each have a different grade of sandpaper. It's helpful if you're the kind of person who walks into a DIY store and cries, because it covers every sanding-related base.
Daniel Dalton / BuzzFeed
33 Signs You're Spending Christmas At Hogwarts
Because it’s better than going back to Privet Drive.
Warner Bros. Pictures / Via a-movie-dream.tumblr.com
1. You spend all of your mornings in the Owlery.
2. There are parcels waiting for you in the common room.
3. You're beginning to suspect that your teachers really do live at school. Like all the time.
4. You've tickled the kitchen pear every night this week.
5. You have received a Weasley sweater, as is the custom.
6. It's snowing in your cornflakes but you kind of like it.
7. You have wondered, not for the first time, where they keep the official Hogwarts menorah.
8. You're not exactly sure what treacle is but it's absolutely everywhere.
9. Your long-dead parents have endowed you with a valuable heirloom.
10. The cashier line at Honeydukes is out of control.
11. You have written several letters to your godfather but have not heard back from him.
Warner Bros. Pictures / Via moviepilot.com
12. The Defense Against The Dark Arts teacher is missing from the feast.
13. You are being treated for injuries related to a late-night game of Exploding Snap.
14. Your trashbag relatives have sent you a gift.
15. Dobby is a free elf.
16. You have fallen asleep in front of the fire in Hagrid's hut.
17. The centaurs are restless.
18. The prefects look the other way.
19. You have popped a whole box of Wizard Crackers and now have more hats than you need.
20. The Polyjuice is ready, at last.
21. Oh look, more treacle.
