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

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

Just a little over a week until vacation and I am totally slipping into vacation mode already. I want to say a week because my brain thinks it's Friday but it's not. I have a couple more orders to get done at work and then my work for the year is done. I'm trying to be responsible and not start gaming until the weekend but the temptation is strong. As bad as I want to truly test out my new rig I have reading responsibilities to take care of. That and just adult things like sleep. I just want my vacation to start now so I can read and game to my hearts content.

My computer destroyed my sleep schedule last night and not in the way you would expect. After getting things more or less set up I noticed that it was 10:30-11 and I was tired so I headed to bed. My brain then kicked me out of bed at about 1:30-2ish. I was far from impressed but I wasn't tired. I'm sitting here at my computer for a bit when I look down at the time and something doesn't make sense. It's way later then I expected and my alarm hasn't gone off. Something seems off. I get poking around and my computer is set for the wrong time zone. I didn't go to bed at 10:30, I went to bed at 8:30 last night.

It's not to bad. I just have to move a couple things from my desktop on to an external hard drive to transfer them over. My new computer is all set up already for me. It's just plug everything in, turn it on, and away I go.

Meels wrote: "Do you get it today after work, Gord?"

I'm going over to the store right after work to pick it up. I then have to transfer a couple things off my old computer and then I get to set it up.

And my computer is ready for pick up. Totally not super excited and wanting to start my vacation early. Nope, not at all

With my vacation coming up I'm thinking of things I want to do while I'm off. Especially with the seasonal blues that seem to inevitably hit me at this time of year. Of course the main things on my schedule will be naps, reading, and gaming as one would expect. I'm still planning to go out for my daily walks as well. The one thing I am thinking of doing, and this is going to be tackling one of my weird hang ups, I want to go out for coffee and just hang out for an hour there reading, drinking my coffee, and relaxing. Kind of being around people while not actually being around people instead of just in my apartment alone for a month straight.

Oh... oh no... oh no no no no no no no no no no

I started The Unleashing this morning and immediately recognized the narrator. It's the same narrator that did Beaches, Bungalows & Burglaries. I recognized that nasally Southern drawl immediately and it just sounds so weird hearing this accent pronouncing viking names. It just... feels wrong on some level.

Oh I totally get why they had to contact me and how others might have overreacted if they hadn't. It just kind of made me chuckle.

Ugggggghhhhhhhhhh

I feel so close to my vacation and yet so far. I have two more weeks, ten business days, until basically a month off. I just want to settle into my schedule of nothingness but I still have to be a responsible adult.

Oh and the computer store finally got back to me. The motherboard we had originally selected was not compatible with the other parts. They had another board that was better in every way but was $10 more. I get why they had to double check if I wanted to use that one instead but at the same time I couldn't help thinking "I just dropped 4k on a this rig. Why would I care about an extra $10."

Time for that weekly update again. I know I'm a bit late but life and getting caught up in a book does that to you.

The Maltese Falcon -3 Stars
The last book I needed for my classics month and I have some conflicted feelings about this book. There is a small part of me that likes this book. There is a part of me that can appreciate what this book is and it's influence on the genre and on things that I like. That being said this is definitely a book that hasn't aged well in my opinion. Now I am aware that I am judging this book through modern eyes. The MC, the hero, the private dick, of this book is one Sam Spade and he is a POS. There is just no way to sugar coat this at all. The man trashes talks his partner the entire book. The partner that was just murdered. The partner who's wife the MC is sleeping with and stringing along with promises of love and marriage that he has no intention of fulfilling. This is the MC who treats women like crap. Well lets be honest he kind of treats everyone like crap really. The other big issue I had with this book is the mystery. I have read some basic mysteries, I've read some complex mysteries, I've read some real head scratcheres. Our MC in this book basically solves the mystery by standing in a room and yelling at people until they tell him what he wants to hear. I don't feel like there was a whole lot of real sleuthing in this book. Overall it was just alright. The full cast, while having its odd moments, really helped me get through this book.

A Half-Baked Murder -4 Stars
This book has a tag line stating that this cozy mystery is "groundbreaking" and "unlike anything out there" and not really. Don't get me wrong there is one big selling point about this book and it was intriguing enough to draw me in. Now depending on you personal views this will either be a nothing burger or scandalous. The book is about baking treats laced with cannabis. That is the big deal with this book and it's no secret either. I mean look at the cover, read the synopsis, it's all there. I think the topic is handled well. It's not glorified and it's not really downplayed to the point where it's barely even in the book. Outside of this point I'd say in many ways this is another cozy mystery with a lot of the tropes one would expect from a cozy mystery novel. A murder in a small town, MC inserts herself into the case for reasons, a love interest, people in town with secrets not related to the case, etc. Now don't get me wrong here, I think this book did a great job setting things up and there is a solid bedrock here to start a series. One early thing that really sold me on the book was that the MC went to the police immediately after something bad happened to her. There was none of the multitude of reasons that usually abound in cozies for not going to the police. A bad thing happened and immediately a police report was filed. I rather liked that. I also liked that the MC didn't have a personal connection to the police. No budding love interest, no personal connections on the force. She found something out, took it to the police for them to process. Overall I'd say this is a good start for the series and one I'll be back for more of when it's released.

-4 Stars
I was a bit shocked how good this second book was. I've reread the first one a couple of times and it's not a great start to a series. We also know where this series ends up at as well. That is why when I reread this one it was a bit shocking just how good it was. It was a solid UF and a solid mystery with little romance or sexual tension in the book. If you look at it from a larger picture knowing where things go you can kind of see some of those later pesky elements kind of lurking here. In particular that Anita is the biggest and baddest badass around but what UF doesn't have this story element to some degree. I'm feeling this tempest call to reread this series and I'm not sure I want to get sucked down this black hole.

Shadows in Death -5 Stars
This is becoming my favorite style of In Death book. The faster paced thriller kind where they already know the bad guy and it's a race to catch them. It's more In Death and I'm here for it. I also want to comment on the end of the book. Without getting into to many spoilers seeing most of the homicide team jump in a shuttle and race across the ocean to another country to nab the villain felt like it was kind of jumping the shark a wee bit. Don't get me wrong I was all onboard for it but I could hear the whole suspension of disbelief starting to crack a wee bit around the edges.

Now what is up next...

The Unleashing
I need a lot and I mean A LOT of U's for some spelling challenges and this trilogy will give me three. Plus I liked it the first time I read it and I never did finish the trilogy. Now to see if I'm alright with listening to sex scenes being read to me in public. Still very unsure how I feel about that one in general.

Outside of that I am caught up on my novels so this week I am focusing on cleaning up a bunch of manga and comics that have been building up from the library.

I was being a responsible adult today but that mask is starting to slip. Earlier today I got a call from the computer place that is building my new computer. They never left a voice message but what else would they be calling me about really. The problem is no one has called me back since and every time I've tried calling the store is busy because of black Friday and no one is answering the phone. I just need to know why you called me. That's it that's all.

It's a escape room puzzle type game. Basically you have to solve a series of puzzles to leave the room to do the same in the next room until you escape the house.

It was already shaping up to be a very slow day for me but when I get to work I discover that 2/3's of our sales team is off today including our boss. The only sales person here for our department today is the new guy. While he does have previous experience with this industry he is still learning the ropes here. Little to no work, no boss, no sales, why am I here today? I have so many books I can read at home that would be a much better use of my time.

Happy turkey day folks. Hopefully your day is full of food and great times.

Brittany wrote: "Awesome Gord!!
Anything in particular you are planning on starting?"

I actually picked up six games today. The first four Trine games, a puzzle game called Escape From Mystwood Mansion, and game called My Little Universe.

My days of playing the super focused action kind of games are long behind me. I'm more interested in chill kind of games that I can pick up and put down easily. The kind where I can game for 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, or however long I want.

That is going to require some balance honestly. It's the one reason why I stopped gaming is my focus shifted hard into just reading and everything else just kind of fell off. Plus there is nothing to say that I can't game and listen to an audiobook.

$4,300 later and I now have a new rig. It should be ready for pick up later this week, early next week some time.

The last time I upgraded my computer was 2018 and there has been a lot of tech changes since then.

I'm caving today. I haven't been gaming now for a couple plus years because my computer just hasn't been that great. Today at lunch I'm stepping out and getting an order in for a new computer built for me. I'm going from a 1060 to a 4070TI with new monitor, keyboard, and mouse. It's like an early Christmas present to myself. I've just had this growing itch to get back into gaming lately.