1. The Rogue of Fifth Avenue (Uptown Girls #1) by Joanna Shupe, 400p: I liked this historical late 19th century romance set in New York. The characters were great: a lawyer with a wealthy client base and an heiress ahead of her time who wants to change the status quo and help people. There is also a side plot police procedural and trial. And feminist women gambling and playing pool. It was the first book I read from this author. I couldn't put it down, and now I want to continue this series.

2. Any Duchess Will Do (Spindle Cove #4) by Tessa Dare, 384p: I devoured this book in 2 days. I love that the premise is unrealistic: a duke and a tavern waitress. And that's what makes this story work for me. It has a kind of fairy-tale-happily-ever-after vibe, but both characters know how impossible their relationship is, and they struggle together through it. The heroine, Pauline is smart, independent, and funny. The hero, Griffin, is an adorable rake with secrets. I love that a library and books are involved. Their banter was hilarious, and I thought the pacing of the book was excellent.

3. Scott Pilgrim & The Infinite Sadness (Scott Pilgrim #3) by Bryan Lee O'Malley, 192p: We hear some backstory about Envy Adams, the pop star. And we learn about vegan superpowers! I learned about Honest Ed's store in Toronto (which I had to research) and it was this iconic wholesale dollar store before those became popular. Hilarious fight scene inside Honest Ed's. I thought the pacing of this was one was not the best, but still super fun and cute.

4. Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together (Scott Pilgrim #4) by Bryan Lee O'Malley, 195p: This one was so nice because we see Scott and Ramona's relationship grow and mature a little bit. We (I mean, Scott) finally find out Ramona's age. Scott gets a job. The band start recording an album. More evil exes show up. Still cute and fun.

5. The Prince of Broadway (Uptown Girls #2) by Joanna Shupe, 384p: A very rebellious female main character who wants to open a casino for ladies? Yes, I liked this rebellious idea in early 19th America. It is a beautifully written romance, I enjoyed Clay's (the male character) blunt sincerity and Florence's strong will and that she was not interested in marriage or children. She was focused on learning how to manage a casino and be successful. For a moment I thought there would not be a happy ending, but all ends well. I want to read the next one in the series.

6. System Collapse (The Murderbot Diaries #7) by Martha Wells, 256p: This one was very action packed, and I had some trouble understanding the timeline in the beginning. It starts right into an action scene, and it keeps going with more action that I thought was confusing. It gets better and more interesting halfway through. I love the Murderbot character and that's what kept me going. It's my least favorite of the series, though.

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Post 18/100 of 100DaysToOffload challenge (Round 2)!

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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.

• 🐢 I took it terribly slow this week. I focused on reading and resting. I didn’t play any video games and I didn’t watch anything. I worked a bit on our ancient map puzzle.
• ☀️ Summer is here! We had a heat wave and humidex reached 40 °C for most of last week. Then it rained almost the whole weekend, with heavy thunderstorms on and off. I’ve never seen such a humid “tropical” weather like this around here.
• 👟 We went running once, on a day that was not raining but it was 34 °C 🥵. We did 6Km, at a slower pace of 7:15 min/km. It was too hot!
• 📝 My partner wants to get more organized, and he asked me to help him setting up his GTD (Getting Things Done) system. Finally! I was so happy! I gave him the books, we watched some introductory videos together, we read the first chapters of the GTD Workbook, we did a mind sweep together. He’s a notebook guy, so he’s implementing it on paper. So cool ! 🤗
• 🤯 Explaining GTD made me rethink a little bit about my system. It’s still in progress, but I want to simplify a few things. Food for thought.
• 🌳 We visited a friend in Quebec on Sunday. He lives by a lake, and I spent some time reading my book with a nice view and sounds of water, birds, and ducks.
• 📖 Books: I’m all in romance mode right now, I finished the second one of the “Uptown Girls” series, and I jumped to another one by Tessa Dare. I will continue reading “System Collapse” soon.

An afternoon by a lake somewhere in Québec

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Post 17/100 of 100DaysToOffload challenge (Round 2)!

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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.

• ✨ I went to Scintillation this weekend! I took the train to Montreal (which I love) and spent 3 days immersed in conversations about books, stories, plots, writing. I had a great time! I added some books to my TBR list, such as: “The Princess Bride” by William Goldman, “The Lifecycle of Software Objects” by Ted Chiang and “Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language” by Gretchen McCulloch (who was there at the convention and moderated some funny panels, she is awesome!). There was also an interesting panel about Dante Alighieri and his masterpiece the “Divine Comedy” as seen as a speculative fiction work. And so much more!
• 🏛 Also in Montreal I spent some time at the Grande Bibliothèque, browsing books and comics, reading in a comfy chair and just being amazed at the size of that library. I love that place!
• 📖 I started reading “System Collapse” on the train, the latest book from the Murderbot series by Martha Wells. I remember really enjoying the previous ones, but this one didn't seem to catch my attention that much. I stopped halfway through to give it some time. Most scenes are action scenes, and it was exhausting to read. I'll see if I'll get back to it.
• 🎭 And when I stopped reading “System Collapse” I knew I wanted something light and interesting, so I started the second book of the Uptown Girls series “The Prince of Broadway” by Joanna Shupe. I read 20% in only one sitting. It flew by! That is a clear indication that my reading mood right now is: light and fluffy! 🩷
• 📺 I started watching the docuseries “The Ascent of Woman” by Dr Amanda Foreman on Curiosity Stream. I didn’t know that the first written record of mandatory use of the veil by women was in the Code of the Assyrians circa 1450 BCE. The first episode covers ancient civilizations, and I also wasn’t aware of how ancient Greece women lacked all rights of citizenship. It was not cool to be a woman back then.

📌 Cool Online Reads:

• Mental Yoga: Lovely post about slowing down. I was way more “agitated” before I knew yoga, and I can look back and tell the difference before and after yoga became a part of my daily routine.
• Thoughts on my social media usage and Just enough social media: Personal reflections on social media, always interesting to read.

Post 16/100 of 100DaysToOffload challenge (Round 2)!

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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.

I’m going to Montreal today for a small literary conference called “Scintillation”. I took a Lyft to go the train station and the Lyft driver was super friendly, we started chatting, and I mentioned I liked sci-fi and fantasy. I talked about my favorite books of all time, classics like “Lord of the Rings” and “Foundation”, and then he mentioned the Apple WWDC 2024. As I haven’t watched it, he said it was amazing, and that everything will change in 10 years. Our phones will be unrecognizable in 10 years because of Artificial Intelligence. We will all live in a different world.

I made some comments about how scary that future looks, with constant surveillance and being always online. But he was super excited about it, he was not scared at all. I then made a comment about Microsoft’s Copilot, which will be included in all their applications, and that my workplace is testing it out. And then I asked him if he remembered Microsoft’s failed office assistant called “Clippy”, and he didn’t have a clue!

He didn’t know that Word and Excel existed (I was shocked😱) and then I realized how old I am! I mean, “Clippy” was discontinued in the early 2000’s but this guy started using computers in 2009 or so. Oh, I felt like a dinosaur! 🦕

He also didn't know that “Dune” was a series of books written in the 60’s by Frank Herbert. He loved the new movies, which I agree. I still want to watch the last one, though.

Anyway, it was a fun conversation, continuing my trip now.

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Post 15/100 of 100DaysToOffload challenge (Round 2)!

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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.

• 👟 Running 7Km is my new normal now. It’s a huge improvement from last year! 🤗 I can comfortably run this distance. But I only ran once this week, the other days were all walks because we had this constant start-stop rain going on most days.
  • Jun 04, 2024 => 7.17Km – Pace 6:43 min/km
• 👔 I attended a company general meeting where we go to this conference room to hear the latest news of our area. I've always felt out of place in these meetings because it's a LOT of people and it's noisy and overwhelming. But this time it was not so bad; I was better prepared to socialize and before I got exhausted, I slipped away to take some quick breaks. It also helps that I know more people now: project managers that I deal with regularly over the phone or virtual meetings and it was nice to say “hi” in person.
• 📖 I took the Saturday to read. Really, I didn't touch my computer, I was away from my phone for hours and I just leisurely read all day. I had tea and snacks and lunch. It's been a while since I haven't paused like that to read. It helped that I was reading a romance novel that I couldn't put down.
• 🧠 I'm rethinking the way I use the Internet. I realized that if I'm bored or stressed out I will jump on the Internet and search for quick dopamine hits. I wrote about how I feel hacked and it is something more people experience. I believe less is more. Curation is key. I’m still thinking about it.

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Post 13/100 of 100DaysToOffload challenge (Round 2)!

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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.

The Internet. What a wonderful thing. Access to all kinds of information at our fingertips. Connecting people all over the world. Social media is here to allow sharing of ideas and information. Great ! The Internet evolved to be so ubiquitous that we are connected 24/7, even though we don't need to.

I lived almost two decades of my life in a world without Internet. And then I saw it coming. It was amazing! The forums, chats, the “surfing”, discovering pages at random, exploring the web without being followed by cookies and ads.

I totally understand Todd Presta in his post: “Lamentations of a Web 1.0 Dinosaur”:

“Doom Scrolling meant panning side-to-side in the 3D view of a first-person shooter video game called “Doom,” not filling your head with an infinite scrolling feed of bad news and wrath.” – Todd Presta

Nowadays, searching anything online is frustrating. Pages and pages of sponsored results. Ads everywhere! Click-bait galore!

And social media... what happened there? I felt super cool when I connected to BBS's back in the day. I became an early adopter of “social media” later. I told my friends about it. I remember I was super excited to have gotten an invite to create a Facebook account. I encouraged people to join! I was so innocent!

Today, in my mid-40's, I feel hacked. After 10+ years using the major social media services (Twitter/Facebook/Instagram), I was unknowingly conditioned to scroll through a news feed. I've unconsciously internalized this behavior; it has become a habit. I deleted my Facebook and Twitter accounts around 3 years ago.

This post from Brandon: I'm a Little Fed Up inspired me to write today. And I sympathize with his frustration:

I'm starting to miss my super quiet blog where I just chatted with folks over email. I just don't think I'm cut out for the modern internet. — Brandon's Journal

I have a Mastodon account and sometimes I wonder if I really want to keep it. Just because of the behavior it triggers in me: spending time scrolling through a feed. I curate my feed very carefully, but still, I see myself wanting to check out what’s new all the time, even though I don’t really need to. It's weird. Something reprogrammed by neuro-circuitry, and I crave for novelty all the time.

If I'm done checking my Mastodon feed, then I search for other sources of quick dopamine boosts. In my case now it's my RSS feed, my email, Discord, online forums. It's the same learned behavior in different environments. That bothers me.

Anyway, I am rethinking whatever I have left in terms of online inputs. The frequency, the volume of information, the usefulness.

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Post 12/100 of 100DaysToOffload challenge (Round 2)!

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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.

• 📖Reading: I started a Book Club read which is a Norse-Mythology-Viking inspired fantasy. The tone is not really appealing me: it is a dark and gritty world with bloody vengeance themes. Maybe I won’t finish it. I’m also reading Scott Pilgrim and a couple of romances.

• 👟Running is going well. I’m being able to increase my distance without any physical pain or bad side effects. It has been awesome! And I did the 10K Run for Women on Sunday, I broke my record! First time running 10K in a long time !

  • May 29, 2024 => 7.22 km – Pace 6.53 min/km
  • May 31, 2024 => 5.87 km – Pace 6.51 min/km
  • June 2, 2024 => 10 km – Pace 6.42 min/km (Race – Run for Women)

• 🚩Cool blog post on Why Write? | Brandon's Journal (brandons-journal.com):

I discover so much about myself when writing, so even when I have stopped blogging for months at a time, I was always writing. The moment I stop, the demons creep in.

• 🚩Another cool blog post: Why write? (Robert Birming):

The main reason is that writing has a cleansing effect on me. When I’m not writing in one way or another, it’s like a clogged drain pipe on the verge of bursting.

• 📆 I’m being consistent with my Monthly Plans using the Rocketbook Fusion Plus. It’s nice to note down all the events and deadlines coming up. It makes me feel less anxious.

• 📺 Watched: Annalee Newitz: How fantasy worlds can spark real change | TED Talk. And learned about Globincore!

Goblincore is an internet aesthetic and subculture inspired by the folklore of goblins, centered on the celebration of natural ecosystems usually considered less beautiful by conventional norms, such as soil, animals, and second-hand objects. — Goblincore – Wikipedia

Some images from the run: it was a nice location by a lake; a beautiful day and I’ve never noticed this sculpture on the right before, so I had to take a picture!

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Post 11/100 of 100DaysToOffload challenge (Round 2)!

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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.

1. A Closed and Common Orbit (Wayfarers #2) by Becky Chambers, 365p: I love Becky Chamber's writing style. And this one is a delightful read following the coming of age of two characters from the first book. One is a former sentient ship AI that was transferred to a synthetic humanoid body to move around and explore the world. The other is about a little girl that was born to work in a factory, barely escaping it and being taken care of by an AI. It's so beautifully written! It's focused on character development and the world building just flows with it. It touches on identity, friendship, diversity of gender and sexuality, exploitation, and oppression.  But it's all done through the lens of intimate, emotionally charged characters perspectives. Very well crafted!

2. Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life (Scott Pilgrim #1) by Bryan Lee O'Malley, 168p: After I saw the first season of the 2023 Netflix animation “Scott Pilgrim Takes Off” I wanted to get into the original black and white material. And it's so fun! There is a direct reference to Amazon.ca, which is hilarious. Also, I loved the tea scene. Great sense of humour, with Canadian references and funny dialogues. Will continue reading.

3. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (Scott Pilgrim #2) by Bryan Lee O'Malley, 200p: Sweet and funny. I love the dialogues and the fight scene at the Toronto Reference Library was awesome! I like that there are so some many references to Canadian life, like celebrating the “first t-shirt day” after winter and walking around Toronto seeing a “Second Cup” café and Casa Loma in the background. I already got volumes 3 and 4 from the library to continue reading.

4. A Half-Built Garden by Ruthanna Emrys, 336p: This is not really my flavour of sci-fi, but it gets points for its unique perspective.  It's a first contact story where the conflicts are not carried in a violent, physical way. For a first alien contact situation, things go pretty smoothly. There is a lot going on here: efforts to reverse climate change, representations of different identities, gender spectrum and sexuality, diverse families, exploitative corporations, Watershed Networks, ecology, Jewish culture, parenting. There is a LOT of talking:  most of the conflicts are resolved with dialogues. The story is told from the main character's point of view, and she doesn't hide her flaws and insecurities: we get to feel them all! I thought the future imagined was too close to our time (50 years ahead) for humanity to have changed that much. Interesting read, but it was not so easy to get to the end. This was a Book Club read for me and it certainly raised intriguing discussions.

5. Exadelic by Jon Evans, 448p: This is a very weird book. It's a mash-up of Ready Player One, with Matrix, Outlander and Assassin's Creed. Seriously there's so much going on here! Dark magic, AI's, time travel, obscure pseudoscience, cults, witches, sex rituals, post-apocalypse worlds (just to name a few). There are a lot of technical programming terms and references which I didn't get most of the time. What kept me reading was wanting to know where the story would end up and yeah, it's bonkers. The short chapters and mini cliff-hangers me helped me stick with it, but it was a wild ride. I wanted to see what the point of the story was, and I don't think I got it at the end.

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Post 10/100 of 100DaysToOffload challenge (Round 2)!

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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.

I'm enjoying some slower days at work. There has been only one big procurement project with tight deadlines to deliver a budget. All the other budgets I've been working on are for internal projects, buildings that are already under construction and the deadlines can be easily negotiated. I can allocate enough time to deliver all those budgets comfortably.

This is very unusual! And I'm loving this phase! 🌟

It feels like I'm back in the early 2000's when things overall ran at a slower pace. I remember my first job in a construction company: I didn't have a work mobile phone, the only way to directly contact me at work was via the land line at my desk or in person. I had a computer with internet access, but it was slow and mostly used for checking and sending a few emails. The volume of emails was very manageable, nothing compared to what we have today. I worked on one thing at a time.

Right now, I have plenty of time to plan my day, plan my week, plan my month without feeling I should be tackling my to-do list right away. It’s a refreshing and unique experience: I find my workload to be perfectly manageable.

I like it this way. This situation reminds me of the emerging trend in productivity: slowing down intentionally. I love the ideas described in “Slow Productivity” by Cal Newport and “Essentialism” by Greg McKeown, but I recognize that not all work environments allow us to fully implement these ideas. These strategies require a good amount of agency and independence over our workloads.

Despite the obvious challenges of my fast-paced work environment, I'm still convinced I can introduce minor adjustments to my schedule to make it more manageable.

As I said, it's been easy-going these past few weeks, but I know that when things get crazy busy again, I have these tools at my disposal:

• GTD: The GTD framework helps me a lot to make sense of all the “stuff” that comes my way. I use it all the time and when times get tough, it's even more valuable.
• Time Blocking: Finding those small pockets of time for reflection and prioritization (Plan the Day in the morning and doing a Shutdown Routine at the end of the day)
• Short breaks: Using brief moments to breathe, grab a snack or stretch and quick recharge my mental batteries.
• Pomodoro Technique: For when I need deep focus. The ticking timer becomes my companion, urging me forward.
• Remember to Write Down Things: Capture, Capture, Capture! Reduces mental clutter (see GTD above).
• Weekly Review: Another GTD practice that helps turn chaos into order. It’s essential!

As much as I'm enjoying these calm waters at work, I know it won't last forever. The storm will return: the urgent emails, the deadlines, the unexpected crises. But I feel equipped to deal with whatever comes.

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Post 09/100 of 100DaysToOffload challenge (Round 2)!

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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.