State of Being and Bookishness

So, with the way things are going over at BookLikes, I’ve dragged myself kicking and spitting back over to my blog, and have spent at least the last two weeks swearing at WordPress and the dearth of plug-ins that do what I want done.  WordPress has been such a pain in my ass that I’ve been *this* close to building my own damn database a couple of times, but finally, a few days ago, I stumbled across a Pay plug in called Book Library, created by someone called Nose Graze.  It does both more and less than what I want it to do, but mostly more.  It allows me to build my own book database, though I can’t bulk upload; it tracks my reading, though I haven’t figured out how to do pages over percentages, and the widget lacks a progress bar; and it allows me to track multiple editions, multiple reads, and purchase dates and locations.  Oh! and series.  So it’s more win than loss, but I still find WP clunky as hell.

I’m still using BookLikes when it will allow me, and I hold out some hope that someone will, someday, see the value in what’s there.  If I could buy it, I would, but I can’t even justify buying books (though I was pissed off enough to buy the plug-in) so unless they give it away, I’m stuck here.  It could be worse; I could be stuck with nothing but GoodReads.

Anywho, my tiny corner of the world is back in lockdown until at least mid August, because people don’t listen to what they don’t want to hear, and mistook flattening of the curve to elimination of the virus, and now it’s raging through Victoria.

After three months of not taking advantage of the first lockdown, MT and I finally got it together the second time around and have been kicking numerous home projects to the curb.  Our library is finally done – pictures to follow in the next post – and today we’re getting a new toilet installed – pictures not to follow; this was NOT one of our projects, but the toilet decided it just couldn’t go on any longer – or, more specifically, the seal between it and the floor gave way and the thing was so old it wobbled.  Also, my kettle is acting ominously, because nothing says Pandemic induced financial crisis like all the most crucial appliances dying at once.  But the house is clean and organised, pictures are almost all hung where they should be, and my library is done – and I have empty shelves!!

9 thoughts on “State of Being and Bookishness”

  1. Hi. I hated to leave Booklikes but the state of the site was stressing me out, and I don’t need that right now. I still check in but I still can’t load more than 1 or 2 posts at most, and any other actions take forever. So, reluctantly, I decided to go and set up elsewhere. 🙁

    I’m sorry to hear you all are back in lockdown. Things here are looking optimistic for now. We’re slowly opening up again, and so far so good.

    I hear you on dyi being required at the most inopportune moment. I have a vaccuum that I need to take to the skip, but that has been sitting here for ages because I am not prepared to spend time queuing. And on Monday I am expecting some workmen to install a new entry system…which was planned some time ago but wasn’t possible until now.

    1. I don’t really mind the new lockdown, as I wasn’t really leaving the house much anyway; I didn’t have much faith that the curve was going to stay flattened, and I’m grumpy because they refuse to go for elimination, and it’s obtainable here, or at least, it was. My only gripe is mandatory masks – mine still haven’t arrived – and a vagueness about whether it’s ok to drive to our nearest parks to go walking or not.

      I wish you better luck with your entry system than I’m having with the new toilet install. First, the supplier sent the wrong one (right model, wrong fitting), and of course they’re closed on Saturdays. I told the plumber to move the tap in the wall (it’s our only toilet, it’s not like we can do without it for 3 days), and he agreed, but then discovered he had the wrong fitting to connect the new one to the floor. GAH! So he had to rig the old one back up and they’re coming back on Monday. Good times. 😀

  2. Good to see you after the Booklikes crash! Long time no see! Looking forward to reading your reviews over here in WordPress which I agree is clunky. :-/ But stable! Stay safe! Happy reading!

    1. Thanks for finding me! I just followed you on the WP dashboard/app thingy, which I’m hoping will make this transition to WP easier. Happy reading! 🙂

  3. Yes, yes, and yes … including the appliance thing (not mine but my mom‘s — she found her kitchen floor flooded the other day, plus her kitchen tap had been practically unusable for ages … luckily we were at least able to kill two birds with one stone there). But anyway, I‘m glad to see you here, even if for the worst of all reasons! 🙁

    1. Oh, thank god we caught the toilet before flooding occurred. What a huge pain and hassle for your mom, even if it finally allowed an improvement for your mom (tap fixed). Flooding is so dispiriting (at least to me, anyway) because it’s so hard to clean up.

      1. Tell me about it. My mom had, in the (futile) attempt to stem the flow, spread out large towels on the kitchen floor, which literally created a swamp effect (think squelching sounds and sucking effects). After we had removed those towels — and the leaking pipe was duly plugged — the rest was comparatively easy …

  4. This is just a kind of test comment, along with a real comment, to see how things go. Like login info, replies in the notification bar, etc.

    As I’ve said to others, I am sorry to see that you all were pretty much forced to leave. Is librarything an option as a database? And do you have to use the block editor here on the .org (which I know you’re at dotcom, but using the selfhosted .org. It’s no wonder people get confused on the dotcom forums so much, sigh).

    Best of luck 😀

    1. Notification received, and thanks Bookstooge; it’s nice to hear from you and read your posts again, so there’s at least a silver lining there. I haven’t given up complete hope with BL, though that hope mostly resides in someone else buying them and making it what it’s capable of being.

      I use LT as a database now, but I really wanted one here so I didn’t have to use a ton of external links; I can’t explain why, but I don’t like using them. I’m curious though about whether TinyCat could be integrated in any way and I’ll be investigating this.

      And no – definitley don’t have to use the block editor; I installed Gutenberg, thinking I’d find it less frustrating, but it’s only a big pain to use, so I reverted back to the Classic Editor.

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