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Review: Yumi and the Nightmare Painter
Yumi and the Nightmare Painter by Brandon Sanderson My rating: 4 of 5 stars On the Cosmere subreddit there’s always a debate on how the eventual Cosmere films should be made. Some of us think it would work best as an anime. There are certain things like the Mistborn jumping around that might look better…
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Repainting the Master Bath
The basement bathroom needed some new paint and repairs for reasons I’ll get into in another post. But it got Danielle in a renovation mindset. So she decided to paint the master bathroom. And, in the course of examining the bathroom she found out that the vanity lighting was rusting and needed replacement. So we…
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My Reading Life in 2023
By the end of 2023 I had 3049 ebooks and magazines (a change of 256 – pretty even with last year). Of those, 2434 were unread. Some chunk of those – maybe as much as ¼ were giveaways like Raspberry Pi Magazine, HackSpace Magazine, and Tor.com book club freebies. I stopped getting the monthly free…
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Review: The Sunlit Man
The Sunlit Man by Brandon Sanderson My rating: 4 of 5 stars The Year of Sanderson is over (book-wise anyway). This book is the most Cosmere book of the year. Both Tress of the Emerald Sea and Yumi and the Nightmare Painter were basically standalone stories that happened to have Hoid in them. The ending…
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Review: Changes
Changes by Jim Butcher My rating: 4 of 5 stars Changes, the title promises us, and changes we do get. As I was reading the story, I told my wife, I think this is the close of another grand story arc. She’s at about book 6, which I considered the be the first arc where…
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Review: Beneath the Sugar Sky
Beneath the Sugar Sky by Seanan McGuire My rating: 4 of 5 stars This book continues the story from book 1, not book 2. (Which makes sense since Down Among the Sticks and Bones was a prequel) We’re introduced to some new characters and get a little more background on some of the others. I…
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Review: Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 105, February 2019
Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 105, February 2019 by John Joseph Adams My rating: 4 of 5 stars Here are my reviews per story: SCIENCE FICTIONLife Sentence (Matthew Baker) – This story’s a real doozy. It’s about a potentially different way to handle criminal punishment. Because this is a well-written story, it’s not simple to decide which…
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Review: Rave Master Vol 10
Rave Master, Vol. 10 by Hiro MashimaMy rating: 3 of 5 stars At the end of Volume 9 I had no idea where Mashima could take the story. It seemed he had painted himself into a corner, perhaps not knowing if he’d get to go past volume 9. He expands the story by making all…
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Adding Art to the Mundane
I saw this when I was doing a boardwalk run this summer. I’d been visiting Coney Island for nearly 20 years at this point, but the recent revitalization has been impressive to see. That includes ideas like this art that bring happiness and joy even when Nathan’s is closed.
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Looking back at a Year of COVID-19
It seems that it’s time to look back at a year of COVID-19. Scalzi did it. Ars Technica did it. I’m not usually a huge bandwagon jumper, but I thought, “why not?” This has been a huge, disruptive event. It might be therapeutic to write about it. It was 11 March (I believe) when the…
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2020 Video Games and 2020 Game of the Year
Because the pandemic left me at home for a couple months, this year I played about double the amount of games from my previous record. You can watch the video below or read the text below that to find out what I thought of the games I played this year and which game I named…
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Review: Ancillary Sword
Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie My rating: 5 of 5 stars I’m a huge world-building junkie. It’s one of the reasons I love science fiction and fantasy. And, as I realized while writing the previous sentence, it’s also why I love history non-fiction books and podcasts. I love learning about the society and what drives…
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Sparklers for the 4th of July
Sparklers were an ever-present feature of my childhood 4th of July celebrations. This year we introduced the twins to sparklers (I’m pretty sure Scarlett has used them at least once before). They kids had a lot of fun and there were a couple burn-scares, but I think it was worth the slight parental anxiety. (Did…
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Laptop Lid Stickers
Because of my age relative to the era of computer, for a good portion of my life computers were Serious Things used for work and school. They also belonged to the family and there’s no way we could have gotten away with putting stickers on them without getting in trouble. So back in 2006 when…
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Review: Breasts: A Natural and Unnatural History
Breasts: A Natural and Unnatural History by Florence Williams My rating: 3 of 5 stars This book was depressing as hell. I added it to my To Read list 5 or so years ago when I heard about it on Fresh Air. Don’t get me wrong, the author has an entertaining style. There were lots…