As you can tell from the book numbers, Neuromancer absolutely destroyed my book reading rhythm. I had almost zero desire to read after that blasted thing. If it wasn’t for me trying out the Demon Slayer manga and loving it (I read more manga this month than I have in the entire year for goodness sake), my numbers would have been even worse. As it was, I read about half the number of words that I usually consume in a month.
Couple that with one week at work where my coworker and I were setting lot corners all week. That is a combination of granite bounds and iron pins. We set a total of 20 granite bounds and 25-30 pins. A day or two isn’t a problem, but by day three my elbows begin to throb by 8am and it’s pain reliever time at lunch time for the rest of the week. And one night of sleep isn’t enough for my body to recover from that level of labor any more, so I was simply exhausted by week’s end. Thankfully, that was only one week out of the month, so it was survivable, just not enjoyable. But it did coincide with the week I reviewed Neuromancer, so I was blasted both in body and in mind.
Thanksgiving, REAL Thanksgiving, was yesterday and I had that off and I get today off from work as well. Using that time to do as much nothing as I can.
Cover Love:
The Old Gods Waken, the first in the Silver John series takes this month’s cover love. I love the cover, but in all honesty, it had NO competition at all this month.
Plans for Next Month:
I am desperately hoping my reading mojo returns and that I can return to my more normal levels of reading. I do have a bunch more of the Demon Slayer manga on standby though, just in case I’m still not fully recovered.
Each Friday in December I plan on doing my Love Saves the Day by Barbara Cartland update for the chapters I’ve read. Anybody is more than welcome to ride along. Here is the schedule for the chapters and dates
December 6 – Chapters 1-3
December 13 – Chapters 4-5
December 20 – Chapters 6-7
December 27 – Chapters 8-10
January 7 – Final Review
Other than the usual Magic the Gathering posts, I figure I’ll squeeze in an Art post or two. Honestly, the first week in January is looking extremely busy (in terms of blogging) so I’m trying to give myself all the extra padding I can ahead of time. Yes, that’s a month away, but doesn’t everybody plan their blogging schedule that far ahead? 😉
What a mixed month. Good times at the Pumpkin Festival, bad times with getting needles in the eyes. And everything in between. I rode the rollercoaster of emotions for the full gamut. The month ended on a pretty down note when the volunteer situation I mentioned earlier in one of My Week posts got booted up the ladder to the paid people in charge. They officially endorsed the no youth decision. I didn’t even realize how upset it had made me until I couldn’t sleep. I was awake for close to 40hrs after that happened because I was so stressed out. Thankfully, I’ve been purposefully letting it go and praying that my attitude stays right. But boy, 40hrs without sleep took a long time to recover from. I guess I’m not 30 any more.
On the reading side, I managed to bag a total of 19. That pushes me over the 150mark for the year, which is always my unofficial goal. So now I’m coasting for the rest of the year, which is always a good feeling to have, as life seems to get especially busy from now until New Years.
Cover Love:
Lallia, the next book in the Dumarest series. Chickie-boo dies, just so you know.
Plans for Next Month:
art credit to sxwx
Got a serious Hate Read going for Neuromancer. That is so I can participate in Scifi Month. Oh, the Hate will be strong in this one! I guarantee that with every iota of my being.
Emperor Palpatine wants YOU to read Neuromancer!
Blogging will probably be lighter, quite a bit lighter in fact. I just got the wind knocked out of me in October and I know that kind of thing always plays havoc with my desire and ability to churn out the posts.
ps, I am going into work early today and looking at a 10hr+ day. So I don’t know when I’ll be able to respond to comments. Just making sure you know I’m not ignoring your comments.
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….
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.
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!!!!
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…
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 😉
Pages read – 49,779 (↓3K) Words read – 15564K (↓900K) Average Rating – 3.29 (↑ 0.06)
GENERAL THOUGHTS:
General Life Thoughts
What a year this has been. We started 2023 with Mrs B being incapacitated pretty much until late March and a little in April. That led to her moving to a new doctor and whole new medical system, which has worked out well. Then our fight with the insurance company for her medication continued at year’s end (they hid some of her options from her and we thought we were going to have to shell out over $1500 in one go) and she broke her wrist. Her courage is ok thankfully. Mine, well, that’s iffy.
My biggest physical thing was dealing with my eyes and my diabetes. My left eye continues to be the problem child and I have a bad feeling things are going to be bumpy in 2024.
Emotionally, I was all over the place. I rode the crests of the waves in the good times and man, did I crash and burn in the troughs too. I was discussing “time” with someone and realizing how much quicker things are moving for me now. October of ’22 I took off from reviewing and yet I can remember it like it was THIS October. Then I have those moments where I can’t even remember what I had for breakfast and it’s only 2hours later. Someone needs to write a book on getting older so I can read it and get prepared for what’s coming! There was a lot of other stuff too, but as it is ongoing, I’m still riding the wave of it and don’t know if it’ll end up being a crest or a trough, or even both.
While I don’t have to deal with the turmoil of hormones, my emotions are as volatile as ever they were in my 20’s and I’m coming to realize that’s just how I am, they aren’t going to suddenly change and I just have to accept that. I’m going to continue to say stupid things to people, fly off the handle at the drop of a hat, get my feelings hurt and butt heads with most everyone I meet. I just need to work on mitigating all of those things. Easy peasy, right? 😀
General Bookish Thoughts
Overall, I was happy with my reading this year. My total number only dipped 4, and that was with taking days off from blogging throughout the year. I deliberately tried to read less near the end of the year and it appears to have worked.
I did start subdividing that general number up into the various categories I assign a book, so gives a better view of what I read than just ONE BIG NUMBER. My manga and comic reading steadily dropped at about the midyear mark and I suspect they won’t be picking up any time soon. That comes and goes like a sine wave function and right now I’m in the trough.
My rating was up a tiny bit, which is good because I’m trying to get better at not picking up books that I’ll rate low. Of course, what usually happens is moral content and bam, auto 1star, which just kills my rating. Oh well, I keep on plugging along.
General Blogging Thoughts
What do I say about WordPress without going into a blue streak? Well, I have no plans on leaving in 2024. I’ve put too much work here to start all over somewhere else. So set your minds at ease on that point. At the same time, I am the unhappiest I have ever been with this company since I started really blogging here at the end of ’16. Things being broken on a weekly or monthly basis, constantly fighting to figure what they just did, and why, and most importantly for me, the absolute onslaught of their *&^%$#@! code monkeys against the comment sections. What they have works and it works perfectly. So of course they have to mess with it. And break it and absolutely destroy its basic functionality for the normal user. While they walked back that particular decision, given their history, it just means they will have a go at it again later in ’24 and in smaller increments. I guess I would say I have nothing good to say about WP at the moment. I am angry and upset and it feels like my only option is to go start elsewhere (too much work) or just leave (which isn’t a real choice as I need to interact verbally online with people).
My followers went up but that is because I’m not clearing away spam, business and dead wood accounts any more. It’s too much work and it depresses me. Turn over continues and people come but mainly people seem to go. I have to admit, it is a continual thorn in my side, but that is one of the down sides of blogging (it’s not all fame and fortune after all, no matter what some people may think).
All my other blogging metrics were also up except for number of posts written. Of course, when you’re talking 377 posts a year, 3 less posts isn’t even a 1% drop, so it’s negligible. I did write more in the posts themselves, as they were generally longer by about 100 words. I also got a lot more random views from search engines. That I put down to starting the process of getting my site completely indexed with google. That’s going to take a long time however and with so many of my early “reviews” just being the info block about the book, I doubt those will get indexed at all. As of this post, I have 4895 posts on this blog. So you could read one post a day and you would have enough reading material for the next 13.5 years. Which will give me time to churn out another couple of thousand posts. Get cracking! Those old posts aren’t going to read themselves after all.
Commenting went up too. By a thousand. That’s three extra comments a day! Of course, it’s really only up by 500, because half of that 1000 is me replying, but 1.6 new comments a day for me to reply to is bliss to my soul. Keep it up folks, you’re doing great! 😉
The Author Index is almost finished and that is a bright spot for blogging. I’ve been dragging my feet though, as I don’t want it to really be finished, because then I have to find another blog project and I’m afraid I’ll open a can of worms with some project that will be 100X bigger than anticipated. I like small blog projects, not ginormous blog projects.
The Art for my blog has also been a bright spot. Whether it is seeing the Magic cards that I played with as a teenager or putting up drawings from Miss Ross, I have enjoyed being able to do something different. I know other bloggers do that kind of stuff routinely (hence the creation of sites like Instagram, etc) but with being a book reviewer and mainly dealing with words, the weekly and monthly foray into “picture” refreshes me. Plus, it gives you something different to see than just a small wall of text.
Blogging stayed pretty much the same this year as it did last. That’s why I like doing the stats, because my feelings can skew the reality. The reality is that I wrote just as much as in ’23 as I did in ’22. I can tell how my blogging is going by how much I write. So the numbers staying the same means stability and that’s a good thing. While I’m riding the emotional waves, it’s good to know that I’m still plugging away at my posts.
I guess my blogging experience depends on the mood I’m in. So bear with me as I ride up to those heights and then crash down to those lows.
My blogger account continues to be my backup, that “just in case” place. Bookstooge.blogspot.com exists right now only for my book reviews. I don’t crosspost my non-book stuff, not even my monthly roundups. I check the comments once a week or so for spam and random people just leaving a driveby comment. It’s like that ramshackle shed in the backyard where I store all my crap and always tell myself that “one day I’ll clean that place up”. Hahahaha.
Calibre continues to be the resource I use the most whenever I have questions about the books I’ve read in the past. While I always link to a wordpress review, my initial query is always in calibre. Nothing has changed from last year and I’m just glad it is continually being updated.
THE BOOKS:
Best Book of the Year
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen. I had an unprecedented EIGHTEEN 5star books this year, so it was really hard to narrow it down to just this one. But S&S hit me right in the Feelz, really hard, and when a book can accomplish that, it deserves to be recognized.
Worst Book of the Year
Lapvona by Ottessa Moshfegh. While I had SEVEN 1star books this year, I only had one 1/2star book and Lapvona was it. Made me sick to my stomach.
PLANS FOR 2024:
Personal
Survive. Seriously. A lot of stuff has been swirling around in my head in ’23 and in ’24 I need to deal with it all. Either catch that ball and run with it for a championship touchdown or drop it like a hot potato and just cancel the game. Or figure out a way to secretly kill the ref and then call the game in my own favor.
Expand my hobby list. I’ve been reading a book called “Making Love Last Forever” by Gary Smalley about strengthening relationships and one of the points he makes is that a stable relationship has multiple hobbies to fall back on when things get rough in one area. It seemed odd to me at first to think that having multiple hobbies could help a relationship, but after an incident earlier this year when something happened that was real life book related and I just went off the deep end about it, I realize that if I had had other hobbies, the book thing wouldn’t have meant as much to me and thus I wouldn’t have reacted the way I did. Thankfully, this is an easy one, as Mark has been singing the praises of the card game Marvel Champions for the last 18+ months. In fact, you can expect a post this month on it. I know you’re already anticipating it!
In relation to that, I am hoping to do some multi-player magic over whatsapp with Dave and Mark. I’ve really not pushed for it because I’m afraid of being “That pushy guy” but the reality is that I want to play some commander, so I suspect I will have to be a bit pushy. Going to have to find the right balance. All three of us also have the Marvel Champion game so maybe we’ll explore that too. Who knows, I can dream though, right?
Get my butt in gear about being serious for dealing with the Certified Survey Technician program. I am not a self-starter but nobody else is going to make this happen except me, so I have to start. I’ll start at the bottom and work my way up the ladder. It will be good for my resume, good for my work wellbeing and make me more marketable should I need to make any moves for family reasons. But I said pretty much the same exact thing in last years annual review, so I’m remaining skeptical of myself.
Cut down on caffeine. Sorry rockstar, you’re just not My Hero any more.
Blog
For the time being, I’m going to block out Wednesday’s and Friday’s as “free days”. Wednesday will probably get filled anyway, but this way I won’t feel like I have to. Friday’s are going to be the day I really try to leave open. I need a day I can either ignore or just vent in Maximum Drivel Drive.
I’ll go back to reviewing one movie or series a month. After November and December and trying to review some sort of movie every Sunday, I realized I just can’t do that. I am not a movie person and it doesn’t work for me at all. Writing movie posts makes me feel like Sisyphus. A gimpy Sisyphus at that.
Going to be sticking to mainly novels this year. Groo is the only comic I plan on reading in ’24. No manga, no other comics, no graphic novels. If something catches my eye I’ll read it, but I’m not going to search anything out. I read two non-fiction books in ’23, thus I’ll need to scare one up for ’24 as well. I’m pretty laid back about that though. Me and non-fiction have a gentleman’s agreement; I leave it alone and it leaves me alone and we’re both happier for it.
I have a couple of buddy reads scheduled already. Dave and I will be reading and reviewing Equal Rites at the end of this month. Lashaan and I will be reading Pride & Prejudice in February, as Lashaan hasn’t broken his teeth on Austen yet. If you would like to do a buddy read later in the year, let me know in the comments and we can discuss what book and timing potentials.
Magic cards once a week will continue. So will once a month art posts. I don’t have any new ideas for either (beyond what I proposed in the Experiment Post in December) and thus I will continue doing the same thing.
Nonsense posts as the mood strikes. Which is the usual, so no change there either, hahahahaa.
