How To Celebrate The 150th Book

GHOST IN THE VEILS was my 150th book. Thanks for reading, everyone!

Quite a few people asked how I wanted to celebrate, the implication being that I wanted to take a trip or something. Like a cruise, that sort of thing. However, with all respect to the cruise industry, if I wanted to catch norovirus, I could it much closer to home for far less expense. 🙂

However, I have established precedent for this. Way back in 2019, DRAGONTIARNA: KNIGHTS was my 100th book, and to celebrate that milestone I got a Nintendo Switch, which was the first dedicated video game console I had used since 1998 or so. Given that six months later Covid started, that turned out to be a wise purchase. I got to beat a bunch of games I never had time to finish otherwise – Super Mario Brothers, Super Mario Brothers 3, the original Castlevania trilogy, the Super Nintendo Castlevania games, Super Metroid, and Skyrim. I did finish a few newer games on it as well, like Metroid Dread and Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night.

I recently had one of those numerically significant birthdays that are divisible by a large number, so I commemorated the occasion by getting an Xbox. It’s a fine game console, but the problem with the Xbox, unlike the Switch, is that using it monopolizes the television. I finished the original Halo trilogy on Xbox, and Skyrim (again), but the whole Xbox-monopolizes-the-television thing was a difficulty.

But then a new device came to my attention – portable monitors. Obviously, most monitors are portable depending on size, but this new sort of monitor is basically a laptop LCD panel with a kickstand. It runs off USB-C for power, and you can connect a device to it with USB-C or mini-HDMI. Overall, they tend to weigh about as much as an iPad in a case. Portable monitors like these were basically intended for business travelers, since they fit easily into a laptop bag and then you can have a dual-monitor setup with your laptop while you’re on the road.

However, it also connects just fine to an Xbox. If you can hold a laptop comfortably in your lap, then a portable monitor is about like 33% of the weight of a laptop. So I moved my Xbox over next to the couch, connected it to a portable monitor, and have been using the Xbox that way. It’s really quite exceedingly comfortable. Since I’ve beaten Skyrim a couple of times now, I need to decide on a new long-term game, which is why Question of the Week asked about Xbox games.

So, the TLDR version, I celebrated my 150th book with a sub-$100 portable monitor off Amazon. It’s really quite enjoyable.

And thanks for coming along for 150 books!

-JM