It will be the 20th year next year! Should I do something special???
Ooh, I can do something that runs from the other blog anniversary date until today next year...

Anyway, even though it's the 19th year today... I did skip two years in this blog - no posts in 2016 & 2018 but it's still valid. I updated my both my Tumblr (microblogs, duh!) in both those years. I also posted once in 2016 in my music diary blog.

Again, not really doing anything special today lol... I'm posting today just to acknowledge that I remember XD

Some random info of the day 

-- I started using Twitter@X (April) & Tumblr (October) in 2009... though I'm not really active on both sites nowadays

-- I think it was because I want to keep track the which books I was reading so I made an account on LibraryThing on 19th February 2009 (15th year coming soon!). Interestingly, I only joined Goodreads a year later in June 2010. At that time, there was a limit of books you can add on LT so I use GR more. Started using LT more often since year 2020. I added all books I own in my LT account so that I have a place to refer to avoid buying duplicate books. GR mostly have books I already read. 

-- I made an account on Youtube in April 2006, months before it was acquired by Google in November the same year. I didn't really use the site as much as current day before... I think it's at least a decade later that I started using it more often (there's that one time I realise that I enjoy seeing people playing games, especially horror games XD)

Thanks to me (I guess lol) for going through the to-read shelf on GR XD... I was lucky - I found these two for sale on Shopee.

"My Lady's Choosing: An Interactive Romance Novel" - It took me almost six years to finally meet this book haha... I don't remember why I want to read this but it being "Interactive Romance Novel" probably played a major part :P.. it's a "Choose Your Own Adventure" kind of book. 

I tried searching for it online and it doesn't look easy to get [from Amazon, it's not available on Kino]. Shopee was the last place I checked and yes(!), one seller has (had) it!

"The Keeper of Lost Causes" - It has a different cover on GR (the one I have is similar to this ← ended up using this edition on GR because of the similar cover & it has amount of pages, although it's 7 pages short lol). I vaguely remember why I want to read this XD... I think I saw a review about translated mystery books...? Or maybe I just saw it in the recommendation section on GR.  


Almost three years ago lol... At least it isn't as bad as almost-six years?

Again, I don't know when I'll read these... but it might be sooner than expected. When the mood strikes? Although I do feel like more "I don't wanna read today~~~" kind of mood recently *sigh* (10 pages done and... I'm out! XD)

I read the 4th Volume of "7th Time Loop" manga after "that book where the main couple had a misunderstanding & didn't communicate effectively for 4 f*cking years" as- ...I don't really want to won't call it that but yes, it acts as a palate cleanser (AND I refuse to call it that!)- ... Rishe & Arnold might have been keeping secrets from each other but at least they COMMUNICATE with each other [sometimes even effectively!]... at least, I'm sure they won't take 4 years! *clearly I'm still salty about it lol*

Title of this post is "-2" because it's two books off the to-read GR shelf and not about me being salty(?) lol... it wasn't even on my mind after doing the post. Just got reminded after seeing it on top of my blog haha (I guess it's fine now that I published this post to "push" the post down?) ---sorry, I just like to explain why I do some things :P (hey, it's communication!)  

Life(?) updates~

I might try finishing it today or tomorrow (hopefully). I guess it's fortunate that it's pretty easy to read so I can still read it to the end. Huh. This is a very strange reading experience. I don't hate how it's written, the story is easy to understand/follow but there's one thing that distracts me from everything else. Maybe this is how it feels when you are stuck reading a book with one of your least favourite tropes...

I never expected this to happen but I guess I'm playing this difficulty regularly now...? I didn't even make any effort to transition to Gold difficulty lol, it just happened naturally and casually(?). I do switch between Silver and Gold sometimes so it's not like I solely play Gold matches. And with that, I am able to make progress to challenges that involve Gold matches (maps and extractions) so that's super nice!

Maybe... I'll be in Platinum matches by the end of this year? :P

Also known as the "Want to Read" shelf on Goodreads. Did some cleaning-up today. I didn't delete much but it feels good to make the list shorter. In the future, I wish it would be a list of books I want to buy AND read (so that means a lot of books could be disqualified :P) but for now I'll just leave it alone. I have a separate bookshelf for books that I own but unread.

Yes, I'm still here...!

November's

If we go by the 11 books aim, I definitely failed that XD... but as I said it doesn't need to be rigid, I guess I did make some progress with the reading challenge. 

Chrome tabs... *sigh*

It's just the same goals for this month---

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October's

(Very) Big Goal:

Wake up early

Small Goal:

Deal with Chrome tabs (continued)

Unfortunately, the same thing happened to the small goal lol... I'll extend again to this month just because I don' feel like like looking for a new small goal :P

Similarly...

I actually added another 15 to my original goal of 50 books this year so... I brought this to myself haha. I'm behind 11 books so I was thinking something like 11 books per month until December.. but it doesn't need to be that rigid~ 

Don't know where this confidence comes from but I think I can do it...

--Ooh. I do miss reading an F. Scott Fitzgerald short story. I do have that thick book of his... 

Hmm. Reading. I started two books recently. One is "Before We Say Goodbye". The other is a manga ("Bahang Kafe Cinta"). The manga is one of the 13 books I mentioned in this post. Unfortunately, I can't find the manga on Goodreads so I won't be able to add that to my read books later. It's not really a problem but I need to remember that because I might get confused when I compare my the data between Goodreads and LibraryThing...

The two books I'm hoping to finish reading this week are "Before We Say Goodbye" and "The Mill House Murders". Well, it still depends on my mood though lol

I feel like I've done enough "catch-ups" today. I've been writing down quotes or excerpts from books I read these past few months (I took photos/screenshots). Not that much but still painful to write all of them by hand. Also added (liked?) some of the quotes on Goodreads.

I was searching the place we are living in the news (I was looking for a different news article) and stumbled upon recent news. Apparently our water problems got a "mention" in a local newspaper. Feeling validated somehow. The article mentioned about some pipe damages somewhere and problems with new water meters installed months ago...  I guess it's not a mystery anymore?? (-.- )

So... the theme for this post will be "late".

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Few days ago, I suddenly had the urge to listen to Kurosagi's movie soundtrack. Tried looking for it on Spotify and I found one. The soundtrack for the dorama. This year's dorama. 

That's how I knew there's a new version of Kurosagi [live action] this year. 

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Barely made any progress on my two remaining jar books. *siiiigggh*

Also, haven't done anything related to my "new" jar. No updates done whatsoever. 

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It's funny how having the piano tuner over few days ago had actually made me clean the area around the piano much faster than planned(?). It was really the case of "You can do it if you really try" or something similar :P.

Unfortunately, I feel exhausted just by thinking about it and now I don't want to deal with the pile of things I have in my room anymore...

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Oh yeah. "The Sirens of Titan" is the 100th book I finished reading this year. It happened on Dec 7th. That means I've completed my Goodreads reading challenge this year~! 

I don't really need to update that here lol but it fits the "late" theme so I'll just include it in this post.

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I finally get to borrow a book again from the library yesterday! This is the first time I placed a hold and waited for the book to be available. It took me a few weeks. Apparently the hold "elapsed" early this month. So I guess that meant I forgot to borrow it in time...? I continued reading the book today but I kind of forgot who is who anymore XD *oh well*

Bad news: Found my first book that I rate with 1 star on GR this year (actually more like half star *arghh*). Kind of got into a weird mood after that. Like I want to read something familiar (so, comforting?) and/or makes sense. Because that book... I can't stand the writing style! 

I guess now I know what annoys me the most when it comes to books I rate 1 star. Writing style >>> Characters or Story.

Finished Nakano like 20 minutes after midnight. Have to wait until 3pm to update my GR (after 12pm should be okay too but sometimes can still mess with my reading dates) because Goodreads time is weird (I mean, I guess it's understandable since it's US-based). I care too much about the correct dates lol but I really don't like seeing the date I put in went missing or got pushed back to yesterday (it's annoying, seriously *sigh*).

Anyway. JAR!

Okay, like last time, I wished for a light read. If possible, a funny one.

I don't remember having anything funny in the jar but I'm going to wish it anyway.

*shake shake*

...and I got my first John Wyndham book, "The Midwich Cuckoos".

Definitely not funny. Or light. I think.

It's science fiction, but I'm seeing the word horror on the GR page too. Horror might be fun. I like horror (although I don't read much horror books now...). 

...100%?

Lol it has been that way since I updated it the day I published that post. Maybe I should change it to percentage (on GR) huh since the pages don't match up... 

Anyway, so I started reading this again today after ignoring it for a month or more (I don't remember lol). I'm going to use my old reading schedule. It's only 5 pages a day... and that still feels too much for me *sigh*. Probably better to read this in the morning or noon.

...and when the wall of text gets overwhelming again, I'll take a break from reading this again.

It has been an annoying day so far but it got better when I saw this on Amazon. 

"To the Sky Kingdom"

I'm always on the look out for free kindle books (lol) so it was quite a surprise to see something I know about. I do have the physical version but having an e-book version will be nice too. I don't have to bring the book along if I ever want to read it when I go out of the house (but it would still be annoying to read on the phone *sigh*...). 

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Finished "Inkheart" today. The book holder does help a lot. I tried reading the book in bed - couldn't find a comfortable reading position to prop the book up. *sigh* I feel like taking a break from reading the trilogy lol. Or... I can make a reading schedule for a month or more so that I have fewer pages to read daily (I planned to finish "Inkheart" in 2 weeks so it was about 20 pages/day). 

After at least a month of thinking about it, I've decided to increase the books for my GR reading challenge this year, with a condition. I usually go for 50 books per year but this year, if I reach 45 books before June ends, I'm going to increase it to 100 books. Just wanted to make a note here because I kept forgetting what my condition is so this post will make it easier to refer back to XD

I have moved "Something Happened" out of my currently-reading shelf. I was planning to read the end, maybe by skipping paragraphs and reading online summaries, and just read the last chapter as usual. Tried that few days ago, couldn't do it. 

Realised there's a way to add it to an exclusive shelf (like the read, to-read and currently-reading shelves) on GR. So I changed the setting for my semi-dnf shelf to that. BTW, I might change the name later because it's not semi DNF for me anymore. To avoid it from appearing in the my Years in Books page, I had to remove the "read" date (which is just the date I stopped reading, in my case). I just put those info in the notes which only I can see.

Warning: This is definitely not a post about places to pick flowers.

I have a bookshelf with a fancy name for my bathroom books on Goodreads. The name is inspired by what I read on "Dengeki Daisy". One of the main characters said "I'm going to pick [some] flowers", which is like the polite way of telling you're going to the toilet/bathroom. I don't know the actual Japanese conversation, but probably something like お花を摘みに行くo-hana wo tsumi ni iku or お花を摘みに行ってきます o-hana wo tsumi ni ittekimasu. Interestingly, there are more ways to say that politely. 

Ahem. So... some things I learnt from my flower-picking trips. Don't pick a difficult book (like classics and some non-fictions). And pick less thrillers/mysteries. I kind of prefer short and easy books. Used to pick books I think is boring but some proved to be otherwise. Also used to pick thick books but find it tedious to read when I don't like the book. Nowadays, I pick books I'd read during my teenage years.