Well, as always, I’ll start with my numbers for the month …

Media consumed # (remaining/total)
Comics Read: 72 (78/375)
Trade Paperbacks/Graphic Novels Read: 1 (38/82)
Books Read: 4 (119/161)
Movies Watched: 11 (72/79)
TV Shows Completed: 3 (10/17)
Podcast Episodes Remaining: 136

After a bit of a lag in July, especially where comics were concerned, I definitely bounced back in August and I’m getting very close to zeroing out at least one of these categories by the end of the year. The two biggest candidates for this are going to be the comics and trades because they read quicker than regular books, and aren’t as “sit down at attention” as a movie or television show.

But I have also hit a point where I think I need to do a more accurate recount of what I have left, because while the number that I’ve consumed is certainly on point, I swear that I’ve got more left over than I actually say I do. Maybe even less. I know I’ve put more books into the donation pile and have sold a few trades on eBay; furthermore, I’ve started tracking my movies on Letterboxd, so I have gone back through my streaming services and my physical movie collections to assemble my watchlist. So, let’s go ahead and go through those recalibrations category by category.

Comics:

I’m thinking of breaking this one down further because a friend recently sent me a DVD with all of the Star Trek comics covering a good three or four decades’ worth of books. That adds a few hundred comics to the unread pile, but not a few hundred actual comic books. If anything, it knocks the rest of the Star Trek series off of my want list and will get rid of some of those physical books. So the remaining unread are as follows …

Physical Comic Books: 78 remaining

Digital Comic Books: 538 remaining

I think that’s what I’m going to go with from this point on, especially if my backlog of books winds up being zero and I am only working my way through digital books. Of which there are a LOT … but those are all those Star Trek books on the DVD (at least if my math is correct).

Trade Paperbacks/Graphic Novels: 27 remaining

So a quick confession: I had most of Brian Wood’s DMZ on my bookshelf and I was working toward finding the right price on the one that I needed, but then I read more than one story and Twitter thread on his reputation for sexual harassment through various means and I decided that it was enough to make me walk away and I sold them and my trade paperbacks of The Massive (I still have a Northlanders trade and both The New York Four and The New York Five, which will go up in the next round along with some Warren Ellis-penned books). So with only 27 left to read, I may narrow it down to just a few by the year’s end. I say may because at least a good ten of those are Marvel Essentials, DC Showcases, or hardcover omnibus editions. And I know that I have some on order from my LCS, so that number’s gonna fluctuate over the next few months.

Books: 119 remaining

Last weekend, Amanda and I were going through our stuff and talking about what to get rid of once donations were going to be accepted again at our local library. She decided to go through the bookshelves and make a pile of books that she didn’t want anymore. Now, I suppose I could hold onto all of them because I hadn’t read them, but this “uncollecting” venture is all about circumventing the whole “but I’m going to read that one day” mentality. I decided to keep a few that she was getting rid of, mainly because I really did want to read those books (i.e., The Unbearable Lightness of Being), but most of them were on my list out of obligation more than anything, so it’s cool to see the unread pared down a little.

Movies: 118 remaining

I think the only reason I have for a “recount” is that I had simply been inaccurate in my estimates or messed up the math somewhere along the way. I do like the whole Letterboxd format for tracking in the same way I have put all of my unread books on Goodreads. I’m looking forward to seeing what I can throw into the DVD or Blu-ray while working downstairs this semester.

TV Shows: 38 remaining

By my best estimate, this is accurate, and it’s because we’ve added a number of cooking, travel, and other types of shows to our various queues. I may have to reevaluate this when it comes to shows that are on the list because my family wants to watch them or because I want to watch them, and go from there.

Podcast Episodes: 136 remaining

Out of all of these, this has been the most consistently accurate. I’ve been getting through some shows while adding others and sometimes can knock out a ton of episodes in a week while other times don’t want to listen to people talk and instead listen to music. I think out of all of the things, it’s probably what I’m worried the least about.

And there you have it; a reset of numbers brought on by noticing how low my longboxes were getting and some recent reorganization efforts. I’m actually glad that I did this now because it gives me some motivation to get back to reading. Now, if only work would slow down so I could blog more often …