2018 Reading Challenge

So I missed my reading goal for 2018. I set a goal of 125 books and only read 101. That comes out to 81% of my goal. A low B. Not something I am particularly happy about. I was slightly worse in 2017 when I also set a goal of 125 and only read 97 for a 78%. A high C. So I did improve a few percentage points from last year... I am setting the same goal for 2019 of 125 books. I briefly thought of lowering my goal for this year but figured I would take one more shot at 125. Besides it is not really important if I hit my goal anyway. I purposely set it high to give me something to shoot for without worrying too much if I fall short. As always I am including comics and graphic novels. For comics I can either read the collected trade or for ones I read in individual issues I will wait until I have read what is in the trade before including it. I do hope to hit at least 72 books which comes out to 6 a month in addition to the comics and graphic novels. The plan is to update here throughout the year how my progress is going. We will see how that goal works out too...

Money and Power Still Rule...

It was announced today that Dallas Mavericks owner will make a $10 million contribution to women's organizations because of the rampant sexual harassment in his organization. The NBA will not pursue any further punishments against him. Despite that their investigation found "'a corporate culture rife with misogyny and predatory sexual behavior' that spanned decades in the Mavericks' organization." That went on for decades. Mark Cuban is a billionaire. What is $10 million to him? He will probably just write it off as an expense anyway to lower his tax bill. How is this different than the L.A. Clippers fiasco where their owner made a racist comment in private and was forced to sell his team? Are we to believe that Mark Cuban was that blind to went on in his organization? For decades? Really? But he makes a "contribution" and as far as the NBA is concerned the matter is closed? I actually thought out of all the major sports the NBA was the most aware of their social responsibilities in society and would try to do the right thing. I see I was wrong...

Lost in Space...

It has been over a year and half since my last post? Where has the time gone? Where have the posts in my head gone? Blogging is one of those things I keep meaning to do and for whatever reason I rarely get around to actually typing out a post. I would write down ideas for new posts and look at them from time to time with every intention of typing them out. Water under the bridge. Past failures does not mean I cannot get back to blogging if I really want too. Delusions of grandeur aside, I know any posts will be for myself. I do not expect others to find this blog after such a long absence and actually read my random musings. Still, it will feel good to take some of those thoughts bouncing around inside my head and write them out. Maybe it will finally give me some peace and quiet...

Lunches

Wanted to start the new year out with something good for lunch the next couple of days. Lentil and spinach soup with onions, carrots, and garlic. Yum!

Mr. Mean Green IPA

New Year?

I have been really bad posting here or on Tumblr. I just got used to using twitter. Which I really like except sometimes I do want to write something longer than 140 characters. My question is then do I post here or Tumblr? Both? Which site would be more likely for people to read it? I am not sure...

Catch up--Bitch Planet

I finished this on January 2. I have heard so much about it I had to give it a try. Wow it gets right up in your face to make its points. But it has a right to and I have no problem with that. I liked the art work, I liked the attitude, and I will check out the next volume when it gets collected. 4 out of 5 stars.

2016 Reading Goals

As usual I am late sitting down and writing this. January is almost half over already. At least I have been been reading this month. I thought about trying one of the many reading challenges I have seen on the internet. Or just coming up with my own challenge. In the end I decided to just do it like I always do and read what I like or sounds interesting. I will keep an eye on what I read and try to mix things up, but not worry too much about if I am hitting all the genres, etc.. I am putting a number on my Goodreads page for a goal. I am shooting for 100 books this year. I usually split my goal and do so many for books and so many for graphic novels. This time I figured I would combine them into one total. I don't really care how it ends up. I figure it will be at least 50 books and then the rest as graphic novels. The plan is to then blog about how things are going. I know I am not good about blogging so we will see how well that works out. I have read 6 things so far which I will try to write up in a different post or posts. Happy Reading!

Boys of Summer...

Or should I say Spring and Summer? It is baseball time again. My time of year. I am not sure when or why it started, but baseball has always been my favorite sport. Even today with both the NFL and NBA probably passing it in popularity with the younger generation I still would rather watch baseball.

One of the big criticisms of baseball is how long the games are and how slow they can be. I do not have a problem with either thing. I like the idea of a game with no clock. Everyone is always in a hurry and wants their life in short bursts before moving on to the next activity. Baseball refuses to play that game. Each team gets three outs an inning and can take as long as they can before moving to the next one. More of life should be like that.

I have never been a cold weather fan. Give me the warm weather all the time. Baseball fits in perfectly here. I love the idea of sitting outside on a warm day with a cold beer and watching or listening to a game. You will never catch me freezing outside at a football game. I never have and I never will. I will admit to some fond memories of playing football in the cold weather. That is a whole different story.

Sunday is the start of the new MLB season. The time when we all are in first place and can dream about this being the year our favorite team finally wins the World Series. My team is the Cleveland Indians. They have two World Series Championships in their history. Both Long before I was born. They have three other appearances in the series which the lost. Two of those were when I was able to watch. I still have not got over the 1997 loss in Game 7. We have a good team this year. We also are in a division with three other good teams all of which can easily win our division. We have a long way to go before we know who will end up on top. For right now we are in first place and the dream of a championship is still a possibility. Maybe this could really be our year...

Comic Catch Up

I seem to read comics in batches. I will go a time without reading any and then will binge read. The problem is I let things I want to read pile up. When I do feel like reading I have trouble deciding where to dig in and end up haphazardly reading random things. Not the best system I know. My question is should I try to be more systematic? Should I make a reading plan to try and work through my backlog?

Last American Vampire by Seth Grahame-Smith

Let me start by saying I did not read the first book so do not know how this one compares. This was a tough book for me to finish. I would get frustrated with the book and kept taking breaks from it to read other things. We meet a LOT of real life people in the book. At first it is fun to see how the characters interact with them. There does come a point where enough is enough and I just didn't enjoy it anymore. History buffs will like how the author takes real world events and puts a different spin on why they happened the way the did. Again, I hit a point where I was like really another one? This book made me realize I am not a fan of books that cover such a long time period. In this case it felt like the author was just checking off real life events and kept skimming along to get to the next one. I would have rather focused on a shorter time period and had more story.

Obligatory Post...

It's that time again. The year is almost up and I feel the need to make 2015 goals. This is where I promise to do better with such and such or make more effort to do this and that. Then I wait a year to come back and see what I did not do. Maybe this coming year will be different? Maybe I can get myself into some new routines? More unlikely things have happened! No point in wasting time worrying about what didn't happen in the past. I can't undo my lost promises. All I can do is make an honest effort to try. So, that said I will make an effort to post more. I do miss blogging. I have to give up the idea that I will be writing fascinating things the world will rush to read and instead just worry about getting thoughts written down. If anyone reads them fine. If not that is no big deal either. People were not reading them when they were stuck in my head before. No actual goals of number of posts, followers, comments, etc.. Just me hoping I can visit more often and try to write out some ideas, reviews, and whatever random thoughts comes to mind.

2014 Goals

It's that time of year where I start thinking about next years goals. 2013 was not a great one for me as far as getting things accomplished. One thing I having been thinking about is blogging again. Don't laugh! I know I have said this numerous times without actually doing it. Between posting on Twitter, Google+, and Facebook I have pretty much ignored Blogger. I do miss blogging though. There is something different to that type of writing compared to posts on other social media. 

The other thing to consider is what to blog? Do I want to keep it focused on one topic or whatever comes to mind? I know for the reader it is probably best to stay on one topic. I don't know if I could do that or not. Also, do I want to wait until January or start in December? 

Right now I am leaning on keeping the focus on 3 main topics--cooking, reading, and drinking. I may throw in the random post from time to time just to make sure I keep posting regularly. I am probably going to start in December too. Why wait? 

Room 237 and The Shining

Watching the documentary Room 237 on Netflix. I think we will have to turn it off. I can only take so many conspiracy theories in one sitting. How these people came up with these crazy hidden meanings in Stanley Kubrick's The Shining is beyond me. The final straw for me was the guy who saw hidden meanings in the movie the prove Kubrick faked the Moon landings. 

Halloween is coming...

Death Masks by Jim Butcher

Over the weekend I was able to finish Death Masks by Jim Butcher. This is book 5 in the Dresden Files which is a series I started awhile ago, but for various reasons have not kept up with. I am so glad I came back.

Picking up after Summer Knight, Harry once again finds himself in trouble when he is hired to find the Shroud of Turin. As if that was not bad enough he also is challenged to a duel by a member of the Red Court. Life is never easy for the only licensed wizard in Chicago.

The series is really hitting its stride now with this book. We are getting to know Harry more and see why he acts the way he does. We also learn more about the Knights and what Harry's flame Susan has been up to. A word of warning though--it is not advisable to start this series here. If you like this you may also enjoy the Felix Castor series from Mike Carey.

The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt

I finished this book today. Normally I am not a fan of Western books although I love Western movies. Not sure why I enjoy one style and not the other. This book though might change my mind.

Told from the viewpoint of Eli we follow him and his brother Charlie as they embark on another mission from the Commodore. The famous Sisters Brothers are cold blooded killers who do not let anything stop them from completely the job. This job though just might change everything as Eli starts to question his commitment to the Commodore and the lifestyle he leads.

For fans of Westerns and Literary Fiction.

postscript:I forgot to add that this book has also been recently long listed for the 2011 Man Booker Prize

The Price of Keeping a Sports Franchise...

I love sports. I just wanted to make that clear. What I don't love is how the public is forced to pay for the privilege of having a sports team. The Wall Street Journal had an interesting article about the high costs the residents of Hamilton County are paying for the privilege of keeping the Reds and Bengals in Cincinnati. It sure is something to think about as we listen to billionaire owners argue over money with millionaire players during the football lockout.

Let's be honest--what does the average fan get out of having a local professional football team? Bragging rights over having a home team? And if they suck then what? We always hear about how much money a sports franchise brings to a community, but what about how much they take? With public financing of new stadiums and tax breaks on revenue what do they really contribute? Sure some local restaurants and bars get extra business during the season, but does that really offset what we lose out as a whole on taxes?

Again I love sports. And love to watch to watch them. Still, at some point we have to ask ourselves at what cost is it worth to keep our teams? And are we really prepared to pay it?

Google+ for all the cool kids...

Another day another social networking site. That is what it seems like to me. After hearing a lot of buzz about Google's latest entry I had to try it out. I have to say the little I have seen of it I really like.

It feels like a cross between Facebook and Twitter with advantages and disadvantages of both. For me the idea of circles works really well. One of the things I dislike about Facebook is people sending me friend requests that I really do not want to see some of my posts. Yes, I could make changes to try and eliminate them from seeing things but Circles is so much easier. Just drag and drop people into whatever circles you like, including multiple ones, and then post items to just those people. So easy.

I am a big Twitter fan, but there are two big things I don't like about it--a limit of 140 characters and not being able to edit my tweets. Google+ eliminates both of those drawbacks. Like Twitter lists, circles does the same filtering for me to limit what I read. The only drawback so far to Google+ over Twitter is it is easier to search for subjects at the moment in Twitter. I am sure Google will soon rectify that.

I have to say that after just a couple of days of playing around with Google+ I am a fan. I thought Buzz had potential, but this can be so much more. I have never been a big fan of Facebook so I can see my dropping that quickly or at least not bothering to log in very often to see the few people I am friends with who won't transfer over to Google+.

Only time will tell how things play out. Something tells me this time Google is in it for the long haul unlike with Buzz and Google Wave. Which is fine by me...

Perks of the job...

Recently I joined a new committee at my job. It is the Reconnect With Reading Action Group. What we do is try to come up with new ways to get people reading. A nice perk is that we also get access to arcs. These are advanced reader's editions put out by the publisher for new books before actually going on sale. Part of our committee work is to read these and then give our feedback/reviews, which then are used to help decide how many copies our library system should purchase. Very cool bonus!

Today I got two new arcs to read. Eoin Colfer's Plugged and Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus. I started the latter book this afternoon. I love the opening line--"The circus arrives without warning." The whole opening section just pulls you into their world. I can't wait to see where else the story leads me...