April ’23 Roundup & Ramblings

~ Bookstooge

Raw Data:

Novels – 13 ↓

Short Stories – 0 ⭤

Manga/Graphic Novels – 4 ⭤

Comics – 7 ⭤

Average Rating – 3.25 ↓

Pages – 4049 ↓

Words – 1123K ↓

The Bad:

Captain of the Monte Cristo – 1star of pure crap

Web of Spiderman #6-9 – 2stars of drivel and bologna

The Good:

The Knight of Swords – 5stars of Eternal Champion’ness

Murder by the Book – 4.5stars of Nero Wolfe. ’nuff said

Galahad at Blandings – 4.5stars of Wodehouse succeeding at making me jovial.

Movie:

Shrek 2 was a great movie. While not quite as “deep” as the first movie, I found it to be funnier. Looking forward to talking about the third one in May.

Miscellaneous Posts:

Personal:

Mrs B was fully asymptomatic so she was back to her regular self. Working, eating, visiting, she was back. I hadn’t realized how much of a burden it was until even the shadow of her illness was gone.

We ate out a LOT this month. My mom and Mrs B were going to go to a women’s retreat at my former church one weekend but the entire staff came down with covid in about 24hrs, so it was cancelled. So mom stayed with my bro and sisterinlaw and we spent the weekend visiting a lot. We also took a young couple at church out to dinner to get to know them better. Man, it made me feel old. I’m only in my mid-40’s but they are in the early to mid-20’s and recently married and I was just laughing on the inside almost the entire time. It was great!

Part way through the month a memo went out that our hours were going to be changing to 48hrs per week. That was going to be a killer and I wasn’t sure how we were going to actually do that. Thankfully our office manager told us that the reality was our hours (field crew) were going to be staying the same and so I’m still at 40-45hrs, which is fine. That was a big relief.

On Resurrection Sunday we were invited to an Easter Dinner with a family at church. They also invited another couple. Unfortunately, the female half of the other couple tends to talk non-stop when she’s not completely comfortable, to the point of cutting other people off and not letting conversation flow. We were hoping that since she and her husband are comfortable with us (we’ve gone out to a great mexican place several times) that she’d be ok. It didn’t work out that way and our plans to get to know the host family came to naught. They nor us could get a word in edge-wise. It simply reinforced my view that people, even when you like them, are jackasses.

I did get pretty close to posting only 1 post a day for the whole month. Much better than in March. I’m proud for not going crazy again 🙂

Cover Love:

Cassilda’s Song edited by Pulver was the clear winner for the cover love this month. The tattered, yellowish robe is close to what I imagine the King in Yellow himself wears.

Plans for Next Month:

I know I have moved a lot into the visual medium a lot more than even 2 years ago. Comics, manga, MTG picture posts, I feel like my focus is shifting. I don’t know how comfortable I am with that. And I say that because I am thinking of adding a once a month post depicting some artwork. I’m still tossing that idea around in my head, so we’ll see if it happens this month or not.

Other than that, it’s business as usual. Book reviews on Tuesdays and Thursdays with the occasional but random Sunday and Saturday. Magic posts on Mondays, manga on Wednesdays and various comics on Friday. Then random stuff on random Sunday and Saturdays 😀 Routine is a great thing!

44 thoughts on “April ’23 Roundup & Ramblings”

  1. Glad that your wife is finally better man. Nothing like a sickness bringing the household down. I know I get bad too some times and it sucks just not wanting to doing anything. I think there has been a lot of changes to the way we post on our blogs with some of the WP changes, might be just my way of thinking. I have found it challenging last couple of months and I am still not feeling like i am on top of the flow of things, but I can but hope it will get better soon.

    take care.

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    1. Thanks Dave.
      Speaking of wp, I’m banned from the forums again and this time I’ve decided I won’t be hanging around. I’m done with the useless so-called “staff”.
      It just feels like wp is shooting itself in the foot with all the decisions they’ve made and are making. Jeroen mentioned in another post a place called substack. I’m waiting for more info from him on that, but it just shows that everybody is looking for alternatives now.

      Hope you and the Mrs are doing better and gotten over that bout of flu.

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  2. Have you noticed eating out has gotten more expensive? I rarely go to restaurants anymore because prices have gone up so much after Covid. Just paid nearly $30 for a sandwich and some fries a couple of weeks ago. Groceries are really expensive too, but at least that’s not too bad.

    Best to stay away from restaurants anyway because that’s where you really pack on the pounds. No way to avoid it.

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    1. Oh man, it is wicked expensive. I think the average cost per meal per person was 40? Kind of got sticker shock when the bill came 😀

      But where else can you meet people socially? If you don’t know them well, they won’t invite you to their home. And our place is to small to entertain even 2 more people. And being springtime, it’s still cold enough that you can’t go to any parks or anything. So we’re stuck with restaurants. But I think we’ve gotten it out of our system, so we should be good for a while.

      Liked by 1 person

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  3. Great cover of the month! When it comes to feeling old… I’m forty as of this year, and in my office most people are around 25, so I feel the generational difference, even as I try to stay in touch with the changing times… there is a clique of people my age, and I try stop any “young people these days” discussions, we were not in any way better when at their age, just a bit different 🙂

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    1. Yeah, I’m realizing that “generational differences” exist. No matter how much I may try to stay up on stuff (which I don’t, but IF I did), it won’t matter, so why try? But it is the reason I’m trying to interact with younger people when I can. I can at least be aware of what those differences are.

      It’s real easy to forget just how we used to be, isn’t it? Of course we were always hard working, diligent and ethical workers 😉

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      1. I see a big risk of becoming arrogant, even while trying to “understand young people” it’s important to be open minded… and not interpret every personal feature as a proof that somehow the entire generation is this or that.

        When I hear my fellow old timers, I’m often like “just shut up, guys, you sound like our parents 10 years ago” 😉

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        1. See, I have no problem with sounding like “my parents” (ie, the previous generation) because the older I get, the more I realize how right they were 😀

          But I definitely agree about the arrogance. It can be easy to slip into that condescending attitude if not careful.

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          1. Now that’s an interesting idea, I never thought like that 🙂 Do you know “Things the Grandchildren Should Now” by Eels? I love this song!

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                    1. Timeless lyrics.

                      Well, I don’t hate my parents
                      I don’t get drunk just to spite them.
                      I’ve got my own reasons to drink now
                      I think I’ll call my dad up and invite him.

                      I can’t even look at young girls anymore
                      People will think I’m some kind of pervert.
                      Adult sex is either boring or dirty
                      Young people they can get away with murder.

                      Liked by 2 people

                    8. Well, I’d say the Eels are giving us pearls of wisdom while Pursuit of Hapiness has some way to get there, but I feel their pain about some of these things 🙂

                      Liked by 1 person

  7. The story of the one woman hijacking your conversations made me think of a guy I used to work with who just didn’t have an off-switch when it came to talking. The best (worst) part was when you got a word in edge-wise and offered an opinion, he’d disagree with you and then proceed to restate your opinion as his own. Happy Mrs. B is feeling good once again. Good news indeed.

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  8. Glad Mrs. B is better. Did you guys have a run in with Covid? I’ve heard of a lot of people getting it lately. Anyway so true about the age differences!

    Ooh Moorcock… I’ve been thinking of rereading hium. It’s been a LONG time. Looks like I’ve missed some Magic posts too…

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    1. Mrs B was diagnosed with ilitus and it was left untreated for 3 months due to her specialist being a jackass.

      I like Moorcock because his stories are so short. I’m getting weary of these 600+ page tomes…

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      1. Oh no, I’m so sorry to hear that! Hope she is well going forward…

        Agree. I like how short his stuff is compared to today’s tomes… in fact the more older SF I read the more I enjoy getting a complete story in 200+ pages (and often less).

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    1. Yep, the first 3 months of this year have been hell. I’m glad that particular part is done, at least for now 😀

      thanks. I am really looking forward to getting back into my regular routine. I’ve missed it…

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  10. I’m very glad to hear you are both Genki, mate. Let’s hope we all have a wonderful year free of any medical woes.

    I will be watching Shrek 2 this week thanks to your recommendation. It has been too long since I watched it. I believe in the healing power of laughter!

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  11. Enjoy eating out while it lasts. Even if I do want to go out, there’s hardly anything I can eat at restaurants since I’m currently “summer dieting” (it’s become a yearly thing at this point, since it’s so much harder to restrict food and count calories during the winter with all the holidays and not being able to go out to do anything). And I’m glad to hear your Easter plans went well, other than the talkative woman. I would be frustrated too, though I also kind of feel bad for her situation, since from what you wrote it sounds like it might be a symptom of nerves or social anxiety?

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    1. Someone told me that a man who is well loved always carries some extra weight. So I’m just saying Mrs B loves me a lot! 😀

      Yeah, it is a nervous thing for her. But she knew both of us and the other couple. I think it’s more about not being in her own house.

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