Sunshine Blogger Award - The 2026 Edition

 

Here’s the participation rules

1. Display the award’s official logo somewhere on your blog
2. Thank the person who nominated you
3. Provide a link to your nominator’s blog
4. Answer your nominator’s questions
5. Nominate up to eleven bloggers
6. Ask your nominees eleven questions
7. Notify your nominees by commenting on their blogs

Veselin nominated me for this award this year. I consider naming him and linking him as thanks enough.

What’s your favorite book and why

Favorite book, singular?

Dune by Frank Herbert.

Can you share some obscure/unusual words you like to use when writing

The problem is that while I have a wide vocabulary, I don't compare it to the nitwits of today. So most of the words I use are completely normal. If you are me. If you're not me, well, you're el crewedso. See, I'm multilingual too.

Do you have pets (if yes, photos!)

Nope. Never have, never will.

What brings you joy?

Sitting at an outdoor cafe, sipping an iced sweet chai, while writing for hours in my current journal. Just looking off into the distance, thinking, writing.

If there’s anything that can make you look forward to tomorrow, what would that be?

Knowing I have the day off so I can go to the aforementioned cafe ;-)

Best vacation destination from your experience?

Hawaii. Best place ever. As long as you don't have to do the driving.

Do you count steps?

Don't have time. Work keeps me moving.

Favorite meal?

Pizza! I could eat pizza forever.

The last song you listened on repeat?

The Resident Evil theme song. By Marilyn Manson of all people :-D

How many blogs do you have?

What’s your favorite quote?

give me neither poverty nor riches;
    feed me with the food that is needful for me,
9 lest I be full and deny you
    and say, “Who is the Lord?”
or lest I be poor and steal
    and profane the name of my God.
~Proverbs 30: 8b-9 ESV

Now I'm supposed to nominate 11 other bloggers and ask 11 new questions. However, I know something about you all that you don't.

You. Aren't. Hardcore. Enough!

Little House in the Big Woods (Little House #1) 4Stars

 

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Little House in the Big Woods
Series: Little House #1
Author: Laura Ingalls Wilder
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: MG Historical Fiction
Pages: 87
Words: 33K
Publish: 1932

What a delightful gem of a book! While I’m stating this is middle grade level, it is simple enough that it could easily be read by elementary school age kids. We get a year in the life of the Ingalls family from the viewpoint of Laura, who is 4 at the beginning of the book and 5 by the time the story wraps up. It is a very positive outlook to things, just like you’d expect from the memories of someone that young. They wouldn’t understand some of the bad and would just accept things as they are, because they don’t know any different.

My mom read these to me growing up before I could read on my own and then I read them on my own at some point. Might have even read them a couple of times. But I never did read them as an adult and since I needed some ya/childrens books to keep me from being a total old grump, I decided on these. This book delighted me and I feel like I’ve made a great choice to go through the Little House series and I am looking forward to reading more. That makes a book a success in my eyes.

★★★★☆

From Grokipedia

The narrative of Little House in the Big Woods follows the Ingalls family's experiences through the seasons in their log cabin in the Wisconsin wilderness. In the fall and early winter, Pa hunts deer and other game to stock the larder, and with Uncle Henry's help butchers their fattened pig, preserving the meat as roasts, sausages, headcheese, lard, and other provisions while hanging venison and storing vegetables outside to freeze.   During the long winter evenings, Pa plays his fiddle for family singing and tells vivid stories of past encounters with bears and panthers, including Grandpa's sled ride chased by a panther and Pa's own narrow escapes, which both delight and unsettle young Laura.  Pa also molds bullets by melting lead over the fire and pouring it into a bullet mold to prepare ammunition for his rifle. Laura frequently feels afraid of the wild animals surrounding the cabin, such as wolves howling close by at night, the time Ma mistook a bear for the cow Sukey and slapped it before fleeing with Laura back to safety, or imagining panthers lurking in the shadows, yet she feels protected and secure inside the sturdy little house with her family nearby.  Christmas brings a joyful gathering when Uncle Peter, Aunt Eliza, and their children visit, filling the cabin with relatives, homemade gifts including a new rag doll named Charlotte for Laura, mittens, candy, festive food, and storytelling around the fire. As late winter transitions to spring with a "sugar snow," the family travels to Grandpa's for sugaring-off, collecting maple sap from the trees, boiling it into syrup and sugar, and celebrating with neighbors at a lively dance featuring music and food.   In spring, preparations lead to the family's first trip to town, where Laura and Mary marvel at the store and village sights.  Summer brings visits to and from neighbors, along with garden tending and other warm-weather activities. In fall, harvest time involves relatives helping Pa and Ma with field work and grain processing, while the family resumes preparations for the coming winter. 

Death of a Doxy (Nero Wolfe #42) 3.5Stars

 

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Death of a Doxy
Series: Nero Wolfe #42
Author: Rex Stout
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Mystery
Pages: 139
Words: 51K
Publish: 1966

While this was an ok entry in the long running Nero Wolfe series, I find myself not enjoying these post 1950’s books as much as the earlier ones. Stout has moved Wolfe through time and the culture has changed significantly (not for the better in my opinion) and so the tone of the books are different. That might work very well for some people, but for me, not so much.

Orrie Cather is one of Wolfe’s helpers but he has always played such a small role that to have him thrust into the middle of things was unsettling. Coupled with the fact that he’s not actually involved in this book (he spends almost all of it in jail) made it doubly unsettling to me. The whole subject matter (a whore, who is pregnant, blackmail, infidelity) left a bad taste in my mouth and I don’t know if I’d ever read this particular book again.

It is still well-written and up to snuff in regards to Stout’s skill, but I just didn’t like the subject matter from start to finish. And that is why I’ve knocked a half-star from my usual rating of a Nero Wolfe book.

★★★✬☆

From Grokipedia

Death of a Doxy opens with Orrie Cather, a recurring freelance operative for Nero Wolfe, asking Archie Goodwin to enter the apartment of Isabel Kerr, a former showgirl living as the kept mistress of wealthy banker Avery Ballou, to retrieve personal possessions that Isabel had taken and was using to threaten Orrie's engagement to airline stewardess Jill Hardy.[5][3] Archie discovers Isabel bludgeoned to death with an ashtray, leaves the scene without alerting authorities, and informs Orrie of the murder.[5] Isabel's sister, Stella Fleming, subsequently finds the body and notifies the police, who identify Orrie's fingerprints and belongings at the scene, leading to his arrest as the prime suspect.[5][3]Despite lacking a paying client, Nero Wolfe commits to proving Orrie's innocence, joined by Archie, Saul Panzer, and Fred Durkin, who conclude—based in part on Saul's reasoning that Orrie would not have involved Archie if guilty—that Orrie is innocent.[3][5] The investigation focuses on those aware of the secret apartment, including Stella and her husband Barry Fleming, a mathematics teacher, and Isabel's close friend, nightclub singer Julie Jaquette (real name Amy Jackson).[3][5] Wolfe coerces cooperation from Avery Ballou by threatening to publicize his affair with Isabel, eliciting the revelation that Ballou had been blackmailed by someone using the alias Milton Thales—a name referencing a figure in the history of mathematics.[5] This clue points suspicion toward Barry Fleming.[5]The inquiry also uncovers that Isabel was pregnant, complicating motives surrounding her death.[5] To expose the killer, Wolfe recruits Julie Jaquette to serve as bait in a carefully orchestrated trap, placing her at risk as the murderer attempts to eliminate her.[3] For her protection, Julie is brought to stay in Wolfe's brownstone, where she actively participates in the plan.[3] The ruse, involving a substantial cash offer tied to keeping certain facts private, forces the culprit into the open, resulting in the identification of Barry Fleming as both the blackmailer Milton Thales and Isabel Kerr's murderer, with his motive connected to preventing blackmail and protecting personal secrets.[6][7][3] Orrie Cather is exonerated and released.

• All My “Nero Wolfe” Reviews

Lord of Atlantis - MTG 4E

 

I distinctly remember this card because I bought four of them to build my first real themed deck, one built around merfolk. It cost $2 a card and I was making minimum wage of $4.25 helping my neighbor who was a painter. Once I took taxes and tithes out, it cost me an entire half day to buy the four cards. Four Cards, that I could only use in ONE deck. It was a big commitment but at the time, it felt worth it. I made that merfold deck and then was promptly beaten every time I used it. I didn't win a single game against my friend, hahaahahaa. He was a better player than me and he was a better deck builder than me.

I had a lot of fun playing that deck however. Not "quite" enough to overcome losing every time, but I didn't hate playing it. I guess I couldn't have asked for much more as a teen.

The Silent Death (The Shadow #27) 3.5Stars

 

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPresss & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: The Silent Death
Series: The Shadow #27
Authors: Maxwell Grant
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Crime Fiction
Pages: 160
Words: 50K
Publish: 1933

It’s been a while since we had a good Mad Scientist type story and this fit the bill perfectly. Mixing in the Gang Leader brought in a bunch of toughs for The Shadow to fight with as well and that is always good.

Another story that I enjoyed.

★★★✬☆

From Bookstooge

A Mad Scientist, who has been experimenting with various ways to kill people with invisible means (ie, electrical, chemical, etc), teams up with a crooked Investor and a Gangster. They plan to kill other investors that will help the Crooked Investor, thus spreading the wealth amongst the three.

Things go wrong when The Shadow intervenes at the first attempt and it becomes a duel between the Mad Scientist and The Shadow to see who can kill the other first. The Shadow rewires one of the Mad Scientist’s traps and the Mad Scientist ends up electrocuting himself to bbq. Yum, the other, other white meat!

• All of My “The Shadow” Reviews

Imperatoris Chronicorum III

 

Here we go, another thrilling post where Imperator Bookstooge wows you with thrills and chills and amazes you with his Indiana Jones style adventures. Oh wait, that's that other blog. Here we just sit around on the couch and complain about those kids playing their music too loud. Yeah, that sounds more like it.

Sunday started out like most Sundays, waking up about 6am. Have a lazy morning of blogging and sipping on a rockstar, deciding what sounds good for breakfast. That first choice of the week is the most important after all. We made our daily run to the local grocery store for donuts or apple turnovers and then we headed to church. All I can say is thank goodness for my Loop ear plugs! Those drums were LOUD. We had a little going away party for one of the families, who are moving to the deep south. Once we got home it was lunch, chores and then Mrs B took off for work. I continued the chores theme while doing blogging and watching tv. Sunday afternoon is the time I watch tv. That's it, so while I don't actually care that much WHAT I watch, I just like the routine of it.

Monday, I woke up with a food hangover. Because I'm by myself for Sunday afternoon and evenings, I tend to overeat and for whatever reason, it always makes me feel terrible Monday mornings. I blame the diabetes, even if my sugars stay good. The job for the day didn't help, as we were pretty much thrown a folder and told "figure it out" by the Company President. The site itself was covered in poison ivy. Most of the big pine trees had the 2inch thick hairy vines that are the signature of mature poison ivy. When we got back to the office we used a whole bunch of post-contact poison ivy wipes. And when I got home, I scrubbed down again with Tecnu. I've been using that stuff since the 20teens and boy does it work! Haven't had a serious case of poison ivy since starting it. I was exhausted though and I think I feel asleep around 8pm.

Tuesday I felt much better when I woke up. Then I got to work and found out we were setting "blue tops" (technically pink, like in the picture above) at a nearby site. They are a 8in nail with a bunch of colored "feathers" stick up so the heavy machine operator can see them without getting out of his bulldozer or driller or whatever. They aren't bad if you're hammering them into a lawn, as shown above. The problem was that the developer of the site we were working had pulled off all the good topsoil and replaced it with total garbage soil that was over 50% rocks the size of softballs and 25% of smaller rocks mixed in with the remaining dirt. Meant we had to use our power drill to get these pinktops into the ground. I also had to wear knee pads because there is no way you can kneel on those stones. So 125 pink tops later, the work day was done. And we had 125 to look forward to for the next day. With rain forecasted, whooowheee!

Wednesday continued the pinktop adventures. I took an Aleve as soon as I got up that morning to get ahead of the pain I knew I was going to be experiencing. And pain there was. My back hurt from bending over. My knees hurt from kneeling on stony ground. The back of my knees hurt from the strap of the kneepads I had to wear, because it chafed something fierce. My shoulders ached from using the power drill and then hammering the big nails into the ground. I came home and once I did some necessaries, went straight to bed.

Thursday was a rain day. Our office manager texted us all Wednesday evening that we weren't working Thursday because it was going to rain all day, quite heavy at times. Under those conditions, you just can't get anything done. Mrs B didn't have to go into work until midmorning, so we got up at our usual time and went to a local diner on the Oval. It was really nice to eat hot comfort food on a raw morning and to know we didn't have to rush. So we dawdled and then came home. Mrs B took a short, food induced, nap before heading off to work and I spent the day on the couch recovering from the previous two days. Did some blogging and watching the weather out the windows. It always cheers me up to watch it pour outside (we got close to an inch of rain that day) when I am comfortably ensconced inside.

Friday started out really well. We had 3 small jobs and we absolutely blew through the first 2. Then the third job hit and we just stalled and stalled hard. Both of us were grumpy by days end but we finished and went home. I ended up doing chores before Sabbath and then ate dinner. For whatever reason, food always tastes better to me when I'm grumpy. It's not worth it but it is a small consolation when I'm feeling like life is just roughing me up.

Saturday is obviously in the future, but I have it on good authority that I'll be going to men's meeting in the morning, that we will be going to the SDA church, that Mrs B will be leading the singing during service and that we will come home and do a whole lot of nothing. If that all pans out, I'll be ok with it!

Stay tuned for next month's installment, when Imperator Bookstooge will amaze you all by staying up until 10pm. Yes folks, it could happen!

The First Distiller (The Russians) 3Stars

 

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: The First Distiller
Series: (The Russians)
Author: Leo Tolstoy
Translator: Aylmer Maude
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Classic
Pages: 23
Words: 6K
Publish: 1886

A short morality play about the dangers of having too much and how alcohol is straight from the devil. Kind of like rock music ;-)

While I agree with both of Tolstoy’s points, I don’t agree with how he gets there or some of his other ideas evinced in this play. In many ways, this reminded me of Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters in that we follow the inmost workings of demons and hell. Now, Lewis was having fun with the whole higher education system that he was part of and applying that to hell and its denizens. With what Tolstoy is doing, I can’t quite come to the same conclusion. I don’t know enough about how Russian Christians viewed demons and hell in the 1800’s to be certain that Tolstoy isn’t being serious. Once again, I am saddened at the lack of Biblical knowledge in regards to how Tolstoy forms his ideas here. The Bible has a lot to say about alcohol (mainly about NOT getting drunk) and it also directly addresses materialism/consumerism.

This is an ongoing issue I have with these old school Russians. Is it just the culture they are from that the Bible is never directly used, or is it that they viewed it as a good piece of literature but ultimately empty, or is it something else entirely? I understand Dickens and his non-Christianity even while he crusaded for morality. He was a creature of his culture and couldn’t escape it. But Tolstoy? I simply do not know enough. Crap. This means at some point I’ll probably have to read some biographies and then I’ll find out more than I wanted to and regret it. I always do after all.

And for the record, Noah (of Noah’s Ark fame) was the first distiller that we know of.

★★★☆☆

From Wikipedia.org

The story opens with a peasant preparing to plow a field. Having gone without breakfast, he is careful to hide his dinner, a small crust of bread, under his coat. After plowing the field the peasant is hungry and ready for his dinner, but when he picks up his coat he sees that the bread is gone. It had been taken by a little devil, who was convinced that the peasant would become wrathful. Instead, the peasant decided that whoever took his bread must have needed it more than him, and he went on his way.

The little devil is brought before the Chief Devil, who is not pleased that the peasant was not corrupted. He threatens to douse the little devil with holy water if he fails again, and the little devil is sent out for another attempt at corrupting the peasant.

The little devil takes the guise of a pilgrim, and in this guise he gives the peasant farming advice throughout the seasons. The peasant grows a great surplus, and he begins to live much better than he had. One season, the little devil convinced the peasant to distill his extra corn into vodka, and the peasant takes his advice. The little devil then brings the Chief Devil to see the result of his works.

The devils witness a party hosted by the peasant, where all of the guests and the host himself indulge in several glasses of vodka. They start off joking and jovial, but as they consume more vodka, the party goers become more abusive and irate. When they finally leave the party they are thoroughly drunk, falling over each other and landing in the mud.

The Chief Devil is astonished. He is convinced that the drink must have been made from the blood of beasts to make the men act so beastly. The little devil explains that it was simply vodka, and he just needed to convince the peasant to turn God's gift of corn into idle liquor. The little devil knew that all men have a savage side inside of them, and when the peasant had just enough food to survive, the savage beast inside him was kept silent. But as soon as the peasant accumulates a surplus, corruption sets in. Convinced that the corruption of the peasants is complete, the Chief Devil awards the little devil a promotion.

• The Russians

• Leo Tolstoy

• Fyodor Dostoyevsky

• Ivan Turgenev

• Nikolai Gogol