awesometakashi

We made sure to get to the park right when they opened today because the Kuzco sipper goes on sale today and based on how fast the glow cubes sold out last year, we knew we had to act fast.

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Currently Reading
How to Survive a Horror Story
16%. A group of people are invited to the reading of a will for a famous horror author at his family mansion, only to find it's haunted. Interesting so far.

Newcomer
52%. Second (in the English translation order) Detective Kaga mystery. This is told in an interesting manner, not with the detective as the POV character, but with each section being from the POV of a possible suspect, but with each section wrapping up by clearing that person. I liked the first book better, but I'm enjoying this one, too.

Shady Hollow
74%. A typical small village murder mystery, but they're all woodland creatures. I got this on an audible sale when I was looking for a second book to buy on a buy one get one free sale, so I took a chance on something I was not wholly sold on and without having finished this book I can say I definitely will not be continuing the series. I have often struggled to figure out what makes something a "cozy mystery", and it seems that a lot of times things are declared to be cozies just because the person solving the mystery is a woman, or they're not a professional, but then I started this book and I'm like, that's definitely a cozy mystery. Way more time is spent on describing in detail the various animals and their town and all that than on the mystery, especially in the first third of the book. It's not what I'm interested in, and for me this would have worked much better as a comic, where you can just show all the cute animals and stuff through illustration, without going on and on about it forever. The mystery is fine, though, so it's not a bad book, just not a good fit for me.

The War on Alcohol: Prohibition and the Rise of the American State
13%.

Recently Finished
Isle of Ever
I was not expecting this book to end without wrapping anything up. There is a sequel, and this really feels like what should be one book split into two, which is not my preference.

A Death at the Dionysus Club
I guess these books are from a small publisher, but that doesn't excuse the lack of professionalism in the audiobooks. The first one had a narrator with a lozenge in his mouth the whole time, and this second one has a different narrator who did the whole first chapter in a wildly different voice than he did the rest of the book, like he was trying it out and decided not to continue with it, but rather than rerecord the first chapter, just left it at that. The voice used for the first chapter was terrible, so I'm glad he switched, but why on earth leave it like that?

Drop Dead Sisters
This was fun. Not sure if I will read the sequel or not, though.

Abscond
Coming of age short story set in the 1960s about an Indian American boy dealing with his father's sudden death. I enjoyed it.

We went down to Disneyland for dinner last night. It's that in-between season when we've pretty much exhausted all the new menu items and seen all the summer stuff, but while they're getting ready for Halloween, it's not quite there yet. It was very busy, though, because the two lower tiers of passholders have been blocked out for most of the summer and can finally come back, plus there are two special magic key promos right now (a free shopping bag and 50% off lightning lane passes), so people were after those.

( Mostly Halloween )

1. We got Indian food from the same place as we did a couple weeks ago and this time both our main focus was the batter fried paneer sticks lol. I just ordered them on a whim last time (they're called paneer pakora so I was expecting more of something filled with cheese rather than what it was) but they were so good. (The other food we got was good, too, but these would be hard to top.)

2. I am so glad I spotted Ollie like this and was able to get some photos. Truly a sight to brighten any day.

1. Tomorrow a local news station is going to be filming short segments at the new store all morning, so today I went down there in the afternoon to help stock and tidy up. The filming is starting super early (even before the store opens) so most of the tidying up has to be done today. Thankfully, while it was busy today, it wasn't nearly as hectic as it has been the past couple weeks, so it was easier to keep things in decent shape.

2. This morning I had a meeting with the Japan IT team who is here for the month helping with the inventory system project that is now my main focus, and I finally got some more clarity on what exactly will be expected of me, so that's good.

3. Jasper is so handsome.

Currently Reading
Isle of Ever
23%. A young girl learns she will inherit a family fortune if she can follow her ancestor's clues and find a mysterious island before the deadline. It's only just getting started but seems interesting so far.

A Death at the Dionysus Club
81%.

Drop Dead Sisters
53%.

The War on Alcohol: Prohibition and the Rise of the American State
No progress.

Recently Finished
The God of the Woods
I really liked this a lot. When I got it from the library and saw how huge it was, I wasn't sure I could finish it in time (no renewals because there are still a bunch of people with holds) but it was a fast read and I zipped through it.

Detective Aunty
First in a new mystery series featuring a recently widowed middle-aged Indian woman as the detective. In this first one, she gets a call from her daughter that she's a murder suspect after finding her landlord's dead body in her shop. I really liked this a lot. Reminded me of the Aunty Lee mystery series.

Decelerate Blue
Graphic novel about a near future dystopia where everything has to be fast and brief. Movies are under twenty minutes. Books are turned into cliff's notes versions. It's also extremely capitalistic and the mall is more important than school. The teenage MC is unhappy with the state of things, and after reading a forbidden book and stumbling (literally) across a group of revolutionaries, decides to run away from home and join them and "decelerate". This has some interesting ideas, but the world-building is very thin and often nonsensical (if they're supposed to be super efficient in their speech, why add "go" to the end of every thought? What is the "guarantee" and why do they repeat the catchphrase "go, guarantee, go"?), and the world seems to have turned into this in just one generation (the grandfather remembers the before times). It was okay. Wouldn't particularly recommend it.

Awajima Hyakkei vol. 1-5
I read the first three books so long ago that I had to reread them before reading the final two. Not one of my favorite Shimura Takako series, but it's cute. If you like her stuff, it's worth checking out. But even reading all five volumes together I had trouble keeping track of all the characters. I did like seeing the cameo by the characters from Aoi Hana, all grown up (and still a couple).

It's Halloween season! Well, not really. Officially Halloweentime at Disneyland doesn't start until August 22nd, but the merch is already out in force and some decorations have started to go up, too.

( Halloween merch ahoy! )

1. My hip does feel improved. Not completely better, but better than it was. So that's good.

2. I'm getting very close to finishing my current puzzle. I have been doing at least some every day, but with the difficulty level I haven't been making a ton of progress each time, but now that I'm closer to finishing, I'm getting that "just a few more pieces" feeling and today I actually worked on it three separate times. I think I'll probably finish it tomorrow, and will be glad to move on to something a little easier!

3. Lately Ollie has enjoyed stuffing himself into this cubby on the cat tree. It's not as apparent in this photo, but he is really way too big for it.

1. Definitely seem to have like a pinched nerve or something in my hip from too much driving, so tomorrow and Thursday I am going to try not to drive anywhere if possible.

2. Today I got through with everything I needed to do by like 2pm and was just like, you know what, I'm just going to go home. So I did! I answered a few more emails and messages once I was home, but was able to enjoy a shorter day and actually feel like I got some time to rest, which was nice.

3. Took Chloe to the vet this morning for a checkup and some shots, and also asked them about a little bump we'd noticed on her back. The vet confirmed what we'd been hoping, which is that it seems like just a skin tag, and not anything to be worried about. We'll keep an eye on it, but that's definitely a relief to know. Then she got some roast beef as a treat for being brave at the vet.

4. She also got those sharpies trimmed (photo taken pre-trimming).