Alysa’s Comments (group member since Jun 27, 2015)

Alysa’s comments from the Nothing But Reading Challenges group.

Ack, sorry, there are only 2 vinegars. I made a mistake when transposing my handwriting to GR. Here are quotes:

"Eliza could still smell the vinegar"
"half-torn label on the vinegar bottle"

Book also has onion (84%) and oats (86%) if those are useful. Missed from my scrap-paper handwriting marginalia.
Will update previous comment too.

Finished The Book of Kindly Deaths by
11/17/2020
304 pages
[MPG Childrens; verified via audio 9hr55min]

"fish and chips" 6%
fish 4%
chips 6%
potatoes x4 : 10% (x3), 13%
potato x2 : 11%, 44%
vinegar x2 : 6% (x2)
salmon 1%
"roasting pig" 18%
bacon x4 : 5% (x3), 9%
liver x2 : 33%, 70%
rabbit x2 : 21%, 37%
squid x2 : 37% (x2)
crab 58%
beef 64%
chicken 39%
"tomato-based sauce" 5%
organic butter 5%
"brightly colored eggs" 26%
eggs x4 : 26%, 27%, 30%, 32%
wholegrain bread 5%
bread 5%
cheese x8 : 48% (x4), 72% (x4)
milk 65%
water x4 : 10%, 11%, 17%, 42%
salty water 4%
"dark water" 33%
salt 26%
sugar 27%
peppermint 26%
vanilla 70%
spices 57%
sage 26%
thyme 27%
lemon 27%
citrus 26%
seaweed 4%
turnip 44%
mushroom x2 : 44%, 80%
coffee 70%
onion 84%
oats 86%
tea x2 : 52%, 66%

A surprising amount! I stopped tracking most stuff after a while.

Round 3 completion post


The Book of Kindly Deaths by Eldritch Black

Read: 11/17/2020
Pages: 304
How it fits: “Deaths” in the title
Nouns chosen:
book (title), moonlight (precis), family (precis), children (tagged 3 times), witchery (tagged 1 time)

Can’t update the spreadsheet just now, but can come back online and do it in about an hour... spreadsheet updated

ETA:
Round #3
Adjective called: Sultry
Final noun pick: Moonlight

Welcome aboard, Susan!

No more “Swinbourne” items this round, right?
It would be those new non-food items instead, and not in addition to?

Lexi wrote: "If the pattern continues, we should aim for around 240 meals. We still need fish and chips as we are a fish and chip place and I like our fun curries. I think more coffee and tea and pasta are good..."

Desserts, drinks, and cocktails are good goals too, right? From the eligible 500+ pagers? Because they have a 1 item minimum.
There’s already been a bunch of cake in the big book I just started. I could, like, just stop tracking food in that book after I hit 12 desserts...
Kind of sounds like real life: I stop eating only after I have hit 12 desserts. 😉

Rebecca wrote: "Let’s just try to have fun, read what we want and make the most of it 😁"

That’s what happened to my team during Lava last year. By the final round, we were like, We’re not going to win, so let’s just spell out whatever words look like more fun and variety, instead of trying to spell “IN” and “ON” fifty times for more points.

I just started a 500+ pager which will take me a while to read, and I also still have that Harry Potter #5 going.
I’m about to start a 300+ pager too, which is meant for the Apples To Apples challenge and so must be finished by Wednesday afternoon. So hopefully it won’t be a DNF. It’s one of many Kindle Freebies upon which I hope not to waste too much time if they suck!

Just do whatever is the most fun! 😄
You might end up getting us a bunch of extra points for creativity anyway!

ETA: this is not inconsistent advice vis-a-vis my call to feed more people in my previous comment, since that was specifically in regards to the incomprehensible new non-ingredient bonus words. Coffee vs Curry is one thing. Coffee vs Instagram is another.

Thanks Lexi!


Yeah... there are several people I can think of who seem to routinely speed-read and/or re-read 500+ page books, so I am not surprised.

For the tiers/bonus point words thing, do we find out our score later, and that dictates our tier for Round 3? Or did we just get placed into the high tier that one time and now we are still in it?
Are we still supposed to look for Ube and such, in addition to the new Round 3 bonus words, or are the new words *instead* of Ube and such?
I might just ignore the new non-food bonus words, TBH. Even if I had a bunch of books with the word “instagram” in them or whatever, being able to use fewer actual ingredients makes for fewer meals in the long run, which means fewer customers fed.
Maybe I’m showing my political leanings (haha) but I would rather feed more people than be trending on social media. 😂

I still don't really get the thing where we're allowed to save meals for the next round, rather than just deleting books so they can't be used at all. Maybe we'll find out later if we could have done something differently with that. Something to do with "tips", but we won't actually know if we got any tips until after the fact. IDK. :/

So we have 89 Books Read, including 5 under 160 pages (2 are mine and 3 are Maddy's).

@Lexi, I'm assuming you have some sort of "What are the available ingredients in those books?" way to decide which of those 5 books to remove if/when more >160 page books are finished, but I figured I'd list mine here again in one place, for everybody's convenience:

God Save the Queen:
pumpkin, p.16
rabbit, p.71

Summer Frost:
salt 37%
roasted duck 37%
(and water, though I wasn't tracking it at the time)

So... that was supposedly the 90th book on the spreadsheet, but for some reason the total was only coming out to 89.

I checked and figured out that there was no Row #86 for some reason -- the spreadsheet went from 85 to 87 -- so I added that line.
Hopefully I didn't screw up anything. Either way, maybe others should check and make sure none of their recent books are missing.

FInished Counterclockwise
11/14/2020
194 pages

coffee x3 : 5%, 9%, 65%
sugar 65%
"a cup of tea" 46%
water 58%
chips 46%
olive x4 : 10%, 32%, 38%, 63%
sardines 45%
ginger x2 : 66%, 70%

The Hazelnut and Nutmeg above are used in the book as coffee flavorings. One idea for us is to do the same... if Hobbits ever drink flavored coffee... 🤔

Finished Sovereign
11/13/2020
314 pages

Did the best I could with pagination in Overdrive:

Coffee x4: p.48 (x2), 49, 50
Hazelnut p49
Nutmeg p49
Turkey p115
Tofurkey p115
Bread p115
Vinegar x3: p194 (x3)


I will finish my final book in the morning. It’s a 4 item book, and in case it helps plan ahead, so far it’s got coffee (x3), olive (x4), sardines, chips, tea, and water.

Can't find anything in the rules --
Are there restrictions on MPG Childrens ?

Lexi wrote: "We have 8 fish and chips without vinegar so we will happily use all 3."

Oh, okay. Rebecca said something a few comments ago about having extra vinegars. I will plan to finish mine in time but I can still hold off if anything changes.

I ended up starting a shorter book last night too (over 160) just in case too.

So I may have spoken too soon on my current book not having useable words... because I’ve just found 3 instances of vinegar!
If we can’t complete any more fish & chips meals in time for the end of Round 2, maybe I should stop reading this book for now and resume it for Round 3?

Are we supposed to mark "Swinbourne" items for levels besides the top level one that has Ube, Watermelon, and Legume?
I still don't entirely get how the tiered system works, but I noticed that Meal #6 has mushroom, for example, which is a lower-value Swinbourne item...

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

In other news, next I can either start a new 500+ book for Round 3, or I can read another short book for Round 2 (I think I can squeeze in something greater than 160 but less than 300).
@Everybody but especially @Lexi, which do you think I should do?
ETA: that would be in addition to finishing the book I'm already reading, which I still expect I'll finish in time for Round 2, though it doesn't have a ton of useable words in it.

Round #2
Adjective called: Revolutionary
Final noun pick: Romance

Spreadsheet updated :)