Imperatoris Chronicorum IV

 Well, it's been a full week and I've been busy as usual saving the World from Bad Books and Bad Authors. It's a necessary job, but rather thankless and at times, like around midnight when the moon is rising and I'm sitting on the rooftops overlooking the Big Town of X which is under my protection, I wonder. Is it really worth it? Do the citizens of X, or the World for that matter, appreciate the sacrifices I make on their behalf? Do they even CARE? Maybe they DESERVE those bad books. But then my sacred duty as a Gatekeeper comes to the fore and I remember that I chose this life as the Dark Book Crusader. Resolve strengthened, I can continue on with my job. And every once in a while, there is some appreciation.

I was talking with Nancy about this subject in one of my recent posts and she was kind enough to send this wonderful award. It is my first TAGA and I will cherish it deeply. It's the little things like this that keep me moving forward instead of curling up in a ball like a little soiboi. Nancy, while the Big Town of X will never know how close they came to being over-run by bad books and how close to utter destruction they were, this award was the edge I needed in my secret war and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

After something as momentous as that, it's kind of hard to transition back into talking about my regular secret identity life, you know? But secret wars hidden in the shadows of midnight don't come cheap and I have bills to pay. So onward to the humdrum and ordinary, da da dum!

Deary Diary,
Sunday it was almost 90degrees and it was sooooooo hot. But because I'm a cheap yankee, I refused to turn on the air conditioner. Instead I turned on the little window fan and felt good about the 3dollars I saved on our electrical bill. Mrs B told me to turn off the fan and stop being a drama queen, because, in her words "it was only 90 degrees'. Well I never! I totes would have unSpaced her on my Instatokagram account, but neither of us have that, so I couldn't. But I would have! That'll teach her a lesson. Ooohhhh, burn!
After not talking to each other for like, you know, FOREVAH, 5minutes later we made up and decided to go eat at Teriyaki Madness. I was like all "Girl, you know you'll like it" and she was all like "Boy, you know I will". How can I stay mad at someone who gets me and so deeply understands the secrets of my heart? Its like we are soulmates, destined to be together FOREVAH!!! Love is rice, chicken and tofu.

Captain's Log, Monday, month Centurion in the Year of the Cylons

*blaring alarms
*red flashing lights

Captain Bookie: "Number One, are the Cylons attacking? Prepare the warp torpedos and reverse their polarity! They'll never know what hit them!"

First Mate: "Captain, it's just your alarm, it's time to wake up."

Captain Bookie: "You know, land surveying would be a whole lot easier if I could just warp torpedo all of nature and pave the whole planet."

First Mate: "But Captain, think of the little squirrels!"

Captain Bookie: "Oh, I am!"
*insert laugh track

*fast forward several hours

Captain Bookie: "First Co-Worker, reverse the polarity on your machete and chop down that tree. It will never know what hit it!"

First Co-Worker: "Aye aye El Capitan!"

Captain Bookie: "Wut, wut!? This is Space America!!!! We only speak Space American here!!! None of your filthy space commie lingo around here!"

First Co-Worker: "ha. ha. ha. I kid Captain Bookie, I kid."

Captain Bookie: "What a jokester! What will these wacky kids do next?"

*pan back, show Captain Bookie, First Co-Worker and four random people all patting each other on the back and laughing uproariously

and thus ends this episode of "As the Total Station Turns". Tune in tomorrow when Captain Bookie gets an ouchie and swears for 10minutes straight.

"Is it Tuesday? I can't tell, I've lost track of time, I'm so confused!"

*looks into camera

"I'm hot on the trail of the Cursed Sub Sandwich. I've heard that if you eat it, on a very hot day, it will either kill you or make you invincible. Just yesterday I met someone who claimed to have eaten one and they weren't dead, so the legend must be true, it just must be!"

*camera jiggles all over the place, the words "Market Basket" vaguely appear in the background, muttered whisperings are barely audible

"I've DONE IT!!!!!!!!! It has taken me all week, but I ATE THE SANDWICH!!!! And I'm not dead. I am INVINCIBLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

*camera crashes to the ground
a grotesquely swollen head appears in view
and then explodes
battery symbol glows in red and then there is nothing but static....

Dear Sir or Madam,
I am writing to you today, Wednesday May 10th, and hope this letter finds you well. Now I realize you don't know me from Adam, but let me hasten to assure that this is not a spam letter (no, I am NOT a Nigerian Prince) nor is it a form lettre (see that mispelling? Pure human did that) and finally, this is not a chain letter (nobody has to die, I promise).
What this letter is is an opportunity, for you! An opportunity to impress your neighbors, your friends, even your coworkers. Do you have a hobby that you talk about? You do? Well, stop it. Nobody cares about your *bleeping Corvette and the solenoid this and the clutch that. Seriously.
I realize this might sound not quite like an opportunity, but if you want to stay alive, which seems like a great opportunity to me, please follow these steps:
1) Shut. Up.
Yes, it is that simple. Just shut your flipping mouth.
Sincerely,
The Imperator formerly known as the Prince of Nigeria

*carnival music & lights flashing Thursday! Thursday! All Day, Every Day! Thursday! Thursday! Thursday!

Come one, come all, today's your lucky day! Roll the golden dice and see what you win! Could be a yacht! Could be a penny. Could be anything in between! Roll the dice and see what Fate has in store for you this evening.

*middle aged Sweet Summer's Child walks by

Sir, yes, you sir! You look like a cunning and discerning man of the world. Would you care to roll the golden dice and see what fate has in store for you? Just sign on this dotted line and away you go, the whole world ahead of you.

*middle aged Sweet Summer's Child rolls the dice around in his hand, the pulls out a gun and shoots the suspicious looking carnival barker's hat off, revealing a set of horns

"Sorry, old Scratch. I've already had dinner with my wife and two dear friends from church. I have everything I need right now. But I'm always willing to spread the love of lead if you'd like some!"

*the devil disappears in a puff of smoke

The moral of this story? Be content with the little things you have and you won't have to worry about being tempted by the things that will just make you miserable.
~from Bookstooge's Fables

"The Sabbath is coming, the Sabbath is coming!"
~Bookstooge Revere informing the Colonists that the Sabbath was coming

The only thing that got me through the day was knowing that the Sabbath was coming and that I could just stop then. It's been in the 90's and muggy all week and I finally caved and turned on the A/C, just to dry out the air. Work has sucked the life out of me in this weather, but even though I've been going to bed early, I then tend to wake up early (3-4am) and that makes for a very long day. I have no plans this evening and if I'm lucky, I'll be asleep by 8pm and stay asleep until 7 or 8 tomorrow.

Blessed Sabbath to you all!

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!

Imperatoris Chronicorum II

 

Well, this week then, right?

Sunday started off with Resurrection Sunday, known to the heathens and nominals as Easter. Our church was pretty full and we had a couple of guys in safety vests outside directing people to where they could park. It wasn't quite elbow to elbow room, but for about 9/10ths of the seating, it was. The music team really banged on the drums during the songs and it made me especially glad that I bought some Loop Earplugs. I plan on doing a post in May on the earplugs since by then I'll have a lot more usage out of them. They worked a treat and I didn't feel like my eardrums were being rattled around. Pastor Mike's sermon was on point and I thought he did a great job of preaching to a mixed crowd that included people who had been Christians their whole lives to the people just doing Easter Sunday as their once or twice a year visit. That's a tough line to walk and he did it well. With so many people in attendance, I never know how I'm going to feel afterwards, so we hadn't made any plans.

Thankfully, I was feeling good so we went out for lunch at the one food place open in town(I jest, but thankfully, most places were shut down and I was glad of it). We both got the vegetable omelet and I had the chai latte to drink while Mrs B had a mango smoothie. We went home full but not gluttonized (behold I, Imperator Bookstooge, have created a new word!) The rest of the day was a combination of chores, Munchkins and lazing around while it rained outside. So it was a good day.

Monday was a great way to ease into the work week. Two very easy jobs that we didn't have to rush to finish. It was also sunny! Bonus points for sunshine!

Tuesday morning we woke up to snow covering our cars! Not much, but enough to cover them. And it kept on snowing during the day!! It was ridiculous!!! You can tell because of all the exclamation points I use in this very short paragraph!!!!!

Wednesday, WELL, Wednesday was the king of the week. In preparation for the weekend (When Mrs B is going away to a Ladies Retreat at my old church), I placed an order at Mr Macs. Nothing says being a bachelor for the weekend like an order of Philly Cheese Steak mac and Deluxe Cheeseburger mac :-D Of course, I had to try it out to make sure it wasn't poison. Thank goodness I survived. I was really worried ;-)

Because Wednesday went so well, the balance of the universe had to be restored. Thursday we ended up doing a job in Taxachusetts in a hellhole of a piece of property covered in vines and just crawling with ticks. We were setting missing lot corners and had to set eight 1inch iron pins that were 30inches long. We cut through the vines, trees, whatever, picked the ticks off of us before they imbedded themselves into our flesh and then hammered those blasted pins into the ground until they were flush. Then we repeated that seven more times. I took an ibuprofen at lunch and even with that, my elbow, shoulder and back were killing me by day's end. The only good part of the day was going home and finishing off the philly cheese steak mac and cheese :-D

Friday was sunny and 70F. A bit warm for early April, but I'll take it over snow, any day. My parental pod had flown up to go to the aforementioned Ladies Retreat with Mrs B and so my brother and sister-n-law brought her over and we all met up for dinner at a local restaurant and then she and Mrs B vamoosed. I went home, full of good food, knowing I had even more good food for the rest of the weekend. I watched the sun set through our french door slider and welcomed in the Sabbath. I was out like a light by 9pm.

Today, the plan is to hang out with the inFamous WC Bombfunk (aka my brother). Mrs B made me promise to get out of the house so I don't end up moping the whole weekend. Man, it's like she knows me or something, hahahaha. So he and I are going to do stuff, manly, macho, new england'y things, like wrastle grizzly bears or eat granite chunks or even throw tomahawks at each other, you know, the usual things guys in New England do. If we're feeling particularly cantankerous, we might have a beard growing contest to see who can grow the bushiest beard that afternoon. Of course, being The Imperator, I will win. I win at everything after all.

And that's a wrap for this week with Imperator Bookstooge. 

- Off Air -

 

beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep............

Bookstooge's Reviews on the Road will resume normal broadcasting again tomorrow with all new episodes of Imperatoris Chronicorum at 5am. What hijinks and shenanigans will our beloved Imperator get himself into this week? Tune in and find out!

Who Bookstooge Is, According to AI

 

I was visiting Veselin on his blog the other month and saw this blog post (Not Sure About That) where he was searching for something on his blog through google and the AI gave him a summary instead of just giving him a link. That was creepy.

So what do I do? I go to google and bing and search "who is Bookstooge" and the answer I got from the AI summary scared the crap out of me. It is one thing to know your site has been scraped and that some computer somewhere is churning through your data, but to see it summed up, that's just different. It just reaffirmed my decision to not use my real name or picture online. I thought the AI summary was pretty accurate, but I'll let you all be the final adjudicator on that decision.

Bookstooge is a book blogger known for his reviews and commentary on literature, particularly through his blog Bookstooge's Reviews on the Road.  He is recognized for his eclectic reading choices and engaging, often humorous, reviews. His blog features a mix of personal reflections, readalongs, and in-depth critiques of various genres, including romance, fantasy, and manga. 

One notable example is his readalong of Love Saves the Day by Barbara Cartland, where he engaged with fellow bloggers and readers, discussing the book's plot, style, and the intriguing context of it being part of the posthumous Barbara Cartland Pink Collection—a series of 160 unpublished manuscripts published after Cartland’s death. His commentary often includes sharp observations on writing style, historical accuracy, and genre conventions. 

Bookstooge has also inspired other bloggers, such as The Orangutan Librarian, who cited him as a key influence in her own blogging journey.  His work has been featured on platforms like LibraryThing and shared across multiple blogs, highlighting his active role in the online book community.

Bookstooge, whose real name is not publicly disclosed, is the pseudonymous author behind the book blog Bookstooge's Reviews on the Road.  He is a prolific reader and reviewer, known for reading over 100 books annually. His blog serves as a personal platform where he shares candid, in-depth, and often humorous reviews across genres like science fiction, fantasy, classics, and mysteries. 

Key Aspects of Bookstooge

1. Blogging Philosophy
   Bookstooge values authenticity and freedom in reviewing. He left Goodreads (which he now calls "Devilreads") due to its restrictive policies and censorship, particularly during the 2013 "Great Censorship Debacle." He believes reviews should be personal expressions rather than formulaic book reports, stating:"A book review is simply a blog post with my thoughts... My book reviews are tiny little snapshots of me as a whole person, glimpses into my soul." 
2. Personal Background
   • Identifies as a devout Christian, with a blend of Baptist and Seventh-day Adventist beliefs. 
   • Works full-time as a land surveyor in New England, often outdoors year-round. 
   • Married to Mrs. Bookstooge, and describes himself as not a "people person," often needing recovery time ("chicken fingers") after social interactions. 
3. Reading Habits and Technology
   • Prefers e-readers with physical buttons for comfort during long reading sessions. 
   • Recently transitioned from a Kindle Oasis to a Pocketbook Era due to Kindle's declining usability and locked-down software. 
   • Criticizes modern e-reader trends, especially touch-only interfaces and proprietary ecosystems.
   • Uses Calibre to manage his digital library, prioritizing ownership and backup of e-books.
4. Influence and Community
   • Recognized and appreciated by fellow bloggers like The Orangutan Librarian and Out of Babel Books.
   • Participates in readalongs, such as his well-known readalong of Love Saves the Day by Barbara Cartland, which inspired others to join and blog about the experience. 
   • Avoids mainstream social media, maintaining a presence only on WordPress, Blogspot, and LibraryThing. 
5. Writing Style and Themes
   • Reviews are lengthy, reflective, and deeply personal, often weaving in life experiences, faith, and philosophical musings.
   • Advocates for reading outside the mainstream, urging readers to "STEP OUT OF LINE AND READ SOMETHING NONE OF YOUR PEERS ARE READING!!!"
   • Uses a GPL 4.0 license for his blog posts, asserting his rights to free expression and redistribution. 

Bookstooge remains a distinctive voice in the book blogging community—unapologetically opinionated, deeply committed to literary freedom, and dedicated to the joy of reading as a transformative, personal journey. 

The above is the amalgamation of both search engine summaries cut and pasted into one summary. Thank goodness it is relatively positive. This could put wikipedia out of business! What do you think, is it semi-accurate and are you concerned about yourself being summed up like that by an algorithm?