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July 15th I was reading BV Larsen's Starforce series over the winter. Don't remember exactly which book it was but the main characters lover and second most important in the series to that point was killed. I was listening to music on youtube while reading and somehow Axel Rudy Pell's Come Back to Me started playing as I read the funeral scene. I'd never heard of Axel before that and the timing was interesting and made me sniffle a bit. Now I like a bunch of his songs. July 16th Either the marriage of my great, great grandparents or the birth of their son my great grandfather. Mainly to find out who they were. I can trace some branches of my family for hundreds, even over a thousand years and yet my namesake is a dead end before he showed up where I still live. He gave a couple of details about his life before that but we've never been able to confirm it or even find his parents names.

Paris. Wife was there many years ago and it's been on our wish list for a long time. Actually I'd be good with almost anywhere in Europe.

Make hay while the sun shines. Not as many acres to do as I'd like but it's an almost normal crop for the first time in many years. Should finish tomorrow.

I chase cows.

My wife loves fireworks so we usually watch if there's any in the area and a couple times a year I set off a handful of little ones for her. I don't mind them but don't get real excited.

Picking a favourite is tricky but one is bergamot. It blooms here in late July and reminds me of picking berries with my mom and grandma.

It hit 33 C/ 91F yesterday. Today is a lot cooler and windy. Average is supposed to be around 25 C which is what the forecast is predicting for the next few days. High 30s is rare here but does happen some times. Found a website that says the record high for here was 42 C/ 108 F in July 2007. Interestingly enough that website shows a bunch of the record highs from around the province and most of them are in that range (+/-2-3 degrees F) and spread out fairly evenly since the 1930s. So our max temps haven't increased in the last hundred years.

And that's one of the main reasons I'm not sure I'll ever go to Texas. Our 90 F summers can make me feel crappy. I've been out in 100F and generally tried to find the coolest place possible. Today was 80 F and I was sweating a lot but worked outside all day.

I suppose cooking is my favourite. I spend a fair amount of time trying out different recipes. Not sure if it counts as a chore but least favourite is plumbing. I can do it but every time I start it takes way longer and needs more parts than it originally seemed. The joys of swapping out old junk that's corroded together.

yeah, most States in the US have similar mandantory liability insurance requirements. (NH and VA being the exceptions here), though about 30 of them allow for a driver to purchase an accident bond that you have to pay back instead of having insurance. Ironically, i've seen statistics that indicate that the two states where it's not requred actually have lower than average rates of uninsured drivers.... Yeah, we've got mandatory government insurance on vehicles here too. Not sure about the laws in Gotham though. I'm a canadian farmer so I'm binumerial. My land was measured in miles and acres and for many things I'm still more comfortable thinking in Imperial rather than metric although I can do conversions easy enough. But american liquid measures mess me up a bit your gallons are a liter smaller than ours. Just spent my first first day stateside in the last 4 years. The wife was busy getting me to convert the prices of everything into CAD. Normally gas prices give me a headache but right now it was $3.50 a gallon which is pretty much exactly $1.00/liter so $1.32 CAD/liter. Cheaper than here but way more expensive than I ever saw in Montana before. A lot of things were roughly the same price as here which we'd never seen before. Our inflation has been ridiculously high lately but in looks like our neighbours to the south is even worse.

Yeah, insurance is for those of us mere mortals to helps cover unexpected expenses. If you're a billionaire you can probably cover any unexpected incidentals. Plus what company would want to be on the hook for all of his collateral damage?

I've seen a few wierd or impressive things but all of them were easily explainable. I believe that there's more out there than we readily understand but haven't really come into contact with any of it.

Read The Legendary Moonlight Sculptor manwha. It's another story about a young man's adventures in a VR fantasy game. In this the game is just a game and he still has to deal with things in real life. The main character is sort of a loner and accidentally got trapped into following the secret class of Moonlight Sculptor. His play style is a bit unorthodox focusing on less popular craft skills while still becoming an impressive warrior. The comic had just the right touch of humour and a bit of mystery and sadness that I really enjoyed. The problem is that the comic only covers about a quarter of the story and hasn't been updated for 2 years (unless there's somewhere I haven't found). I learned it was based on a web novel so I started ready that. The translation wasn't great and the novel doesn't convey the humour as well. But after speed reading/skimming through to close to where the comic ended I'm starting to get into it more. I think the translation has gotten better or maybe I'm just used to it now. It's long enough I'll likely be reading for awhile yet.

My best friend bought a bunch of the Rifts books many years ago. We both liked the world but never actually tried playing the rules. EVery weekend I cook something in my smoker. After having it for a year I'm still learning and perfecting my recipes. Today I did pork ribs. We've gotten a bit spoiled with good food over the year. It's been a long time since I went "Wow! That's really good!" Kinda proud of myself and think I have my go to recipe from now on.

Last movie was Super Mario Brothers. It was a cute adaptation of the video games. Riding and training horses. I use a truck for all that work now because a good horse takes too much care and effort.

Sounds about like my ranch! Ok I might be exaggerating a bit. We don't have any bears yet. Years ago we were having a fight with the government over game damage. We had roughly 500-600 elk on our land and the nearest neighbours. We had video of several different herds numbering roughly 200 elk each. The government rented a helicopter, flew over hundreds of kilometers of the province, counted around 100 elk and told us we were lying. Ever since then I've had serious doubts about "official" numbers for anything. They did open up a hunting season for elk in our area which scared the elk into a larger range instead of being centered on 3-4 farms in a tight cluster. Shared the pain out a bit.

Somewhere close to 40 hours. It was the last time I worked for my cousins that I whole heartedly detest. Hauling grain for them at harvest time. I put in a 110 hour week, getting about 3-4 hours of sleep a day. At the very end on my last load I fell asleep at 6 am, half a mile from the finish line and drove off the road. Luckily nothing was hurt except some fence. After that I refused to work for them ever again and would never try to work those sort of hours again in my life. It was pure stupidity and abuse. Good lesson for a young guy in his mid 20s.

17th We played Apples to Apples with all the kids this evening. I mowed the lawn yesterday and it rained a bit today. 18th almost 40 years of my life was spent with nearly daily contact with my dad. It's really hard to think of specific incidents that stand out but he taught me so much. We were about as close as it was possible to be despite not agreeing on everything. He was the epitome of hard work, honesty, and loyalty. In many ways my life is easier now because I'm not trying to everything he wanted but I still really miss him and miss knowing there was always somebody that had my back no matter what.

Hard to pick a favourite animal but lately it's been various funny videos of them messing up. Think Fail Army for animals.

I finished all of the ones I mentioned. Leviathan was fairly dark but not totally depressing. The good guys make out ok. I try to alternate between things that look dark and more light hearted stuff but it's sometimes had to judge ahead of time. A couple of goofy pornwha I read took surprising turns that got me in the feelings. The bleakest thing I read was a zombie comic (not really a fan of the whole zombie apocalypse theme) that I can't remember the name of right now. It was several short stories showing how scummy people can be with a longer story about a cult involving rape, torture and murder. It actually really made me angry which doesn't happen often. The ending was more upbeat showing how 2 of the people that were hurt the most lead to possibly saving everyone. But that was a hard read and it's not on my recommended list. How does the Komi Can't Communicate anime compare to the manga? I found it on netflix and stuck it on my watch list. I've mostly been reading the last few months but have been watching Farscape and Inuyasha and want to continue with Is it Ok to Pick Up Girls In A Dungeon. Need to finish watching some things.

Late to the discussion here but decided to post about a few decent manwha I've read lately. Rise and Shine Hero - goofy story with nudity about a young hero who needs to go on a quest to rescue a princess. In preparation he goes to get a blessing from a priestess but the only one she had left was for his umm... special equipment. Amusing story of how he uses his blessing to defeat evil and save the princess while avoiding getting married. Leviathan - Waterworld style scenario where there's only a tiny bit of land left on the planet due to an alien comet impact. The comet released various leviathan creatures into the seas. Humans survive by scrounging scraps from the sea floor and fighting lots of monsters. Main character is a young boy living with his exiled widower father and little sister. When the father dies in battle the kids are rescued by a young woman harpoonist (elite monster killer) and taken to the city ship their parents were exiled from. The story continues with them tangled up in the internal politics of the ship and trying to discover more about what the leviathans are. The Beginning After the End - A king from an earth similar to ours is reborn in an unfamiliar world but has all of his original memories. As he grows up he uses his knowledge to become a child prodigy (who'dve guessed?). Contains some common tropes such as dungeon clearing and levelling up but more subtle than many stories. The boy's only wish is to be able to defend his family and friends but they get dragged into a war between 2 clans of godlike creatures based on basilisks and dragons. The manwha is far from finished and the novel it's based on is still ongoing. It's been my favourite thing I've read in a long time. Hits me in all the right spots. Zero Game - People who are at their breaking point in life are offered a chance to join a game. The winner will be able to change their life into anything they want. Every character has their own tragic story and they have to learn to work together to complete missions while at the same time wanting to be the overall winner. The main story revolves around a young woman and twin brothers who's shared history is what led them to the game. Story is still ongoing. The Monster Duchess and Contract Princess (The Monstrous Duke's Adopted Daughter) - A young girl was raised to be a sacrifice to boost the power of her older sister. When her parents attempt to sacrifice her she is saved by her own powers which are connected to the spirits of all the other earlier sacrifices. Knowing that her parents want to attempt the sacrifice again at the next proper time she makes contact with one of the most powerful people in the empire a Duchess with a reputation of being a monster. She offers to become the the duchess' daughter exchanging her powers for her life. As the girl grows up she is involved in conflicts involving her birth family and others wanting to take control of the empire. Just started reading Solo Levelling and have made a list of some others people here mentioned to look into in the future.

Meat free? What's that? Does fish/seafood count as meat because I know that's how a lot of people get around meat restrictions. Favourite meat free meal would probably be something like pancakes or blini but they're made with milk, eggs and butter so not strict vegan. We do a few vegan dishes but tend to eat them as a side dish with some sort of meat. I've eaten a few meat substitute products and didn't care for any of them.

It's a pretty much constant for me anymore. I don't sleep well a lot of the time and I vary from slightly sleepy but fully functional to barely dragging my butt around.

Whoops, somehow I clicked in the middle of the thread when I thought I'd went to the last page. My eyes are barely open for some reason. Good thing I hadn't planned on doing anything important this morning.

Almost 10 years since a post in it. I guess that's why I don't remember seeing it.