Reading challenge update

Mar. 1st, 2026 11:29 am
ganimede: Open book with text saying book addict (books)
[personal profile] ganimede
Dydd Gŵyl Dewi hapus!

A quick update on my progress for my reading challenge this year. My plan is to finish some of the series that I've got ongoing - I've selected 14 series with a total of 44 books. I managed to read 3 books last month which is reasonable, although only one of them was actually for the challenge. That was:

Veiled by Benedict Jacka

Unfortunately, I got a little sidetracked with a new series! Whoops. I picked up Doing Time by Jodi Taylor in the library, not realising that it was the first of a series, I thought it was a standalone novel. When I returned that book to the library, the second book was available so I thought I might as well get it while it was there... Ah well, it was a nice break and the books still count towards my annual target of books read so it's not too bad. I've currently read 7 and my target is 46 so that's going well at least!

This is what the full list of series looks like now:
  • ✔ The Wardstone Chronicles by Joseph Delaney - 1 book COMPLETED

  • The Starblade Chronicles by Joseph Delaney - 2 books

  • The Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovich - 7 books *

  • ▶ Alex Verus by Benedict Jacka - 10 books - IN PROGRESS

  • Shadow and Bone trilogy by Leigh Bardugo - 1 book

  • The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman - 1 book *

  • Gentlemen Bastard by Scott Lynch - 1 book *

  • Her Majesty The Queen Investigates by SJ Bennett - 1 book *

  • Spellcaster by Charlie N Holmberg - 1 book

  • The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman - 6 books *

  • Murder Most Unladylike by Robin Stevens - 7 books

  • The Stranger Times by C.K. McDonnell - 1 book *

  • The Locked Tomb by Tamsin Muir - 1 book *

  • The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells - 4 books *
* These series are still being written so there may be more books to come! There's a new book for The Murderbot Diaries out in May and one for Her Majesty The Queen Investigates in October.

Goal Update

Mar. 1st, 2026 10:38 am
zhelana: (Marvel - Thor)
[personal profile] zhelana
somehow or other, another month has passed, and it feels like it was just January. But here and it's March, so here's how my goals are coming along for this year


Completed

Be able to walk 1.5 miles
Be able to walk 2 miles
Finish 2025 photoshopping
Unpack green suitcase


In Progress
Goals in Progress! )

brain not braining

Feb. 28th, 2026 11:40 pm
low_delta: (tired)
[personal profile] low_delta
As I mentioned, it's been a rough few weeks. I'm exhausted. Today we went to a play, and then met a friend of Cindy's for pizza.

Before we left, I asked her what time we had to leave. She said "the play starts at 3:00." Ogod, I have to do math and estimating.

"What kind of pizza should we get?" "I don't care." "But..." "Just don't get mushrooms." Not the kind of decision I was wanting to make at that point.

Her friend was very talkative, and I was grateful since I had nothing to say. It was taking a good portion of my energy to stay attentive.

wasted time

Feb. 26th, 2026 11:07 pm
low_delta: (Default)
[personal profile] low_delta
I was supposed to get together with my friend Doug last night. He was coming up here. I was working in the office, but I had more than enough time to get home and eat supper before he arrived. He messaged me at 6:10 saying he was done eating and I could come anytime. Shit. I was supposed to go there. So I jumped in the car and got there a little before 7.

My main problem was that if I'd realized, I would have just stayed downtown after work, had dinner, worked a little overtime, and still been to his place in plenty of time. But going home, and then back past the office to get to his place, I wasted nearly an hour in the car.

And then I still had work to do, that I would get done after he left, which would have been probably around 9:30. But I didn't leave his place until almost ten. And then got stuck in traffic because the freeway closed for nighttime construction. So I logged on to work at 11:00. Only did 40 minutes.

It was all very annoying. I was looking forward to meeting Doug because I needed a break. All that extra kinda canceled out a lot of that break. I worked almost 11 hours today, and then had to take care of some CoPA stuff.

So that's how my week is going.

boring weekend stuff

Feb. 22nd, 2026 11:11 pm
low_delta: (Default)
[personal profile] low_delta
I was going to write about something this weekend but then I put it off until today so I could include the whole weekend, and now I don't know what it was.

I made pancakes for supper on Friday, and the house still smells like pancakes. I have no idea why.

I'm still sorting and shelving the LP's. I'd like to get the turntable working and listen to them all. I wonder how long that would take. I feel like we could average one a day, but I'm sure I'd get tired of it, so it would probably take twice that long. And I don't know how many are there. I think we're talking about years, and that's with skipping all the ones we have on CD and listen to all the time. This explains why we'd get tired of it - because we already have most of the good stuff on CD, so this would be a couple of years of mediocre 70's rock music.

D&D yesterday. One more session in April will close out the storyline. Not sure what will happen after that.

Today I went to Chicago to buy whisky. I had them all located at Binny's but stopped at Discount here in Milwaukee on the way (Binny's has their inventory online, and Discount doesn't), and found five of the six whiskies, and for less money. Still had to go to Chicago to pick up that last one.

While there I stopped at Delilah's for a whisky. Ended up talking with the owner for a while. He gave me his card and said to let him know the next time I was in town so he'd be in and we could chat.

bards & ballads

Feb. 22nd, 2026 08:59 pm
yamamanama: (Default)
[personal profile] yamamanama
25 days until the vernal equinox
If this is a bit rushed, it’s because there’s a blizzard approaching and I want to post before my power gets potentially carked. I'd blame Chameleon performing music from Denmark and Finland but I don't think those places get that cold anymore. So I'm going to blame artificial intelligence.

I got the usual from Cava though now they have a sumac slaw.

There's a Winteractive art exhibit that includes see-saws with goop enclosed on the bar and light-up trumpet flowers with music.


Rebecca Clarke - Dumka: Duo Concertante
Dumka means thought, introduced from a Ukranian dimuitive.
It starts out maudlin and then segues into a jaunty tune and then to shimmering and back to maudlin again.

Einojuhani Rautavaara - Ballad for harp & string quintet
The strings provide a drone for the harp.

Carl Nielsen, Wind Quintet, Op. 43
The theme and variations is introduced by a praeludium, takes Nielsen’s chorale “Min Jesus, lad min Hjerte faa en saaden Smag paa dig,” distorts it beyond recognition, first grotesque and then elegiac, and then restates it sincerely.

Antonín Dvořák, Piano Quintet No. 2 in A Major, Op. 81
In which Dvořák reconciles the Austro-German traditions with the folk music of western Slavs. There’s the intro, there’s a dumka which is melancholy but broken up with bursts of ecstasy, there’s a furiant Bohemian folk dance, there’s a polka in the finale.

I met someone named Paria, pronounced like "par-ya" and I'm not sure if it's based on the Greek locale Paros or paria meaning outcast in Italian which ultimately comes from Tamil or Malayalam or paria meaning copper or sparrow in Runa simi.
Carla, however, I know the origin of.
I told Alexis to take a picture fast or the doors will close and you'll be right carked, won't ya?

burning question: but seriously, I dodged a Shotgun Ice bullet here but can we stop scheduling things in January and February?
hamsterwoman: (Avengers/HP -- Slytherin Tony)
[personal profile] hamsterwoman
3. Diana Wynne Jones, Hexwood – I was intrigued about Hexwood since hearing that several flisters are big fans, and when I was in the UK, [personal profile] cafemassolit presented me with a beautiful UK cover copy – very forestry and mysterious – because the non-Chrestomanci DWJs are hard to find in the US. With the 8dodwj podcast getting to Hexwood in late January, and having figured out some kind of reading schedule with the sync read – what seems to work well is, I read during the BART portions of my commute, which is a solid hour+ chunk, and requires the least attention from me, because the station announcements are hard to miss, and listen to podcasts for the bus and waiting portions, which is allowing me to keep up with new podcasts and make some adequate progress on the E&J retro dive – I now actually read it. And it’s definitely unlike anything by DWJ I’ve read! Early on, when I had finished part 1 or 2 of 9, Best Chat asked which one that was, and I said, all I can say about it is that it’s a non-Chrestomanci DWJ, because I have no clue what’s going on – but neither does anyone else in this book, so that’s cool. Once I’d finished, I said, “At basically no point could I predict what was going to happen next, and this is like five or six books in one, matryoshka style except less linear. But I definitely liked it!” Which I think is a pretty good summary both of the book and my reading experience. And the rest goes under the SPOILER CUT )

And hereby I have finally read Hexwood, after talking vaguely about doing so for several years. Having done the same with Fire and Hemlock about two years ago, I should probably now pick a next target to read – I’m thinking Black Maria/Aunt Maria or Homeward Bounders probably… Although I do actually have a copy of Archer’s Goon, unlike these other two, so, sensibly, I should read THAT.

*

stuff i love

Week 3 of Stuff I Love: Top 10 Edition (hosted by [personal profile] dreamersdare here) is Music Picks.

I’m not fannish about music, and my favorite songs would be heavily weighed towards Russian and they are my favorite because of the lyrics, so that’s not going to be interesting to most of my flist. So instead, I’m doing top 10 songs that I’ve seen used in fanvids that I’ve loved. These have to be songs I actually like, and fanvids I actually like/love, which restricted this to a manageable and relatively easy to track down set.

13 fanvids to 11 songs – because I had to add some bonus ones and prime numbers are cool )

And this is not part of the above list, because I just discovered it while searching for something else and stumbling on the playlist of someone with very compatible tastes to me, but there’s a The Goes Wrong Show fanvid to “Odds Are” by the Barenaked Ladies (who have several songs I really enjoy, but I think this is the first time I’ve found one paired with a vid for something I also really like), and it was a lot of fun to revisit a bunch of my favorite disasters to such a jaunty and optimistic song.

insomnia again

Feb. 20th, 2026 12:46 am
low_delta: (tired)
[personal profile] low_delta
This week has been a mess. Work is super busy. I have a couple of big projects coming due at the same time. It's stressful not only trying to meet these deadlines, but having to work overtime. Six hours this week and seven last week. That doesn't sound like much, but it's killing this old man.

Last night I was so tired I went to be early, before midnight. I felt myself drifting off, but then I drifted back. got up and read for a while, and went back to bed at 2:00. Ended up getting just over five hours of sleep. Tonight I was falling asleep while reading, so I went to bed just a few minutes before midnight. Was wide awake by the time I got to bed.

I need to go to Chicago and pick up whisky for our tasting. I was going to do it Wednesday night, but had to work late. So I made plans for Saturday, but was reminded I have a D&D game that afternoon. Decided on Friday night, but probably shouldn't drive there on so little sleep. That leaves Sunday afternoon.
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