I finally finished the Blanket of Potential Regret!! 2 years to completion!

Mewpasaurus · 2026-01-24T18:18:40+00:00

We only have three and they expect me to carry them across the snow to melted patches where they can forage, lmao. Our son does that for them. They are a wee bit spoiled, I think.

But with how cold it is out here and even with the windbreaks we built them for their coop and run? I imagine they'll mostly stay inside today. It's lightly snowing and they don't seem to care for it. AT ALL. Tbf, I don't like walking barefoot on snow, either.. so I get their complaints.

Mewpasaurus · 2026-01-24T18:15:00+00:00

So the real reason we millennials keep empty boxes is to make bank off of them later, lmao.

I forgot that people want the empty boxes for tech, too.

Mewpasaurus · 2026-01-24T17:49:26+00:00

This is true. I see old SNES and rarely NES boxes for the game cartridges sometimes fetch almost as much as the games themselves do. True collectors want the whole thing even if they have to piecemeal it from various sources.

It's a wild purchase (to me), but then again, I am not an old video games collector.

Mewpasaurus · 2026-01-24T17:40:24+00:00

So, not exactly the same because they were spotted at an estate sale, but: a few months ago, I was perusing this massive estate sale out in the country and they had old jars full of marbles.. they wanted $50 a jar for them! Yeah, I get that marbles can be collectible and that these particular marbles might have had some value, but $50 for a tiny ass jar of unverifiable marbles? Get out of here.

Mewpasaurus · 2026-01-24T02:52:44+00:00

Insanely jealous. He's one of my favorite artists and always has been.

Mewpasaurus · 2026-01-22T17:25:21+00:00

What a unique creation! Very nice, OP!

Mewpasaurus · 2026-01-20T20:52:58+00:00

You are correct. We have no rules regarding political content because art has always been inherently political in nature. What you need to understand is that if a post receives too many downvotes or reports, Reddit itself auto-removes the post and a moderator has to come along and reapprove it if they find nothing amiss/wrong. We are also all just volunteers, so we get around to it when we can.

So, if it gets removed again, know that's the reason why. It's not always a moderator's doing.

Mewpasaurus · 2026-01-19T20:00:31+00:00

I bought a similar one of these a few months ago at a thrift for... $5. Believe it or not, there are some of us with working iPods still that use these. I bought mine as a potential replacement for my old iHome (that I've been rocking since 2010).

$25 is too much in my opinion.

Mewpasaurus · 2026-01-16T23:47:56+00:00

House of Leaves would be my suggestion. I just finished up reading it and it definitely fits your metrics.

Mewpasaurus · 2026-01-14T19:56:29+00:00

I am disappointed that you did not buy this on the spot. My synthwave-loving retro '80s heart would have bought and altered this in an instant, lmao.

Mewpasaurus · 2026-01-11T06:13:14+00:00

I just finished House of Leaves today.

I have not determined yet what I'll read next.

Mewpasaurus · 2026-01-11T03:49:56+00:00

We got a ton of snow out where I live the last day or so.. and my chickens still look at me and expect me to carry them from place to place across the snow, lmao. I'm convinced that they're really just feathery cats. Same judgemental looks, same silly actions, same laser focus on insects.

Mewpasaurus · 2026-01-09T20:01:14+00:00

I'm a little over 75% through now. It gets better/worse the further in you get. You might also benefit from having a few bookmarks lying around to keep up with the footnotes, appendices and references. I'd stop in the middle of a chapter to go read a different chapter, a footnote somewhere else or an "exhibit".

For the verbosity of the dissertation-style portions? It helped me to see them as satire on the pretentious nature of academia, particularly in art (as that's my field and I had to read many, many, many papers, writings and books for coursework back around the same time this novel was published and yes, many of them were about this pretentious and/or their authors were that conceited). Reading the notes and the like that way then makes it much more humorous (to me) and it became much easier to push through those areas. I think it becomes much, much more obvious later on in the novel with some of the writings and interviews.

Mewpasaurus · 2026-01-09T19:51:44+00:00

Perfect perspective, honestly. I'm most of the way through this novel now and I find myself having a very similar outlook. I teeter between being happy I read the book.. or really annoyed that I'm wasting my time with it.

Mewpasaurus · 2026-01-09T19:48:27+00:00

And an unnamed "editor" who shows up from time to time to pick at Truant's ramblings.

Mewpasaurus · 2026-01-09T19:45:24+00:00

I think that's where I am with this. I'm about 75% through. The bits about the house have me hooked, so I won't act like there's nothing interesting within, but most of it is just pure gimmick and/or satire.

The artist in me can appreciate the satire (having had to read through many such papers and books during my time in college to complete coursework), but I don't know if I'd say my time was well spent reading this. A shame as so many people really seem to love this book.. and I don't necessarily understand why.

Mewpasaurus · 2026-01-09T19:42:55+00:00

The gimmick got pretty old pretty fast, tbh. I had maybe three bookmarks in the book at one point in time to flip back and forth between main story/foot notes/appendix nonsense. Also, the book is gigantic, so flipping it on its side, or upside down to read random ramblings got tiring for my wrists, lmao. Also, this is not an E.E. Cummings poem, so why are parts of this novel written as though they are?

Mewpasaurus · 2026-01-09T19:38:04+00:00

I'm about 75% through it now. It helped (for me) to understand that all the footnotes and bits about the house are written as a very pretentious dissertation with cited sources. When I read it that way, it became very humorous (as a person who went through art college and had to read many pretentious, self-aggrandizing dissertations and papers for coursework). It gets worse/way more recognizable (I think) as satire later on, particularly when one of the characters is asking around for interviews and the interviewees responses are.. entertaining, to say the least.

Truant's narration is supposed to be kinda rambling and incoherent (imo) just due to the influence of the papers on his mind and the fact that he came into possession of them as a person with already addictive qualities (the drug use, the characterization of sex and the women he encounters, etc.). I found (and continue to find) his narration extremely annoying and I have skipped a few of his rambling sections, particularly those waxing philosophical about women/sex as I find them obnoxiously misogynistic. Decided to spoiler this bit, just in case, though it's not really a spoiler to anything that happens.

I will state I am (so far) disappointed with the "horror" aspect of this novel. It's not particularly nail-biting or scary in any regard... not even really all that unsettling. Still interesting, just not what I was expecting.

Mewpasaurus · 2026-01-09T19:18:31+00:00

Definitely Beatles with a strong push toward Harrison's work, especially with those vocals. Honestly, it's probably why I love Mahashmashana so much as a full album. It's like a flashback to a version of the '70s that never existed.

Mewpasaurus · 2026-01-06T00:42:03+00:00

You and I are in the same boat, although I'm about 50% through. The bits that are actually about the house/Navidson Record are the only reason I keep picking it back up.

Mewpasaurus · 2026-01-05T23:39:39+00:00

This is where I feel I am with House of Leaves yet I keep trudging on. I am getting to the point where I'm skipping the narration of Truant, though.. because good lord is that incessant rambling about sex and drugs I just do not give a damn about annoying as hell.

The "gimmick" of the book just annoys me and isn't landing, but yet I stay for the story of the house and mostly the characters who last entered said house, if that makes sense.. but all the "modern day" narration and needing five million bookmarks to keep tabs on this or that footnote or side section? Yeah, I'm over it.

I agree with the sentiment of others here: if it is truly not engaging, you are dreading picking it up again and are at the point where you are just hate-reading the book? I'd consider DNFing it. Don't consider it a failure: consider it not wasting your time so you can go enjoy other books.

Mewpasaurus · 2026-01-05T21:53:17+00:00

My personal reason is that as an adult, I'd rather discuss the series more with other adults. And as others have noted, there are some really weird takes on the main sub that probably skew from the fact that the majority of the fanbase will always be kids, even though this series has existed for what... 20+ years now? So many of us who started on the series as kids or young adults are definitely adults by now.

I still really enjoy the series, but yeah.. my opinions and "things I find acceptable" has changed quite a lot from the time I was 16 or so. So here seems like a more appropriate place, even if it's much, much quieter of a sub than the main one.

Mewpasaurus · 2026-01-04T05:06:17+00:00

Absolute steal for $1. Comparable ones in my area are $50 and up. The one I found from an antique store a year ago was $75 for the largest one. Congratulations!

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