Raw Data:
12 Books
4008 Pages
3.5 Average Rating
The Bad:
The Return – 2 Stars
The Good:
Nicholas Nickleby – 5 Stars
Prador Moon – 4 Stars
The Man with One Name – 4 Stars
Graphic Novels and Manga:
Nada, zilch, zero, none. I’ve got a Superman graphic novel on tap for August though and I’m hoping to get back into a manga series in September. I’m thinking either Kare Kano (His & Her Circumstances) or W Juliet. I own both and have read them both so I’m hoping which ever I read turns out better than that horrible experience with Oh My Goddess! If you have thoughts or opinions on either series, feel free to weigh in. I’m pretty undecided at the moment.
Miscellaneous And Personal:
Started the month off with a mid-year Roundup Report. I like all those numbers and not having to wait until the end of the year to roll around in them, like a pig wallowing in mud, was great. Also, since I’m not part of Goodreads or Booklikes, that have “goals” with banners and everything, this helped keep me on track for my unofficial goals.
Started the Thriving on a Good Book series but we’ll see how long it lasts. It is surprisingly hard to write a lot about the books I like, unlike how the words flow like a veritable river when I have had a bad experience.
VERSUS went right along with the Mano A Mano post I did. Testosterone was flowing like blood in a Tarantino film this month. Of course, neither of them was as ridiculous(ly fun to write) as the Saint Bookstooge Gives Answer post where I answered your questions. My goodness, the questions I got were so much fun that I just HAD to give vent to complete silliness.
Survival Saturday. The foods I’ve got are all boil in water stuff, so obviously they’re hot foods. I refuse to make hot stuff like that when it is 90degrees out. Considering that August is usually the hottest month of the year for us, I suspect next month I’ll let this pass as well. I just can’t muster up the courage to face this stuff when I’m dying from the heat.
In the background, I’ve been continuing to update all my semi-recent (2012 and up) reviews and am currently in late 2014. Also in the background, but much bigger for me, is that I’ve started scheduling things 2-3 weeks out now. After having a talk with Professor Dickieson on his blog and getting some good encouragement, I took the last week of June and the first week of July to really pile on the reading and just bank the reviews. That has allowed me to get about 3 weeks ahead in reviews. I’ve heard of people doing this ever since I’ve been blogging but it just never seemed to work for me. But now was the time and I do plan on trying to keep that up with at least my regular reviews and series posts. The really silly stuff is almost always spontaneous though, so I’m not totally going scheduled.
Church has been going well and Pastor Mike has started a series where he is going to synopsize each book of the Bible for a sermon for the whole Bible. He calculated that will take until the end of 2019. That is the kind of planning I LIKE! And considering he was able to have a sermon on Leviticus and Numbers where I came away feeling better, that says something pretty good too.
Cover Love
In keeping with the testosterone that I flung around, this months cover love winner was pretty easy. Conan: Red Nails nailed it. While the cover was cool, the full picture was just awesome. I’ve included that instead of a high res cover.

Mrs B says “He’s ugly”. I remain unaffected because Conan cut off that man’s head with a DAGGER!
“I just can’t muster up the courage to face this stuff when I’m dying from the heat.”
Predicted Friday temperature in Lisbon = 38 ºC/100 ºF. I’m going to Algarve to bask in the sun…
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I hope it bakes you like a potato! It only gets that hot a couple of days out of the year here and I’m downright miserable during them.
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It’s too warm here to eat hot meals but I can make an exception if I just grab it at the chinese or indian takeaway!
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I love Goan food. Did you know the Portuguese colonised it more than 500 years ago as well as other parts of India? I know I should’t use the word “colonise”, but what the heck. I don’t care…
In Portugal the Goan (and Indian) cuisine is fully established in our households. I can make a mean Chicken Jalfrezzi when I’m down…
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But colonise is what they did, so why beat around the bush? You don’t have to be PC around here 😀
I don’t even where or what Goan is. Care to enlighten us?
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https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goa
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What we colonised (vide my “How to Grow Old” post). “Goa” is there:
“Nova Scotia, Portuguese India, Cape Verde, Maldives, Labrador, Angola, Tangier, Newfoundland, Uruguay, Zanzibar, São Tomé and Príncipe, Qatar, Timor, Mozambique, Barbados, Portuguese Guinea, Macau, Goa, Bahrain, Ceylon, Brasil, Ceuta, etc.”
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My wife is from Java, near a town with a lot of Portuguese-descended people. Ancestry DNA says she’s not one of them, but it also said some other stuff that makes no sense, so I doubt its accuracy.
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She’s an eskimo? How “cool” is that?
😀
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No eskimos in Java…lol.
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You’re not that far off. I’m planning to do a post about our results. If you’re from Ireland, Ancestry DNA will break it down by county, but if you’re from Asia, it will say “Asian”. Thanks, Captain Obvious!
Then, it threw in another ethnic group where I’m not aware of any historical or family connection, so I think their test is flawed due to lack of data-gathering in Asia.
They also seem to be missing a major European group on my test.
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Yes. In terms of East-Indies, Portugal colonised Timor, Flores, and another one that escapes me at the moment. There was a lot of mixing during that time. And also some bad blood between Portugal and Indonesia on account of Timor…I’m sure your wife remembers those times. We do in Portugal. It’s all good now.
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Well, my wife’s one of the Christian minority, so I doubt she had any bad feelings toward Portugal.
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I know how it is in those parts of the world when it comes to Christianity. Thx for sharing.
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Thanks.
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I do make an exception for pizza 😉
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I am one of those weird people who is perfectly okay with eating hot soup in the middle of summer. (Actually, soup is better than some dishes because heating the stove-top isn’t as bad as heating the oven.)
Great progress this month! And congrats on joining the world of scheduled posts. It’s really made my life easier since I started scheduling my reviews and regular post topics.
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I’ll give the scheduling thing a couple of months to shake out and see how it works for me. I’m very much a mood writer so we’ll see if I can keep going at it.
It wouldn’t surprise me if it turns out like a lot of New Years’ resolutions 😀
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I can see that, but I think your plan of scheduling the reviews and mood-writing the regular posts might work well for that. I can say from experience that it certainly makes unexpected blog vacations less of a problem when I already have something scheduled…
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Youve had a busy month… good job tho👍🏻. Ive missed a lot of posts it seems. Also havent been able to blog too much.😔
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I noticed you seemed rather quiet. I figured you were just catching up on “newly married couple” stuff.
Trust life is going ok?
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I started work on saterday💪. Expect a post today and tomorrow, i am free today for a bit. 2 shifts were 12 hours long so Ive been a bit hard on myself
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Congrats!
but 12hr shifts, man, that’s intense. Looking forward to the posts.
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First is up🙂. Second ill be doing later today, i have some reading to catch up on. 12 hour shifts aint for everyone. But i need the money, wife and I, I mean…
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3 weeks ahead? I’m in awe. I have trouble getting 1 day ahead…
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Well, I also don’t read as much as you, don’t participate in “tours” or do release day promos, etc, etc.
I think taking those 2 weeks helped me get ahead. Now the real test will be if I can STAY ahead 🙂 I do know that for the first week, I ended up writing about 6 reviews and scheduling them all one sunday afternoon. I was pretty worded out after that…
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The obvious solution is to dig your own root cellar in the backyard to hang out in.
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Kind of hard to do that in a condo complex though. I suspect the Association would have something to say in way of fines 😉
But as a last ditch thing, I’ll consider it!
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Pretty cool that Nicholas Nickleby made up a quarter of your total page count!
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😀
One of the reasons I think page count is more honest than just book numbers alone each month.
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I always find it super useful to schedule some posts in advance. So i hope it will work out for you in the long run – it’s nice to have a week when you can just focus on reading, or even not reading, whatever you feel like 🙂
I can’t be bothered to cook when it’s hot outside. Since i moved to England, this is less of an issue, cuz it rarely happens, but as we had this 2 week heatwave thing, i ate a lot of leaves (a.k.a. salads) and ordered food online, or just got ready made stuff. Of course my stomach hates me right now 😀
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Fall is always my favorite time of the year because of the temps 🙂
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lol I agree with Mrs B – that Conan is ugly.
It’s nice that you have mid year stats to wallow in. 🙂 I take for granted sometimes the GRs ones.
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That is one of the few things I really miss about GR. They had some good stat stuff 😦
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That’s probably Conan’s happy face as he’s doing what he likes most – chopping off heads while a naked lady stands around in the background. You go, Conan!
(It IS a great picture though!)
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What’s funny, your statement, taken at face value, could be used to describe the conan books pretty accurately 🙂
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I’m gonna trademark it!!
.. and now I feel like watching the movies 😉
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Oh man, really? I watched the first Conan movie and never had the courage to attempt the second one. And I didn’t care enough to try the reboot.
You know, me and big waxed guys, not the best of buds 😉
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Hahaha yeah i know!
I have a soft spot for Arnie – and Mr. DZ loves the movies as well.
I also watched the Momoa one but wasn’t a big fan
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The Momoa one was garbage. I started working on my taxes halfway through it. (I was watching on TV at home, not doing my taxes in a movie theater, that would just be weird).
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Yeah, because you’re such a normal, run of the mill guy 😉
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Glad church is going well! I still need to read Nicholas nicolby- glad you liked that too!
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I definitely am a Dickens’ fan 🙂
And thanks.
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Awesome!
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Ouuuh a Superman story. I look forward to seeing which one it is and what you’d think of it. And reviewing weeks ago? I envy you, sir. I wish I could do something similar just to have more time to blog hop and read. Good luck with the new strategy!
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Yeah, it is the Superman: Path of Doom Action comics volume 1 collection.
Funny thing is, my “lead in” time this month has been getting shorter and shorter. I’m a week out now. Oh well. I’ll probably keep trying it, but I suspect it won’t be quite such a long time (ie, 2 weeks) any more.
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Ouuuuuh, I see Bookwraiths really did convince you to try the Rebirth stuff huh? 😏 Hope it won’t be too overwhelming. He’s a character who goes through a lot of big moments at the end of the New 52 run. I’d recommend trying the DC Universe: Rebirth story to see what the transition between New 52 and Rebirth is all about. Still look forward to your thoughts, sir!
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Yeah, he did.
I’m pretty much counting it as my last comic book. I think I’m simply moving past that stage. I kind of am sad about that 😦
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😢😢
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