My Week XXVI

 

This post is going to encompass last week as well, as Life and Stuff has been on the spin cycle and I've still not found my footing.

As I noted in my Excerpt, work is just chaos. Between the workload not getting any lighter to people taking time off, every day is a new adventure. I never know who I am working with or what job I'm heading to. Even though work itself isn't getting harder, I'm coming away each week more tired because of the chaos and uncertainty. And this would appear to be our new normal. I am at the point of living week by week now. I can't take thinking about a month of this, or even two months of this, or more!

Church has added its own little melange to the mix. Our SDA church has held an End Times seminar the last two Sabbaths. We experienced one of those at our previous SDA church and this had all the same hallmarks so we decided to avoid it altogether. Which meant picking some random Sunday church to go to over the weekend (church attendance is one big checkmark for the health of a Christian as far as both Mrs B and I are concerned. We've seen too many people stop going to church for any and all reasons and before you know it, they're denying Christ altogether. We don't even want to step NEAR that precipice). One Sunday we went to a big baptist church that one of Mrs B's friends attends and then the next we chose some random one that she had had a Ladies Tea at and had been invited. Both times were nice and I was glad to hear the sermons, but the worship time for each was nothing but contemporary christian worship and just reaffirmed to me that I'll keep going to the SDA church for the hymns alone! Going to a different church might not sound like a big deal, but it really is. Church going is not some solitary activity that you do "to be good". It is commanded by Scripture and it brings us into fellowship with other Christians and brings us, together, closer to God. It is hard to have real fellowship with people who you don't know. That takes time and effort. It takes going to the same church week after week after week and BEING involved. So not to have that for two weeks was just unsettling, and coupled with work, was a bit too much.

Thankfully, home life has been the same. I've been extra vigilant about that! Church, work and home, they are my three spheres of activity and they affect each other. But just like any tripod, it doesn't take much to upset the stability. But with us returning to the SDA church tomorrow, and me being so vigilant about the homesphere, stability will reign in at least two of the three spheres. Not perfect by any means, but survivable anyway.

One of the ways Mrs B and I have "vigilantly" kept the homesphere intact is by playing Munchkin on the weekend. While it is intended for at least 3 players, we have found that as long as we don't use the "backstabbing/betrayal" cards, the game works relatively well with just the two of us. It is an RPG-lite dungeon crawler and gives both of us that fantasy fix we want from a game. And it's all cards that only needs one die to roll. We love it. The artwork is wacky and silly and makes Mrs B extremely happy. I just like that I get to stab and stomp and poke and kill things :-D

And today is now over with for me. It's 5pm, I am home from work, I have eaten something yummy, drank something cold and am now chilling on the couch until I'm ready to fall asleep at the extremely late hour of 9pm (if I'm lucky!). I am steadfastly looking forward to the blessing of the Sabbath as it fast approaches. Blessed Sabbath to you all!

Acia (The Russians) 3Stars

 

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Acia
Series: (The Russians)
Author: Ivan Turgenev
Translator: Constance Garnett
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Classic
Pages: 76
Words: 20K
Publish: 1858

The spelling for this, ACIA, is the old time translation by Garnett. More modern translations call it ASYA, as seen on the cover I am using. I would be upset, except new time’y translations all call Dostoyevsky “Dostoevsky”, so screw them. They are stupid gugenheimers and deserve to choke to death on a hotdog. WITH mustard! See, I’m not upset at all about this ;-)

The more I read these smaller works, the more I realize just how completely different the Russian mindset is in comparison to the American. I read a Shadow novel soon after this and in it, two characters were talking to each other but one of them left a sentence unfinished and yet I still knew exactly what he meant. That happens in Russian stories and I simply haven’t a clue what is being left unsaid or meant. I can tell there IS meaning by that silence, but I can’t fill in the gap. It frustrates me to no end and yet I enjoy the heck out of it because it shows me, in no uncertain terms, that humans can think differently. I don’t mean have different thoughts, but think in ways that the others can’t comprehend easily. It reminds of the conversation in Dune when Paul is talking to Chani about water and she just can’t comprehend it falling from the sky. She never would have thought of that idea on her own, but even that isn’t as alien as what I experience with some of these Russian reads.

AND THAT IS WHY I READ THEM!

Even if I don’t understand the meaning of the silences, simply being exposed to them and knowing there is something there that I am not getting expands my overall comprehension, of the written word, of others, of the world as a whole.

That being said, I still want to take the narrator and shake him until his head falls off. He’s an idiot and doesn’t know what he actually wants until something is suddenly out of reach, THEN he wants it and pines for it the rest of his life. He’s too spineless and wimpy to decide what he wants, so things just pass him by. How does a culture that is like that produce a Lenin, a Stalin, a Putin? It just leaves me scratching my head.

See? More questions, more thoughts, more things I never would have thought about without the prodding of a novella like this.

★★★☆☆

From Wikipedia.org

The narration is told on behalf of an anonymous narrator (Mr. N.N.). He remembers his youth, his stay in the small town of Sinzig. on the banks of the river Rhine. One day he is ferrying a boat and follows the sound of music and noise from a festival, he crosses the river to the neighboring town of Leubsdorf. Here the narrator meets two Russians: a young man named Gagin, who wants to become an artist, and a girl named Asya (Anna), whom he introduced as his sister. Asya's mood changes rapidly from being happy to sad, and is often eccentric things such as climbing the ruins of a castle to water the flowers. The hero begins to suspect that Asya is not Gagin’s sister due to the extreme difference between their personalities.

A few days later, the narrator befriends Gagin and learns that Asya is really his sister. At the age of twelve, Gagin was sent to St. Petersburg to study at a boarding school while his widowed father remained in the countryside. After the death of his father, Gagin came to know that his father had another child, a daughter named Asya, whose mother was Tatyana, a maid at the Gagins' house. Gagin is forced to raise the thirteen-year-old girl alone. He sends her to a boarding school for some years. However, due to them facing social stigma due to her illegitimate birth, he finally decides to go abroad with Asya.

The narrator feels deep pity for Asya - be believes that it is her unclear social position (the daughter of a serf and a master) that causes her to have nervous breakdowns. Gradually he falls in love with Asya. Asya writes him a letter asking him to meet. Gagin, who knows about his sister’s feelings, asks the narrator if he would agree to marry her. The hero, unsure of his feelings, cannot fully agree and promises to reject Asya's love at the meeting (if it takes place).

The narrator's meeting with Asya takes place in the house of the burgomaster's widow. After the confession of her feelings, Asya finds herself in his arms, but then the narrator conveys his disappointment to her for ruining everything by confessing to her brother, and now their happiness is impossible. Asya runs away. Hero and Gagin look for her. In the end, the narrator realizes that he truly loves Asya and wants to marry her. The next day he plans to ask his brother for the girl’s hand in marriage. But the next day it turns out that Gagin and Asya left the city. The hero tries to catch up with them, but loses their trail in London.

The narrator never meets Asya again. There were other women in his life, but now, on the threshold of old age and death, he understands that he truly loved only her, and that even the dried flower that she gave him will outlive both lovers - reflecting on the fleeting nature of human life.

• The Russians

• Leo Tolstoy

• Fyodor Dostoyevsky

• Ivan Turgenev

• Nikolai Gogol

Brotherhood of the Wolf (Runelords #2) 3Stars

 

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Brotherhood of the Wolf
Series: Runelords #2
Author: David Farland
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 559
Words: 213K
Publish: 1999

Farland has some really neat ideas with this series. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have the same skill at creating fleshed out characters. This felt like reading 500+ pages of a Terry Brooks book. If you’ve ever read Terry Brooks, you’ll know what I mean. If you haven’t, don’t worry about it.

By the end of the book I REALLY wanted to know what happens next, but I didn’t care what happened to ANY of the characters. That’s not a good combination.

The reavers (another species that might be the up and coming species that displaces mankind, as mankind has done to other species) were a great addition and we get some really broad hints at what their end game is. But they are, once again, a generic threat without being “characterized” to my satisfaction. They should have remained beasts and not sentient beings.

I can see why this was as popular as it was at the time of publication. The Wheel of Time series was taking the world by storm but had slowed down to molasses and Farland was putting out these books every year to 18months and he kept the plotting much tighter than Jordan was doing. But my goodness, I can also see why this never became a Fantasy Behemoth.

I was looking ahead and according to Wikipedia, there is a narrative break in the story after book four, when the story moves on to Gaborn’s son (Gaborn is the Earth King). I think I’ll read up through book four and just let things go after that.

I rated this 3stars, but it was skirting the edge of the 2.5, really closely. I also know myself well enough that now that I’ve decided to read through book 4, I will. Call me pigheaded!

★★★☆☆

From the Publisher & Bookstooge

Raj Ahtan, ruler of Indhopal, has used enough forcibles to transform himself into the ultimate warrior: The Sum of All Men. Ahtan seeks to bring all of humanity under his rule-destroying anything and anyone that stood in his path, including many friends and allies of young Prince Gaborn Val Orden. But Gaborn has fulfilled a two-thousand-year-old prophecy, becoming the Earth King-a mythic figure who can unleash the forces of the Earth itself.

And now the struggle continues. Gaborn has managed to drive off Raj Ahtan, but Ahtan is far from defeated. Striking at far-flung cities and fortresses and killing dedicates, Ahtan seeks to draw out the Earth King from his seat of power, to crush him. But as they weaken each other's forces in battle, the armies of an ancient and implacable inhuman enemy issue forth from the very bowels of the Earth.

The Reaver Mage is killed, the rune of destruction of man is destroyed and Raj Ahtan and Gaborn are still enemies. They go their separate ways to deal with the overall Reaver threat. Gaborn has the blessing of the Earth removed from him for Choosing Raj and then allowing him to be attacked.

Mrs Pollifax on the China Station (Mrs Pollifax #6) 4.5Stars

 

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Mrs Pollifax on the China Station
Series: Mrs Pollifax #6
Author: Dorothy Gilman
Rating: 4.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Thriller
Pages: 174
Words: 62K
Publish: 1983

Absolutely delightful! I have been alternating Mrs Pollifax with the Alphabet Mystery series and I must say, it is a true delight to return to the adventures of Emily Pollifax.

She is calm, poised and while not always “in control”, she never allows the circumstances around her to impede what she must do. In this book near the end, she has to face down an armed Russian sleeper agent and ends up karate chopping him to death. Scenes like that are why this isn’t “cozy”. She’s also old enough not to fall to pieces after such an act. She’s in no way stupid and I for one appreciate that Gilman actually writes her character to be intelligent.

Another successful foray into the underbelly world of the CIA. Mrs Pollifax hasn’t failed me yet and I doubt she’d fail you either.

★★★★✬

From Wikipedia.org

Mrs. Pollifax is thrilled when Mr. Carstairs, her boss at the CIA, gives her an assignment in China to help rescue a prisoner from a labor camp. As luck would have it, she has recently completed a course in Chinese history, so she is primed and ready to go. She joins a tour group and is told that one of the other group members is actually a CIA agent who will become her partner later on. She tries unsuccessfully to detect her future partner and is very surprised when the agent's identity is revealed. As the action speeds up she finds the labor camp, rides a runaway horse, and encounters some rough stuff from a Russian spy.

• All of my “Mrs Pollifax” Reviews

Healing Salve - MTG 4E

 

It's amazing to me how just having armless hands and that funky red background gives this whole picture a djinni, arabian nights vibe. 

Calendars & Scheduling the Bookstooge Way

 

I have talked about scheduling before, and mention it randomly in posts and comments. I touched upon it in my Blogshido series of posts and randomly sneak attack you by suggesting maybe you should try scheduling. Many people are intimidated by Schedule-Fu, while others just don't want anything to do with it. If you don't have any interest, this post is not for you. This is a post to help Masters of this discipline increase their mastery and to help those who have not started yet down the path but who are wondering about it. But I would like to say that ANYONE can master Schedule-Fu and make it their own.

The single most important tool that a master of Schedule-Fu has available to him or her is a calendar. I use three calendars myself, because of the amount of things I keep track of and it would be wicked messy to put it all one one calendar. I use the calendar above to keep track of real life things, like doctors appointments, car things, social engagements, etc. It's on the wall next to our door, so I see it every morning and evening as I come and go. As long as I write stuff down (and so does Mrs B), we never forget things happening in real life. That's important, because you know, Real Life.

The next calendar I use is the Protonmail calendar. I use this calendar as a widget on my phone. The reason I've put it on my phone is so that when I go to look at it, I don't get distracted from my purpose and end up not reading my Bible. This is a chart for what I'm to read each day. I used to use little paper charts, but the print was so small on them (because they were trying to fit a whole years worth of stuff on one 8.5x11) that I had to abandon them. This has one purpose alone and it's not cluttered up. Now, it was a lot of work setting it up, as I had to enter each day individually and click the "repeat annually" for every day. But once it was done, it was set for the years to come.

Finally, and the most used and most relevant for blogging. is my google calendar. This is where I plan out everything blog related. The blue posts are the ones I've written and scheduled. The red ones are unwritten ones but are there to show me when I want a post. As you can see, when I took the screen capture, I hadn't yet written this post. By the time this goes live, most of June should be a sea of blue. The nice thing about using red and blue is that I can rearrange the red posts however I want should something come up. It gives me the comfort of still using the schedule but also the freedom to rearrange things should that one iota of "artistic" me strike :-D

I realize scheduling like this just isn't for everyone. It can bring more stress to others and become a weight that drags them down. But if you want to become a disciple of Scheduling, these tools, or ones like them, can help you tremendously. I know of people who keep a planner journal and use that.

There you go. Now you too can become a Scheduling Guru! 

[Journal] Pear Garden

 

This is the blurb about this journal from Paperblanks:
"During the Tang Dynasty (618–907), the Emperor Taizong founded an opera school called Liyuan (Pear Garden). Chinese opera reached its pinnacle under the Qing court (1644–1911), giving birth to what is known as Peking Opera. Reproduced here is a piece of beautifully embroidered opera skirt from that era."

When I was deciding which 8 Journals to buy last year, by the end I wanted something that looked completely different from all my others. This Pear Garden option worked a treat. You can't see it in the pictures, but it has a little bit of sparkle to it. I'm gonna sparkle like a bloody Twilight Vampire!

Hope you have a great weekend and feel free to tell me how you feel about the journal, Twilight, vampires or just life in general. "I'm Listening"

Bone Swans 2Stars

 

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Bone Swans
Series: -----
Author: Claire Cooney
Rating: 2 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 236
Words: 95K
Publish: 2015

Last year Bookforager reviewed this collection. In her review, she sounded exactly how I felt when I would read a Patricia McKillip book. As McKillip is now dead and will not be writing any more stories, I was hoping that maybe this Cooney girl could pick up the slack. Saying I had high hopes was putting it mildly.

Things got off to a rocky start. There was an introduction by Gene Wolfe, as he knew Cooney. I despise Wolfe’s writings, so when he praises someone, that’s a big old warning sign to me. I knew that biased me so I went into the actual stories determined not to let Wolfe ruin this for me. No fear on that account, Cooney did that all by herself with no help from anyone.

I have described McKillip’s writing as fire and silk, rounded stones in a small brook creating that soothing babbling sound. Her writing was poetry in lyrical form. Cooney had that same poetical format and even I could appreciate it. However, Cooney was rotting granite (if you have ever come into contact with rotting rock, you know how vile it is) in the midst of a swamp of effluent. Every story set my teeth on edge. My back was completely riled. I hated this collection. I’m not going to go into specifics in this review because I don’t want to give any more of my time to even thinking about Cooney. I know nothing about her beyond the introduction by Wolfe and I want to keep it that way.

If you are curious about the book’s contents, read Bookforager’s review. She did an admirable job and I have no hesitation about recommending her review.

★★☆☆☆

From the Publisher & ToC

A swan princess hunted for her bones, a broken musician and his silver pipe, and a rat named Maurice bring justice to a town under fell enchantment. A gang of courageous kids confronts both a plague-destroyed world and an afterlife infested with clowns but robbed of laughter. In an island city, the murder of a child unites two lovers, but vengeance will part them. Only human sacrifice will save a city trapped in ice and darkness. Gold spun out of straw has a price, but not the one you expect.

Introducing C. S. E. Cooney

Life on the Sun

The Bone Swans of Amandale

Martyr’s Gem

How the Milkmaid Struck a Bargain with the Crooked One

The Big Bah-Ha

Currently Reading: Batman/Shadow: The Murder Geniuses

 

I am a fan of The Shadow. Lashaan is a huge fan of Batman. He read this way back in '19 and it caught my eye then. It has just taken a little bit of time for me to get around to it, hahahahaa. I do like that cover and you know what? The Shadow's schnozz isn't huge, amazing!

I just wanted to showcase the cover because while I like it a lot, there is no way it'll ever make the Cover Love category.

Cheers!

Monster Hunter Siege (MHI #6) 4Stars

 

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Monster Hunter Siege
Series: MHI #6
Author: Larry Correia
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Pages: 348
Words: 137K
Publish: 2017

A couple of books ago (Alpha) we were introduced to a character named Jason Lococo. He was a big ol’ brute who had a heart of gold and helped the boss of Monster Hunter International stop a werewolf invasion from taking over the United States. He got sucked into the Nightmare Dimension in Legion and was making the main character, Own Pitt, feel really guilty. So Owen sets off to rescue him and some other survivors. It snowballs into a massive multi-Hunter Company taskforce and they basically attack a Russian island with US military level power. Then Owen has to go through the gate to the Nightmare Dimension and save everyone. He has to fight off a High Hunt and he does so with Lococo’s help. He rescues the other guys and Lococo disappears. Only in the end to find out that Lococo was just a meat suit for a super demon named Asag who wants to destroy our world and that Asag needed a meat suit to get back to our dimension. Just like the Smoke Monster in LOST.

So this whole book was a longcon game by Asag, who was manipulating Owen the entire time. How cool is that?

All the fighting monsters was cool too. But I liked getting to the end and realizing that Owen, the Chosen One, was fooled like everyone else. I love this series but I don’t love Owen. Almost everybody else I enjoy reading about. But Owen, while I don’t hate him, I don’t actively enjoy him as a character at all. It’s too bad, since he IS the main character, hahahahaa.

Reading this MHI series months apart (as opposed to the years between initial releases) makes the overall big picture storyline much clearer. I can put pieces together now that I didn’t even realize were pieces back on my first read. I like that, a lot. It’s fun, it’s engaging and it is good writing. Also makes me realize that I could never BE a series writer. Not that I want to be an author mind you (I’d rather poke your eyes out than become an author), but knowing I don’t have that skillset is reassuring. No accidentally becoming an author for me! (crisis averted)

★★★★☆

From MHI.Fandom.com & Bookstooge

GO BIG OR GO HOME

When Monster Hunter International's top hunter, Owen Zastava Pitt, was given a tip about some hunters who had gone missing in action, he didn’t realize their rescue mission would snowball into the single biggest operation in MHI's history. Their men are being held prisoner in a horrific nightmare dimension, and the only way to reach them is through the radioactive ruins of a monster-infested war zone.

As if that wasn't bad enough, it's also the home base of the powerful creature behind the devastating attacks on the Last Dragon and Copper Lake. It turns out ancient gods of chaos really hate trespassers. But this god picked a fight with the wrong crew, and now MHI wants payback. Calling on their allies, a massive expedition is formed, and with the odds stacked against them, a legion of hunters goes to war.

It's D-Day at the City of Monsters.

Pitt rescues the survivors and even makes it back himself, against all odds. But just like in LOST, Asag needed a dead meat suit to escape the Nightmare Dimension and now he’s in our world, free to cause chaos and destruction to his heart’s content.

• Monster Hunter Siege (2017 Review)

• All of My “MHI” Reviews