margarks

Finally finished Arsenic and Adobo. I'd probably give it a 3 out of 5. It was just okay. She did really good with writing the filipino characters, but I found that I didn't like them that much? They totally acted like typical filipinos though. The mystery itself was kind of blah and there were some scene that cut have been cut short. Overall it was okay.

I also just read All Systems Red by Martha Wells, the first in the murderbot series. I loved it! I really like the main character. I'm definitely going to continue the series. Not sure how I feel about the tv show coming. I feel like this is going to be a lot like 2001 space odyssey. A lot of it was in the character's head/internal monologue, so I'm not sure how they are going to show that or if it will translate well. But I would definitely recommend it. It's also pretty short, like 150 pages or something.

So, I turned 50 this week. Not sure I feel any different than before. I did go and get my Shingles vaccine because I figured why not get that over with. I spent last week in San Diego going on a few hikes with my doggo and just relaxing and catching up on reading.

I used to never go anywhere without a book when I was younger and I read all the time. Over the last few years I stopped reading and I'm not sure why. Just didn't have the energy for it. So I decided a few months back that I was going to read again.

I 'signed up' for some reading challenges by some youtuber. There are two challenges, one that she gives words/themes and one that she gives book covers to do. I'm treating them more like bingo cards and just marking them off as I read them instead of doing them the months that they were set for in the challenge. If anyone is interested I'm on goodreads and storygraph (where I am marking the challenges off) both as margarks I believe. Possibly my display name on goodreads is margie g, but I think margarks is my actual profile name. If you can't find me, and want to friend me there, let me know.

I'm also just reading books I want to read on top of the challenges. Books I finished in January:

Sign Here by Claudia Lux
2001 A Space Odyssey by Arthur C Clarke
Truth by Robert Reed
Horrostor by Grady Hendrix
The Last Murder at the End of the World by Stuart Turton
A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursual K Leguin

Books I've finished so far in February:
Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer
Invisible Planets: Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction in Translation - translated by Ken Liu
the Golden Gate by Amy Chua

I'm currently reading Authority (the sequel to Annihilation) and Arsenic and Adobo (the first book I know of that I have read from a filipino author).

I'd rec pretty much all the books so far I've read this year. Some I liked more than others, but there haven't been any that I regret reading. I am mixing it up format wise. Some I've read as epubs, some I've listened to audiobooks, and some I've read the actual paper versions. I've got copies of Jane Eyre and an HG Wells book with both the Time Machine and the Invislbe Man waiting in the wings for the rest of this month too. I'm also looking for a copy of Broken Stars, another chinese scifi anthology Ken Liu translated, but it's not at my library so I haven't gotten it yet.

Anyway, if anyone has any books they want to rec, feel free to comment! The youtuber with the challenges read 270 books last year! I am not getting anywhere close to that, but I think I'm still doing pretty good so far. This is the link that talks about the challenges if anyone is interested:

books and lala challenges

Hope everyone is doing well!

I said I wanted to start writing again every day and then I disappeared, lol. I hope everyone is doing well. I'm about to travel again, but this time for funsies. My niece's bday is next week so I'm flying to Vancouver, WA to visit her for the week. We are going to a Bowling for Soup concert on Monday. My niece loves these bands that are standing room only indie type bands lol. She says we are going to go 3 or 4 hours early so that as soon as the doors open we can run to the front and stand right at the stage, lol.

Anyway, sorry for disappearing again. I'm gonna try to post more often (like I said last time) :)

Oh, other news, I finally switched to Mint Mobile. I was worried about internet speed and stuff, but it's my personal phone so, do I really need super fast speed all the time. Then I realized that Mint Mobile is owned by Tmobile (which is what I had before because they bought Sprint) and so it's the same network. I figured it couldn't be that different. And the price is so crazy! Even for the most expensive unlimited mint plan, it is less than half what I was paying for Tmobile. So, yeah. So far so good. The only thing that I am sad about is that I got hulu (with ads) for free with tmobile. But even if I have to sign up and pay for hulu myself on top of the phone plan, it's still cheaper than paying for the tmobile plan.

So, I haven't decided if I want to sign up for hulu. I've been thinking of trying Philo tv? It's got like bbc stuff on it, including Graham Norton, who I love. But there are a couple of shows on Hulu I have been watching recently - like Will Trent and Doctor Odyssey. Anyone use Philo tv? Any thoughts on that service?

My dad turned 80 today. We had a big lunch for him at Fogo de Chao one of his favorite places. Saw some old family friends I haven't seen in over a decade. I don't like to think too hard about my parents' age though. 

I'm still kind of exhausted from my trip to KS. Got back almost midnight Friday, then I had to run around and do some errands and pick up Charlie (my doggo) from the sitter and stuff, so I didn't get much rest yesterday. Then the lunch today, which is a 3 hour round trip drive, so it took up most of the day as well.

I've been trying to write again. But haven't had much inspiration. I started about a paragraph of something while I was hanging out in various airports last week, but not sure how I want it to go. It's basically a prequel and/or companion to a fic I wrote years ago that was Tony/Gibbs NCIS, mostly pwp. The one I started last week I kind of want to write Tony asking for what he wants (and gets in the original fic) for the first time-ish. I don't know. Writing is hard now lol. 

So, it's been about a decade since I've even written a 'this is my life' post at this point, but I've been going through old LJ posts and fics and trying to transfer some over to AO3 and it just made me miss journaling online in general and writing fic. I have no idea what I would write at this point given I haven't written fic in almost a decade too, but here I am. I thought just random journaling would help me so that's what I'm going to do for now.

I'm getting ready to head out for a week away. My poor dog Charlie is going to a sitter which I know he will hate because he hates when I leave him anywhere. I was literally at my parent's for father's day and I left him there for maybe an hour (at most) to run to the store for some things and he howled/cried the entire time until I cam back. lol. He's so dramatic :D

I'm going to a developer's conference and sadly my flight is at 5am tomorrow! I'm pretty much contemplating just not sleeping. I have to leave the house by 330 because it takes about half and hour to 45 min to get to the airport. But the parking is pretty close to the terminal, and I have TSA pre-check so it should go pretty fast once I get there. I have no idea how many other people are taking a 5am flight though, but I'm assuming it won't be full, especially on a Sunday. 

Anyway, wish me luck.