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Halloween Round Up
Oct. 31st, 2020 02:32 pmI didn't get a ton of reading done this month. I'm currently reading The Shining by Stephen King - as someone who has been a fan of King since middle school, I'm surprised at myself for not having read this one. I read a lot of his early and middle-years work, up through maybe Green Mile. And I'll probably go back and start catching up at some point. I'm also reading the Discourses & Selected Writings of Epictetus because I'm a huge nerd.
I finished The Magus by John Fowles (highly recommended but with some reservations,) and Cross Creek by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, which reminds me, I need to go find that grape ice cream recipe. So far as I'm able I'm trying to read what I already have. I've been able to weed out a few novels so far, starting them and then quitting when they failed to hold my attention, rather than forcing myself to finish them. I did need to buy a book, which came today.
With everything going on right now I felt like reading something superficial. I wanted the book equivalent of a box of meringue cookies. Edward Gorey was a big fan of EF Benson's Mapp & Lucia novels, which I gather are on TV now in Britain, but that sounded like a good diversion. Unfortunately, and the reason I'd not read them before, I only had the last three books in the series. At the time I was buying them they were apparently out of print in the States and I was having to gather them from used book shops. An excellent excuse to spend weekends scouring the French Quarter. Anyway, I broke my "no book buying" pledge and purchased a collected edition of the first three novels (bonus short story!) through Amazon Marketplace. So right after The Overlook Hotel burns down, I'm headed to 1920s England.
On the gaming front, there's a Steam Sale and I picked up We Happy Few, Gathering Sky, and Shovel Knight. SN is a collected edition with all the games, including the co-op Shovel of Hope. My controller is terrible and I'm looking to acquire a sturdier, nicer X-Box style one soon. I cracked the d-pad, and I'm also looking to get a faceted d-pad replacement. For whatever reason the joystick controller doesn't feel right and doesn't seem to work well for me. I also had a brainstorm and tried Cuphead with it, and hey, I got past the tutorial. Go me. *sarcastic thumbs up goes here*
I started We Happy Few (which really works much better with keyboard controls anyway) and I'm working through Arthur's story. On Hollow Knight, I have destroyed Herrah the Beast and opened the final Stag Station, so I got to go to the Stag Nest. I'm back in Queen's Gardens, probably going to try to take on the Traitor Mantis next. I got another nail upgrade, so I'm on Channeled Nail now, and there's only one more upgrade. And I lost all my money in Deepnest, so now I have no qualms about trying some of the trickier platforming segments.
Today's Fox's birthday (yay!) and we're not really doing much. I'll be making a pizza later, and we have some key lime cake. Tomorrow I'm probably going to do my last yard cutting of the year, but today I'm just cooling it. I pulled my calf muscle again, but it feels almost normal today so I might try a short run tomorrow. And I mean it really feels almost normal, not "almost normal except a little tight." I hopefully have given the thing enough time to heal up properly. It feels weird not running all this time.
And I upgraded my phone, but as usual, it's surprising what things don't automatically work. And I lost my house in Neko Atsume so I have to start that over. But I like the new phone, it's a lot lighter weight than the old one, so it won't be as much of a nuisance to run with. My Garmin actually will play music and run GPS at the same time but it will drain the battery fast. So for long runs, I'll carry my phone for music. If it's a shorter run, then I don't mind killing my battery quicker.
It's a gorgeous afternoon here so I'm thinking of getting my bike out of storage and pedaling around the yard some. Depending on how solid the sand feels on the road I might ride down to the turn. I'm just tired of being cooped up inside with the miserable hot weather, and I've played video games so much today my thumb is sore. But I got to take the Last Stag back to where he was hatched, so that was great.
I finished The Magus by John Fowles (highly recommended but with some reservations,) and Cross Creek by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, which reminds me, I need to go find that grape ice cream recipe. So far as I'm able I'm trying to read what I already have. I've been able to weed out a few novels so far, starting them and then quitting when they failed to hold my attention, rather than forcing myself to finish them. I did need to buy a book, which came today.
With everything going on right now I felt like reading something superficial. I wanted the book equivalent of a box of meringue cookies. Edward Gorey was a big fan of EF Benson's Mapp & Lucia novels, which I gather are on TV now in Britain, but that sounded like a good diversion. Unfortunately, and the reason I'd not read them before, I only had the last three books in the series. At the time I was buying them they were apparently out of print in the States and I was having to gather them from used book shops. An excellent excuse to spend weekends scouring the French Quarter. Anyway, I broke my "no book buying" pledge and purchased a collected edition of the first three novels (bonus short story!) through Amazon Marketplace. So right after The Overlook Hotel burns down, I'm headed to 1920s England.
On the gaming front, there's a Steam Sale and I picked up We Happy Few, Gathering Sky, and Shovel Knight. SN is a collected edition with all the games, including the co-op Shovel of Hope. My controller is terrible and I'm looking to acquire a sturdier, nicer X-Box style one soon. I cracked the d-pad, and I'm also looking to get a faceted d-pad replacement. For whatever reason the joystick controller doesn't feel right and doesn't seem to work well for me. I also had a brainstorm and tried Cuphead with it, and hey, I got past the tutorial. Go me. *sarcastic thumbs up goes here*
I started We Happy Few (which really works much better with keyboard controls anyway) and I'm working through Arthur's story. On Hollow Knight, I have destroyed Herrah the Beast and opened the final Stag Station, so I got to go to the Stag Nest. I'm back in Queen's Gardens, probably going to try to take on the Traitor Mantis next. I got another nail upgrade, so I'm on Channeled Nail now, and there's only one more upgrade. And I lost all my money in Deepnest, so now I have no qualms about trying some of the trickier platforming segments.
Today's Fox's birthday (yay!) and we're not really doing much. I'll be making a pizza later, and we have some key lime cake. Tomorrow I'm probably going to do my last yard cutting of the year, but today I'm just cooling it. I pulled my calf muscle again, but it feels almost normal today so I might try a short run tomorrow. And I mean it really feels almost normal, not "almost normal except a little tight." I hopefully have given the thing enough time to heal up properly. It feels weird not running all this time.
And I upgraded my phone, but as usual, it's surprising what things don't automatically work. And I lost my house in Neko Atsume so I have to start that over. But I like the new phone, it's a lot lighter weight than the old one, so it won't be as much of a nuisance to run with. My Garmin actually will play music and run GPS at the same time but it will drain the battery fast. So for long runs, I'll carry my phone for music. If it's a shorter run, then I don't mind killing my battery quicker.
It's a gorgeous afternoon here so I'm thinking of getting my bike out of storage and pedaling around the yard some. Depending on how solid the sand feels on the road I might ride down to the turn. I'm just tired of being cooped up inside with the miserable hot weather, and I've played video games so much today my thumb is sore. But I got to take the Last Stag back to where he was hatched, so that was great.
