Category Archives: Blogging

Mar12

Books I’ve Read No. 19 -fledgling 

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By Octavia E. Butler.

Loved it. I read it a little slower than most of the books that I really like. I think it is because I had not one clue what was going on at first, and some parts at the beginning are pretty disturbing! Once I understood that what I thought was horrible had a good reason for being, it was simply fascinating.

Even more fascinating is the author herself. Have a look at her Wiki page – she won so many awards and I’m sorry to see she has passed on. 

I’m sure I’ve read something of her work before, but never looked her up. This new experiment of mine, blogging about what I’ve read, is a welcome educational experience for me, too.

Mar12

Books I’ve Read No. 17 & 18 – autumn & autumn:the city

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Both by David Moody.

autumn, and autumn: the city are part of the author’s Autumn series: very loosely described as a post-apocalypse zombie series.

After reading Hater, I was excited to have a six book set to delve into. Sadly, I just don’t care for these books. I struggled through the first two, and gave up quite quickly into the third one.

It’s not the quality of his writing, not at all. It’s that I don’t care about the characters. They bore me. They keep dithering over making decisions over and over and over. No one is taking charge, and no one seems to really want to do anything to survive without whining about it for days until their choices are taken away from them by lack of action. Maybe that is the main point – but I don’t care for it. I kept thinking of ways to solve their problems much easier and faster! I don’t want to be the smartest person in a book. I want the characters to surprise me.

It doesn’t mean you won’t like the books – lots of people do! I’m not giving up on the author, as I’m still very curious as to what happens to the main character in Hater!


Mar1

The 600

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By accident, I realised that I have passed 600 followers today!

I don’t do this for fame, or massive amounts of followers, so this number is rather a surprise to me. I barely pay attention to stats these days – there are only about 20 of you who interact here consistently, and you are the ones I write for. So very happy to have you all.

Thank you very much to my 600th follower, TheLocomotingVet. Give her some love – most of us would appreciate having an actual veterinarian around online to share good advice. 

Mar1

Books I’ve Read No. 16 – Casting Shadows Everywhere

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By Tim McBain and L.T. Vargus.

These lovely people have sent me another free book! I can’t tell you how happy this makes me. Clearly I love to read, I love their genre, and free? I love love love this: more than cheese, but not more than I love the cats (have to draw a line somewhere).

I was happy enough reading this as the character are well written, the story flows, and there are zero errors or glitches that break the story line and let reality intrude. I did think it was a departure in style from the only other book I’ve read of theirs, The Scattered and the Dead 0.5. I didn’t mind, I was happy enough to enjoy the story-OH WTF JUST HAPPENED?

Definitely not disappointed. Loved it. Go get a copy! No I’m not paid, just thrilled to bits to get a free book of such quality and be able to share their brilliance.

Thank you again to Tim McBain for finding my wee blog and giving me a chance to read these wonderful books. Slainté!

Jan21

Once More Into the Breech

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I did get a tiny bit of backlash from yesterday’s post. Surprise, surprise! Woman speaks her mind online and people give her shit.

But neither of them gave me the “special snowflake” or “suck it up, buttercup” reply. One made no damn sense whatsoever so, meh. The other…called me pathetic for tearing up, and said I should brace up and stop thinking that my preferences should control the world.

Okey dokey then. This is quite similar to many pro-Trump memes I’ve seen. The ones that say ‘you lost, get over it’ or ‘deal with it’, or call us snowflakes or whiners or sore losers. 

Those posts have annoyed me, but it was only today that I started to think about why it is that they annoy me.

It bothers me because I’m a grown-ass adult and I’m not ‘throwing a temper tantrum.’ I know dammed well that things aren’t going to go my way! I learned that shit in 3rd grade. I also was unhappy with Bush Jr being elected twice. Yep, I “lost” then, too! The horror! 

Why didn’t people call me a special snowflake then? I did dislike him, yes. I didn’t trust him, yes. I felt he was a puppet, yes. But damn, I never felt about Bush like I do about Trump.

I’m not upset about “losing.” That is ridiculous. This isn’t just another damn reality TV show, it is dammed important! 

I spent a lot of time yesterday in my post, trying to list my reasons why. Personal, emotional, global.

But yet, I’m still labelled as a sore loser. 

No, honey. Again, I’m a fucking adult, finally, and I don’t whine when things ‘don’t go my way.’ I listed my reasons yesterday. But the thing is…the thing is…this is not a game. This is real. Your idea that I’m only upset because I lost speaks more about you than me. You thought it was a competition. A game. No, honey. This is no game. It’s not Risk or Monopoly, no matter how much it might feel like it to those with all the right cards.

When it is a game, I don’t give a fuck who wins or loses, as I, unlike the people spreading the sore loser idea, like the interaction and fun – yes fun! – that makes it a game.

To compare my factually backed up worries about Trump, shared by millions of others, to a game that we lost and you won not only belittles our sincere worries, but shows how very little you take the ideas and thoughts and worries of others seriously.

I wish I could condense this down into a tl:dr quote. Any help with this is welcome. I am still having trouble putting into words why this attitude is so wrong.

Jul4

Top Posts? How does WP decide are yours?

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Do you ever wonder what WordPress decides are your top posts? I do. I’ve been posting a lot lately, and that means lots of new people come along and like my most recent blogging mess. I get an email that gives little information but a name, a gravatar (seriously, what is the point of those?) and their three top posts. Usually I’ll click one of them to see what is so special, then go to the home page, scroll down a few posts looking to see if we actually DO have anything in common, then to the about (if there is one) page.

As an experiment, I tried liking my last post myself. No, I’m not a raging narcissist! I was hoping I’d get one of those emails about my own blog. No such luck!

Unless you know another method to figure out how WP decides this stuff, I propose the following: like this post, and I’ll collect the emails by a cropped screen-shot (email not included) and post all of the results in another post. Should be interesting, no?

And if anyone wants to do me the same favour, I’d be grateful – I’m so curious!