Fantasy Buddy Reads discussion

This topic is about
The Perfect Run
Book Clubs!
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Vagabond Treehouse ~ [Fall 2025: World of Chains #1-3 (Wayward Bard) | The Perfect Run 1-3 (alternating)]
what's the thing that looks like a cinnamon cookie with the rice?... I get the vague idea of the rest...
Happy Thanksgiving...
I just had regular food... my oven is on the fritz and waiting for new heating element... wasn't planning on Thanksgiving Feast anyway... have vague plans of mashed potato feast next week... just with chicken nuggets tho, no roasting...
Happy Thanksgiving...
I just had regular food... my oven is on the fritz and waiting for new heating element... wasn't planning on Thanksgiving Feast anyway... have vague plans of mashed potato feast next week... just with chicken nuggets tho, no roasting...
Ya know... people must think I just sit at my PC all day refreshing waiting for comments... or use mobile notifications... as often as I seem to respond in 3-5 minutes after a new post...
When in reality, unless I'm doing alot of Buddy Read commenting or review writing, I just hit the notification page refresh button on my browser like once an hour...
:D
(I've responded in under 5 minutes to every comment I've seen in my notification feed today)
When in reality, unless I'm doing alot of Buddy Read commenting or review writing, I just hit the notification page refresh button on my browser like once an hour...
:D
(I've responded in under 5 minutes to every comment I've seen in my notification feed today)

Rice & Garlic Butter Naan
My experiment was baking pork chops, chicken thighs and beef in a pan. Each were seasoned differently and I did a mix of covered & uncovered to make it all tender.

I'm working today, but will probably stop by my mom's afterwards for some dinner :>

Audible seems to have reverted their terrible UI change... at least it's been the old UI for the past 2 days for me, which is great, with the Black Friday sale approaching, and Whispersync pricing visible again...
I don't think the Black Friday sale starts until Cyber Monday... could be wrong... but last year I bought most of my books on the 28th, and Thanksgiving was on the 23rd
I was super tempted to complain about the new Audible UI... but given how little GR cared about opinions when they change things, I wasn't sure it'd matter...
I feel like "vote with your wallet" might have had more impact... and maybe they made the UI changes to hide Whispersync on purpose, hoping people would use more credits/etc, and what happened was people just bought less in the weeks since the change, so they reverted...


A nice even number. I never bothered to put my whole personal library on here. Just added books/series as read as I came across them. 🤗

Did a memory deep dive and estimated how much I've probably read in my life.
🧐🤯🤓
Between the various phases of reading I've had my whole life and getting older, 😆 I think I can safely say I've read 10k books or close to it. Especially if re-reads count.
10k!
I've probably read somewhere near 5k... around 4k in the last 11 years, and probably 1k undocumented as a kid, reading long short book series like Animorphs & Babysitter's Club and Encyclopedia Brown & Boxcar Children & Hardy Boys... before I migrated to adult books and read less total books but similar pages... and whatever else I'm forgetting... 5-6k max... I can easily see myself breaking 10k in another 10 years tho...
I turn 38 in a few months...
I turn 38 in a few months...

Kinda cool to think about. It's one of those rarely hit milestones.
Regardless of the number, I think it's grand to feel that I have read many good stories in my life and will read more in future.
📚📚📚🎶🎵🎶📚📚📚
My ability to read more astounds me sometimes... breaking 200k pages in a year was my personal milestone last year, and I did it earlier this week already this year... since I listen to alot of stuff at 3.5x speed now... fast as Audible can go...

CDrama called Love Game in Eastern Fantasy on Netflix.
It's so good! Girl gets transmigrated into the novel she just read & bashed. It was the latest release by her fav author. Miaomiao was all upset and ranting like what kind of main characters are these?!?!
Great adventure story with well placed humor. Think like Cradle or Threadbare.

Something about that image makes me think the cup is full of butter in water... or vanilla ice cream :D
Google sheets is bugging out on me hard, turning vertical cell borders into thick dark lines sporadically, especially if the cells have data in them… sent a bug report… changing zoom and stuff fixes for a few seconds…
Got curious, and of course it works fine in Chrome... bugging in Firefox and maybe other non-Chromium-based browsers...

So, I am now in my new rental. The place that should potentially be home for a few years.
There are a few issues, but I decided that I'm going to put the hard work in to make it work. Every time I move into a new place, I do a deep clean. So that's gonna happen no matter where I end up going. Doesn't matter if I don't feel well, etc. Going to take it kind of slow and clean one section at a timd. Just need to remember to take more breaks.
Maybe I'll be able to get some audiobooks in. 🤔😆
It's been mostly music to keep different moods going as I pack, move, clean clean omg what is that clean.
I started Daily Grind 5... sounds like it's Spring 2020 in the DGverse... MC has just been made aware he's been neglecting the real world for too long, and the School Dungeon is being shutdown because of the pandemic, and immediately starts brainstorming ideas to solve Covid with Dungeon Tech... because that's the level of escalation the story has reached now, with guild members specializing, R&D all over the place, and a company podcast to disperse info...
Few chapters later and one of the side characters is espousing Simulation Theory (that we/they are living in a simulation), and that's why there's no records of magic dungeons changing real world events in the history books (even the redacted ones from the 90 year shadow organization they dismantled in the previous book)
20% in, and the School Dungeon doesn't seem to like that the school is gonna shutdown because of Covid?... started expanding, police assume it's an Active Shooter event, MCs show up to help and keep pretending to be FBI wizards...
3rd character just got a profession/skill training book from the dungeon... Sex Ed... they're NOT amused... but I cackled... even if this whole thing feels like an episode of Dr. Who...
3rd character just got a profession/skill training book from the dungeon... Sex Ed... they're NOT amused... but I cackled... even if this whole thing feels like an episode of Dr. Who...
I also just enjoy spoiler discussing these books, since Soo has little interest in continuing past book 1, and who knows when anyone else will have time to tag along :D
Things got hectic... encountered an OP entity, lost 2 months of time recovering, and things are just chugging along with plans and stuff...
SHIT... I wasn't prepared for that ending... the baddie organization (Status Quo) recruited mobsters for revenge and attacked the good guy HQ... and it was rough... tons of people died, side characters and pretty main characters... not sure how many, if any, can return, thanks to lingering clone/software tech and being thoughtforms/infomorphs...
Now I gotta wait for book 6 to come out to find out... just the epilogue to finish...
Now I gotta wait for book 6 to come out to find out... just the epilogue to finish...
And it looks like it's gone forever... hard to bring something back that you no longer remember existing...
Also, I keep forgetting how much more content exists on Royal Road... first 5 audiobooks cover the first 129 chapters and 2 books on Royal Road... there are 297 chapters on Royal Road, and counting... 6 years of weekly chapters...
Also, I keep forgetting how much more content exists on Royal Road... first 5 audiobooks cover the first 129 chapters and 2 books on Royal Road... there are 297 chapters on Royal Road, and counting... 6 years of weekly chapters...
At least the book can still make me laugh after tragedy, in the epilogue... one of the characters had a teleporter malfunction and is in Florida with amnesia... and just found out about her dungeon-enhanced body when a convenience store robber shot her and the bullet didn't penetrate... bystanders aren't buying the "ow" response LOL...
SECRET LIVES... woo... looks like it was severely injured and ends up under a little girl's bed whose afraid of monsters in the closet and under the bed, but they bond and he becomes her imaginary friend or Secret/Hidden (gets renamed, which is why I couldn't find it before with my word search)... not sure if it ever gains prominence in the story again, but at least it lingers on the sidelines of the plot...
Epilogue also set up more government surveillance and threats for the future... these MCs need to hurry up and escalate their plans to become a Google-like megacorp, for safety and self-sufficiency and the betterment of humanity...
Epilogue also set up more government surveillance and threats for the future... these MCs need to hurry up and escalate their plans to become a Google-like megacorp, for safety and self-sufficiency and the betterment of humanity...

Ya make it funny & thrilling! Yay for more summaries!
Updated my Incomplete Series spreadsheet with 50 new series I started this year:
Last Year:

Today:

Finished 1/3 as much as I started, planning to catch up on a few more this month, and continue with most of the rest well into next year...
Last Year:

Today:

Finished 1/3 as much as I started, planning to catch up on a few more this month, and continue with most of the rest well into next year...

🤭🫠🙃
Took some fun shots of the moon when I went out for groceries.

My spreadsheet started out as a Incromplete Series Tracker thread in this group, as other do, but quickly got out of hand with my reading... much easier to edit a spreadsheet... altho it took me several iterations to give it all the nice helper functions that make it easier for me to maintain... even has conditional formatting to highlight when I accidentally add a series that's already listed, which helps having so many series on there already...
I used to maintain it more often, but now I basically just update it in December by cross-referencing my Competition Spreadsheet for book info...
The bigger project is then going through and checking all the series for new release news for the coming year... good resource for that, since I include series links to everything...

Larger example image with my main classifications and coloring...
Limbo is for series I've paused on reading or the author is slow to add audio, mostly... Finished series are a darker green... just noticed I didn't include any of those... and duplicate entries are blue in the first column
I used to maintain it more often, but now I basically just update it in December by cross-referencing my Competition Spreadsheet for book info...
The bigger project is then going through and checking all the series for new release news for the coming year... good resource for that, since I include series links to everything...

Larger example image with my main classifications and coloring...
Limbo is for series I've paused on reading or the author is slow to add audio, mostly... Finished series are a darker green... just noticed I didn't include any of those... and duplicate entries are blue in the first column
Books mentioned in this topic
The Perfect Run (other topics)Beware of Chicken 5: A Xianxia Cultivation Novel (other topics)
The Wayward Bard (other topics)
Beware of Chicken 5: A Xianxia Cultivation Novel (other topics)
The Wayward Bard (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Nathan Lowell (other topics)Nathan Lowell (other topics)
Nina Bangs (other topics)
You can always put double sided velcro on the piece to get it to stay in place and you can remove to fix the next time."
I agree... also... recliners are kind of my go-to chair, and anything to extend the lifespan... until something snaps off I can't repair (yet)... max out my profession skill and I can just start building my own recliners :D... it's mostly just wood, padding, leather cover, and some metal parts to do all the folding... from what I've seen of the insides and some youtube videos...
Great idea on the velcro btw...