What I Read: February 2019

I've read a lot of books this month thanks to my library finally having good stuff available. I read all sorts of nonfiction/fiction and am getting back into graphic novels/YA books to lighten up my reading.

I had a few 4 star books this month: Becoming by Michelle Obama, This Will Only Hurt A Little by Busy Phillips, and Nimona by Noelle Stevenson. That last one is a fantasy graphic novel that follows the evil plans of a villain and his sidekick that can shapeshift. The art was cool, and the plot was actually interesting/well-developed. I was surprised by how good it was. The other two books are both memoirs, where Becoming is all about Michelle Obama's life growing up, going to college, and becoming the First Lady. It was very interesting to hear about her life and more about what it's like to be in the White House. This Will Only Hurt A Little is a memoir about the life of being an actress. I always love to read celebrity memoirs because they usually give a neat look into a life I'd never wish to have. Busy Phillips talks a lot about the harsher realities about being a woman in Hollywood. I enjoyed it more than most of the celebrity memoirs I've read because it didn't feel pretentious and was just her genuinely sharing her experiences. I'd recommend all three!

Most of the books I've read so far this year fall into the 2 or 3 star category. Two of the average ones (3 stars) were Dorothy Must Die by Danielle Paige and Black Klansman by Ron Stallworth. Dorothy Must Die is a YA Wizard of Oz retelling which I found amusing. I don't actually think I've seen the Wizard of Oz in its entirety before but I've seen/heard bits and pieces. This book is part of a whole series which I do think I'll read at some point. I saw the film adaptation of Black Klansman last month and was lucky to find the book available at the library. I probably would've gotten more out of the book if I hadn't seen the movie yet. I already knew everything that was going to happen which made the book feel repetitive. It's an interesting perspective though (a black guy worked undercover as a KKK member) and not something I would have ever expected to happen.

The 2 star books all disappointed me in some regard: A Higher Loyalty by James Comey (too much repetitious politics stuff and not enough personal experience), A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles (character-driven plot where I didn't really care about the main character), Small Fry by Lisa Brennan-Jobs (memoir by Steve Jobs' daughter that read as kind of pretentious), and An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green (had such an interesting premise but was ruined by the ending). Some of the other 2 star books were little short story collections about the Percy Jackson universe (I think I read 5 of these alone) that you could tell were a way for the author (Rick Riordan) to make more money off the popularity of the series.

One of the worst books I read was The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson (1/5). I didn't like the Netflix show all that much but the book was even worse. I'm actually glad they took the show in the direction they did, because this book was unbearable to read. It was so boring with no scariness/horror at all. The ending was stupid, and the characters were all extremely hateable. There were no redeeming qualities about it at all.

With another month done, I'm at 57 books for the year with 29 read in February. This month, I'd like to read at least two books I physically own instead of checking out more and more library books. I'm thinking one of those two will be I'll Be Gone in the Dark which is a true crime I've been wanting to read for a while. That's it for February. Thanks for looking!

What I Watched: February 2019

My TV/movie watching has slowed down a lot this month compared to January. I ended up checking out way too many eBooks and had to rush to finish them all, which at least means I'll have a more substantial reading update for February. I did still manage to watch some good stuff with of course some disappointments in there as well.

Movie wise, my two favorites were A Simple Favor and The Hate U Give. Interestingly enough, both are also books that I thoroughly enjoyed. The first one is all about a mom that goes missing and it follows the drama that ensues. It had two of my favorite actresses in it, Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively, who I think played their respective roles very well. It stayed true to a lot of what was in the book yet had some twists that I didn't see coming. I highly recommend it! The second one is based off a YA novel about a black teenager who sees her unarmed friend get shot by the police and the aftermath/search for justice. It's especially relevant these days and nice to see different types of movies in Hollywood for a change. Two others I watched were The Shallows and Goosebumps 2. I loved Goosebumps from a few years ago, but this sequel didn't follow the same cast of characters. They were so incompetent and let the monsters overtake their town without putting up any sort of fight. The Shallows is about a surfer who gets attacked by a shark. It was alright but everything worked out too perfectly with it being fictional and all.

Getting into TV shows, by far my favorite was season 3 of One Day at a Time. It's a Netflix original that follows the life of a Cuban family. It's hilarious, talks about serious issues, and has 30 minute episodes (which makes it go so fast). There's rumors that Netflix is canceling it so I'm really hoping that doesn't happen. One Netflix show that rightfully deserved to get canceled was Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. I finished the final half of season 4, and it was utter trash. The show declined so quickly after season 1. Kimmy's character became very cringey, plus I didn't really care about many of the side characters. I'm so happy to be done with it finally. Another lackluster series ending was season 3 of A Series of Unfortunate Events. I liked where season 2 was going but this last season didn't do it for me. The ending was lame and didn't wrap much up in my opinion. It also seemed like the special effects got crappier as the show went on. I'm not sad to be done with this series either. I just started season 2 of The Punisher but don't know if I'm going to like the new direction. I only care about Frank/Karen Page and don't care about any of the new or side characters. I'm honestly not surprised that Netflix has canceled all of their Marvel shows now. They all took huge nosedives after their first season.

Besides finishing The Punisher, I'm not sure what else I'm going to try to watch in March. I'd like to finish all of the Marvel shows Netflix has so that might be my priority. I've got no movies on my radar at the moment, though maybe some interesting new ones will come in at my local library. That's about it for this month. Thanks for looking!

My Thoughts On Kershaw's New Knives For 2019

Kershaw's knife lineup for 2019 is mostly lackluster in my opinion. It's all the same boring designs with very few that stand out. Here's a link to their new lineup in case you haven't checked them out already. I've got a few crappy screenshots to show here. This will probably be a relatively quick post as I'm only impressed with a couple.

The only knives that intrigue me are the new Launchs. If you've watched my videos or read any of my posts, you'd know I love my Launch 4. It's awesome to see Kershaw expanding the Launch series, especially with smaller ones. The 9 and 10 both have blades less than 2" which is my preferred blade size. I'm very tempted to get the 10 but I'm still undecided. If I sell some gear soon, then those funds might go to the 10. Who knows though. I dig the blade shape and the gray handle of the 10 over the boring black handles of the 9. Both look like nice complements to the 4.

The above and below pictures are a few of the new designs. To me, they're all bland and just different variations of the same base design. I feel like that's normally the case with Kershaw. They push a lot of budget blades out simply because they can. The more knives you sell, the greater likelihood that at least one is a hit. The Reverb XL looks like a cheap gas station knife with that crappy built-in carabiner. One other big complaint I have about the new knives is the size. Most of them are 3+ inch blades which I don't ever find myself needing to carry. Kershaw still isn't doing enough smaller/slimmer knives in my opinion. 

Besides the Launchs, I don't necessarily see any of these becoming very popular like the Dividend of a couple years ago. Kershaw's lost my interest over the past few years, and this lineup doesn't change that opinion at all. Thanks for looking!

Surefire G2X Pro Thoughts

I've tried a few Surefires now and can see why they're so popular. The G2X Pro is a well-made light that has pretty good performance. I wouldn't want it to be my main EDC light due to the size. However, as a bag or self-defense light, it'd be an awesome option. I say give it a look if you want a light that can take a beating. You can find brighter and smaller lights today if you need something along the lines of an EDC light opposed to this more tactical light. 

It's a bit of a chunky light, yet not as unmanageable to carry as I expected. It uses two CR123 batteries and comes in at 5.2" long. A slight bummer with the G2X Pro is that you can't use an 18650 battery with it. I like that Surefire used polymer instead of the typical aluminum used in most flashlights. This desert tan is an interesting color, and there are some others, like black, foliage green or yellow, that may be more your cup of tea. These go for about $65 which seems fair for what you're getting. The quality was great, and I liked the extra cutouts along the body. I didn't mind there was no clip as I'd never carry it on my person. Despite the lack of clip, the light didn't roll around that easily since it wasn't perfectly round.

This light is relatively simple with two modes: high (320 lumens for 2.75 hours) and low (15 lumens for 45 hours). The beam had a yellowish tint to it and was more hotspot than flood. I was happy enough with the output and performance. 300 plus lumens is more than bright enough for day-to-day stuff.

The clicky is great! I like the rubberized texture, and the fact that you can do momentary on. It's a bummer there's no mode memory, though with only two modes, it's not that big of a deal. For the UI, you click once to turn it on to low, and then turn it off/on again to get to high. I also liked that you could do half presses once the light was on to change the modes. The UI was very easy to use and perfect in my eyes.

I enjoyed the light but wouldn't ever carry it because of the size. If I need that many lumens, I might as well get a smaller light that's easy for me to carry. The design is cool and if you need something more tactical that will last, this is probably a good bet. Check it out if it interests you. I believe there's a newer version now that does 600 lumens which is crazy. I had this one on loan last year and was happy I got the chance to try it out. Thanks for looking!

What I Read: January 2019

I completely stopped doing updates on my reading and TV/movie watching last year. With it being the new year, I need to get back into the swing of these updates. My reading went very well in 2018 with 262 books read. Reading is still my main hobby these days so I'm hoping to read 250 this year. A secondary goal is to read all of the books I own (I've been saying this for at least a year now though so who know if it'll actually happen). I'd like to donate the ones I don't love before I graduate which means I have about 60 to get through by the end of the year. I'm working through a backlog of ebooks right now but should be able to start on my physical books in the next month or two.

The top three books I read this month were Fear: Trump in the White House by Bob Woodward, A Simple Favor by Darcey Bell, and The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin. I rated all of those 4/5 stars. I don't want to get into our current political climate, so I'll just say Fear perfectly goes into some of the events going on in the US right now. It was well-written and researched without being boring or biased. I highly recommend it for anyone that lives in the US. A Simple Favor reminded me a lot of Gone Girl which was one of my favorite books in 2017. It's about the lives of two mothers, where one of them goes missing and the other gets dragged into the drama. It was told in a series of blog posts and then larger vignettes from some of the main characters. I got completely sucked in and finished it within a day or two. I also watched the movie recently which was good but not as good as the book. That's usually how book-to-movie adaptations go in my opinion. The Storied Life Of A.J. Fikry follows the life of a bookshop owner on an island who ends up adopting a child that was abandoned in his bookshop. Character driven plots are usually hit or miss for me because if I don't end up caring for the characters, then the whole book is worthless to me. I really enjoyed reading about A.J. and seeing how he progresses over the course of the book. All three are definitely worth the read!

There were two books I rated 1 star this month: Gold Dust Woman by Stephen Davis and The Wanderers by Meg Howrey. Gold Dust Woman is a biography about Stevie Nicks that focuses on so many inconsequential details. The author had no idea how to write a compelling biography. It was so hard to get through and horribly written. The Wanderers is supposed to be a sci-fi about these astronauts training to go to Mars but instead it focuses on all the meaningless family members of the astronauts. It kept jumping perspectives every chapter which greatly annoyed me. It was tedious to get through with little to no action. I would not recommend either.

I read a lot of other mediocre and disappointing books, like Ender's Game (3/5) by Orson Scott Card, Bad Blood (3/5) by John Carreyrou, Last Seen (3/5) by Sara Shepard, My Squirrel Days (2/5) by Ellie Kemper, and My Sister, the Serial Killer (2/5) by Oyinkan Braithwaite. That last one had surprisingly little about the sister being a serial killer. It was mostly about the main character complaining about her life with no suspense. I usually love celebrity memoirs, but Ellie Kemper tried too hard to be funny and came off as conceited to me. Last Seen is the final book in a YA trilogy about a group of teens that solve crimes. The series started off strong yet fizzled out near the end with cliche mystery tropes. Bad Blood is a nonfiction book all about this corrupt health tech company called Theranos. It was pretty interesting and crazy how far the founder took the company on nothing but lies. I've wanted to read Ender's Game after watching the movie a few years ago. It was a decent enough sci-fi story. I'm not sure if I'm interested enough in the characters to continue on with the series.

I was attempting to read a book a day since I was on break for most of January, though I just fell short at 28 books for the month. I've got some books I'm excited about on my shelf/Kindle so February should be a good reading month as well. Thanks for looking!

Ruike P801-SB Thoughts

I've heard a lot of good things about Ruike and accordingly set my standards pretty high for this P801-SB. Boy was I sorely disappointed. This is one of my least favorites knives I've tried this year. I'm glad I finally tried a Ruike but am happy it's back with its owner now.

As far as likes go, I was surprised at how great the ergos were. It's a huge knife (4.75" handle) that fits my whole hand quite comfortably. The single finger groove is perfect and then the rest of your hand just falls into place. I'm not typically a fan of metal handles due to the inevitable hotspots, but that's not a problem with this knife. The black stonewashed color combo looks cool! I do like that it's a flipper yet the action isn't the best. More on that in a bit. For a budget knife around $30 to $40, the framelock has solid lockup, and there are no quality issues. I've had good experiences with the 14C28N during my typical EDC usage. It's certainly much better than 8Cr13MoV. The slim handle width is great too. Big knives tend to be very stout, so I'm glad that wasn't the case with this one. I like the clean and simple design as well.

For dislikes, the weight and big 3.5" blade don't fit my preferences at all. In videos that I had seen, I was under the impression that it was a mid-sized knife for some reason. I very rarely need a blade over 3" in my EDC these days. I'll never be a fan of deep carry clips and would love to see companies give up on them. The action leaves a lot to be desired too. I get a lot more half-deployments than I'd like. You have to use just the right amount of pressure to get it to flip cleanly. With the full stainless steel handles, it carries like a brick (4.25 oz.). Its size and how it carries were the biggest gripes for me.

I can see why people like Ruike so much, but this particular model is not the one for me. If you want a good budget knife, the Ontario Rat 2 and Kershaw Dividend are just two of hundreds that deserve a look. If Ruike put out a scaled down version of this knife, that'd probably solve a lot of my issues. Thanks for looking!

What I Watched: January 2019

Over my winter break I had intended to make a huge dent in my Netflix watchlist. I somewhat succeeded in regards to movies, though I didn't make much progress on TV shows. It's hard to commit the time to a five plus season show with hour long episodes, so movies have become my go-to choice when I need a bit of entertainment.

Speaking of movies, some of my favorites were Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Halloween (the newer 2018 one), Baby Mama, BlacKkKlansman, and Crazy Rich Asians. I watched the new Tomb Raider from last year and finally got around to seeing the original with Angeline Jolie. It was funny to see how outdated all the special effects were. I love horror movies so the new Halloween was right up my alley. I watched the original during the fall but found it lackluster. I accordingly set my expectations low for the 2018 one, yet I really enjoyed it. Jamie Lee Curtis did a great job acting and seeing how she prepared her house for Michael Myers was really cool. It was one of the few cases where I preferred a modern version over the original classic. Baby Mama is an older rom-com with Amy Poehler and Tina Fey who always make a hilarious duo. It's all about Amy Poehler being the surrogate mother for Tina Fey, which of course entails a whole lot of drama. This movie was from 2008, and it was weird to see how different Amy Poehler looked. BlacKkKlansman and Crazy Rich Asians were probably my top 2 of that group. It was neat to see some different perspectives in Hollywood for a change. Both are books as well which I'd like to read at some point this year. I watched a ton of other mediocre movies like Venom, Class Rank, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Incredibles 2, and The Fast and the Furious. I have to admit, I think Marvel is overdoing it with all the spinoffs/remakes with all of their superheros. Venom was alright but it didn't blow me away. This month I'd like to watch the handful of movies I left on my watchlist, like Thor Ragnarok, Coraline, and some of the other Fast and Furious movies. I'm also hoping to see Happy Death Day 2U in theaters.

Like I mentioned earlier, I haven't started many new shows. I generally prefer shows that last 30 minutes but I've watched most of the short ones that interested me. I did watch season 2 of QB1: Beyond The Lights which focuses on high school football players. It's crazy to me how hovering the parents of the star players are and how far the schools/coaches take high school football. I finished season 3 of Daredevil in December and am sad it's finally over. I also watched Dear White People seasons 1-2 during December too, and it was one of those shows that completely sucked me in. As far as shows I'd like to start this month, season 3 of One Day At A Time is at the top of my list with season 3 of A Series Of Unfortunate Events and season 2 of the Punisher probably next after that. That's it for January. Thanks for looking!