Tag: blogging

Takedown Twenty by Janet Evanovich

~ Veselin ~ Leave a comment

Some writers start with a bestseller, then it’s all downhill. You’re lucky to get the same bestseller repeated a few times with a slightly different plot. Others get better book after book. Michael Connelly is in that group, and Janet Evanovich seems to be there as well. Takedown Twenty was one of the best from the Stephanie Plum series. There were exploding cars, a bit of grimdark comedy, and a stray giraffe but it was balanced and Stephanie did well.

Stephanie should’ve been 50 by now. Technology ages but she stays 30. Other than this little glitch in the Matrix, it’s a great series.

What’s your definition of romantic?

~ Veselin ~ 5 Comments
Daily writing prompt
What’s your definition of romantic?

Do more chores than necessary and appreciate every kind gesture. Remember birthdays and family holidays. Pay attention and listen. Cheesecake.

Nice writing prompt! Thanks for asking, Mr. Cronjob 🙂

Elections Time

~ Veselin ~ 12 Comments

Tomorrow is the election time in Europe and double election time in Bulgaria. We’ll vote for a national parliament on top of the EU one. Elections bring political discussions into daily life and expose the divisions we have. I’m unsure about the proper way to handle that. My country’s society is very divided on many topics.

  • Shall we send weapons to help Ukraine
  • Was Communism good or bad
  • More roads or higher pensions
  • Are immigrants good or bad
  • Shall we adopt the Euro

And the list continues. Any random person I meet can hold extreme beliefs on any of the subjects, and learning about that, or exploring it, can lead to changing the perception of that person, or them changing their perception of me if I express extreme beliefs.

For example, a plumber comes home to fix something, fixes it, and drops that whatever random thing has been bad for 35 years, implicating it was good before that, and before that was communism. I immediately recognize this person is radically in the “Communism Good” camp, while I’m in the “Communism Bad” camp.

Over the years, I have slowly learned that the best strategy for me is to avoid the subject outside of the family. It may not sound right, but it is the best strategy I’ve found so far.

Today I posted a comment about politics on some random blog and feel like I swam in poop. I posted it in the Reader and didn’t realize it’s some conspiracy blog. It’s a good reminder to me to not engage in politics until I find a way to engage without feeling that way.

In any case, it’s the peak of politics talk for the year for us. Time to vote.

Jetpack App Improvements

~ Veselin ~ 3 Comments

I just got the new update of the app and I was actually excited about the update. I can now modify the font size for reading. It only applies to the post detail screen in the reader but it’s a good start for people like me who wear glasses and struggle with tiny letters, often switching to something else after reading a page.

The post tags feature is also getting better. This is how I find new sites to follow. It’s relatively inconvenient to browse by “new” and see a mountain of posts but it works better for discovery to me than the Discover feature where all the established blogs are.

I would previously subscribe and edit tags from the website.

Cheers to the Jetpack folks 🥂