Updates

Jun. 18th, 2019 01:23 am
ysobel: (Default)
...why is update a word br downdate isn't?

Anyway.

1. Hit 1000 day streak in Duolingo (!], which also means that -- given my previous streaks -- I've done more than 2k total days (!!). That's a lot. ...of course, two days later i missed a day, but streak freeze caught that one. Still, I'm likely to lose it st some point.

2. The book I was hate reading? I finished it and kind of wish I hadn't. CW abuse:

Read more... )

Needless to say, I don't recommend it.

2b. (Or not 2b, that is the question) -- er, I mean, one good thing is that the book has resparked my interest in working on the 50 Shades of Ace project (aka rewriting fsog with sensible characters and an ace protagonist who discovers that she loves kink).

3. I tried listening to the audiobook I have checked out from the library, but the narrator is the same guy that does the version of Watership Down that I utterly adore, to the point of listening to it a ton of times. IF's my default going-to-sleep hook, because soothing narrator and a story I know well that's nicely compartmentalized so it doesn't matter if I drift in and out. And I keep having this brain short listening to this other one *because he's not narrating rabbits aaahhhhh*. I may have to read that book instead of listening, lol.

4. My self-imposed yarn diet (because I have way more yarn than I could ever use) is conflicting with my need buy rainbow yarn. (I have only one rainbow skein and it's gone missing along with the partial shawl. I think the black widows stole it.) Also, someone on rav is making various queer sea creatures for pride season -- octobi, genderflusquid, pridetopus -- and one of the ones is an aceopus, and now I have a mighty need to make one. Though *that* I can scrounge up yarn for (grey white black purple).

5. At what point does feeling like I'm drowning in life crises stop becoming an acknowledgment of stressful reality and start becoming a crutch? Asking for a friend.

6. Mark Harmon is pretty. I've been rewatching NCIS -- not so much a binge as ragged uneven spurts -- and i am very 😍 at Gibbs. Very aesthetically pleasing.

7. There is apparently a new Men In Black movie, starring Thor and the Valkyrie. The trailer makes it look astoundingly stupid. I think I will rewatch the original mib instead.
ysobel: (Default)
This is mostly for my own sake, to keep track for the summer reading program at the library.

Read more... )

Updated / finalized Aug 31, 2019
ysobel: Artwork of a curled-up stick figure trying to stave off crushing darkness (depression)
There is a trope common to both horror movies and creature-features where the protagonist(s) huddle in an enclosed space like a room or car, and the bad thing -- axe murderer, zombies, demon, evil force, velociraptor, mutant wolf-rhino-mammoth hybrid, whatever -- is very definitely outside. Maybe it's crashing around in brute-force attempts; maybe it's rattling doors or windows, looking for a way in; maybe there's just slow ominous footsteps as it circles.The protagonists do what they can -- locking doors, bracing with their bodies if necessary, barricading entrances -- but they know, and the viewer knows, that it is only an illusion of safety. That they are at best trapped; that it's a guaranteed inevitability the thing will find a way in: a forgotten coal chute or a high window or a weak spot, or just waiting until the protagonist is sleeping/distracted, or ... eventually, somehow, it will get in.

That's how my depression feels right now.

Last night? At the first whiff of I-hate-myself thoughts, I said "not today" and barricaded the mental door. And it worked -- for a whole five minutes. Like some malevolent force in a horror movie, it just doubled down. Tripled. Quadrupled, maybe.

Inevitable.

I started the night watching a Netflix movie as distraction, figuring I'd get sleepy halfway through. I didn't. The middle of the night downgraded to random Facebook videos in a desperate and futile attempt to avoid the crying meltdown that broke at around 4am. I eventually listened to an audiobook for long enough to calm down and sleep for what remained of the night.

I am ok in the sense that I am not in any danger; in most other senses I am not ok. Just good at pretending otherwise.
ysobel: (Default)
Had, unplannedly, quite a relaxing evening -- went to bed around 8 and after about ten minutes Monkey came and curled up on my chest. I put on an audiobook (started with a new one but was having trouble concentrating, so switched to Watership Down, which a) is a story I know well and therefore it wouldn't matter if I half fell asleep for a few minutes, and b) has a lovely soothing narrator IMO; I listen to audiobooks at 1.5 speed because they're too slow otherwise, but even so WD makes a wonderful and gentle listen) and just lay peacefully with a purring cat curled up on me. I had reiki this afternoon too, so I was pre-relaxed, and it was just ... a little piece of heaven, more or less.

(Amd I'm pretty sure I did doze in and out, because I don't remember the river crossing but we're past that, but that's why I chose WD. It's somewhat serial in nature, with the el-ahrairah stories and the sequence of adventures, and I know the plot well enough to know what I've missed when I zone back in.)

Only down side is I couldn't do much of anything on my tablet of course, because there was a cat blocking 75% of my screen, which meant there was a chance I couldn't get my daily duolingo completed. Which I was okay with because streak freeze, except when she got off me (at only 11, so I immediately switched to duo) it turned out that I hadn't done yesterday, so I very nearly lost the streak. Didn't, and SF is back on, but it's had the feel for a while of a wobbling spinner toy about to fall down, and I keep almost forgetting (or sometimes actually forgetting), so I'm probably going to end up crashing soon.

Incidentally, I registered for my library's summer reading program. There's always a small prize for signing up -- one year a tote bag, one year a coloring book, one year a small wooden puzzle toy -- and then doing things gets you entries into a grand prize drawing, which I think is a kindle preloaded with a shitton of books, though I'm not positive on that. Obviously reading is the main way to get an entry, but then you can get bonus entries by doing other things; the list changes each year but always includes going to a library event. And the signup prize this year? A free book. \o/ Granted ,it was a fairly small selection, but I ended up with The Maltese Falcon, which I'm oddly excited about reading.

I loved the summer reading program as a kid, and back then the *end* prize was a free book, which in my view was the best thing ever. Of course I am not the target demographic, in that I hardly needed encouragement to read. I don't know that more reluctant readers would consider a book to be that great a reward. But I still remember the awesomeness of getting a book that was *mine* (not that I lacked for available books at home, since my parents owned tons, but still), and there was one year, not sure how old I was but definitely on the older side, that the book I chose was Diary of Anne Frank, and at the time I felt slightly weird for being excited about getting a nonfiction book, especially one about the Holocaust, but finding it in the available books felt like winning the lottery.
ysobel: A kitten staring at its reflection; text: through the looking glass (through the looking glass)
Browsing Audible, and came across this:

Game of thrones (asoiaf 1) runs 33 hrs and 50 mins.
Book 2 runs 37 hrs and 18 mins
Book 3? 47 hrs and 37 mins

For comparison, HP book 1 is 8 hrs and 33 mins. The longest book, OOtP, is 27 hrs and 2 mins. LotR is 19 hrs and 11 mins (FotR) + 16 hrs and 40 mins (TTT) + 18 hrs and 18 mins (RotK) for a total of 54h9m.

...yeah.

Sadly, one cannot search Audible's catalogue by length...
ysobel: (Default)
I've been collecting audiobooks faster than I can listen, mainly because I don't want to drain my phone battery, and I only use my iPad at night, and audiobooks are great for getting to sleep but, because of that, I don't really follow the story because I keep falling asleep.

It just occurred to me today that my computer runs win10. Which does apps. And while I don't have (and can't use) a touchscreen monitor, not all windows apps require touchscreen.

So I downloaded the Audible app. Fuck yeah.

(Plus, audiobooks are better than tv for doing while crocheting, because there's no visual component.)
ysobel: (Default)
One disadvantage to checking out audiobooks from the library?

I keep finding ones I want to *own*.

(Bunnicula ones, read by Victor Garber; now to a lesser extent Magician's Nephew, which is not my favorite Narnia book at all but Kenneth Branagh's voices make me happy.)
ysobel: (Default)
One reason among several why I like being able to borrow audiobooks from the library:

I have, in my (temporary) possession, audiobook version of the Bunnicula books.

\o/
ysobel: (Default)
So I seem to have an addiction to audiobooks.

It's not the same experience as visual reading, but it is perfectly entertaining in its own right. Especially useful for listening when a) crocheting, b) taking a nice long evening walk with Yahtzee, or c) having my eyes closed but not sleeping. And it's certainly more physically accessible than physical books, which I have problems holding and using.

...and I may have just added 36 titles to my Audible wish list...

(dude, Taltos books are available on audible! Also earthsea! Also one of my favoritest Star Trek books, which makes up for being abridged -- excuse me, adapted -- by being read by George Takei and Leonard Nimoy.)

Now if only I had a million dollars to spend on audiobooks...

happy augh!

Mar. 6th, 2012 11:32 am
ysobel: (Default)
So I wake up today to an email that Audible is doing a sale -- a bunch of titles available for $4.95.

/eyes shopping cart/

A vast majority of the available titles were not of interest to me ... but some of them definitely were. Like Lies of Locke Lamora. And, um. A few others.

/shopping cart eyes back/

Wheeee :D
ysobel: (Default)
So I have dabbled around a bit in Audible and am 99% sure that I want to get a subscription; audiobooks are great for a) listening to while knitting, and b) something to do when I get headaches of the "lie in dark room with eyes closed" variety, or otherwise can't entertain myself with anything other than sound.

I have been collecting a wishlist, based on either stories I like (including the complete unabridged collection of sherlock holmes stories) or narrators that I like (*cough* benedict cumberbatch, among others), but I'm also looking for recommendations. Things that work well as audiobooks, or people who are good at reading.

Any suggestions? For those of you that use Audible, or listen to audiobooks on a (semi)regular basis, what sort of thing do you go for?

Profile

ysobel: (Default)
masquerading as a man with a reason

April 2025

S M T W T F S
   123 45
6789101112
1314 1516171819
20212223242526
27282930   

Syndicate

RSS Atom

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated May. 16th, 2025 10:29 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios