My Two Blessings

  What a week! Found out I have an inflamed gall bladder which doesn't have to come out right now, but later.  Seems the weird little twinges and pain I've felt over the past couple years have been biliary colic. I have gall stones.  I have a surgery consultation coming up next Wednesday.  At this point, I think I'm about at 85  percent health wise.  No pain, no tightness, and the fatigue is slowly getting better.   I closed out the month of February with The Lonely Hearts Book Club by Lucy Gilmore.  First Lines:  "The day I met Arthur McLachlan was perfectly ordinary.  I woke up at my usual hour, I ate my usual bowl of oatmeal, while hunched over the last few pages of my library copy of Parable of the Sower. I can't remember what I wore, but I'm pretty sure it was both machine washable and designed for comfort." Sloane, Maisey, Mateo, Greg, and Arthur. What do all these people have in common.  They've all experienced grief, or...

  “You can run away from your life and your past, but there's no way to distance yourself from your own heart.” First Lines:  "Christmas parties are the star on the top of my 'don't list this year. Other things to avoid this season: Ornaments. Trees. Mistletoe.(definitely) Holiday movies about families. And memories."  Joy walks out of her own life, onto an airplane, crashes, walks away from the wreck, and has a bonding experience with a man and his child living deep in the woods. Yet, something is strange about the whole thing. Is is all real or in her imagination?  Like the movie Sixth Sense, once I finished the story, I want to read it all over again.  At the beginning it didn't seem like it, but Comfort and Joy is a charming Christmas story about hope and finding happiness.     Ballantine Books, 2005 Contemporary Christmas Romance 272 E book  ****

  “You know that thing when you're watching a film that you're not really enjoying and the other person doesn't like it either, but you've paid for the rental, you're halfway through, you sort of want to know what happens and, besides, there's nothing else on. But really you're just waiting for someone to say, "Can we stop this? I hate it." And neither of us did. Some people sit like that for their whole lives together. Waiting for it to pick up, waiting for a good bit. We were lucky in that respect. It could have gone on longer.” First Line: "In all her youthful visions of the future, of the job she might have, the city and home she might live in, the friends and family around her, Marnie had never thought that she'd be lonely." Some strangers, some friends begin a coast to coast walk from the Irish Sea to the North Sea of England and work through life issues in the process.  The story represented two very flawed, hurt, people not tr...

  Hello, true believers. The Crazy Video Game Wizard is back, with a review of another Marvel show from decades past. It started well after my dad and I finished watching SPIDER-MAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES, and we watched the first episode of FANTASTIC FOUR (1994) together. My dad didn't enjoy it, and wouldn't watch the rest, so I watched the rest of the show without him. This show follows Dr. Reed Richards, Sue Storm, Johnny, and Ben in their superhero adventures as the Fantastic Four, as they battle against dangerous foes as a family no matter the odds. For its time, the show has aged pretty well, and the gang is well depicted, faithful to their comic counterparts, and the action is engaging with many epic intro sequences for the first half of season one and the second half of season one. Despite the quality, Fantastic Four only lasted one season and was cancelled, due to low views. Let us not forget, the voice acting is pretty good. Ben aka The Thing has a good voice, provided ...

  Oh, hello there. So, you may be wondering who the fella in red and black is, and why he's cussing and killing bad guys with blood going everywhere. The name's Deadpool, real name Wade Wilson. Most people call me "The Merc With A Mouth", and I'm a big deal.  You know Marvel Comics, right? Let me give you the f***ing beats, buster! I was created in the 90s with my big damn debut comin' in 1991, even though it took a while for me to develop my fourth wall-breaking $#!@, and it took longer for me to get into the movies. 2009 may have been my lucky day, BUT THEY SEWED MY DAMN MOUTH SHUT!!! However, 2016 was the game changer, when they knocked it outta the park with my movie. And get this, that Ryan Reynolds guy who played the other me, HE PLAYED THE REAL ME! That's right, baby! My actor is THE Ryan Reynolds, and you know him from $#!* like the GREEN LANTERN movie and a bunch of others. Sooooooo, what's the story of my movie, baby? Well, it starts with me ...

  Have been feeling horrible for most of the week. Combination of the new blood pressure medication and supposedly gall bladder issues. Had a chat with my doctor who said to stop taking the new med and suspects that since all pain is localized in my right side beneath my ribs. He's ordered an ultrasound for Monday.  Can't concentrate on anything heavy so started Kristin Hannah's ebook Comfort and Joy which was sad and depressing so fit my mood.  "Joy Candellaro once loved Christmas more than any other time of the year. Now, as the holiday approaches, she is at a crossroads in her life; recently divorced and alone, she can’t summon the old enthusiasm for celebrating. So without telling anyone, she buys a ticket and boards a plane bound for the beautiful Pacific Northwest. When an unexpected detour takes her deep into the woods of the Olympic rainforest, Joy makes a bold decision to leave her ordinary life behind--to just walk away--and thus begins an adventure unlike an...

  In 2020, after years of development hell, the Sonic the Hedgehog movie finally released, distributed by Paramount Pictures, and was a massive hit. With the success of the film, the Sonic franchise was rejuvenated, and the way was paved for the Sonic Cinematic Universe with 2022 seeing the release of Sonic 2. Nearly two years later, as we prepared for Sonic 3, the world saw Idris Elba's Knuckles get his own show, which guest starred Adam Pally as Green Hills policeman Wade Whipple (who is also the main star of this darn show). So, I watched this whole series, and saw some videos about it on YouTube, what are my thoughts on this? Honestly, KNUCKLES is fine. Its nothing too special or groundbreaking, its all about our favorite red echidna and Wade Whipple on a pretty wacky adventure. As someone who grew up watching wacky, childish stuff along with some pretty dark stuff, I like my cartoony over-the-top nonsense. KNUCKLES is a comedy through and through, and Adam Pally hits the comed...

  For nearly a century, DC's Batman has inspired, and mesmerized the world with his battles and stories in many forms from comics to TV to games. The movies have been no exception, with many directors and actors offering the greatest of takes on the Caped Crusader. In 1989, following the goofiness of '66, Warner Bros delivered one of Batman's most important outings ever. Batman (1989), directed by Tim Burton, saw Batman (played by Michael Keaton) battle the demented Joker (Jack Nicholson). The film was well-received, and Keaton reprised the role a few years later in the sequel, Batman Returns (1992). Now, we get to today's topic. In 2024, Penguin Random House released BATMAN: RESSURECTION, a novel written by John Jackson Miller.  Set in the Burtonverse after the conclusion of Batman 1989, the story addresses the aftermath of The Joker's defeat and follows Batman's desperate resolve to protect Gotham City as a new threat arises. The book captures the feel and aes...

  J.D. Robb's 60th In Death - Bonded in Death - arrived so I dove in and she hit it out of the park with this one. I really enjoyed the heck out of this episode of Eve and Roark, and learned some new things about Summerset, and those who were involved in the Urban Wars. Fascinating and definitely a five star read.  Another five star read was The Last Love Note by Emma Grey which was equally good. A story about grief, love, loss. A story about powering through, resilience, humor, honesty, and family.  Never letting go, but moving forward, finding your way without the love of your life, and somehow falling in love again with the one was right in front of you all along.   I laughed, I cried, I laughed some more. One of those stories I'll have to get in paperback to read again.  Finished John Scalzi's Starter Villain which was silly and ridiculous and entertaining with intelligent typing cats, foul mouthed sentient dolphins, and a bunch of villains who threa...

  Woot! Woot! J.D. Robb's 60th book in the In Death series - Bonded in Death - has arrived and I am fully immersed in the story, wondering how she is going to pick apart the clues and find the murderer. So good.... "His passport read Giovanni Rossi. But decades ago, during the Urban Wars, he was part of a small, secret organization called The Twelve. Responding to an urgent summons from an old compatriot, he landed in New York and eased into the waiting car. And died within minutes…" My bedtime read is John Scalzi's Starter Villain:   "Inheriting your uncle's supervillain business is more complicated than you might think. Particularly when you discover who's running the place. Charlie's life is going nowhere fast. A divorced substitute teacher living with his cat in a house his siblings want to sell, all he wants is to open a pub downtown, if only the bank will approve his loan. Then his long-lost uncle Jake dies and leaves his supervillain business (...

  “The glow in The Perch dimmed, her corner untouched by the blast of light and heat from the hearth across the room, so she asked for a lantern to read by. The kid obliged, and despite the uncomfortable chair and the ache in her leg and the backwater in which she’d been abandoned, she was absorbed. She was transported. She was elsewhere.” First Line:  "Eighteen! bellowed Viv bringing her saber around in a flat curve that battered the wight's skull off its spine.  In Bookshops and Bonedust, the main characters are anthromorphic animals or not human.  Viv is an orc, a female fighter, wounded while searching for a necromancer.  She's left in a back water town, called Murk, to recuperate.  While there, she gets involved with Fern, a rattkin, who is a walking, talking, foul mouthed rat with a pet dog who is a cross between a dog and a bird. Fenn owns a bookshop in a sad state of disrepair.  Viv befriends and helps Fern, all the while falling in  deep ...

  “Life is one revelation after another. Things don’t always go to plan, no matter what your circumstances. But the flip side is all the unexpected, wonderful things that you could never have imagined happening. Ultimately it’s all for the best that many things don’t turn out the way we hoped.” First Lines:  When Saya sends a test to tell me she has a new boyfriend, I instantly write back: What's he like.  But all she replies is: He's a doctor.     What do Tomika, Ryo, Matsumi, Hiroya, and Matao all have in common?  Each are at a stage in their lives where something needs to change in order for them to grow, be happy, find fulfillment.  And that is where Sayuri Komachi comes in.  She is a large, enigmatic woman hidden in the back of the community library at the reference desk, who likes Honeydome Cookies, and felts old little things.  She doles out advice, personalized book lists, and a bonus felt piece that somehow, mysteriously represe...

  Woohoo! January was a great reading month and I stuck to reading only physical books from my shelves. I read 8 books for a total of 3450 pages not including my in progress sip read.  1. Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome: #1 of the 12 book series. The story brought back memories of my three older sisters and I putting on plays in our carport when we were about the same age as the Walker kids, for our parents and neighbors.  And days spent playing and romping through the neighborhood with all the kids on our block, until dusk and dinner. **** 2. The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin:  I'm not particularly fond of Le Guin's writing, and I don't know what it is about it but it always turns me off.  However, reading one chapter at a time before bed, helped me get through it. All I can say about it is that a perfect society is hard to find. No matter how hard one tries, not everyone will agree.  *** 3.  The Emperor's Tomb by Steve Berry: #8 in the Cot...