@mdreid Yep, Matt writes a compelling story and he expands the world brilliantly in the first book. I really want to see what happens on the next level ...

But then again, I've got a couple of more writers to go through to see if I find more interesting writers who make me want to write 🙂

So moving on without going on to book 2 ... but that's mostly because I read slowly and I'm currently on a quest to find more inspiring writers. But the compulsion to move on to book 2 is very strong 😀

What with the storm and flooding in Sri Lanka and other stuff going on, I haven't had time to do a reading update. But maybe time to do one now to close out November?

After DNFing "Just One Damned Thing After Another", I started on "Clean Sweep". This one I liked 🙂

The story was engaging, and the writing was clean. It wasn't the kind of writing that made me want to write like that, but the story was good. And I finished the book in 4 days, which is a record for me ... Or I wasn't busy 😛

I'll be returning to this series!

Then I read "Dungeon Crawler Carl".

I knew Matt Dinniman a long time ago (before DCC) and he's a great guy. The book was interesting.

What interests me mostly about a book is the plot. Figuring out what will happen before it happens.

Couldn't do that much here 😛

For one thing, you know what will happen ultimately based on the premise - you know that Carl will make it to the end of the dungeon 🙂

For another, the plot points are like mini-stories. Each section of a level takes a chapter or two and is done. There are very few overarching plot elements which act as hooks. The main attraction is to keep reading to see what happens next.

But the plot twists as he progressed were entertaining and creative. So I kept reading, and reading, and reading.

Again, not quite the kind of thing I'd want to write myself, but definitely something that will keep me reading!

I'll be coming back to this series. Both Ilona Andrews and Matt make me want to come back and finish the whole series. But there are so many books ....

#Reading #Books #MiniReviews
A screenshot from a reading app…

"Sunny Sanskari Ki Tulsi Kumari" (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt30742355) was a fun movie! Didn't expect too much from it but as is usual is the case when I don't expect much from Varun Dhawan, he surprises you 😛

Another great Bollywood romance!

#Movies #Hindi #Bollywood

I have a lot of notes scattered across multiple apps - OneNote, Affine, Apple Notes, Obsidian etc. So I decided to combine all of them in one place 🙂

Getting everything into Obsidian was easy enough since Obsidian has a bunch of useful importers. So that was done, but then I needed to be able to sync the notes across the local network to other machines and with my wife.

Sure, Obsidian has their sync functionality but that's a paid subscription. Then there is at least one open-source sync solution but it seemed a bit heavy for my needs. So, as one does when one is a developer, I decided to write my own 😛

I wanted something which only syncs over the local network, is easy to deploy and install and is light-weight. I think have all those boxes ticked. It's a tiny Go server for the server-side and an Obsidian plugin for handling the client side.

And in case anybody is interested in using it (or testing it, or contributing to it), I decided to make it open-source. You can find it on GitHub here:
https://github.com/FahimF/GoSync

#Obsidian #Sync #Go #OpenSource

So the wife and I did our cartoons for this week based on a Facebook video ... or at least, my/our reaction to it 😛

https://write.farook.org/idle-thoughts-05/

#Cartoon #Drawing #Art
Two cartoons by different peopl…

I don't think I've ever DNFed a book before. But this week I DNFed two.

So, overall progress has been three books this week but I'm not happy about it since I DNFed two and started the third yesterday.

I'll discuss why I DNFed each one (broadly - no spoilers).

"A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking" - this one just felt so slow, and a very abbreviated world-view. Action was sparse and when I finally ended up reading about climbing up a poop-tube (you'll know if you read the book 😛) for two whole chapters, I gave up.

"Just One Damned Thing After Another" felt much better at first, except that the main character was supposed to be smart but they keep not seeing the obvious.

They do say that they aren't smart sometimes, but if everybody else says they are, then are they all stupid?

Then there was the sex 😛 The first 8 chapters read like a Victorian romance - glances and sighs. But then it suddenly becomes a bodice-ripper in around chapter 9 or 10.

I could not recover after that and gave up soon after. It just felt so disjointed after that.

#Reading #Books #Thoughts
A screenshot from a reader app …

Another double-cartoon from the wife and I 🙂

https://write.farook.org/idle-thoughts-04/

Any resemblance to real people is purely unintentional 😛

#Cartoon #Drawing #Art
Two cartoons by two different p…

@Scienceisnotopinions I've been going through multiple sites which claim to find you similar books but so far have not hit upon one which gave me something that I really loved based on the criteria I specified 🙂

I use my own reader because it gives me more flexibility than Kindle does. Maybe I should write my own recommendation engine but then that'll take time away from reading and other stuff. So probably won't 🙂

Recently, I've been reading different authors instead of sticking to a single author. I'm trying to find an author whose writing I really enjoy without nitpicking. So far, not a lot of success 😛

James Butcher's first book looked promising, but the second not so much...

The second telegraphed what was coming so much that I kind of knew where we'd end by as soon as the first "big" plot twist started 🙂

That's actually when I decided to read different authors and figure out one whose writing I really liked enough to keep reading them.

I read a collection of golden age science fiction stories as a palette cleanser for a couple of days. It was good but not compelling.

So back to fantasy I went since most of my TBR pile is fantasy 🙂

Next one was Ben Aaronovitch and "The Rivers of London".

Better, but the book felt a bit disjointed. It was almost as if Aaronovitch wrote parts of it at different times. Sometimes the characters seemed to forget basic things that they knew earlier and so on. And the timeline seemed to shift a bit.

I'll come back to the series later.

Now reading "A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking" by T. Kingfisher.

I'd heard a lot of praise for T. Kingfisher and so my expectations were high. Maybe too high?

She writes like I think I would 🙂 But the story is in fits and starts. There's action and then lulls...

I'm only halfway through, but it feels as if it could have benefitted from a bit more action. I'm going to finish before I make up my mind, but so far, I think I'll probably move on to the next author since the writing, at least in this one, is not what I was looking for.

The last bit of writing where I really felt energized was P. Djèlí Clark's "The Dead Cat Tail Assassins" — now that was a great and wonderful ride 🙂

I'm looking to have that kind of magic. Am I asking for too much?

#Reading #Books
A calendar view showing reading…

We (the wife and I) did two more cartoons - this time about that ever popular Sri Lankan food, hoppers!

https://write.farook.org/idle-thoughts-03/

#Cartoon #Drawing #Art
Two cartoons by two different p…

And the wife and I managed to get another cartoon done today 🙂 I'm not sure if I can sustain this pace though. I guess we'll see?

The story behind today's cartoon is here: https://write.farook.org/idle-thoughts-02/

#Cartoon #Drawing #Art
Two cartoons by two different p…

The wife and I are drawing a cartoon a day (hopefully) to improve our drawing skills.

The full story is here: https://write.farook.org/idle-thoughts/

Here's our first day's efforts ...

#drawing #cartoons #art
Two cartoons drawn by different…

@toekneegee Anything to keep motivated to read, right? 🙂

We (my wife and I) set time aside every evening where we turn off devices and read for about an hour before bed. We had to enforce that rule in order to get any reading done. Otherwise, we get caught up in stuff and totally forget to read ...

Used to read all the time.

Didn't read at all for about 10 -15 years. Would try, but generally give up after a day or two.

Back to reading now and it feels good to be able to consistently finish books 🙂

Part of it might be the new EPUB reader I've been coding — I finally have an app which does everything I want instead of having to find workarounds for things that don't work quite right 😛

#Reading
Screenshot from an app showing …

@Ailantd I know the feeling 🙂Having just coded my own EPUB app because I didn't like any of the solutions out there, I was thinking if I should tackle a painting app because I keep going back and forth between Fresco and Affinity.

Fresco is easier for me to sketch (or try to sketch, if I'm being honest) and Affinity allows me to use bezier curves and draw lines which are straighter than I can make them 😛

And don't get me started on desktop vs. iPad issues when using the various apps ...

@AngelaPreston I'm sorry that it's been a bad experience for you. I don't like crowds either. And we rarely go out because neither of us like crowds, the noise etc. So I can empathize. I hope you can endure till you get home and things get back to a more even keel.

I can't believe I'm already at 10 poems on paintings by @MichaelWhelan 🙂 The topic for this week's poem is close to my heart — how we treat this planet we all briefly inhabit.

https://write.farook.org/10-fragility/

The original artwork is here: https://www.michaelwhelan.com/galleries/erosion/

Fragility
by Fahim Farook

Seeking the light in a world of twilight,
As the storm gathers, destruction the highlight.
No escape, no succour, no other being within sight,
No one to turn to with the will to aid, or the might.

A ragged landscape worn away,
Trying to keep annihilation at bay,
No trees, no life, no children at play,
Not a world where one would want to stay.

It might seem like an idle thought,
No such world exists, with danger fraught.
You dismiss the mere existence of the thought
And go on with life, doing what you ought.

But give just a thought to the possibility,
That this imagined world could be reality,
If we do not realize nature's fragility,
The world imagined won't stay an improbability.

#Writing #Art #Poetry

Had a Chromecast that I had not used in 4 - 5 years. Would not connect to Internet no matter how I tried.

The cause?

Automatic time update was turned off and it was stuck in 2021.

Huh? Why would that stop Internet connectivity? The weird issues that plague tech ...

#Tech #Chromecast

It's my 9th poem on a painting by Michael Whelan I can't believe that I'm close to 10 poems already 🙂 This artwork might be more familiar, at least to some?

https://write.farook.org/new-worlds/

The original artwork is here: https://www.michaelwhelan.com/galleries/2061-odyssey-three/

New Worlds
by Fahim Farook

Step into my world,
Said the portal as it whirled,
Beckoning me on,
To worlds not yet born.

A world where cruelty is gone,
Where kindliness and charity shone,
Or one where people treated each other,
As they would their sister or brother.

Another where lies were outlawed,
People stood together for truth, unbowed.
Vanity and preening were banished,
Humility was practiced by the accomplished.

A world where equality was the law,
None over others did gleefully crow,
There was no us vs. them,
A world like no other, it was a gem.

These worlds are mere fancy right now,
That portal is a dream, of this I vow,
Till we change our thinking, our being,
It will remain a dream, near, yet so fleeting.

#Writing #Art #Poetry

Life in the coconut and concrete jungle
Image of a city skyline with a …