Random Ramblings

I’m working the late shift (12 to 8) and there is nothing to do except let my mind wander so I’ll follow it and write down where it wanders.  It’s not unlike the guy following a parade at the end and scooping up the horse poop.

 

 

This will be like horse poop.  And speaking of poop, not many probably realize this, but it’s a real fun word to say out loud.  Try it – say it out loud and see if you don’t get if not a chuckle, at least a smile.  Of course it works better if you’re alone.  If anyone is around and you say the word ‘poop’ out loud and they hear you – well – it will be a tough explanation.  Its best if make the ‘p’ at the end pop.

***~~~***

I get 4 weeks’ vacation where I work.  I’ve carried 2 weeks over from last year over so as it stands now, I have 6 weeks vacation in 2015.  I’m going to take a least a week off when I head to NYC to RWA in July.  Then in August, there are a group that seems to grow as word of our fun spreads of coworkers and head to a summer cottage on a local island. 

As there are 10 of us this year though chances are one or two attendees will drop out, we are up to 2 cottages.  It’s a week of hilarity emboldened by much alcohol.   So that will be at least a week also as I need recovery time after the week.  Now that I’m in the upper age range, it takes long to recover.  And that still leaves me with 4 weeks.   I’ve decided to take next week off.  The plan is to do massive amounts of house work in two of the bedrooms in the house.  I live in a 3 bedroom bungalow with another room in the basement which can easily be set up as a bedroom.  For years now I’ve wanted to knock down the wall between the two smaller bedrooms in order to make more of a sitting room/bedroom.  But I’m a great procrastinator.  I took a week off last year with the same purpose in mind.  On Monday I thought – ah, what the heck – I’ve got the rest of the week to do this.  Tuesday – hell, I still have enough time.  Wednesday – I’ve still got four days.  Thursday – it shouldn’t take me that long.  Friday – I have two days left – that should do it.  Saturday – well, it’s too late now, I’ll rush and get it all done tomorrow.  Sunday – Oh SHIT you idiot!

I’m hoping I don’t have a repeat of that week.

 ***~~~***

I signed up for a challenge at GoodReads.  Normally I don’t sign up for Challenges as the minute I do, I start to feel the pressure.  I’ve tried doing Wendy’s – it’s an excellent one – but then I run around in circles when there’s only a couple of days left thinking “ whatwillIread?  whatwillIread?  Ican’tdoit, Ican’tdoit”  Then I’m a mess.  But in this challenge at GoodReads the challenge (or reader) picks the number of books and they can be any book.  I tried to figure it out mathematically.  If I were to read a book a week – sometimes more – I should be able to read 60 – should be no problem right?

Well, then my TV was invaded by gremlins and I was watching very little TV.  And my book reading skyrocketed.  So far this early in the year I’ve read 34 books and I’m going to smash my number to smithereens if I keep this up.  I had to fix things though.  I inadvertently added a couple of short reviews for books I had read last year but somehow they showed up as being read this year and they counted towards the number I read for the challenge.  I debated leaving them there, but then thought, ’no, that would be dishonest’ so I removed them, then thought 'maybe I’m going a bit overboard on the honesty thing.  Who's going to notice?  It's not like we will be entered to win millions of dollars'  But I still changed the date anyway.  Oh well.

But then again I may not blast past the number I put down.  The television gremlins finally made their final stand when I could only get about 7 or 8 channels.  And one of the channels I COULD NOT get was Showcase.  Now for those who don’t know, Showcase is the channel that plays Outlander.  It is simply unimaginable that I miss even a second of Season 2.  It simply WILL NOT happen.
 And there is not a chance in hell I wasn’t going to take out those gremlins like the old Space Invaders game before April 5, the day it comes back here.  So I called Rogers and someone came over on Sunday to fix it.  I now get all the channels I’m supposed to – with sound.  And I shamefully confess *shaking head in sorrow* that I watched the season finale of The Bachelor.  I’d only watched one or two shows all season!!  I could have spent those 3 hours…….reading.  But nope – now that I have no more gremlins, I went straight back to the (as some call it) the “bube tube”.

***~~~***

I mentioned on another post that I’m signed up for this site called BookBub.  Every day they send a list of books found at either Amazon or Koo that are either greatly reduced or even free.  Now with new choices pouring in every day, not to mention the Kindle Daily Deal which I check – well – daily, I’m not going to get just any old book.  If it even appeals to me, I check out reviews on Amazon and GoodReads first.  Now I find many of the reviews on GoodReads helpful – but Amazon – fuggaboutit.  Many are less than useless.  I see some books on there with hundreds of reviews by an author I’ve never heard of and roll my eyes.  It’s obvious the author has friends, family and friends “stuffing the ballot” so to speak.  I know that this is an issue that will never be solved – but to authors – STOP IT.  It’s NOT going to make me buy your book when we have scores of reviews that say “Great Book” or “Couldn’t put it down!!!!!” or “I already bought the sequel”, “Can’t get enough of this author”.  Come on now – do you think the legitimate reader who does any homework at all is going to buy into this?  The only reason I ever do is to go up and down the reviews and hit NO on the “Is this review helpful?”  But here me author – I WILL NOT BUY YOUR BOOK.  It’s always the 1 star negative reviews I place any kind of value on. 

I’m looking at today’s Daily Deal and first I thought – hmmmmm – maybe.  But this book in particular, has over 1,000 reviews and nope – never heard of the author before so it’s just like I said above.  Here are a few reviews.

“Very good read.  Couldn’t wait to read the next book.”

“It was a good read can’t wait to read the rest of the books.  I like series you get to know the characters in all of all the books”

“Awesome book, love the series! Exceptional author”

And just one more – though I could go on..

“This Book was awesome.  I would recommend it to anyone who likes a lot of action and intrigue.  Plus the Love Drama” (Love drama???  What is Love Drama???)

Are any of those the least bit helpful???  Nope, I won’t be getting this book.

One star reviews can drive me nuts too.  Along with the multiple, multiple useless 5 star reviews, this book had some readers that weren’t so happy.  One “reviewer” gave 1 star to said RS book where the hero is a SEAL and on the cover of the book is just the hero with not a whole lot on.  So you have a clue what kind of book you’re going to get right?  But the one reviewer had this to say

“I didn’t really read this book because half way down page 1 they had already used the “F” word.  Many people may not care about this but I do.  I wish more reviewers would make it clear if the book used this word and if there are explicit sexual scenes in this book.  It would sure save me from downloading a book I know I won’t read”

To said reviewer – so would using the thing inside of your head.  If it’s a RS with SEAL’s it’s a given they are going to use salty language.  What – you think a bunch of men who does the most difficult jobs in the world and constantly put their lives on the line are going to use words like ‘rats’ or ‘fudge’?  Get a clue.  By posting such a ‘review’ on such a book, you make yourself sound stupid.

Something tells me this person wouldn’t say the word poop even if it’s real fun to say.


'til later

 

 Later!!
Yep - another night I'm on the late shift with not much to do.  So THIS is why I had to get my cable fixed