Blog Posts
6/9/2026
Quick update, not dead and haven't forgotten this site. Just crazy busy on parernity leave. My life will slow back down in about a month.
6/1/2026
Coming up on the halfway point of the year with 5 months behind us and I feel like it has been a great year so far! Just finished fool moon and with that wraps 20 books on the year so far. My goal every year is usually 12 so I'm at 0 stress and 100% vibes while selecting the next books to read.
5/30/2026
A. The Backrooms movie was amazing. If you are at all a fan of horror or liminal spaces or just looking for something new please go try it!
B. Finished Fury. Pretty cool concept! I love the old sci-fi "Men on Venus" trope. Old sci-fi tech is just so much fun.
C. I got some reviews I need to write huh. I'll start working on them soon. I'd hate to let it fall out of my mind.
5/29/2026
I am going to see the backrooms tomorrow and I hope to finish both Fury and Dresden files #2 today. short post so I can hop on it!
5/26/2026
Memorial day was a good break from everything. I went camping and that helped me avoid the internet and spend some time in the peace and quiet of outside. I had a few books and comics sell on ebay this weekend so I walked them to the post office today. I love the slow life. I'm going to try and start selling more books and repairing more watches to cut down on how much I need to work. I'd love to one day live somewhere I can garden year round (I do wonder if I could manage here with a greenhouse and a heater?) and just cut down my need to work so much. I don't mind working but I think the 9-5 is dreadful. We need 4 day work weeks and fewer hours worked per day. I hate corporations so much. We could provide everyone's basic needs if it weren't for profit margins.
5/22/2026
Hello! I can't believe it's been a week since I updated. Paternity leave has me much busier than work ever did. I'm still working though Dresden book 2 and Fury by Henry Kuttner. I have an old laptop with Linux I'm gonna plug in which will elt me edit more readily as well as continue working on writing. Trying to keep the house clean and the baby alive are enough chores for the moment! Come July I'll be back at work so quite honestly updates will probably come weeklyish until then. I hope everyone's spring and early summer go well!
5/15/2026
Updating from my phone (html editin on mobile is wild lol) I finished the iron dream and started the second book in the dresden files series. Full Moon I believe? It's my third day of paternity leave and I'm having a blast. Hope everyone's week went well!
5/12/2026
ngl if I read racial will one more time I'm gonna scream lol The Iron Dream is nearly over. Amazing how sometimes I'll bust through a thousand page book in a week or so and then a 200 page book will take me 2 weeks. I did take the pictures of the Raspberry Sour and I need to post it on the Bar page. Next up is going to be a rhubarb wine because I got 6 pounds of rhubarb from my mom and what does a person do with 6 pounds of rhubarb? (well besides give it to their kid I suppose.) That'll take a year to make so I'll probably do like monthly updates on it. Speaking of updates! I did a super cute vertical garden with a couple pallets I had laying around. I'll post a picture below! Have a great day!
5/8/2026
I've nearly had this site for 2 months! I'm amazed at how automatic it has become to come here and update the blog posts and how easy it is to add new review pages and books to my library. I love looking at people's sites and seeing the art they have created.
5/7/2026
I did the review for Of Mice and Men yesterday. It was such a good read, and so short I'd recommend it to anyone! There are free audiobooks of it on youtube so you could listen to it in a day at work. The whole thing was maybe 3~ hours? I'm almost finished with The Iron Dream and it is one of those days where I have about 70 pages left and I've already read 50 like do I try and power through? Do I call it now and read some more tomorrow? I keep getting Dean Koontz recommended to me so I'm going to read one of his books next. Gods all I really want is a cozy reading chair in my office. My desk chair is uncomfortable after hours of sitting in it. Can I make it my job to cozy up with a book? Hope spring is going well and all of your gardens are thriving!
5/5/2026
I missed being outside all the time! I have been sitting on the porch until about 21:00 every night. Enjoying both the peace and quiet as well as the fresh air and the scent of the freshly blooming flowers. This weekend I plan on getting my hands dirty and planting my garden for the year.
5/4/2026
Played some volleyball yesterday. My Aunt and Uncle got a bunch of sand in their back yard a few years ago and we play every summer a whole bunch. Forgot how sore and tired I get after the first couple games! Diving in the sand and jumping up to block/spike really takes it out of you. All these muscles you really only use like 3 months a year. On the bright side by the end of summer we can play for hours and not get too tired.
I miss writing. For a while I was doing good. I wrote a short story a few years ago and I was working on a sequel but just kind of fell off of it. I was debating trying to post like a bi-weekly chapter on another page on this site? I'll think about it some. I'd need to do some planning anyway. I have a few ideas but I'd like to get a good outline if I am going to commit to that. I'll also have to learn a bit more HTML for text formatting but luckily thats a lot more one and done.
5/1/2026
It's May day! Hope everyone had a good time not working or buying anything. I started "The Iron Dream" and it is such a ridiculous concept and story which is (so far) every bit as scathing a satire as American Psycho.
4/29/2026
1,000 views! Thats crazy! Thanks for stopping by everyone! I just wanted a fun place to drop my thoughts and organize my reading but it is crazy to think the site has been visited 1000 times in just over a month. Go have a fantastic April Day, it is going to be sunny and like mid 60s farenheit where I am so I'm going to enjoy a walk outside.
4/28/2026
I was sick this weekend and didn't get any reading done. Being sick always sounds so nice because you get to cut out of work. Until of course you are actually sick and end up on your ass for a few days wishing it'd just end. Hopping back on the review/reading horse today! I get to try the sour I made tonight and I'll be writing it's review soon to get my bar page up!
Also Welcome Aetherway! thanks for following me!
4/23/2026
Did a full round of wii sports resort golf last night! It was a lot of fun actually. didn't realise how long it would take. I've been tired alll week and really the last 2 weeks! I've been super hungry too. Not sure what I'm doing differently. I'm gonna go drink some coffee and try to wake up.
4/22/2026
Very busy day today at work! Didn't hardly get any reading done at all this week. The building manager brought me a gigantic beer today! I usually give him a few of the beers I homebrew and he's given me stuff from the brewers he frequents. Quite the good trade I'd say! I love trading with people for things we produce. I've traded beer for pickles, eggs, beer, stickers, veggies, but never actually for any money! Had a cigar on the back porch last night because it was the last sunny warm day for a week or so. Honestly it was kind of mid. Called the "Sweet Jane" and I didn't really like it. Only medium bodied but I felt it was a bit harsher than I can enjoy. I also hardly ever smoke (like 4 times a year I'll have a cigar or pipe) so maybe I'm just a total newbie. The outside though had something on it that made it sooo sweet! That was pretty neat. I'm at 800 views on my site! Looking forward to 1000 even if I'm half of them making sure I didn't break everything with my edits.
4/21/2026
I love letting people talk. Oh my god. They will tell you some amazing stuff if you just listen to them speak. They tell you about what makes them happy or what makes them tick. Their family, their spirituality, their wishes/desires/etc! We're all so unique and so much of that comes out when you're willing to just sit and listen. Someone today told me about how they were a level 5 going on level 7 spiritually and how they believe in benevolent super dimensional beings that will help you if you can tap into them and some of their experiences with that. Frankly (and not disrespectfully at all) I don't know what she was talking about and I'm not terribly spiritual myself. But it was fascinating to hear about and realize how many unique views their are not just of this life but the next or spirituality in general. I love listening. It is like unedited reading. Do yourself a favor and go listen to someone talk today, just say yup and mhmm and stay engaged but let them do 95% of the talking. You might have a good time.
4/20/2026
I finished American Psycho! I'm moving onto "of mice and men" which I'm excited for. I've never actually read/watched anything about it but I've heard it is fantastic. It was a long weekend but a great one. I drove down to a tulip festival on saturday. They had 300,000 tulips which was really cool to see. I've been working on cleaning my house and just keeping it nice. I got a cool little device which gives me daily chores and weekly chores. (basically a calendar that doubles as a digital picture frame). Anywya I'll write my haunting of house hill review AGAIN today lol. And maybe work on the American Psycho one.
Also welcome Ruinacchi! Thanks for following me!
4/15/2026
Oh my gods. American Psycho is insane. Or just Psychotic? The violence took a little while to start, but now that it has begun it is detailed and intense. Very interesting reading this so shortly after the haunting of hill house because both books (SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS MILD BUT STILL TECHNICALLY A SPOILER) are centered around a person who is written in such a way to get across their mental deterioration. They are verrrry different in a multitude of ways of course. However their fever dream style of writing characters who are not well mentally is really great. (SPOILERS OVER) I didn't work on my review at all yesterday but I'm feeling so much better today! Looking forward to the day and halfway through the week. Friday is supposed to be sunny which will be wonderful after a week of rain.
I wrote my whole review and as I was putting the final words in place and doing a quick re-read my browser closed to update itself and I lost it DX I am not touching that the rest of the day.
4/14/2026
Short post today, I slept weird so I'm a bit tired. I'm going to try and work on my review of the haunting of hill house today and otherwise just generally take it slow. Hope the sun is shining wherever you are!
4/13/2026
A rainy spring day. Sat at work with the lights low and the shades open so I can see the beautiful tree blooms and enjoy watching the rain drip past. A small coffee (with cream, I'm feeling fancy and like I needed a treat) and the New Spring wheel of time audiobook. Today is going to be good. I bottled the sour yesterday. Took a sip before tossing the dregs (got 56 beers off the 5~ gallon brew!) and by the gods it is a good beer. The color is pristine as well. I put a few in corona bottles to easily take a picture of the color (not great for keeping light out but fantastic for showing off color) and in 2 weeks I'll be trying one and writing my review. Enjoy the day!
4/10/2026
I had a good day yesterday! I was able to come home and finish working from home in the sun and just relax. I started American Psycho but haven't made it far yet. I love the author naming everything and who it is by in a way to give each item the characters wear a value and yet it is so blatantly mocking these types of people, every interaction is fake and about money or worth so far. I was thinking about how people do side hustles and post everything online in an attempt to go viral or make money from something. I love reading, it is what I do to relax and if I spend a week and don't hardly look at a page then thats okay. It has rarely felt like a job and any time it does I remind myself all my self imposed goals are purely for fun. I've since decided to go for the national average of reading per year in my country. I passed that weeks ago and all pressure is off. I'm here on Neocities posting under and Alias that only like 5 people know to avoid modern social media. I've learned some HTML and spent my days enjoying reading knowing I get to share the books with more than just the one or two people in my life who read. One thing I miss about being a kid is rewards for reading books. I would get theme park tickets if I read a certain amount over the year (like 10 minutes a night or something averaged over the week. Totally achiveable.) And I just wish there was something like that for adults. Have a great weekend!
4/9/2026
The haunting of hill house was amazing. I rarely read horror and it tickled that perfect psychological fever dream horror I can really get behind. (miss me with the body horror stuff thaaaank you!) I forgot wheel of time at home today and found a clean pdf of american psycho so I'm going to start that instead. My only experience with this story is watching it when I was much too young to even understand the satire or at least recognize it. I certainly hadn't worked in a corporate environment yet which will probably add to the absurdity. Someone told me a few months ago that it was their favorite satire and I hadn't thought about the movie in years. I was excited to see it was also a book and decided to add it to my list. I don't know if it is going to be a haha hee hee funny satire or if I'm going to be depressed when this is over but I mean I juuuust finished 3 musketeers so my haha reserves tank is full. Though not full enough to ever read sower of the parable again. That book nearly made me dnf and I never dnf. I got really hung up on the baby and kids in the post apocalypse world. It hit me really hard. Butler is a master at her craft. I'm terribly sad I never had a chance to meet her. Anyway send a letter to your favorite author today! They deserve to know they're loved!
4/8/2026
The haunting of hill house is a cute story so far. I'm sure it'll change soon but I like the main cast of characters. I am terribly tired today. Only 10am and already on my second cup of coffee. I've recently become an instant coffee person. I had a miserable one for about a year, I think it was the nesquick cafe or some such. However I'm onto grander things! I've got a jar of Cafe Bustelo and I like the flavor a lot. We have creamer and sugar at work if I ever want it although I usually take it black. Between this and Yerba Mate I get my kick in the pants for reading/writing/etc. I like tea a lot as well. I'll switch between coffee and tea every 3-6 months depending on how the mood strikes me for a given season. For tea my main picks are Earl Grey, Chamomile and anything made from a green tea leaf so green tea, black tea and oolong tea. When I found out all three of those came from the same plant I really wanted to grow a small row of them outside. That seemed like quite the endeavor however and I prefer my easy plants like tomatoes, apples and raspberries. I did plant a few cherry trees 3 years ago! I got a handful of cherries last year. I'm just rambling when I should be doing a number of things I actually need to do. I saw a lady who put her "to-do" list on a wheel and spun it and I might try that. Go have a nice coffee or tea or lemon water or whatever you like today and take 10 minutes to enjoy the peace.
4/7/2026
Onboarding is done for the week so I can really spend some time diving into my next read and the review of the three musketeers. I'm going to keep the post here short so I can hop on that! I'm really excited for this weekend to bottle the beer. I might put one or two into a corona bottle so show how beautiful it is. Enjoy the beautiful spring weather! (or fall weather in the southern hemisphere?)
4/6/2026
I finished the three musketeers this weekend! I have two days of onboarding this week so I'll probably work on my review as I have time. The next book I'm going to read is The Hauntings of Hill house... I heard it might be a bit spooky so we'll see if I read it slowly. At worst I might read wheel of time in tandem when I need a break. This weekend was a mixed bag for me. Lots of great and lots of not great. Some of the great includes getting the rasberries in the fermenter for my sour! 1 week to go before bottling, and then 2 weeks past that to tasting! I had a lot of fun in the nice spring weather. I raked a lot of sticks up outside and got to open the windows and air out the stank of winter. I've been making good progress on my home and the state that it is in. I feel like it all falls apart some weeks but like Sisyphus here I am! Go push your boulders, I'll be there right with you.
4/2/2026
I spent most all of yesterday watching both the backrooms and marble hornets (the slenderman videos). Between the two of them it took most of my day and I didn't read much at all. I'm incredibly excited for the backrooms movie! And after having watched the backrooms videos I only knew of marble hornets to keep scratching the itch I hadn't quite scratched. I love some good found footage thriller/horror. It is certainly a guilty pleasure of mine because nobody else I know really likes that stuff so I'll sit in my room in the dark and scare myself silly every few months before moving on and going about my regular life until the itch comes back. But back to reading today! I am aiming for about 75% by the end of today and potentially finishing the book this weekend. I'm not totally sure what I'll be reading next. I might find something totally fresh or read another book in a series I've set down for a while. My head hurts today so I don't want to decide yet because I'll pick something really short because I'd just want to sleep instead. Hope you have a good day!
3/31/2026
I got a new follower Reetybird! I wasn't able to load your button but as soon as I can I'll put it on the bottom of my homepage! Tomorrow is april fools day! My work a few months ago had an issue with flooding and we had to move office spaces for a short time. I think I'm going to post a message on the door about "please vacate for renovations by the end of the week." I think thats a fairly harmless little april fools joke. My reading is going well, but audiobooks are so funny because you really have to spend so much more time than just reading a book. I usually have 2 or 3 going at once so I have a physical, and ebook and an audiobook but for whatever reason right now I've just got the one. I ordered something from ebay and its taking sooo long. It was supposed to show up last tuesday but here I am hoping it gets delivered this tuesday. It has said "out for delivery" twice but hasn't actually been delivered. I'm also playing my Bass more and I have a few songs I can play. I've been using songsterr and its pretty cool for learning tab. I think its time for another cozy day so go have one for me.
3/30/2026
I watched the 1973 three musketeers this weekend because it takes place over the first half of the book without spoilers for the second half. It was pretty fun! It certainly kept with the spirit of the story and hit most of my favorite plot points. I'm always amazed how much more you get from the books versus movies/tv. I know it is cliche to say "the book was sooo much better" but there are so few times where that isn't true. One of the funniest bits of the movie that I noticed (which I'm unsure if it was intended or if it was just something they didn't care to pay attention to) all of the actors speak with british accents rather than french accents. Just one of those small things that moviemakers have to decide to do or to not do. And for a 1970s british movie the budget probably wasn't there to get a whole cast + extras with french accents. Hearing d'art say he was a proud gascon in a british accent will never not make me smile. Enjoy the day!
3/27/2026
Short post today. It is Friday and I am breaking my records on wii sports resort. Halfway through The Three Musketeers! Anyway I figured I should post something just to stay in the habit. It is fun watching my view count go up each day. Enjoy your weekend!
3/25/2026
Today I'm listening to the three musketeers. It is such a silly story. I always find it amazing when an author from 200~ years ago can make me laugh out loud. Like Alexander Dumas had no idea I would ever exist. I mean the Oregon territory was still co-owned by the US and Great Britain. How cool is that? A product of a completely different time... or at least the infancy of the modern age. The telegraph had just been invented and some of the first sewing machines. The second industrial revolution was in full force and the world was changing extensively for them. I wonder how much people clamored for simpler times in the 1840s. Technology has moved so quickly in our lifetimes. Experiencing the infancy of cell phones, internet, and so many other things to now seeing their necessity in modern life and realizing how small those changes are compared to textile mills and the industrial revolutions purely from a diminishing returns standpoint. I'm glad I've spent some time rescuing old tech because the need to sell the next thing and to consume is so strong that we forget its okay to use older stuff. I was made aware of a movement the other day I believe it is called "project pan" where they are encouraging people to use up all of their cosmetics or soaps before getting more. I didn't realize this wasn't already the standard. Still it's the fossil fuel companies causing the real damage. Ride your bike when you can skip the car or take the bus when able. Hit them in their wallets when and where you can.
3/24/2026
I had onboard this morning at work so I'm going to keep this short because herding cats... er people takes a lot of energy. I started the three musketeers yesterday. I actually downloaded the librivox 2nd version onto a couple CDs and I'm listening that way. CD audiobooks has been a recent passion of mine. I realized I owned so many physical books but no audio books so I resolved to rectify that. I use Linux, but if anyone was interested in a tutorial page on how to actually burn CDs I would make one. Internet Archive also has a lot of newer books in audio format I've been burning to CDs. They are fantastic for camping or when I want to disconnect from the internet. Anyway I'm going to work on my bookshops and bonedust review and just vibe. Go get cozy and drink some tea tonight you deserve it.
3/23/2026
I did a lot of work on the site today. I'm happy with all of it. I built a simple review page, and while I may go back to edit the color scheme later I really like the basic design elements. I took my home page and pulled and pushed and poked until it looked like something that made sense. I finished bookshops and bonedust over the weekend and added it to my library. I also changed my homepage to include the cover of the book I'm curently reading. I brewed with my friend this weekend to make the raspberry sour. It is fermenting for the next few weeks. This was a great start to my week. I'm glad to have added so much to the site. I love watching it come together into something that I'll be able to update over the days/weeks/months/years to come. So many short term projects and maintenance alongside long term ideas I have that will need a good chunk of planning. I still want to work on that roadmap and plan to get it up sometime this week. The Bar page planning is going well and I'll finish and upload that one as soon as I have tried the beer. I'm removing my tester link to goodreads from dracula in the library and I'll be adding links on each review page of a place to support the author. In the case of some classical literature I'll post the link to the internet archive or maybe thriftbooks page for the book. I'm an avid e-book reader, at work people think I'm just dinking around on my phone rather than actually reading which is more socially acceptable for some terrible reason. I also listen to audiobooks and they'll be in the library mixed with books I read in print or as e-books. I love audiobooks because I've reclaimed my commute! An hour a day five days a week no longer wasted as badly as I had wasted it before.
I read a sad bit of information this last weekend. 40% of Americans didn't read a book last year. On top of that the Median for books read from people with a highschool education or less was 0. For gift giving holidays I've started giving people books. I don't care much for the consumerism of holidays that has been around since their inception (I'm not original for complaining about commercialization or consumerism we've been doing it forever. I can't find the original article I read but if you search "consumerism and christmas 1800s" its a fun rabbit hole.) but I do want my family to read more books so it feels like a 2 birds 1 stone situation. Anyway I'm typing instead of doing work stuff that needs to be looked. Have a great day!
3/20/2026
I wrote my first review at length of Tress today. I'll upload it hopefully in the next week but I want to figure out how I'll be laying out my review webpages. It was fantastic to see the reading project and starrybell follow my page. It really felt like I wasn't screaming into the void. I'm working from home today so I've got a million distractions so just a small update and that written review that I'll post later. I did find a beer/brewing layout that I liked where you can click on the beer on 1/3rd of the page and then the other 2/3rds are the recipe, a picture and maybe a small review of the beer. Exciting stuff! I'm about halfway through bookshops and bonedust which has been fantastic especially because its a bit overcast outside and the town Viv stays in is also very overcast. Hope anyone reading this has a fantastic weekend and gets to do something that makes them happy!
3/19/2026
Day 3! I am amazed at the resources online for learning HTML/CSS. W3schools has been insturmental as has the medium webpage. I nabbed covers for all the books I've read the last few years (when I started tracking it) and uploaded them to the library. I love how it looks with all of them up. I'm messing with some colors on the different pages today. I think the library feels warm and cozy. I'll probably keep review pages the same color in an attempt to make a "come in and stay a while" vibe. The home page feels bright and inviting to me which is what I want this site to be, inviting and cozy. I believe I have a color scheme set up for the bar page, browns for beer and all that. I don't exactly have a layout that is screaming at me "do this!" so I'll probably spend today going through the w3schools templates and seeing if there is something with my name on it. I'm proud of my progress so far. This has been a great project to help me ditch my phone for a while and problem solve.
3/18/2026
Day two of editing this site. I updated my library for 2026. I'll be getting the covers of all the books I read the last 2 years as well soon. Unfortunately it will be 75 covers and between saving them and adding them (in my own likely ham fisted way...) it all takes a bit of time. Either way I'm proud of the work I've done so far. I made the library grow books when they are hovered, I added a link to dracula just to test. However I'll be adding a link to my thoughts on each book in the future. Maybe I'll set up a star system or something below each book to give a quick overview? I don't know yet. Maybe I'll make a page that has a roadmap of ideas after I get the bar and library basics in place. I'm having a lot of fun learning HTML/CSS.
3/17/2026
My first post on my website. Proud of getting this far!
