Resident Evil: Extinction, the third in the RE film series, really amps up the tension but falls down pretty hard in most other areas. Decent but my least favorite of the series.
Paid our taxes. We have the minimum taken out, so we usually owe some at year's end. I began doing that a long time ago when someone told me that "getting a refund" from the Feds was just giving them an interest free loan with MY money. I've never looked at the "refund" the same again. Took me about an hour, as I had all the paperwork necessary on hand. Just glad it's over with for another year.
Spring is here and we're already in drought conditions. I really don't understand that, what with all the snow we got this past winter, but that's what the weather people say. Considering how early it is for that, I foresee a very uncomfortable summer with lots of ticks.
The bot views are back, with a vengeance. March had kind of tapered off and I was hoping maybe I could use April though the end of the year, but nope, after the first week I kept getting hit. 600-1200 views a day is NOT normal for this blog, especially when I see the same posts getting hit day after day 10 times a day. Makes me wonder what Wordpress is doing, besides absolutely nothing I mean.
My Devilreads experiment is going decent but no better. Not doing reviews has kept me out of reach of the wokescolds and other such finger waggers there. The feed is atrocious though. I can't customize what I actually see so I end up with a lot of garbage as people "update" the percentage of the books they are reading. Overall, the site is not conducive to someone as words oriented as I am or who wants one on one interaction.
Cover Love:
The Tower of the Elephant, a Conan novella by Robert Howard. While not quite accurate, it really does portray the situation very well. And it's just plain cool looking :-)
We have a saying here in New England: "In Like a Lion, Out like a Lamb". This is in reference to March's weather. You can also reverse it. So if March starts off, say, by dumping almost 2feet of snow on you and then continues to snow every week, well, that's coming in like a lion. It means we're supposed to get gradually better and ease into April with warmer temps and smaller amounts of moisture. Ha! Ha I say. March came roaring in like a lion and dragged our carcass all over the place the entire month and then we got ticks from that lion when he left. Boooooo!
Work has changed a bit. We had one of the crew chiefs (we have 3 crews, each consisting of 2 men) leave end of February, beginning of March and one of the other instrument operators (not a crew chief) left last Friday. So we are down to 2 crews, just as the spring is coming and our busy season is starting to ramp up. Not that we haven't been busy before, mind you. There is a lot of work and we don't have the manpower to handle it. I'm glad I don't have to deal with that problem in the office.
The medication that Mrs B has been taking for close to 15 years now for her crohns disease is no longer effective so her GI dr (gastroenterologist) is trying to switch her to something else. We'll see how that shakes out with insurance. It'll be the same battle as her old medication but on a new hill, sigh. I'm also dealing with my own insulin changes but without the help of a Endocrinologist, just my family practice doctor. It is just going from name brand to generic, so it's more about the doctors office filling out the prescription correctly so the insurance accepts it. Let me digress for a second...
(Health Insurance is the worst thing to happen to our medical system here in the US, ever. There have been times that I have wanted to off every single Health Insurance CEO and their entire board of directors. They will burn for their crimes in the afterlife, for sure!)
Mrs B and I were introduced to the card game Munchkins last year and for Christmas we got 7 of the expansions to the game. We've been playing a game a couple of times a month and it's been fun. It is a simple game but with just enough complexity to keep me interested while not being so complex that Mrs B throws up her hands in despair (like Magic the Gathering). I like it enough that I'm even considering getting the Munchkins: Warhammer 40,000 version :-D That would all depend on whether Mrs B will play that or not.
Finally, since I changed the boring "My Week" posts to the sizzling and exciting "Imperatoris Chronicorum", I decided to latinize these Monthly Roundup & Rambling posts as well, because nothing says sizzling and exciting like a re-branding of the same exact product ;-) Ave, Caesar Bookstooge, morituri te salutant!
Cover Love:
Nothing was good enough to take the effort to put a full size picture in my dropbox account, create and edit the dropbox link so that WP will accept it and then put it here. Sometimes it is worth it and sometimes not. This was a "Not" month.
Plans for Next Month:
RE: Extinction will be reviewed next week.
Magic cards every Monday! Whooowheee ;-)
Exactly the same as this month. I'm still fighting the (losing) battle to keep Wednesdays free but I'm not giving in completely.
Compared to last month, I read about half in terms of pages and words. In book numbers, I read "more", but since I had 3 novellas and 1 short story, well, the other numbers don't lie. I was ok with that though. Easing back into reviewing was good for me. I don't expect this situation to repeat itself very often though.
Real Picture, taken Saturday February 21st
February was its usual brutal self here in New England. We got dumped on by snowstorm after snowstorm, which meant working regularly in snow almost up to my knees. It was also very cold until the middle of the month, so conditions were just about as bad as it could get. All "that snow" also meant all "that shoveling" at work. I was taking extra strength tylenol (acetaminophen) to deal with that. My right forearm felt like someone had sandbagged it every day.
I also was diagnosed with Adhesive Capsulitis, or frozen shoulder. I had it 10-15 years ago, so I was aware of the symptoms and got to the doctor to get it taken care of. I'm taking aleve (yet another pain reliever, inflammation reducer) and doing home physical therapy exercises. If it isn't better in a couple of weeks I'll probably have to get a cortisone shot in the shoulder (I had that last time) and then PT by a licensed physical therapist. That's expensive, so I'm hoping aleve and home PT are enough. Plus, the needle they use to inject the cortisone is about as long as a football field. It's scary as all get out and I don't want that if I can help it. I get enough needles in my body already, thank you very much.
I've also had to admit to myself that the stats at Wordpress.com are now useless, completely and utterly useless. I was getting scraped in January and I had hoped that would do it, but nope, it has continued through February. Not the 10's of thousands of views that some have reported, but one day I did get 1100 views. The rest of the month varied from 100-700 views a day. I can't even blame it on the ChiComs, as the majority came from the US. While I don't care (that much) about stats, what it means is that the whole section of my annual review at the end of the year is rendered useless. Any stat that I relied on "views" to populate that section are now so untrustworthy that they can't be used. That makes me sad.
I obviously didn't stop reading. Here is a quick grab bag of what else I read in January, but didn't review. Maybe some day they'll get reviews, but not this month.
Mrs Pollifax and the Whirling Dervish by Dorothy Gillman - 4Stars
The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" by William Hodgson - 3Stars
Graveyard of Demons by Larry Correia - 4Stars
A Right to Die by Rex Stout - 4Stars
The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley - 3.5Stars
The Stony Man Doctrine by Dick Stivers - 3Stars
Also, I gave in (for like the sixth or seventh time) and joined devilreads. I only rate the books I read, no reviews. Words get me in trouble in devilreads and I want to see if I can go a whole year there without having an encounter with some jackass, or the bleeding staff. I can be found at: https://www.goodreads.com/botstooge I make no promises about how long I'll be there this time though. My average is like 4 weeks ;-)
January was quite the month. Workwise, winter is here in full force. We had several snow storms. The latest one, which occurred last Sunday and Monday, dumped about 18inches (45cm) of the white stuff on us. That has made this past week especially tough as we acclimate to very different working conditions. It has also been extremely cold this past week. Friday Short Round and I were working at a house on the side of a mountain and the temps were at 0 and the windchills were -19 (-18C & -28C) all day. I just came home exhausted simply from being outdoors. February is going to be tough, as the temps are predicted to stay cold, which means the snow won't melt away.
I have to admit, I enjoyed my time off from blogging. I hadn't realized how much pressure I had put on my own shoulders until I stopped and threw all that weight onto the ground. I felt more free to comment or not on other peoples' blogs because it didn't matter to my own blog. It was a refreshing time and I suspect I will be repeating January's experience later this year. But I'm back now, so.....
February will be back to blogging regularly. Posts will be at 5pm and I don't plan on blogging on Wednesdays or Saturdays. Mondays will always be Magic Mondays ;-) I aim to slow down my reading AND blogging in 2026 and try to enjoy it instead of just consuming and regurgitating mindlessly.
December was quite the month. I was still fighting off the sickness from November and while I felt better in many regards, I could tell I was still on the edge. It didn't help that we had our first snow storm right at the beginning and got around 6-7inches, which is enough to stick around for the entire season. Getting into the routine of working in the snow is always a week long chore. And then Mrs B and I came down with the flu typeA this past weekend. We're out of work for the whole week and we're doing our best to stay hydrated and taking tylenol to reduce the fever. Mrs B started Friday night and I started Sunday night, so she is just rounding the corner on recovery while I'm still in the throes of it all. Life is just grand at the moment.
Things were just busy too. With work Christmas parties and extra stuff going on at our churches, even if WE wanted to slow down, there was so much going on that we were swept along. Since most of the things were people oriented, it just wore me out even faster. There was one Friday where I attended a Land Surveyors Association annual meeting and there were over 250 people there. Just sitting in a room with 60+ people for 2hour stretches wore me out.
Short Round (thanks Spalanz!), the new guy at work, has settled in very well. He still talks, but it's not non-stop, all the time, go-go-go. Now it's just whenever. His plan is to eventually get licensed. I sure hope it works out for him. I have my doubts however.
In regards to books, I reviewed a bunch more than in November but I think most of that was me trying to get stuff all caught up before New Years hit. Even though I like to schedule stuff out 3-4 weeks, I don't like saying I read a book in January if I actually read it in December. The DNF's hit again(!!!!) and man, I must say, that really screwed with my ratings and my feelings. Especially since one of them was supposed to be the Barbara Cartland buddyread that I had plans for all month long. It was cut down in one post, sigh. And besides dnf'ing the book, I had to deal with letting down the people who had agreed to do the read-a-long for the month. I hate being disappointed by other people and I really hate disappointing others and letting them down. At least it happened in the first week so I had a chance to get over it ;-) On the plus side, ending the month and the year with reading Dune was fantastic. That book has so many facets that every time I read it, I see something completely different.
Cover Love:
I read the Dune: Deluxe Edition and man, that cover is fantastic. It is clickable if you want to view it full size.
Plans for Next Month:
I have my annual Year in Review post coming up on Thursday the 1st and then on Friday the 2nd I have a post dedicated to my plans in January.
Oh hurray, another guy has started at my work place. I am calling him Short Guy, because he's only 5'4", which means he's my height, which is great for working. He has previous Land Survey experience and is in his late 20's, so those are both big checks in his favor. After my last disastrous experience with the Tattle Tale Guy who told my boss everything I said to him, I am reserving judgement AND keeping my lip buttoned up a lot tighter. Short Guy doesn't seem like a whiny complainer Gen Z'er, but fool me once. I remain hopeful though. But just in case you think it is ALL peaches and roses, he talks. We had a job 75 minutes away from the office one week. He talked the entire time there AND the entire time back. Non-stop verbal diarrhea about everything. All I had to do was say the occasional "uh uh, yep, oh that's interesting" and he just kept on going. How is it physically possible to even talk that much? I am hoping that my natural close mouthedness will rub off on him, once he runs out of original things to say. My fear is that he'll turn into one of those people who tell the same stories time after time because they just have to have words coming out of their mouths. I'll know for sure by New Years either way.
The Time Change at the beginning of the month took me a week to adjust to. I kept waking up at 4am and my body wanted to fall asleep by 8pm. It was not a fun week. Thankfully, once "I" got the message, things settled right down into the new time routine.
Partway through the month I came down with the flu, possibly covid. Either way, it was fever, headache, sore throat, muscle and joint pain and enough snot to make even Slimer go "ewwwww". I was out of work for 3 days because all I could do was lie on the couch, taking pain reliever and drinking hot tea. Once the fever and aches went away, I had to deal with a lingering cough. That sucker kept waking me up during the night every 30-90minutes. It was a 2 week process from start to finish and just tore me down to the foundations.
This past Thursday was Thanksgiving, and since I also had Friday off, meant I had a four day weekend this weekend. I really needed it just to finish up my recovery from being sick.
Went out to a Mexican/American place for Date Night with Mrs B. Had a good time talking and she gave me her thoughts on my taking a break from blogging in January. That was extremely helpful to me, as it gave me a place to work from. I've been feeling burnt out on blogging and several weeks of not writing seems like what I need most. How exactly that will work out is still to be determined, but I have the "big picture" now, which is already helping me.
Bookwise, my reading slowed down a lot. It wasn't helped that I had 3(!!!!!!!) dnf's this month, which totally tanked my average rating. April was the only month this year that has a lower average book rating than this one :-( With that said, my page and word count still went up because I read some big ol' chunksters and even taking the dnf's into account, I still read a lot of pages. The stress of "reading more" was taken care of by not posting on Wednesdays. That really helped a lot and is one of the factors that made me realize I need to stop blogging for a bit. I have a feeling my reading numbers will drop in December, but I'm really ok with that at the moment.
I did manage to participate in SciFiMonth2025 this year with a non-review post. Thank goodness for the Friday Five theme posts! I really wish I could have participated more, but the reading cards said "no" and who am I to disagree? Hehehehe. At least I got to use the cool banner, which is the main reason I wanted to participate in the first place :-D
Cover Love:
The Hand of Fu-Manchu is deliciously creepy. Sadly, this was the best and largest version I could find online.
Plans for Next Month:
READ LESS SO I DON'T HAVE TO WRITE REVIEWS. I know, that seems obvious to you, right? Well, it doesn't to me because I read so much (usually) and I record everything I read. So my goal is to deliberately cut down on my reading in December. Which I'm hoping will lead to a few more creative posts. Which actually leads into my next paragraph very well.
Let the Barbara Cartland Buddy Read begin! The schedule for A Rainbow to Heaven is as follows:
Chapters 1-3 discussion post on Friday, December 5th
Chapters 4-6 discussion post on Friday, December 12th
Chapters 7-9 discussion post on Friday, December 19th
Chapters 10-12 discussion post on Friday, December 26th
Book Review post on Friday, January 2nd 2026
Which means you have this week to read the first 3 chapters and write a post about it. I think this is what is going to monopolize most of my time in December. Given how November went for reading, having some light romance to browse through each week is something I am looking forward to. Unencumbered, uncomplicated and a happy ending. Please be sure to add the tag "Barbara Cartland Buddy Read" to any posts to make it easier for anyone else to find your posts on the WP Reader.
After last month and all the car drama and getting fully back to work, I was hoping that October would settle it's little self down and let me kind of coast on through. Ha! I should have known better.
It wasn't all bad, or even mostly bad. Things like the Pumpkin Festival really made things fun. But work was a real chore. One of the field crew chief's and his wife had a baby last month. He'd taken off a month and was supposed to come back at the beginning of October. Well, his poor little son was having breathing and eating issues and they ended up down in one of the big hospitals in Boston. He had to sleep in his car every night, as they only allowed one parent each night in the Nicu (neo-natal intensive care unit). But after 2 weeks things had settled down so he was back to work. But with the changing of the seasons, people were getting sick left and right and calling out every other week it felt like. Coming in each morning, you never knew what job you were going to or who you would be with. I felt REALLY bad for our office scheduler. He was being run off of his feet trying to make things work. I sure hope he's getting paid enough.
My words are starting to dry up. My journaling is becoming a chore instead of a relief and there was one week I just skipped it entirely. Writing posts is much harder now too. Usually I'm 3-4 weeks ahead in terms of scheduling. At the time I am writing this post, I am a mere 10 days ahead. 10 DAYS. I am trying to think the last time I was only days ahead instead of weeks. It has been a long time. I've got stuffed planned, just not written. This is obviously going to affect my blogging for the next month, or even two. Thankfully, I've got a plan to deal with it, but as they say, "the best laid plans of mice and men...."
Shorter days aren't helping either. This coming weekend is also the time change. Just shoot me now please.
Cover Love:
Oh, I had several to choose from. It kind of spoiled me. But I ended up going with Lavondyss. Even though I dnf'd the book, the cover was just awesome. Look at that! More books should have fantastic covers like that.
Plans for Next Month:
Well, since I'm having issues with my words, I've decided that both Wednesdays and Saturdays will now be "free" days, ie, days I don't post. I'll still be online and bothering you, but I'll not have anything going up on those days. Unless something suddenly changes, which has happened before, sigh.
Thanksgiving, REAL Thanksgiving is coming up, so it's time to see just what I am grateful for ;-)
While not directly applicable, I will be prepping for the Barbara Cartland buddy read in December.
I am also hoping to be able to participate in SciFiMonth 2025. Last year I did an Epic Hate Read of Neuromancer. I will NOT be doing anything similar to that. That left me in a funk and life is hard enough without making myself miserable ;-) Of course, it is all going to depend on if I end up reading any SF in November. My intake of that has gone almost to nil, much like what Groo was paid in Rufferto's Reality, hahahaha. The REAL reason I want to participate is that they have some wicked cool banners and buttons that I just have to use somehow!
September was the month my eye was completely better and I went back to work. It was brutal. The first 2 full weeks in September was all about pure misery and suffering as I kicked my body back into gear and showed it who was boss. But in the end, I won.
Partway through the month one of our cars went into the garage and we found out the engine was on its last legs. The mechanic told us not to take any long trips and he wasn't kidding. So we scrambled around. We considered a new car, but while we could have afforded it, it would have left us with no safety net. So we settled on a used car. Last time we bought one was back in '20, so some sticker shock was involved, sigh. But we're safely and fully mobile again, so that is a blessing.
Celebrated 17 years of wedded bliss this month. And while folks can joke about this and that in married life, I never joke complain, because I don't have anything to complain about. I don't take that for granted and have been spending the last couple of months really appreciating just what God has given each of us in the other. We went to the Cheesecake Factory and ate about 2 days worth of calories in 1 meal. That is a great thing to do, once a year :-D
On the book front, I read a lot less in terms of pure book numbers, but I read some real chunksters, so my page and word count weren't as low as might be expected. It is amazing how working 9hrs a day cuts into the reading time, hahahahaa. However, reading less also meant I didn't read as many middle of the road or crap books either, so my average rating went up. That is always a pleasant experience. Coupled with the several 2stars I read that weren't really "bad", they just weren't good, I felt like my reading for the month was a success. That's a good feeling to have, especially since I'm supposed to be a book blogger ;-) Reading less also led to more non-review posts. Look at that list above, 14 non-review posts. That's a good ratio of review and non-review posts and I'm happy with that balance.
Plans for Next Month:
Oh, do I have plans! I have a Warhammer 40K buddy read, which I'll post about tomorrow. I have a nasty rant coming (I tried to make it not nasty, but I just couldn't do it), on what subject, you'll have to wait and see. Our town's Pumpkin Festival is coming and I plan on doing a post about that, and the lovely food associated with it :-D I plan on reviewing a movie this month. After a long stretch of not, it feels like it is time to get back into the cesspit of Hollywood and give those *profanities whatfor. Finally, I have a post with the schedule for the Barbara Cartland romance read coming up in December. I am just bursting with non-book review ideas. Long may it last!
