• Physical Comics Read: 40 (8/89)
• Digital Comics Read: 0 (418/435)
• Trades/Graphic Novels Read: 0 (0/0)
• Books Read: 6 (78/102)
• Movies Watched: 0 (206/209)
• TV Shows Watched: 0 (52/52)
• TV Seasons Watched: 0 (96/96)
• Podcast Episodes to Listen to: 78

I swear, I think I listen to a gabillion podcast episodes a month and then I see that the needle hasn’t moved. I guess I should stop downloading new shit?

Anyway, the first few weeks of summer break are behind me, and I’ve also got the first half of the year behind me. That means that I’m going to be readjusting the lists to make sure that I have everything as accurate as possible.

So here are the new numbers for the back half of 2025:

• Physical Comics to Read: 43
• Digital Comics to Read: 418
• Trades/Graphic Novels to Read: 0
• Books to Read: 91
• Movies to Watch: 222
• TV Shows to Watch: 52
• TV Seasons to Watch: 96
• Podcast Episodes to Listen to: 78

That movie list keeps expanding because I do that thing that I think almost everyone does, which is that I see something interesting on a streaming service and put it on my list but don’t ever get around to watching it because there’s a game on or something. But I haven’t gotten any physical movies in a while–maybe that DVD of Grosse Pointe Blank that I snagged at the Friends of the Library sale to replace my VHS copy?

Anyway, here’s the update on my intentions.

Intention #1: Buy Nothing Old.  This is going pretty well. Most of the things I have are new or gifts I got for my birthday. I did pick up two used books from the library because I won them by doing the summer reading challenge. They were two that weren’t James Patterson novels, so I count myself sort of lucky. But avoiding the back issue bins has been pretty successful, and I haven’t had a need to go and scrounge through used bins anywhere else.

Intention #2: Set a “Shortbox Limit” for my Comics. Right now, I’m sitting at nine. I’ve got two big piles of books that I’m waiting to read through to see if I want to continue picking up those series, and I just offloaded a small stack of books that I know I’m not going to be reading again at all. I’m thinking of trimming down my pull list a little bit as well, but we’ll have to see how the next couple of months go because I know a few series are either miniseries that are finishing their runs or are starting their final story arcs.

Intention #3: Focus on Experiences.  The summer is always full of these because of birthday-palooza in my family (our three birthdays are within a six-week period), so we’re doing dinners out and we’ll be going on vacation. There’s a whole lot that I don’t want to get into too much here because it’s a little more personal, but I’m looking at us being empty nesters soon and I’m optimistic about that.

Intention #4: Consciously Reduce. The donations come a little slowly and I did just recycle thirty years’ worth of notebooks. I’d like to do more, of course. It’s hard to have those conversations with yourself sometimes, though. Do I need this? Or more accruately, am I going to get in trouble for getting rid of this? That’s something to maybe write about in the future.

Intention #5: Keep Myself Honest. Well, you can see here that I went ahead and re-counted everything and I’m still tracking things pretty faithfully. I’d like to start taking a better look at the purchasing side of things as far as “how much money am I spending in a given week and can I reduce that” is concerned. Frugality has never been my strong point. Or maybe it has in some areas? Let’s just call it “selective frugality.” But the time to sit here and reflect really does help.