Scribtober 2025 Two

Here are the rest of my Scribtober drawings. The previous ones are here. (click on image for larger view)

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eleven

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one (color version)

Have you been drawing or doing some creative endeavor?

Book Rants - Nov 2025

Time just flew by. I don't think I did anything productive that wasn't provoked by time. Deadlines are good sometimes especially when you're unmotivated. At least I read some books. Here are the books I read (and a movie I watched) in November.

~ Books I read ~

01 - Sweet Bean Paste by Durian Sukegawa, translated by Alison Watts
What's it about: making sweet bean paste, cherry blossoms, leprosy (Hansen's disease), friendship
I enjoyed this though it's a little depressing and characters aren't exactly winning at life or anything. Tokue (main character) is like a mystical figure because she thinks differently than other people and I like her idea - you don't have to be useful to society to live, you just do. This ended kind abruptly as we don't know what Sentaro's (main character) future. I did expect a certain character's end but kind of didn't want it to happen. This is not a happy story and yet this is recommended as cozy book which I think it's a kind of true but we really need to redefine cozy because cozy always somehow comes with sorrow - this book certainly does but I still liked it.

Seven Things: Some little rants

I'm not complaining, I just have things to say...

01 - I don't know why I keep procrastinating. I just keep putting things off. My brain tells me go ahead and do that thing I need to do but then my other brain (or part of it) tells me to put it off, I have plenty of time and maybe sometimes that's true but most of the time, I end up doing everything at the last minute. I don't know, there is no solution.

previous header

new header

02 - Slightly new blog header -  I have changed my header again because the previous felt a bit gloomy so I changed to this lighter one - not a lot of difference, just slightly newish elements added/altered.

03 - My blog's feed or whatever is called isn't working as usual. I subscribe to my blog through the Blogger dashboard so I can see how blog posts looks in the Reading list dashboard. Usually when I published a post, it would show up right away but now it seems to take awhile or sometimes a day to show up - what's up with that? I can see the post is posted because it's there on my blog but not the reading list. No idea why it suddenly become buggy.

04 - Stupid or Not? For years, I have been using the three Affinity apps (Publisher, Designer, Photo) and I've been liking them. I had decided to use the apps because they didn't require a subscription just a one-time payment and because the apps are similar to Adobe's apps (subscription-based Indesign, Illustrator, Photoshop). (I still use adobe apps for work pay for by employer but never for any personal work.)
    The Affinity apps were created/owned by Serif but Canva brought them out in 2024. The Serif people claimed they won't change anything with the new ownership. Then came this October, they began offering their app (now a combination of the three apps into one) simply called Affinity or Affinity Studio (supposedly version 3) for free. I was all ready to upgrade but I didn't. To download and use the Affinity app, you have to sign up for a Canva account which I am not willing to do. 
    I paid for the apps but now I can't use the new version because I refuse to open a Canva account [insert all the cursing here.] I'm actually willing to pay NOT to be involved with Canva. It might be stupid to refuse to use an app for this reason but I just couldn't do it.
    So signing up for a Canva account didn't mean you have to use Canva but that's exactly what it means, doesn't it? You become a customer of Canva the moment you sign up for an account and even if they don't force you to use Canva or make you pay to use the Affinity app, things will not be that way because no big company swallows up a smaller company and that let everything be. I won't speculate how things will change but companies don't give out things for free for nothing. Affinity is free but you pay for it by being involved with Canva.   
    Canva is meant for non-designers, offering pre-made templates and other tools like fonts and images. I'm not saying Canva is bad but I simply prefer to never use them.
    In conclusion, there is no conclusion because one day, I'll probably sign up for Canva account just to use Affinity when I could no longer use the old apps (Serif people aren't going to update the old versions anymore) because technology kept being upgraded and sometimes you are forced to upgrade even when you are reluctant to do so. (Here's the link to Affinity if you want to check it out: https://www.affinity.studio/get-affinity)

05 - Why are so many reviews with hidden spoilers at Goodreads are cut off and sometimes in mid-sentence? Where are the rest of it? This is rather disappointing when I wanted to find out the ending. All these cut-off reviews keep appearing or maybe I keep finding them and they are seemed to be one-star reviews. Do they get cut off because they are spoilers, too long or because they are one-star, two-star reviews? There seems to be an option to blur spoiler text so this hidden spoiler box method is not even needed unless it's super long.
    And also, those hidden because of spoilers didn't have spoilers - why? I don't use Goodreads anymore so I don't know how it's done but I guess people could accidentally mark their review as hidden but so many people did this it must be too easy to do it.
    Goodreads still have no translations for reviews in foreign languages even though it's owned by amazon who had their foreign language reviews with the option to translate them. Goodreads have tons of foreign languages reviews so it didn't make sense not to have the translation option.
    I used to read amazon reviews but then they changed it so all you can read are top reviews and if you want to read the other reviews such as the one-star reviews, you have to sign into your amazon account or create one. I don't get this change. Why do you have to sign in to see all the reviews?

06 - My iphone (an old model) kept giving out notifications to finish setting it up but the thing is I don't want to set up those stupid features that are useless to me. Why should I waste time setting up things that I'm not going to use? It used to be you get to choose but now they just bug you to death until you do things their way. Well, I'm going to keeping ignoring all the notifications until I feel like finish setting up which should be in about ten years or when the phone dies.

07 - I don't like subscriptions - streaming tv/movies, streaming music, apps by subscription, etc. So I don't have any subscription, at least for now. Recently, I found that you have to pay by subscription to read the BBC News articles which had been free to read with advertisements for years. (And during those times, it kept asking you to sign up for an account which I never did.) I think you are allowed to read two articles for free and when you tried to read a third article, a popup screen would show up and ask you to sign up for a subscription to read the rest.
    As a freeloader (which I loath to admit but it's true) of most internet websites, this is extremely disappointing. I know they and almost everybody who runs such websites needs to make a living but I just thought online news should be free. There are other places for news that are free (with advertisements - they all have advertisements) but I'm a creature of habit, so it's hard to change. So now I just read headlines.

What's on your mind these days?

Fiction: Ghosts in Need

This month's Words for Wednesday prompts are provided by Sean Jeating and posted at River's blog over here. This week's prompts are: squad, cemetery, flowers, painted, cross and/or barely, money, eat, freedom, courage. Last week's prompts were: technique, think, taught, way, completely and/or learn, write, exist, reading, lost. The week before, the prompts were: dog, night, bed, knowledge, move and/or years, stupid, help, craftsmanship, lost. I couldn't fit craftsmanship in there.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

Fiction: Ghosts in Need
01 - It wasn't that Chrysanthemum 'Chris' Woo was afraid of ghosts but on the rare occasion a ghost might ask her to do them a favor since she could see them. 
    Working at the Dish Mat, an automat that offered pre-made food from vending machines, was as stress-free as she could get. The quiet atmosphere and little interactions with strangers made things easy but left her with too much free time to think about her divorce, her ex-best friend, her failed career, her missing niece or her dead father.
    For the first two days of each week, Chris was the lone worker in the automat and on Wednesdays, she shared duties with Paula Gregson who worked the other days. The overlapping day was Chris's mother's idea. She believed Chris needed a friend. 
    On an early Wednesday afternoon, Chris sat behind the counter in the back of the store and trying to read a novel but her concentration kept swaying. Paula was four hours late. Something in her guts told Chris something was wrong but she didn't know what to do.
    The bell above the door tinkled. She looked up but it wasn't Paula. Chris closed the book and took out a notepad and pen from the drawers. Doodling was a technique that often helped her think.

Cover Stickers! The Horror!

I'm sure most readers know about stickers on book covers. It used to be these stickers are actual stickers that you can peel and remove for good (sometimes leaving glue residues that will never come off) but now publishers are printing them directly on the cover so the only way to remove them is to physically take a scissor and cut them out or stick some other sticker over it or block them out with black markers. Whatever you do, those stickers are there forever. 
    The stickers are mostly to encourage sales, promote books, brag about what the book/author had garnered but basically are advertisements shoved into readers' faces. So what's the point of creating beautiful covers only to have them ruined by these stickers that never come off? 
    Often when I look for book covers for my book posts, I look for covers without these stickers or if it looks like I can remove them (digitally), I would. The ones I hate the most is the one announcing 'made into a movie or a show' and 'Some famous person's book club picks'. 
    There is a point to these stickers but at the same time, they are mostly offering stale information or information readers didn't care about, at least, I don't. But it's not as rampant as I made it sound but they are around and probably will never go away. Do they really work? They don't seem to work for me but maybe they work on other people.
    Here are some samples covers that covered most type of print-on stickers:

#1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Book Club Picks
01 - Read With Jenna - No idea who Jenna is until I looked her up. Jenna Bush Hager, is a co-host on the Today show and daughter of former President George W. Bush - it makes perfect sense not to read her recommendations.

02 - The Good Morning America Book Club Pick! (with exclamation point) - Good Morning America is a morning tv show that I have never watched and I don't see why I would read their picks.

03 - Oprah's Book Club 2025 - I had seen Oprah Winfrey's show and she had some wisdom but that didn't mean I care for her book selections.

04 - Reese's Book Club - I had seen some of Reese Witherspoons' movies but they don't inspire me to read any of her book picks.

05 - Zibby's Book Club - A book club hosted monthly by Zibby Owens who owns a bookshop but I've never heard of her until today when I searched for book covers so no reason to read her picks.

IWSG Nov 2025: Some quirks that might be mad

More about the
Insecure Writer’s
Support Group here

I'm skipping the November Insecure Writer's Support Group question and go straight to reading quirks that are also writing quirks. I can only dismiss so many reading/writing quirks but I'm seem to struck on some more than others. But I'm listing just three today.

01 - Sometimes a singular word used often in one book can drive me nuts for no reason other than their repetition. Usually it's the more obvious repetition (such a phrase a character might keep saying) that get noticed but for me, single words getting used repeatedly always kind of annoys me. I don't know why that is or why I see them more often now. But I guess it's one of those reading quirks that some readers have to deal with.

02 - Whenever I read my name or names of people I know, sometimes I feel this certain unease. In a book I previously read, one of the character had the same name as me so I somehow read that name into some other version or else I skim over it. Why should it be weird characters have your name? Unless you have one of those unique names that never gets used in books, which I do not have, you will come across it. But somehow it's just odd reading it.

03 - Fair Enough (or sometimes Fair Point) - this expression (according to the Oxford dictionary) is "used to admit that something is reasonable or acceptable." Something about this sounds like some throwaway or useless phrase people say when they have nothing to say or when they agree to disagree or sometimes it seems it is used as some sarcasm or slight irritations. I don't know why I just get annoyed by this phrase. I don't think there is any good synonym to this other than 'I agree' which is quite simple. I'm wondering if that's why people use such phrases as 'Fair enough' to replaced simpler phrase which might sound bland.

What reading quirks do you think is maybe a bit mad to be mad about?

Messages from the universe or something like it

I spend way too much time browsing youtube or what people are calling 'doom scrolling.' So this means I often come across a lot of thumbnails with different words than the title of the video. Since images are more attractive to the eye than texts, they attracted me. But the question is, is youtube trying to tell me something or am I'm just reading into things for no reason? 
    Anyway, here are some very accurate, mostly true, sometimes too honest, messages found on thumbnails (out of context) at youtube that may or may not apply to me or to you.

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Have you seen any messages lately?