Reading Updates and Boom Boom

Daily Ramble 161: Reading Updates and Boom Boom

Today I take a look at a really interesting site that talks about games and of all things…the stock market. In a way, these are both the same thing if you really think about it, and I think Silverangel does a great job in her blog talking about both. I also have an update about my February reading since I came across a revelation about a really long book I was planning on getting through this month.

Kitty Kitty Boom Boom

This isn’t my first trip to this site and I’m sure it won’t be my last. It is the first time I’ve read any of the stock market posts though that Silveangel has posted. I’m actually thinking of searching back through the archived posts to see where these started so I can get an idea of the reasoning. In any case, it’s as interesting to see how someone plays the stock market as it is reading about them playing video games…just a different meaning for loot boxes.

But KKBB covers much more than stock trading though it is interesting to see how different announcements in the gaming realm affect stock prices. For instance, when Amazon announced their plans for making a Lord of the Rings/Hobbit/Tolkien TV series, I would be more inclined to purchase the stock. And in the same post where that in mentioned, Silverangel talks about the idea for Activision to include more games in their Blizzard launcher. they’ve already added Destiny 2 but Call of Duty might be a good game to add and one which would make more people focused on on launcher rather than spreading themselves across multiple.

Keeping with the Blizzard theme, I found another post pretty interesting in that it seems to be similar to the way I tend to approach WoW. Silverangel mentions that she had recently played a month of Warcraft and gained 10 levels…the only thing was that it was 10 levels that would almost put her at the Legion expansion. I can totally relate in that I usually am playing the game an expansion behind. For instance, my main – as Tauren Druid – is still sitting about level 100. I had just picked up his artifact weapon when I moved on to other games. Sure, I know I’m gonna come back some day but we’ve already seen the expansion announcement so it’ll probably be in catch up mode.

Finally in another post I reviewed, she talks about looking forward to getting back to LoTRO. Apparently she’s had a tough time deciding and sticking to a different game since she got tired of dealing with Mordor. I can sympathize but not because I have a long term game that I’m stuck to, instead I just bounce around a lot. I really am more of a gaming nomad, always looking for something that will hold my interest for a while and then bouncing to somewhere else. It’s nice to see that Silverangel has a game to come back to, and one that keeps putting out expansions that will hold her interest for a while.

With WoW, LoTRO, and CoD, it seems Silverangel has her hands full with games but she also talks about her own gaming project and how she’s been working on the dialog and scenes. This makes me pretty jealous since I’ve always wanted to put together a game at some point. I truly wish her luck in this endeavor and hope she continues to find enjoyment with it and with blogging.

This has been an installment of my Six Degrees 2018 series in which I take a look at the wonderful blogs that surround Beyond Tannhauser Gate. The blogosphere is large but there are so many friends to be found within Six Degrees.

A Bit of an Update for my February Book Reading

A few weeks ago I mentioned my plans for reading in February and talked about trying to read through a book for the History Book Club I am following…Caesar: Life of a Colossus. Well, that’s a pretty long and involved book and I just saw that the plan was never to read it as a book of the month selection but instead to make it a study. Looking back at the email, I see that they were planning on reading the book over 14 weeks. That really seems more doable if I want to remember much of what I read. With this in mind, I’m gonna hold off and start reading that tome on February 26th with the book club and let it take up my time for the next 14 weeks or so.

I’ve also found some neat read-alongs over at Tor.com that I’m gonna start up. The first is a read of The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan and the second is a read of the Culture series by Iain Banks. Both of these are just starting up so I figure that’s a good sign and I’ve enjoyed going through some of the read-alongs and re-reads that Tor has posted in the past. The good part is that they’re not fast reads so I should be able to keep my current plans and be able to read a few chapters of each of these each week. In any case, the Wheel of Time read will be a re-read for me for the first few books as I’ve actually read 5 of the novels. As for The Culture read, I haven’t read anything by Banks before so this will be a completely blind read for me. I have faith in the people conducting the read-along though so I’m not too worried.