Gord’s Comments (group member since Apr 06, 2017)

Gord’s comments from the Vampires, Weres and Fae! group.

Well that was a sweet little cozy experience. I decided to check out a game called Assemble With Care that I found thanks to Reddit and it was an experience. I hesitate to call it a game as I feel like it was closer to a visual novel experience I think. Basically there were fourteen chapters and each chapter was presented to you in a slideshow format. You would get some story, tinker with the item needing repairs (this was the game play part), and then some more story. It was short, sweet and an interesting experience. Not sure how much gaming I'll get to over the next few days as I have season one of Warehosue 13 to work through but my next game is the behemoth of Power Wash Simulator.

I guess I went a little silent after my vacation started, apologies for that. I have been "busy" very, very, "busy" with a packed schedule of eating, napping, and reading. Sprinkle some video games and movies in there and that has been my life for the last week. Honestly, it has been very relaxing and I'm feeling pretty good. I've been going out every day for a 6km/3.75 mile walk. Some days it has just been a walk, other times I've gone to the library, out for coffee, or out to eat. I think the best part is that I have not had any bouts of seasonal blues that I normally get at this time of year. Between my birthday and the holidays I usually end up feeling off at least once or twice but nothing yet. I'd like to say that I haven't thought about work but that wouldn't be true. What I can say though is that those thoughts are very fleeting. More the "it's Sunday evening, what am I doing at work tomorrow" kind of thoughts. Any way, back to my very "busy" schedule as I want to finish this volume of manga so I can return it to the library this afternoon.

I think this is the first year where I didn't complete everything. I completed the scavenger hunt somehow. For the alphabet one I got everything except for Q and X. For the 50 states I got everything except for North Dakota and Indiana. I swear I got Indiana but I think I forgot to record it. For the challenge I still have three left that I never got to. I don't know, this year I just didn't read as much and I was trying to find that balance between my own reads and trying to clean up some of my long outstanding challenges in other groups. Now on that front I made some pretty nice progress and knocked out several of the large old ones I had floating around. I still have more to do and that will continues to be my goal for next year.

I watched John Wick 4 this morning and that was an interesting movie. I liked it better than the third movie but holy crap was that a long movie. I think that might be the longest movie I've ever watched in one sitting.

Time for a random update. I'm on vacation and my only plans involve reading as much as possible. As a result my updates will be a bit random for the next 2-3 weeks.

The Last Action Heroes: The Triumphs, Flops, and Feuds of Hollywood's Kings of Carnage -3 Stars
I saw this in the list of books that the library had on order and I wanted to give it a read. I grew up in the 80's and 90's on this action movies so I was interested what behind the scenes kind of things I could find out. Overall this book wasn't that bad but by the end I was looking forward to it finally being done. It kind of felt like it overstayed its welcome a little bit. This focused on eight big stars of the 80's and 90's with that being Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Chuck Norris, Jackie Chan, Dolph Lundgren, Steven Seagal, Jean-Claude Van Damme, and Bruce Willis. Most of the focus of the book seemed to be on Arnie and Stallone though with small detours for the other actors. The other thing I noticed is that the book never really dug that deep into anything. It gave a bunch of surface level details on a certain topic before moving onto the next thing. It hinted at a few scandals for the stars but again just never really went into a lot of details. I think that's why I was glad it was over by the end. I wanted a little bit more depth and I just wasn't getting it. That being said I did learn a few little interesting tidbits along the way. I think the one star I wanted to know more about was Jackie Chan and it felt like the book really overlooked a lot of his stuff.

In Another World With My Smartphone: Volume 9 -3 Stars
The next book in this popcorn series. I feel like this book actually moved a few different plot points along while giving us hints on some of the bigger plot points in the series. Again, it's not high literature but it's a fun popcorn read.

Dark Frost -4 Stars
I feel like I might have been a bit harsh on this series the first time I read it. I've been bumping up my ratings as I've been reading through these. They are not five star reads by any means but they are fun. This one here continues the story with Reapers and Loki, the love story between Gwen and Logan. As I've said before Estep is great at writing popcorn reads and that is exactly what this is.

Mall Goth -3 Stars
I have some mixed feelings about this book. I am not the core demographic for this book and while that is not something I normally worry about a lot, I think the core demographic would get more from this book then I do. The MC is a young 15 year old bisexual girl trying to figure out, well, life. She is dealing with a lot in her life. She moves to a new small town with her mom, her parents are having issues at home, she is struggling with her sexuality and finding acceptance, she is struggling with dating. Oh and one other thing, her English teacher at school is flirting with her. This last plot point shifts it from what I would call regular teenage angst and exploration into something much, much heavier. The "dating" plot point also deals with some heavier issues as the there is lying and exploitation involved. I don't know, I think this book was just a lot heavier than I anticipated and just not written for someone like me. Maybe someone in similar spot in their life would get a lot more from this book then I ever would.

They Called Us Enemy -4 Stars
A solid read about George Takei's first hand experience in the Japanese internment camps of WWII and how that shaped his life afterwards. Just a very interesting and emotional read about something that I don't think is talked about much. Either in the US or here in Canada.

Are You Lost?, Vol. 2 -3 Stars
Are You Lost?, Vol. 3 -3 Stars
Now that The Last Action Heroes and They Called Us Enemy are done my reading schedule is full of nothing but fluff and fun. That includes these two books. Like I mentioned last time these books are about four girls lost on deserted island trying to stay alive. This is some more peak popcorn reading that I want right now.

What is next?

You Sexy Thing
This is the audiobook that I am listening to on my walks right now and so far I have some mixed feelings. I'm a little over half way into this book and I feel like I'm just marking time until something exciting happens. I think part of my problem is just my own expectations. For what ever reason I went into this expecting something like Kings of the Wyld. The old folks in a job where you normally die young being dragged out of retirement kind of trope. I feel like we are a step or two from getting that and the book is just spinning me along. I just want things to finally kick off and give me what I want.

Outside of that I am just going to keep working through my stack of library books.

I finished up Escape from Mystwood Mansion this morning and that was a pretty good game. A nice balance of puzzles that were easy and those that really stretched the old grey matter a wee bit. I'm looking at doing a second play through for some achievement points but I might play something else before I do that.

This, this was a week of reading for me and I'm going to have more going forward. Lets just get into what I read this week.

Eaters of the Dead -3 Stars
The big thing I wanted to work on this week was my genre challenge for the month and this months genre was Historical Fiction which lead me to this book. I had to pick a book from a Listopia list and this was the first one that wasn't an 800 page super serious drama piece. This lead me to discover a whole bunch of things about this book that had some nostalgic ties for me. This book was the basis for the movie called The 13th Warrior starring Antonio Banderas that I rather enjoyed from way back in the day. I also discovered that the book was written on a bet to see if the author could make Beowulf interesting. Which leads me back to the book.

This book was meh at best. It's a style that I don't really see any more and I think that is for good reason. This book tries to blend historical fact and just plain fiction. To do this the book opens on a history lesson on who the MC is in actual history. Then throughout the book there are a ton of little notes as to historical context of this and that. These would have been at the bottom of the page in the original novel but for my ebook they were at the end of the chapter. This kind of layout disrupts the flow of reading in my opinion. You read a bit, pause, track down the note, read the context, find your spot again, continue reading until the next note. It takes the reader out the flow of the story and I don't really like it. I remember seeing this kind of thing a lot when I was growing up. The story itself is kind of meh and I found a lot of repetition in the story itself. I was constantly reminded of the sexual practices of the Vikings for some reason and it got a bit tiring. I really, really don't need to be reminded constantly about them openly taking a slave when ever they liked. Between the repetition, the constant history lessons, there is not a whole lot of book left for actual story and it shows. It's not a horrible book but it's not a great book either.

In Another World With My Smartphone: Volume 8 -3 Stars
My first of many fluffy popcorn books this month. This book is far from anything even remotely considered great literature and I'm fine with that. Sometimes you just need a fun read to turn your brain off and sink into.

The Curse of the Pharaohs -4 Stars
Reference above note about historical fiction. I had some reservations heading into this second book. I saw some reviews stating that it just wasn't as good as the first and other issues and I can happily say that is not an issue in my opinion. This takes place some five or six years after the first one. Amelia and Radcliffe are married, they have a child now, and have withdrawn from doing digs to raise their young son. A new dig comes up and they are once again lured back to Egypt leaving their son in England for the winter. While in Egypt they deal with opening a tomb and solving a murder mystery. This was good mystery that kept me guessing up to nearly the end and did a great job with its red herrings. What really sold me on this book though was the MC and her relationship with her husband, Radcliffe. These two are going down onto my favorite couples list. Both are incredibly smart, headstrong, and competitive individuals that just work well together. While they are always trying to one up the other they also have each others backs when it counts. It's just so different then the usual Victorian era man dominate, woman submissive kind of relationship you might normally see. These two are a riot together and it just makes reading about them so much fun. Also, sex. These two are frisky as hell but the book handles it very well. There are no explicit sex scenes in the entire book but there are numerous, and I do mean numerous, hints and implications that these two have a very active sex life.

Now for the comics and manga

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Part 2—Battle Tendency, Vol. 2 -4 Stars
Again, see above note about Historical Fiction. This book is just pure fun. These super buff handsome men battling with each other using essentially super model poses is just weird and yet somehow engaging. There are very real stakes to these battles and I am here for all of it.

How Heavy are the Dumbbells You Lift? Vol. 5 -3 Stars
How Heavy are the Dumbbells You Lift? Vol. 6 -3 Stars
I think these two books are a great example of why I'm just not the biggest fan of pure gag manga. I was ready to drop this series but there was a hook at the end of volume four that made me want to read on. It was the silly idea of a punching strength contest and knowing Hibiki's hidden talent I had to see how it played out. This contest only took a few pages and then we are moving on. Another interesting idea and we are already moving on. It just feels like this series is ricocheting from one idea to the next without ever actually exploring anything. I'm not expecting the deepest exploration in a gag manga but I'd like to see more than a page or two on some of these ideas. I'm done with this series and ready to move on.

Call of the Night, Vol. 1 -3 Stars
Call of the Night, Vol. 2 -3 Stars
I was curious about this series as I've heard rumbles here and there about it. I don't know if it was the mood I was in or what but man I just wasn't feeling this. The basic premise of this series is we have a 14 year old boy who suffers from insomnia. He goes out at night and discovers the joy of the world late at night. The silence, the openness, it's just a different world. Along the way he meets a female vampire and a friendship starts. Alright, I can appreciate the idea of it being a different world late at night. For myself I'm an extremely early morning person (I'm awake any time between 2 and 4 AM) and I can agree with that idea. The world is slower, quieter, and just has a peaceful feel to it. What doesn't work for me though is all the emotional stuff and the relationship between the two of them. The MMC want's to become a vampire to get away from all his problems. By being a vampire he can embrace this night life and leave all his problems behind. It's not just a simple bite though. He has to be in love with the vampire before that bite can change him. Until then it's just something physical. For me, this felt like a veiled message for sex especially with several of the conversations that took place in the second volume. This makes the age dynamics of this a little weird. It never states how old the FMC is but she is older than the MMC. While in some ways she is still rather immature in many ways she feels not only much more mature but straight up manipulative of this young boy. I know that there are all sorts of "odd" relationships in anime/manga. Some of it works and some of it doesn't. For me this is one that just doesn't. Maybe I wouldn't be as weirded out if the MMC was even 2-3 years older. Regardless, I'm done with this series and ready to find something else.

The Boxer, Vol. 4 -4 Stars
I finally got the fourth book in the series and I just devoured it. I have no idea what it is about this series but it just pulls me in hard. I'm not really a fan of boxing or combat sports in general. About the only combat sport I watch is sumo. This book just does a great job capturing the training, the fights, the feel of everything. The fight in the beginning between Jean and our MC where Jean just stops seeing his opponent as even human. He is just this monster in the ring with him that is far beyond his skills. The debut fight in the second half that just has you on the edge of your seat while reading it. These books go by way to quickly and it's way to long until the next one is published.

As for what is next, I'm not really sure. I have basically a month off work and nothing but time to read. I need to find my next audiobook today for my daily walks and I'm debating between a challenge book and more fluff. Outside of that I started last night which is an exploration into the action hero stars of the 80's. So far we have mainly focused on Stallone and Schwarzenegger but it looks like the book will touch on Chuck Norris, Steven Seagal, Jackie Chan, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Bruce Willis, and Dolph Lundgren. I spent a lot of time watching these men when I was growing up and it's kind of interesting getting a chance to peer behind the curtains a bit.

I'm now basically on vacation. All my work is done, all my paperwork is squared away, I've passed everything off to my coworker that I need to, my work bench is clean and my tools are all put away. I just have to spend the next 2.5 hours at my work desk "working" super hard.

Oh man I'm rather excited this morning and maybe a little nervous. I mean this is probably the most time off I've had in a long time. I've got a couple movies, fifteen or so books, some video games, and nothing but time after today. I have a few reading plans as well. Catching up on things I haven't read, some challenge stuff, etc.

I was so, so, close to getting everything today but someone had other plans. One of the things that I had to build today, that should have been super simple, is not working properly. Now I'm trying to get help from the other side of the country to see if I can get it working properly. This will be done tomorrow though. Either I get the help and fix it or I swap it with another part. Either way this will be done and my vacation is starting.

This has been an odd week of reading with some absolute bizarre tonal shifts. I'm juggling three different books this week. I've got my at home reading, my at work reading, and my out walking reading and they are all historical fiction. I'll go from reading JoJo's Bizarre Adventure which is set in late 30's Italy with handsome muscle bound men fighting other handsome muscle bound men. I'll then shift to my audiobook which is a cozy mystery set in the 1890's in Egypt with a prim and proper English women as the MC. Once I get to work I'll then shift to a historical fiction set in 920's with vikings fighting monsters that come out of the mist.

Talk about a dilemma. Outside of some paperwork I was basically done all my work before my holidays. I've been milking things shall we say and have got in some nice bonus reading this week. Then this afternoon an order dropped. It's an easy order but it's the perfect dilemma for me. It can't ship until the new year so I can either do it this week before I leave or on my two days between Christmas and the New Year. I could leave it for my coworker but this is one of those orders that falls more into my area of expertise. We can both do any order that comes into our shop but we both have things that we just do more often and have essentially specialized in. As much as I want to cruise into my vacation I'm thinking I should get this done tomorrow.

Congrats and good luck! It sounds kind of scary but maybe it could lead to something amazing.

The final stretch. 40 hour work week, 1.5 work at best, no boss at all. This is going to be a long week but I should be able to get a bunch of reading in this week.

Time for that weekly update and there is not a lot to talk about. There were a lot of distractions this week with a new computer, my sleep schedule going out the window (not related to the computer), etc that I just didn't get much reading done.

The Unleashing -4 Stars
So as I mentioned last week I am on the hunt for some more U's which led me back to this trilogy. This book was just as fun as the first time I read it. The whole mixing of Norse mythology with basically LA culture makes for an interesting read. I can't wait for the next book and actually finishing this trilogy this time.

Now for a couple points that are about the book but not the story itself. First, I really am not a fan of romance covers. They really seem to do a horrible job of matching the character description in the book. For either this cover or the one with the guy in the hoodie it's these pretty boys on the cover but the description of Vig in the books is hard stereotypical viking who terrifies most people with just his presence. I'm picture this man mountain with a long bushy beard and even longer hair. Instead the cover has this guy with styled haired and a neatly trimmed beard. Who is that? It doesn't match the description of anyone in the book. The second thing is the narrator choice for this novel. I don't think she is a bad narrator and in the right book she is perfectly fine. I'm just not sure about having her as a narrator for this book. I recognized her from another book I read and she has this kind of nasally Southern accent which just doesn't work when trying to pronounce Norse names. It just sounds... weird... wrong... just not right. For the most part it isn't to bad as the Crows are this hodge podge of everyone. It's scenes with people like Vig. Again, Vig, he is a massive burly Swedish viking who I picture still having his accent because that would be important to him. I swear there are times where she is trying to pull off an accent but it's this "Norse" accent filtered through this Southern filter and it's just... weird. It's not enough to put me off the book or anything but it's definitely strange.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The IDW Collection, Volume 11 -4 Stars
I'm still very much enjoying this series but there is a part of me that is a bit puzzled with the overall direction of things. In the beginning of this collection it was easily recognizable as the Turtles that I remember from when I was a kid. Now a lot of those story elements are resolved and we are moving on to new story lines and the story feels a bit odd. Right now a good chunk is firmly buried in sci-fi elements. Aliens, other dimensions, invasions of earth, etc. Then in the middle of the earth invasion story line it hard pivots back into the story line about immortal beings and magic and it just feels out of place. Like the stories weren't blended well together. Part of the problem could be that these collections are pulling from 2-3 different series to make one story and instead of one writer with their own ideas it's a collection of writers all with there own inputs. Again it's not bad and I'm still enjoying the story line but I'm kind of wondering where things are going.

Are You Lost?, Vol. 1 -3 Stars
I was bored at work and browsing the new releases on Hoopla and saw that they had acquired the official translation of this series which was a favorite of mine from a few years back. It's one of those books that falls into the Cute Girls Doing Cute Things genre mixed with elements of ecchi and comedy. It's about four girls who were are involved with a plane crash and wash up on a deserted island. Three of those girls are your normal average school girls. Then there is Homare. She has been trained by her father to survive in any environment is a walking SAS Survival Guide. Without this one character the other three girls would have been dead a long time ago. This series is just a popcorn read and I love it for that.

The Nightmare Brigade #1: The Case of The Girl from Deja Vu -4 Stars
This was a random snag from the library and it's an odd one. You have a father who is running some sort of experiments on dreams and sleep. He has discovered that people can enter others dreams but only children. Adults seem to be detected as soon as they enter the dreams of others. As a result he uses his son and his adopted son to enter the nightmares of others to try to help them find resolution. There is a lot more involved with the story and there are hints of much, much darker elements at play. I'm really curious about what this story is doing and I want the second volume.

Now, what is next

The Curse of the Pharaohs
My next audiobook and one I need for a few different challenges.

For things that are not audiobook related I'm just going to keep working on this stack of comics and manga from the library.

For the most part I love computers but there are moments where I loathe them. They make me feel stupid and just won't work. I spent about two hours this morning trying to figure out why things weren't working. I finally figured out how to find the solution, found the solution, changed one stupid setting, and now everything works properly. Now to undo the carnage that I caused on my computer trying to make things right.

I know of only one Gollum game that came out this year and that was an absolute flop. The game was horrid from what I have heard and panned by basically everyone. Are we talking about the Gollum game from Daedalic Entertainment?

Time for that monthly update. Overall it was just another average month for me. I walked 167 km or 104 miles which brings my yearly total to 1,724 kms or 1,071 miles. I know I walk a fair bit but this month it's kind of settling in just how much walking I do.

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Have I mentioned it yet? Have I mentioned how excited I am for it?

Man that was a mistake. I went to my favorite sandwich place today to get my usual and they didn't have it. I just got a straight veggie sandwich instead and decided to spice it up with spicy mustard. Normally I get regular mustard but I have dabbled in spicy mustard before with no issues. This was this pale yellow unassuming condiment of pain and death. I have dabbled in various spicy things over my life and I've never had such a painful experience as that. I can only describe it as this super intense stabbing pain in my tongue. It was not a normal hot pepper burn either which was good and bad. Bad, was the intensity of it but the good was that it was a short lived burn.