October '23 Roundup & Ramblings

Raw Data:

Novels – 12 ⭤

Short Stories – 0 ↓

Manga/Graphic Novels – 0 ↓

Comics – 1 ⭤

Average Rating – 3.23 ↑

Pages – 3576 ↓

Words – 1125K ↓

The Bad:

Misfit Soldier – 1Star dnf for the usual reasons

Antonina – 2stars of boring boringness

The Good:

The Insulted and Humiliated – 4.5stars of Russian’y Russian’ess

Foundation – 5stars of remembering why this book is an SF Classic

Movie:

The Wolverine trilogy got worser and worser and I hated the experience overall. Definitely put me off re-watching any other superhero movies for quite some time, even ones I know are good, like Spiderman or Captain America.

Miscellaneous Posts:

• Counterspell – MTG 4E
• CR&Q: Sense & Sensibility
• Pumpkin Fest ’23
• Craw Wurm – MTG 4E
• A Hero Arises
• Creature Bond – MTG 4E
• [Rant] I Will Not Be One of the Masses
• Crimson Manticore – MTG 4E
• CRBR: Farsight
• Crumble – MTG 4E

Personal:

I had planned to scale back on blogging for October and lo and behold, it actually happened. Now, you as a reader might not have noticed the difference between 25 posts and 31 posts, but as the poor schlub slaving away behind the scenes, unappreciated, underpaid and not getting my fair share of everything that is totally owed me, I appreciated the break. Despite what I may say sometimes about that bloke Bookstooge, he’s alright in my books. In fact, he’s so nice you should probably say something nice to him too, just to let him know you appreciate him letting me take a break.

The Pumpkin Festival was a great kickoff to the month. Temperatures definitely moved into Fall territory and I found myself wearing my hoodie to work in the mornings. Worked zipped along and there’s no new guy in sight, so I’m stuck with the guy I have been since August. Time to suck it up and just accept the fact.

I did a lot of work on my blog. Got the Author Index done through the B’s, so I am currently working on the “A”s now. I started this project about a year ago, so it is going pretty good. Once I get the A’s done, then it will be going through each letter to add authors that I missed while working on the Index. After that, it will just be a monthly maintenance kind of thing. I can easily do that 😀

Relieved some stress with the rant post but like those things always are, the relief was simply temporary. The man who invents a permanent stress reliever that has no negative side effects will be a rich man indeed. I’d buy one in a heart beat.

I went up and down emotionally all month long. It was exhausting and I am seriously hoping that the rest of the year evens out a bit. Little and big things, it didn’t seem to matter, it sent the pendulum swinging and I just had to hang on and ride it out.

Plans for Next Month:

1: I plan to start reviewing the Jane Austen novels, starting with Sense & Sensibility.
2: I plan to watch and review four different versions of S&S, ranging in dates from 1971 to 2008.
3: Magic and Artwork will continue as normal.
4: Groo will continue, for the foreseeable future, to be the only regular comic/visual medium I read.
5: I plan to start closing the gap between my reading and reviewing. Right now I have over 3 weeks buildup between and I’d like to draw that down to 1 week by year’s end. I’ll either read less or review more, no idea which right now 🙂 You won’t notice a difference but it is something going on in the background.
6: REAL Thanksgiving is coming and I need to do a Thankful Post.
7: Finish up the Buddyread of Farsight with Dave and Markus by the 25th.