Bookstooge's Reviews On the Road: Ipiccy

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Monday, September 30, 2024

September '24 Roundup & Ramblings

Raw Data:

Novels – 11 ↓

Short Stories – 0 ↓

Manga/Graphic Novels – 0 ↓

Comics – 1 –

Average Rating – 3.38 ↑

Pages – 2187 ↓

Words 817K ↓

The Bad:

Cthulhu Resurgent – 2.5Stars of non-cosmic horror pretending to be cosmic horror. I put the smackdown on THAT quick enough!

The Good:

Monster Hunter Vendetta – 4.5Stars of monster killing!

Wyrd Sisters – 4Stars of good classic Discworld.

Movie:

Friends Forever, the third dvd in the Cardcaptor Sakura anime.

Miscellaneous Posts:

Personal:

The trip to Georgia went really well. Meeting our niece for the first time in real life was good and I hope she can remember who we are, because it’ll be a couple more years before she sees us in real life again. Taking that time off from writing on the blog was good for me too. I needed it more than I realized.

Fall is here. Period. Leaves are falling off the trees. Acorns too, and let me tell you, those things HURT when they hit you on the top of the head. It does mean work is going to be an absolute delight for 4-5 weeks as the cool air is perfect working weather and the falling leaves means site distances almost double. That means 1/4 less work! This is the time of year I look forward to the most.

I read a good bit less this month and so my metrics are all down. I’m ok with that though, as it was mostly due to the Georgia trip. I didn’t read a single book during those 5-6days. I did read on the airplane, but I don’t count that. Taking a break from reading was good for me too.

Plans for Next Month:

Pumpkin Festival!!!!!! Yeah baby.

Because the Book Hauls of Misery are over, I will be returning to my regularly scheduled My Week posts a bit more.

Over the last year or so both Mrs B and I have been finding that we have been getting disconnected from keeping the Sabbath (Saturday, a day of rest and worship) in a meaningful way. We will be taking concrete steps to combat this and one of those steps will be that I won’t be posting on Saturdays. I still plan to read and comment on others’ blogs, but I don’t want my attention to be drawn to my own things. Having Fridays off in the previous months has been a good stress reliever but now I want to move that to where it belongs. It does mean that I am planning on doing double posts on Mondays, but you’ll survive, because I trust in the Power of Friendship!
~gag puke barf, etc….

Saturday, August 31, 2024

August '24 Roundup & Ramblings

Raw Data:

Novels – 13 –

Short Stories – 0 –

Manga/Graphic Novels – 0 –

Comics – 1 –

Average Rating 3.21 ↓

Pages – 3303 ↓

Words – 1076K ↓

The Bad:

Dragon’s Den – 2stars that finally sunk the series for me

Last Contact – 2.5Stars of Star Wars dying for me, all over again 🙁

The Good:

Lady Susan – 4Stars of epistolary fun

The Hell-Hound of the Baskervilles – 4.5Stars of Warlock Holmes amusing me greatly

Movie:

Everlasting Memories, the second dvd of the Cardcaptor Sakura anime series. As sweet as ever.

Miscellaneous Posts:

Personal:

Ahhh, you know, I really like doing those My Week posts. Cuts down on trying to remember everything and regurgitate it in one paragraph!

Our washer has started leaking. Going to be finding out if it is a fixable leak or if it means we’ll need to buy a whole new one. That’s going to be expensive. I guess that red Porsche I was eyeing is going to have to wait another year.

From a reading perspective things started out bad. Three sub 3star books in a row made me feel like it was the worst reading month ever. I felt that way the whole month even though I had a whole bunch of decent books. It wasn’t until the end when I read Warlock Holmes that I felt like things had turned around. This is exactly why I don’t trust my feelings and put out the hard numbers each month. Keeps me grounded in reality.

Cover Love:

The Infinite and the Divine, a Warhammer 40K: Necrons novel. I had several choices this month, but this just appeals to me.

Plans for Next Month:

Guess what? I actually DO have something different for September that I can tell you about. Whooowhee!

Mrs B and I will be visiting family from the 11th to the 16th. I’ll be posting my Annual 9/11 Post but will have comments turned off and then there won’t be any more posts until we come back. I’m sure I’ll still be around to visit you all, but the blog will not be active for those 5 days. I’ll get a post up on the following Friday about the whole time.

On a scheduling note. I usually schedule my posts for 5am, Eastern Standard Time, which is -5 GMT. Starting tomorrow, I’ll be changing that to 6am. Not a big change, but I am experimenting with some small things to see if it can help with some larger issues.

Wednesday, July 31, 2024

July '24 Roundup & Ramblings

Raw Data:

Novels – 13 ↓

Short Stories – 0 –

Manga/Graphic Novels – 0 –

Comics – 1 ↑

Average Rating – 3.62 ↑↑

Pages – 3572 ↓

Words – 1331K ↑

The Bad:

Mansfield Park – 2Stars of Stone Cold Jane Austen really letting the team down

The Good:

A Study in Brimstone – 5Stars of Pure Literary Genius!

Monster Hunter International – 4.5Stars of the best monster killing you’ll ever read

Movie:

Didn’t review anything this month. Just wasn’t feeling it.

Miscellaneous Posts:

Personal:

The first half of this month was insanely busy (for us). Those first two weekends were just jam packed. I use my weekends to recover from the week, so when I have to expend valuable “social” energy on a weekend, I really notice it. Thankfully, things settled down and got back into a more normal groove.

After last months R&R where I went on and on and on, I decided that just wasn’t going to do, so I started/continued those “My Week” posts where I blab about all the super interesting things that happen to me, like being in the Emergency Room for 9hrs or getting paid for 5hrs of driving instead of doing actual work. All those gripping, exciting and enthralling stories (and no oxford comma! ha). It has worked well for me. I get to blab about something non-book oriented but that’s not “themed” so I don’t feel pressured to be creative. The bonus is that it’s been on my scheduled “don’t need to blog day” (Friday) so if I don’t feel like saying something, I don’t have to. It’s been great!

And can I talk about that average rating from the Numbers section? 3.62!!!! That is the highest monthly rating I’ve had this year. I am wicked happy about that. That is partly why I do those numbers each month. Sometimes my memory of how the overall reading time went gets fuzzy near the end of the month and it serves me well to do the hard facts.

Cover Love:

While the cover is a little dark (in terms of lighting, not content), MHI gets the nod this time. I was severely tempted to stick with Kalin, but I chose modesty and guns over swank and boobs.

Plans for Next Month:

Sometimes I wonder why I even do this portion of the R&R. Forgive me while I indulge in a moment of self-pity for a couple of sentences.

Wah wah wah

I do the same thing every stinking month. I review some books. I put up some pictures of magic and superhero cards. I put up a piece of artwork. I review a movie or tv show. I blabber nonsense. Every. Single. Month. I want to be one of those bloggers who are just bursting with creativity and doing something new every single month. Most of the time I readily accept that I am a steady, plodding blogger. But there are a few times a year where I just WISH I could be an “arteest” and wow everyone for a post or two. Or ten, twenty or even one hundred! (might as well dream big)

Ok, somebody call the wambulance, show’s over. Time to go cut down a tree, translate some chinese curses and shoot a groundhog, all with my bare hands, my eyes closed and while in a strait jacket. Tada!!!!

Sunday, June 30, 2024

June '24 Roundup & Ramblings

Raw Data:

Novels – 15 ↓

Short Stories – 0 –

Manga/Graphic Novels – 0 ↓

Comics – 0 ↓

Average Rating – 3.20 ↓

Pages – 3608 ↓

Words – 1304K ↓

The Bad:

Life, the Universe and Everything – 2 stars of utter stupidity. Not funny, just stupid.

Remains – 2.5stars of watching a favorite series slide into something I didn’t want.

The Good:

Jenny Trapdoor – 4stars of Polity goodness and ultra-violence.

The Pinhoe Egg – 4star ending to the Chrestomanci series.

Movie:

The Clow. The first four episodes of the anime Card Captor Sakura. When story telling still meant something.

Miscellaneous Posts:

Personal: (there’s a lot)

Thankfully, that nasty cough is gone for both of us. Took me two weeks longer than Mrs B, but we eventually beat it. Man, I do not want to repeat that any time soon!

Got both my eyes injected for my diabetes, at the same time. I usually have one eye done one week and then the other the next, but that is an extra vacation day to use up, so I took the latest time slot and Mrs B came with me so she could drive home. It’s a good thing. I normally drive myself home when it was just one eye, but man, doing both at once really did a number on me. Once we got home, I took some tylenol, a sleeping pill and slept until it was time to go to work the next day. And I didn’t even have to use up any vacation time. Score!

One of our cars developed a gas leak, but the garage said they didn’t have an opening until the next week, so we drove it there and parked it. That way the gas would get on THEIR parking lot and not ours 😉 I was hoping that would help convince them to put it into the schedule sooner. That meant juggling our remaining vehicle as we both had to work. Thankfully, our work times have enough leeway that one could drive to work and the other drive back. Meant one had to sit around in the morning the other sit around in the afternoon, but better than walking 4 miles each way next to a four lane highway. It was taken care of, quicker than they said it could be, so I think leaving it on their premises helped 😉

It was also a busy month. Mainly for Mrs B, but when she’s busy, there’s always spillover and so I’m busier too, even if not as busy as her. Several various doctors appointments. Lots of social meetings (including picking strawberries at a local organic farm), a highschool graduation party, a bbq sendoff for a childhood friend of mine who I haven’t seen in years, singing at a local rest home, helping our new (future) pastor and his family move in to their home and going to a work friend’s place for more bbq’ing.

In fact, we were so busy that I forgot to read a Groo comic this month. Is that a crying shame or what? Never fear though, I’ve made sure to pencil it in for July so I won’t miss it. Wouldn’t want to deprive you of your one piece of good literature you’ll read about 😉

I also managed to forget about $2000 worth of equipment on a jobsite one day. Thankfully, the contractor saw it and set it aside so no one stole it, but man, that really shook me up. I’m usually very meticulous about making sure we pack everything up at the end of the day. It was about an hour away, so Mrs B and I went on a road trip that weekend to pick it up. Lovely scenery anyway.

I participated in my first “group thing” in several years. #ReadingtheMeow2024 was a very simple group activity of just reading a book that involved a cat. The Pinhoe Egg (linked above) slotted right in without me even having to try. THAT’S the kind of group activity I like. Where I am by myself and nobody tells me what to do 😉

The Mysterious Spike In Stats (chronicled in the “So This Happened” post, which also broke the 100 view mark in a single day) got me some big numbers for the month. I believe I was able to find out the cause of some of them, but definitely not all. Either the bots are truly becoming intelligent (as shown by their consuming my words like honey) or my ascension as the King of Blogging has begun. Personally, I suspect you may start calling me “Your Majesty” by this time next month. 👑

We had a heat wave mid-month. For three days it was 100 degrees. Had to go into work an hour early so we were done before the temps peaked in the afternoon. It was pure misery.

Plans for Next Month:

READ A GROO COMIC!!!! I know I mentioned it above, but seriously, that is important stuff.

Independence Day is coming up later this week and I’ll be doing my usual posting of our Founding Document.

Book Recommendations. I garnered enough suggestions in the Intro Post to start replying in July. So put on your thinking caps and come up with MORE suggestions. And you people who comment rarely or never, jump on in would you? I would love to link to some of you folks and get to know you, even if in a very silly way. You can do it! I would say there is nothing to be afraid of, but honestly, there is. That Chartreuse Flag is flapping menacingly in the background. You can hear it, flap, flaaaap, flaaaaaaaap…

Friday, May 31, 2024

May '24 Roundup & Ramblings

Raw Data:

Novels – 17 ↑

Short Stories – 0 –

Manga/Graphic Novels – 1 ↑

Comics – 1 –

Average Rating – 3.32 ↓

Pages – 4135 ↑

Words – 1379 ↑

The Bad:

Betrayal – 2stars of very badly storied “secret agent” fiction. VERY BADLY STORIED

A Phule and His Money – 2.5stars of utter mediocrity

Conan the Hunter – 2.5Stars of really badly written Conan fanfiction

The Good:

Conrad’s Fate – 5stars of Jones at her absolute best

Three for the Chair – 4stars of Nero Wolfe at his fattest 😉

Northanger Abbey – 4stars of Austen impressing me

Movie:

Dune Part 2 was the biggest disappointment I have had in over a decade. Never. Again.

Miscellaneous Posts:

Cover Love:

Green Eyes by Maxwell Grant. I know everyone focused on the big ol’ schnozz last time, but for goodness sake people, stop being such shallow dipsticks and enjoy the beauty of the whole cover. Or I swear, I’ll grab the Shadow’s twin .45 pistols and shoot you with them.

Personal:

Both Mrs B and I came down with some sort of cold/respiratory infection that just about killed us for a week and then left us hacking up our lungs for 2 more weeks after that. I got it first and then a week later, Mrs B followed the exact same path. It was extremely unpleasant and left us both exhausted. When you wake yourself up coughing, even with having taking cough suppressant, it just hurts the ribs. That really dominated everything. We got through work each day, recovered as best we could over our days off and just prayed for death.

Had dinner with another couple at church and he and I played a couple games of parcheesi while the women folk took a nice long walk. I love parcheesi. I could play it for hours.

Plans for Next Month:

With being sick in May, I’ll probably be taking Fridays off again in June. My ooomph is just completely gone.

I was talking with Nic and she gave me a good idea for a potential new monthly series of posts. I’ll be posting that in the next week or two. Give me some time to cogitate about it.

Tuesday, April 30, 2024

April '24 Roundup & Ramblings

Raw Data:

Novels – 16 ↑

Short Stories – 0 –

Manga/Graphic Novels – 0 –

Comics – 1 –

Average Rating – 3.35 ↓

Pages – 3479 ↑

Words – 1229 ↑

The Bad:

Drop Shot – 1star of all that fallen human nature is, and calling it good.

Lord Hornblower – 3stars, but man, Hornblower is a scumbag of a character.

The Good:

Persuasion – 5stars of Austen persuading me, yet again, of what a fantastic author she is.

The Diary of a Superfluous Man – 4stars of Russian melancholy, depression and death. Talk about wonderful!

Movie:

While I’ve only seen two versions of Persuasion on the screen, this 2008 BBC version did a very good job imo.

Miscellaneous Posts:

Personal:

More reading, more posts, more good ratings (second highest months rating this year, whoooo!). Bookwise, another splendiferous month. I’m getting spoiled folks. So don’t be surprised if in the next couple of months the other shoe drops and I have horrible book after horrible book and you see me whining and complaining about how terrible all the books are.

I was all over the place emotionally. For a wide of variety of reasons. Work would be great one day and then absolutely brutal the next and I just couldn’t spring back from the brutal ones quite as quick as I used to. Several of the new people at church didn’t keep coming like I was afraid and that really bummed me out. You can’t be a Christian in a community of Christians and not go to church. Your connection to Christ will wither and you’ll fall away. I got some new diabetes equipment that works really well, but the learning curve is pretty steep and so it was both good and bad all at the same time. Had a wonderful morning date with Mrs B at a local diner (Mrs B could breakfast food for breakfast, lunch and dinner, 7 days a week) and I must admit, I stuffed myself to the gills.

I got sunburnt on my head, in April! We were working next to lake and the sun was shining but it wasn’t that warm, so I had my hoodie on. Put the hood up to protect my head but the wind kept blowing it off and it was off enough that I got a sun burn. First of the season, sigh. I also walked through a tick nest one day and ended up with 12 ticks on me. Thankfully, I got them off before they embedded, but it was just disgusting. Work is disgusting in fact!

Went to the gun range one Sabbath with my brother. Tried out my new drum magazine for my 9mm carbine. It has a 50 round capacity. I just tried it with 20 and it performed flawlessly. Next time I will use a whole box of 50 and load it up, but man, that’s a lot of money to literally shoot away, even with ammo prices not being astronomical like they used to be. I also shot my brother’s 1911 .45 caliber pistol. That’s what the Shadow uses 😉 I’ll tell you what, there is no way I would single handedly shoot that thing. While it’s not a monster, it’s too big for just one of my hands. So dual wielding like the Shadow does, that’s for the movies.

The month ended with me getting some sort of head cold and a cough. It was bad. I ended up having to call out of work one day and I lived off of cough drops and robitussin. I’m hoping that that is it for spring time sickness and that I can go forward into the summer’s sunshine and stay nice and healthy.

Cover Love:

Derai by Edward Tubb. I already talked about this in the review for Derai, but I think it bears repeating that that IS an awesome book cover!

Plans for Next Month:

I actually have two poems to go live. Not my own (duh!), but from a fellow blogger I follow. I don’t expect it to be a regular thing, but even something a little different is good. It’s spring time, so it’s time to shake winter’s slumber off and wake up. Even if only for May, hahahaha 😀

I hope to have another Marvel Champions post up. I’m having fun with the titles alone, so that has guaranteed I’ll keep them coming for a while.

Depending on when Dune 2 drops on bluray and I get a hold of a copy, I might end up reviewing that for my movie selection at the end of the month. I’m “almost” excited for that 🙂

Other than those things, it’ll be Book Reviews, Book Reviews, Book Reviews and Magic Cards.

Monday, April 01, 2024

March '24 Roundup & Ramblings

Raw Data:

Novels – 12 ↓

Short Stories – 0 –

Manga/Graphic Novels – 0 –

Comics – 1 –

Average Rating – 3.50 ↑

Pages – 3259 ↓

Words – 1145K ↓

The Bad:

Notes from Underground – 1Star DNF@10% nonsense

The Good:

The Lives of Christopher Chant – 5Stars of how Middlegrade should be written!

Movie:

Martian Successor Nadesico was an overload of angsty emotions and activity.

Miscellaneous Posts:

Personal:

Great book month! Yes, I read less but boy, did I read some great books. I was looking at my ratings calendar and I kept seeing 4star here, 4star there, it was just wonderful. And did you see that monthly average? 3.50!!!! I nearly blew a happy gasket when I calculated that particular statistic 🙂

Had a stomach bug near the beginning of the month. I also had to get some injections in my eyes because of my diabetes. Couple both of those things with the shenanigans that WordPress.com started pulling and it was no wonder I took a week off from socializing online. I was pretty stressed out. Once I got back things were a bit better. I’m thinking about permanently uninstalling the jetpack app on my phone so that I can only go on wordpress when I have access to my laptop.

At the same time, I wrote more non-review posts and overall really enjoyed it. You can’t see it, but I also journaled a LOT more this month. Almost every single day. So in terms of getting the words out of my system, this was an amazing month. Words, words, words! Plus, the week where I took off from WordPress and didn’t get words out in people’s comment sections, I ended up texting a lot of people who I don’t normally communicate with regularly, so that was good to reconnect with old acquaintances again. Or get more acquainted with the regulars. It is surprising how many people I know that are not texter’s. For some of those people, if I got a response at all, I counted that as a victory 😀

Paid my bleeding, fething, fracking, bleepity bleeping taxes. Second year in a row that we have ended up owing money instead of getting a refund. Huh, almost like our current administration is a spendthrift with other peoples’ money (ie, MINE). I’m going to leave it at that before I say something I shouldn’t, like “I wish all IRS agents would just suddenly drop dead”. That’s the kind of thing you can’t say in the United Soviet States of America any more.

Sadly, real life also sandbagged me right near the end of the month. Something I never saw coming in a million years. Thankfully, it WAS just a sandbag and not a baseball bat, but it did leave me reeling for a couple of days. Got my bearings back but man, realizing the emotions and their fallout, amazing how something little can have a big affect.

Plans for Next Month:

The Usual. I feel like I’ve gotten into a blogging rut and right now, I’m ok with staying right there. I don’t have the “oomph” to try something new, so I won’t.

Thursday, February 29, 2024

February '24 Roundup & Ramblings

Raw Data:

Novels – 15 ↑

Short Stories – 0 ⭤

Manga/Graphic Novels – 0 ⭤

Comics – 1 ⭤

Average Rating – 3.31 ↑

Pages – 3427 ↑

Words – 1244K ↑

The Bad:

The Expanding Universe #1 – 1star comparable to nuclear waste

The Good:

Pride and Prejudice – 5stars of goodness even with stupid questions ruining the experience

Phule’s Company – 4stars of light fun that really hit the spot

Movie:

No movie this month. After John Wick 4 last month, I needed a break.

Miscellaneous Posts:

Personal:

Man, where January sped by so fast that it was over before I blinked, February has felt like absolute frozen molasses. It went no where and it went there really slow. Every day of each week felt like it should have been Friday, not matter if it was Monday or some other day. Every single week. It was the month That. Would. Not. End.

Then part way through the month I got the worst cold that I’ve had in a long time. It started in my head and worked it’s way down to my chest. For two days at work I thought I was going to die. It was like a freight train had run me over. Took me over a week to recover from the weakness and I was coughing for the rest of the month.

On the positive side, I was able to play a good bit of Magic the Gathering on whatsapp. Had a 3player game with Dave and Mark. It took us a solid, glorious week to play. With me in the United States, Mark in the UK and Dave in the Netherlands, those time zones really kicked our butts. But we overcame and while I don’t know about the other two, I had an absolute blast. Long, slow games of Magic where you chat between turns is one of my favoritist things.

Speaking of games, I kicked my own butt into gear and sleeved up Marvel Champions. I will put up that post next week, so no need to fret, you’ll get your MC fix.

We have several new families at church, so I’ve been wearing myself out introducing myself each Sunday. I am NOT a people person and interacting with people wears me out, even good interactions. I can’t wait until they’re regulars and I can go back to ignoring them 😉

Cover Love:

Kind of the opposite of “love” because this is the cringiest cover for a book that I’ve read in a very long time. But “Making Love Last Forever“ by Gary Smalley was a great book. The cover, however, is like looking at a train wreck happening in real time in slow motion. I cannot look away no matter how much I want to. And now you get to see that image seared into your brains as well. You are welcome.

Plans for Next Month:

I’m going to watch and review a movie. I have no idea which one though. I’m contemplating digging back into my massive pile of anime discs and trying them again. There’s gotta be SOMETHING I can still enjoy 😀

My Magic card posts will get a slight aesthetic change. I’m not going to be putting up the art AND the card in the post. While I liked a change, I found it was simply too busy for my taste. So I’m going to be making the art part the featured image and just having the card itself in the post. That way I still get both parts but without having it look overwhelming.

Will have two [Art] posts again.

Will be doing another buddy-read of the Discworld series with Dave again. Going to be reading Mort, the first of the Death subseries. I remember really enjoying the Death books before, so I have high hopes I’ll enjoy it as much if not more so than last time 😀

Other than that, reviews as normal and random posts when I feel the inspiration.

Wednesday, January 31, 2024

January '24 Roundup & Ramblings

Raw Data:

Novels – 14 ⭤

Short Stories – 0 ⭤

Manga/Graphic Novels – 0 ⭤

Comics – 1 ⭤

Average Rating – 3.23 ↓

Pages – 3057 ↑

Words – 1060K ⭤

The Bad:

Stalking the Dragon – 2stars of Ultimate Boring!!!!!

Woman in White – 1star of Wilkie Collins. Overwriting. Everything. All The Time.

The Good:

Second Foundation – 5Stars of all the SF goodness

Weaponized – 4Stars of Polity body horror

Movie:

John Wick 4 was a torturous, bloated movie of violent excess. I don’t have any thing else to say.

Miscellaneous Posts:

Personal:

What a busy month. Looking at our wall calendar, we had multiple things going on every single week. I am not a fan of having commitments to others that often. A body needs down time, alone time, so it can recharge.

Had a couple of snowstorms, both of which were decent sized. Of course, a week later it either rained and washed it all away, or it was up to 50degrees and melting like crazy.

Taking Friday’s off from writing on the blog has helped tremendously. Just seeing that “Free Day” on my google calendar is a weekly reminder and it’s been good for me emotionally. While Wednesday’s haven’t worked out quite the way I was hoping, knowing that they are only open for Review posts does help me. I read enough that writing reviews, while monotonous at times, doesn’t have the same creative pressure that a non-review post does. Mainly because the reviews are for myself and I just don’t care. Non-review posts are usually written with some random idea whereby I hope to engage your interest and elicit comments from you all 😉

Our church finalized the hiring of a new assistant pastor (not sure what his official title is, as he’s still studying at seminary and so doesn’t have his doctorate yet). He’s in his mid-20’s, married to his highschool sweetheart, with one little kiddo. He’s some sort of engineer at one of the big car companies and he likes people. In short, he’s everything I wanted to be 20 years ago. But I’m me and no amount of moaning or whining is going to change that 😉 I am really hoping for his success out here (they are moving from Michigan) and that he gets along with the majority of the congregation. He made a great impression on us when they came out to visit at the end of ’23. I do admit, I am looking forward to seeing how a young man proceeds in this day and age, as the challenges he will face will be totally different from what I might have back in my 20’s. Being witness to the rising of the next generation of Christians is sad, scary, exhilarating and oh so encouraging, all at once.

Our cable bill went significantly up this month. I am looking at other options but I am afraid it will impact us, I just don’t know how yet. Not looking forward to yet another change. Using our phones as hotspots and tethering is one option. That would mean I can’t stream stuff on our bluray player anymore but I don’t know how much of an impact that would actually have. But a 50% jump in the rate is not something we can sustain.

Cover Love:

Shadow of Anubis wins this quite handily. The Arcane books are just gorgeous and I’m ok with that. And Dr Bell is looking shaaaarp in that vest!

Plans for Next Month:

Going to be doing a buddy read with Lashaan for Pride and Prejudice. Looking forward to that.

Other than that, it should be business as usual. I do promise that this month’s Art will be happier than the Pain & Suffering of January 😉

Sunday, December 31, 2023

December '23 Roundup & Ramblings

Raw Data:

Novels – 14 ⭤

Short Stories – 0 ⭤

Manga/Graphic Novels – 0 ⭤

Comics – 1 ⭤

Average Rating – 3.60 ↑

Pages – 3031 ↓

Words – 1060K ↓

The Bad:

Cthulhu’s Daughter – 1Star DNF

Basil – 2.5Stars of pansy character being a pansy

The Good:

A Christmas Carol – 5stars of Dickens awesomeness

Virgin Soil – 5Stars of Russian’ness, again

Foundation and Empire – 5Stars keep on rolling!

Movie:

Miscellaneous Posts:

Personal:

Ohhhhhhhhh, what a month. Mrs B’s wrist stayed in the cast all month. She was on light duty at work and it meant that even little things like grocery shopping she needed help with. That made work time unpleasant for her as she was stuck mainly on cashiering and she hates that. It also meant I did a LOT more of the chores, which gave me a VERY good appreciation for all that Mrs B does. It’s so easy to overlook all the contributions your spouse makes, so this was a good reminder to me to not take her for granted.

Then the week right before Christmas our car died on us. In the church parking lot, after everybody had left, sigh. It made for a very rough hour as we raced around like chickens with their heads cut off trying to get everything straightened out of where to get it towed, how to get home, and how Mrs B was going to get to work, in an hour. If I had had any hair, I would have been pulling it out. Thankfully, a bunch of wonderful people from church helped us out and one of my good friends took me out to lunch so I could vent and settle myself down. I’m so thankful for good friends who not only help us out, but also know what we need after such an incident. Being a words person has gotten me some notorious attention at church but I’m working on not being such a blabber mouth. Thank God they are all merciful to me 😀

Work for me was as busy as ever. We are 3 months out for scheduling and it’s only growing longer. I had a Surveyor’s Conference partway through the month and talked to one of the project managers from my old company. They are 4 months out and growing longer. Every survey company is in the same boat and I feel bad for anyone needing a survey.

I was tired out enough that I had to block out Fridays from blogging, which was necessary and good for me. Didn’t work out 100%, but it did mean I didn’t feel any pressure to blog if I didn’t want to. I did find that I was emotionally ragged most of the month and that made me a bit curt and short on a lot of peoples’ posts. I was not proud of how I reacted in many cases.

Reading-wise, this was the best month I had all year. I had THREE 5star reads. That’s incredible, especially considering how grumpy and out of sorts I was during most of my reading time. Ahhhh, why can’t more months be like this one in that regards?

Cover Love:

Two contenders and I couldn’t choose between them. So two winners! Imperator & Get Me to the Wake on Time.

Plans for Next Month:

Have to finish up the Year in Review post for tomorrow, THEN I can deal with the rest of the month.

I do plan on taking Wednesday’s and Friday’s off from writing posts. I have not been in a writing mood ever since Christmas and I’m not going to force it. Other than that, it will be business as usual.

Thursday, November 30, 2023

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:

Miscellaneous Posts:

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.

Tuesday, October 31, 2023

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:

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.

Saturday, September 30, 2023

September '23 Roundup & Ramblings

Raw Data:

Novels – 12 ↓

Short Stories – 1 ↑

Manga/Graphic Novels – 4 ↑

Comics – 1 ↓

Average Rating – 3.14 ↓

Pages – 3625 ↓

Words – 1152K ↓

The Bad:

One Piece #43 – 2stars of complete and utter manga burnout

Black Sun Rising – 2stars of romance masquerading as SFF

The Good:

The High King – 5stars of series ending goodness

Mortal Errors – 4stars of Hitchcock picking good tense stories

Movie:

X3: The Last Stand was a thoroughly forgettable movie that even the people in the comments forgot about as they typed.

Miscellaneous Posts:

Personal:

What a great month!

Taking the couple of days off to celebrate our 15th in the middle of the month really helped both of us. Took the stress away for 3 days and allowed us to catch our breathe before diving back into life.

I am in the middle of negotiating so I can keep putting up artwork once a month. If I can pull that off, that will give me the outlet for telling little micro-fictions with each picture continuing the mythology of Bookstooge, the Emperor in Shadow. I have fun making stuff up like that, mainly because I just let my ego go completely out of control 🙂

Started playing some Magic with Spalanz over the net, like I had done with Dave earlier this year. Considering they are both bigger Warhammer 40K fans than I am, it seems only right we’re playing some WH40K Commander. Markus played his favorite little Necrons and then experimented with the Tyranids while I tried to pilot the Emperor Botherer’s deck. I had a great time.

My reading for September was the at the lowest level since January. As can be told by all the numbers in the Raw Data section. Considering that allowed me some breathing room in regards to writing, I was perfectly ok with that. Especially since I just broke the 200 barrier this month. The rest of the year is just going to be coasting.

The window replacement stuff is done! That was quite the process and I am very glad it is over. Plus, pouring out all the money on it is now done too, so our bank account can begin to recover.

On a slightly sadder note. I really miss Meatbag Intern. I’m currently working with a guy who’s been with our company for about 2 years. He’s had no land survey experience before so I take that into account. BUT. He shows very little initiative, can’t seem to handle more than one instruction at a time, ignores what I tell him half the time and even when I walk him through something, doesn’t understand the underlying principle and thus can’t extrapolate what I’m aiming for. When I tell him to do A and B, he doesn’t think ahead and realize that C is the next step. He’s not incompetent, he’s just not as good as Meatbag. I soldier bravely on though. Us outdoorsy manly men do that kind of thing you know.

Cover Love:

Dedication of the High Priestess. While the story wasn’t up to what I was hoping for, that cover almost makes up for it.

Plans for Next Month:

Going to be easing up on the reading even more, hence my reviewing numbers will down, so I am hoping to keep a couple of days each week clear. Not for anything, but because I need to make sure I don’t burn my little writing self out. October of last year was when I worded myself out and had to take the month off from reviewing. You all did a great job of commenting on the lists that I read, but I don’t want to repeat that. So I’m deliberating easing up now.

A Pumpkin Festival is coming up, so we’ll be attending that and I plan on writing about it. IF it isn’t rained out (a distinct possibility, every year, sigh)

Groo is the only visual medium I plan on consuming in October. I’m letting manga go, I’m letting Asterix go and I’m letting Bone go, at least until New Years. I’m almost completely burnt out on the visual so I need to stop now.

Going to be watching and reviewing the Wolverine trilogy for my X-Franchise movie watching. Origins, The Wolverine and Logan. I’ve watched, and enjoyed, Origins before, so at least that will be good. We’ll see about the others.