November '23 Roundup & Rambling

Raw Data:

Novels – 14 ↑

Short Stories – 0 ⭤

Manga/Graphic Novels – 0 ⭤

Comics – 1 ⭤

Average Rating – 3.20 ↓

Pages – 3592 ↑

Words – 1297K ↑

The Bad:

The Chromatic Court – 1star of very disappointing King in Yellow stories.

The Good:

Sense and Sensibility – 5stars of Classic Goodness

Hedges – 4stars of good advice

Movie:

• Sense and Sensibility – 2008 miniseries
• Sense and Sensibility – 1995 movie
• Sense and Sensibility – 1981 miniseries
• Sense and Sensibility – 1971 miniseries

Miscellaneous Posts:

• CRCL: Double Z
• Crusade – MTG 4E
• [Repost 2023] About
• [Art] Flight into the Night
• Angel in the Rain
• Crystal Rod – MTG 4E
• Shelf Control: Warlock Holmes
• Cursed Land – MTG 4E
• Thanksgiving 2023
• ♪Last of the Rockstars♪
• Cursed Rack – MTG 4E

Personal:

What a flipping month!

We got a new Meatbag at work. He’s not an engineering student slumming, so he’s not MY meatbag intern, but he’s a good enough kid and has a positive attitude. Which really goes a long way when you’re working 9hrs in the rain on a job site 90minutes from the office while sundown is at 4:15pm. I shall now refer to him, if I do, as Meatbag II. That being said, are all 18 year olds such wusses now? He was complaining about how the instrument bag was hurting his back from carrying it. Sure, the bag needs to be replaced, but its functional. I can’t remember if I whined about stuff like that when I was 18 or not. Toughen up kid, life is hard.

Speaking of work. I’ve been doing land survey work for 23 years (given, it was spotty from ’08-’14 when I had to work private security because of the Great Recession) and never had an accident with a cutting utensil. Until this month, when I was sharpening a machete, with a blinking safety sharpener. One slip and sliiiiiiiice, got a nice one inch long cut on my right hand. At first I wasn’t even sure I had cut myself, because the blade was so sharp, but then the blood started pouring out and I was like “yep, cut myself”. So bandaged it up for the day. This was also my introduction to liquid bandages. So remember kids, machetes aren’t toys! Well, except when you’re playing the Machete Game. Then they are the ultimate toy.

Thanksgiving was a nice time spent with a family from church that we’re friends with. Lots of good food and fellowship made for a very mellow day.

I ran to the brink of burnout with my caffeine intake and had to stop for a week. Resetting my biology back to normal is always a miserable experience and makes life seem much much worse while it’s happening. Coupled with all the work and all the stuff going on at church for the holidays, it’s why I had my little angel in the rain post. But I saw the warning signs and stopped before stepping off that brink. Next time, I need to do better at not getting close to the edge at all.

Sadly, Mrs B broke her wrist at work near the end of the month, so that put the kabosh on her working for a couple of weeks at the least. It happened at work, so I’m hoping she can get workmans comp without a huge fight from her employer. But I’m not counting on it. It does mean she’s going to go stir crazy at home, so who know what that means around the house for December. Not like she can actually DO very much, hahahahaa. Thankfully, we’re both in good spirits about it and it wasn’t very painful. Didn’t even know it was broken at first. Wasn’t until she went to the doctors that he said it was broken and not sprained. But feel free to start a Go-Fund-Me campaign so we can live high on the hog for a couple of months off the backs of others 😉

Cover Love:

Even though I showcased this at the beginning of the month, nothing else was able to beat it out for the Cover Love category. While Double Z is a lame title, that cover is pure awesomesauce and I eat it up with a spoon.

Plans for Next Month:

I managed to get my read vs review time down to 2 weeks in November, so I suspect I’ll have no problem getting that down to 1 week in December.

Sense and Sensibility Sundays were a lot of fun (for EVERYONE, bunty, or else!) and so I’m going to semi-repeat the process for “A Christmas Carol” in December. I’ll read the short story and then listen and watch various incarnations of it. Just a heads up though, each successive week will be a sillier version than the previous, so don’t expect much after week two 😉

Other than that, it should be same old, same old. I’m going to take Friday’s off from posting and am giving it serious thought to extending that to Wednesday’s as well. Planning my down time seems to work for keeping me from blogging burn out.