Viridian5's House of "...What?"

Once I got into it, this volume sped by for me. It started slow, then there was a Shen Qiao moment that made me facepalm and blocked me from reading on for a while: ( spoiler ) Fortunately, the volume moves on from that and gets into a groove.

I enjoyed the Sword Trial Conference, Shen Qiao's continued physical and martial arts improvements, and how the jianghu is noticing those improvements. ( spoiler ) is fun. As is Shen Qiao getting justifiably angry at times over how Yan Wushi treats him and teases him.

Volume 4 ends in such an odd place though.

I've been getting some kudos in the last few days on an X-Files fic I wrote in 1998, "Addictions." I wondered where it's being recced.

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It's funny reading Thousand Autumns after the other danmei I've been doing like Heaven Official's Blessing, The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System, The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation, and The Husky and His White Cat Shizun. They come off as rather fanfic-y in comparison to Thousand Autumns' deeper dive into history and mystical swordsmanship; warring and scheming political, ethnic, sect, and philosophical factions; and quest for enlightenment. It's far less concerned with demons, gods, and ghosts. The others are more pairing-based, while the pairing in Thousand Autumns is slooooooooooooooooooooow burn. Shen Qiao also goes through a lot of character development. (Note: I'm three volumes into the series so far.)

It's not necessarily worse or better, but different.

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A cable that connects my CD player to the 2020 Kia Forte's stereo system via aux port works great. Unfortunately, my 1998 CD player turns itself off if it gets jostled a little, which is a problem while driving. The Hold switch being on makes no difference; whether I'm using batteries or have it plugged into my car's cigarette lighter for power makes no difference. For unknown reasons, it's more resistant to doing so within playing two songs, but afterward is absurdly sensitive.



The car lets me play music via my phone with USB hookup or through Bluetooth, though I think the USB hookup version sounds better, but I also have CDs and would like to be able to just play them too.


For some reason, this Whole Foods parking garage lends itself to creating dramatic photos.

The Husky and His White Cat Shizun [Erha He Ta De Bai Mao Shizun]: Vol. 1 by Rou Bao Bu Chi Rou


I had some problems getting through this one.

Mo Ran, who made himself an evil emperor by slaughtering his way to prominence and taking revenge on anyone he felt wronged him, hit a point where he didn't want to live anymore, so he killed himself... but is reborn into his teenage body and life, back to being the disciple of Chu Wanning, the shizun he hated, captured, tortured, and ( spoiler ) for years, who is also alive here and has yet to do the things that Mo Ran really, really hated him for. Mo Ran has a chance to relive and possibly better his life.

Given what an asshole and dumbass Mo Ran is, the second one may be unlikely.

This is a personal preference thing, a your-mileage-may-vary thing, but Mo Ran as the primary protagonist and POV sometimes made this volume difficult for me to read. He's an awful person, but not in a way I found interesting, fun, or sympathetic. He's just bad and often a moron. Why oh why does Chu Wanning snap at and discipline him? He only just breaks various rules and disrespects so many people and things.

( spoilers )

I found some of the other parts of the story involving, though some sections dragged a bit. It ends on a cliffhanger that I want a resolution to enough that I'll borrow the next volume from the library when it becomes available, but I wouldn't be willing to pay money for it.

(Many trigger warnings, and there are many problematic things in here.)

Heaven Official's Blessing [Tian Guan Ci Fu] Vol. 7 by Mò Xiāng Tóng Xiù
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I liked this quite a bit! It feels like everything's coming together, and it's fairly non-stop, keeping things moving. ( spoilers ) Some of the ridiculous stuff is fun, but some of it was too ridiculous for me, like ( spoilers )

( spoilers )

Thousand Autumns [Qian Qiu] Vol. 1 by Meng Xi Shi has a bit of a slow start, but once it got going I was locked in. There was a large section near the beginning when I started to think the summary might've been misleading, since Yan Wushi seemed to be barely involved with anything going on with or happening to Shen Qiao, but that changes.

Shen Qiao is a kindhearted, moral martial arts grandmaster and Daoist sect leader who is unexpectedly beaten in a duel and falls off a cliff to what could be his death. Cynical, petty sect leader and master of demonic cultivation Yan Wushi decides to save Shen Qiao's life so he can grind the man's nose in how horrible, selfish, and cruel humanity actually is and lure him onto the path of demonic cultivation, seemingly for his own entertainment, though he has some other motives too that are eventually revealed. It should help this plan that Shen Qiao's body and cultivation are severely damaged, his memory is hazy, and he's blind as a result of his duel and fall. Some political intrigues are going on in the background....

I was amused by a kabedon moment that makes such an impression that there's a color illustration of it included in the book.

This volume ends with a cliffhanger that's really making me look forward to volume 2 coming out.

So this is the boot the podiatrist wanted me to wear on my right foot for four to six weeks while out walking. These photos are from 2010, when it was newer and cleaner.

My boot, side and front: ( photos )

But I'm actually not wearing it much lately, a little over two weeks after the injury, because I feel like I don't need it. Just doing it for long walks for the podiatrist's sake, since I have a follow-up appointment with him on the 26th. The swelling is way down, the bruising is almost gone, and the ankle still hurts but not as badly.

The boot is a pain in the ass: so difficult going up and down stairs or steep hills, I have to take it off to drive my car (it's the right ankle, my driving foot) then put it back on when going out....

My car has been okay at lower speeds, though I had three brief thump-thumps when accelerating to 50 mph on the highway over a week ago and haven't tried higher speeds like that since. I got a new tank of gas then and have been running that through the system hoping it helps.

My allergies have been awful, so much pain and fatigue. It probably won't help that this week temperatures will be in the 70s to high 80s Fahrenheit (21-30°C).

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Heaven Official's Blessing: Tian Guan Ci Fu Vol. 5 by Mò Xiāng Tóng Xiù

After the tragedies and betrayals of the last volume, I was surprised by how madcap comedy so much of the beginning of volume 5 is. But that's mostly fun and a source of happiness, because a lot of the Mount Tonglu journey drags for me. ( spoiler ) There are times when Hua Cheng is just too OP for me to be happy with, and he seems to know everything about anything that ever happened too.

I am amused by how Pei Ming goes through it in this volume. Dude, this is what you can get when you travel with the "this might as well happen" immortal, Xie Lian.

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Dethklok and Babymetal are touring together. I mean, they're both metal but it breaks my brain a bit.

My take on Saks Fifth Avenue's holiday windows this year is that the series is more of "A Low-Effort Holiday" than "A Brilliant Holiday." But they use the Realistic mannequins, something Bergdorf has stopped doing for its holiday windows and all the stores barely do over the course of the year anymore, so that gives Saks a huge point in their favor.

I may have to go back sometime to get a better shot at the windows on 49th Street though because being there at 11:45 pm meant that the Puma store across the street was completely lit up, resulting in a lot of interference reflections that made it hard to parse what's in the Saks windows in photos. If I go back at a much later time they might be turned off.

You can see everything I've posted so far at my Flickr, which also has a short video of a revolving Swarovski wiener dog from Bergdorf Goodman.

It was nice getting to use the outside lane on the Queensboro Bridge on the drive home, something I don't get much opportunity to do. It feels more precarious, and the view of the city and the river are great.

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I've been reading the Seven Seas's translated books of Mo Dao Zu Shi's danmei recently and mostly enjoying them. So far Scum Villain's Self-Saving System is my favorite of the three series and Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation my least, though I haven't gotten past volume one of Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation yet due to finding volume one really lacking in a lot of ways. I've done three volumes of Scum Villain's Self-Saving System and Heaven Official's Blessing and have the fourth volume of each requested from my library system.

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I know a lot of readers are raving over how good Tamsyn Muir's Locked Tomb series is, but I often found the books frustrating, with Nona the Ninth being the most frustrating of the three for me. It was like being with a group of people where you're supposed to be included in the conversation but they're most often willfully talking in in-jokes and other ways to keep you out while smirking all the while and thinking they're clever. This book works hard to leave readers in the dark. Once in a while they give you an actual answer, only to often walk it back as untrue or a trick later. Some important things happen off-page and we're given a brief gloss of an explanation. Saves the author from having to fully plot it out, I guess. At least Harrow the Ninth eventually became satisfying. Nona felt too long and mostly pointless.

All that said, I'll pick up Alecto the Ninth when it comes out to see how Muir concludes this.

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A cute idea, but I think you can see a problem just looking at this photo.


I wanted to get the silver star but didn't after wondering how I would store it without breaking it and how much room it would take up in a box.


A local tree is doing winter, autumn, and spring simultaneously.

I read The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System 1 and had a good time aside from the rough start/infodump and occasional inelegant translation issue. I just read #2 and it is a ride. (And ends on a cliffhanger because of course it does.) A ride throughout, but there's one moment in particular where I'm no longer smirking over Shen Qingqiu not realizing that he's inadvertently ( spoiler ) and am just going "WTF" along with him because that was something I did not see coming. ( spoiler )

I have more to say about the book another time because there's a lot going on in it but for now....