my 2024 in books

In 2023 I read 198 books. In 2024 I read 123 books. So about 60% of the previous total. But still more than I read from 2020-2022 combined.

I feel like there were probably less "really good" books this year. Partially because there were just generally more last year, partially because I think I probably took a few more chances this year, partly because I think I'd had a lot of potentially good book on my radar for a few years, and went through a lot of that list in 2023.

So, once again, because I can, and with the assistance of Goodreads... the images that go along with this post are all the books I read in 2024... in reverse chronological order.

Did I also pull data from Goodreads and make my own spreadsheet again like last year. You bet your sweet ass I did.

The majority of my books were from the library once again, clocking in at 112 titles (91%). The split this year was also a little more in favour of books over graphic novels, (55% to 45% respectively).

And the ratio of queer books stayed about the same, with just under a quarter of everything having queer theming.

But, as I mentioned, my average rating was a little lower, topping out just under 3 out of 5. Which makes sense to me. And once again most of my ratings where either "Liked it" or "Really liked it", so the math checks out.

I did abandon about the same number of books as last year with a total of 8, which means, percentage-wise there were more (even if they don't show up as part of the overall numbers). And yes, there were a few "Hate Completes"... actually most of the 16 books (13%) that I rated 1 out of 5 come under that category. A few of those were fine in the reading, but just left a bad taste in my mouth by the end.

Both non-fiction and manga were still minor entries again this year (6% and 7% respectively).

The overall average page count was also up, to around 260 pages, which may just be because of the number of graphic novels last year vs this year. I still tried to stick to my "below 400 pages" vibe. Honestly, "below 350" is actually more where I like to stay. But a lot of the books that did go over turn out to be graphic novels.

As far as theming goes, I stuck pretty closely to the Urban Fantasy vibes of last year. Beyond that and some of the instances of working my way through a graphic novel series, there was a lot of stand alone stuff this year. And quite a bit of detective fiction of one form or another.

August and December had the highest title counts, mostly due to revisiting Scott Pilgrim in December and some other graphic novels in August.

Which brings us to the best stuff I read in 2024. Starting, as usual, with the honorable mentions. Most of which come from the 4 stars reviews...

The Rules and Regulations for Mediating Myths & Magic and Monster of the Week by F.T. Lukens, The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers, The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman (I need to get back to the series), Seconds by Bryan Lee O'Malley, Wranglestone by Darren Charlton (ignore the sequel, it's complete trash), The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi (which I said I would be recommending to people and them promptly completely forgot about) and Different for Boys by Patrick Ness.

Then, once again, in mostly chronological order... my Top Reads in 2024...

Horrorstör
Grady Hendrix

Horrorstor is a book that is at least 50% successful at what it's doing BECAUSE of how it looks and how it's laid out. It's an IKEA catalogue. This is a surprise to nobody, because the book is set in a store that is Definitely Legally Distinct From IKEA by being a store that, in the universe of the book, is basically an IKEA clone.

I need to revisit Hendrix. I do love the overall experiment here, where graphic design is doing as much work as the prose.

Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone & Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect
Benjamin Stevenson

I don't even want to talk about why it's good... I just want you, the person who might be looking at Goodreads reviews before choosing to read a book to go and read it. Because it's excellent.

Stevenson absolutely sticks the landing, in fact he sticks the entire "second book". Even if this one is much more meta just due to the nature of the story. And this one is a writer writing about a writer writing about other writers and writing. And manages to not become so "inside baseball" that it loses the reader.

If I was a person who picked a single book as the Best Thing I Read This Year, then these two books would be that single book. Of the two, the first one is stronger overall, but I'm very excited that the first books I'm reading in 2025 is the third book in this series.

Blood, Sweat & Chrome: The Wild and True Story of Mad Max: Fury Road
Kyle Buchanan

How the hell this movie actually got made, let alone made into such an amazing piece of cinema is a story that it if itself was a movie, people would go "well, that's a bit far fetched, isn't it?".

Yep, non-fiction on my Books of the Year list. Who saw that coming? Mostly I kept this on the list because the overall story is so fucking strange and I appreciate the fact that this book exists and has documented the literal fever dream that was the process of making this movie.

Thornhedge
T. Kingfisher

What if Sleeping Beauty was the villain? And what if the wicked fairy was the hero?

Short, simple, to the point. It does what it says on the tin.

The Wild Robot
Peter Brown

The book is about a lot of things. On the surface it's about a robot trapped on an island with no idea of where she should be who befriends the inhabitants. It's about kindness being a survival skill (to paraphrase the director of the movie). It's about found family and adopted families.

Yes, this is a direct result of the movie. I love them both in very different ways though. And I'm just in love with Brown's writing. There is a style there that goes beyond the intended audience that just works for me. And yes, this is a book written for "middle-grade" children (11-13), I absolutely do not care. This also might have taken the top spot this year if I had to choose just one. I also read the sequel, The Wild Robot Escapes, and that books solves the "it just stops" problem that this book has. I think this is a stronger book though. But you could count the two books as a single entry for the purposes of this list.

two thousand and twenty four in review

Weirdly, the things that kind of stood out looking through this year's posts was replacing at least half a dozen electronic/homewares items due to the originals breaking. And it's not even like I bought them all at the same time.

Also, I crocheted a number of things this year and failed to document them on the blog (or really on any social media at all).

They include a Hexagon Cardigan, a shrug cardigan, two infinity scarves (one for me, one for Ma), one Granny Stitch scarf, three sets of arm warmers (two of which I gave away/were for somebody else), two dice bags (again, one for me, one for a Christmas present), a wind spinner (likewise for Christmas), a slight failure of a beanie and a snek plushie.

I'll cover this more in the book round-up post, but while I didn't reach the insane heights of last year, visits to the library were still super important this year. I did split my time a little more between books and DVDs though. 

Which meant my movie watching definitely increased. There might also be a post for that too.

Once again, not the most exciting of years.

January: Bought a new printer that was considerably cheaper than ink for my old printer. Started the Hexagon Cardigan Project the same week.

February: A rental inspection didn't happen because my agent was confused by the concept of keys. Then later it did. The HCP ran into a ribbing based speedbump.

March: My 50th Birthday happened. My red chairs became beige chairs.

April: Crocheted a scarf (in the same yarn) to avoid finishing the HCP.

May: Finally finished the HCP. Started an infinity scarf, screwed it up, frogged it and then got it right. Fully committed to borrowing DVDs from the library. Our Friday Night DnD party was intensely stupid. And Thursday Night DnD came to The End.

June: A rental inspection, Ma's birthday and my vacuum cleaner dying all in the same week.

July: Very cold. Crocheted the first set of arm warmers. Replaced my dying PS4.

August: Played a lot of Horizon Forbidden West. Finished it. Got a replacement TV thanks to Fluffy.

September: Replaced my busted vacuum. Rental inspection. Crocheted Ma a scarf in the same style as mine.

October: Our one Cinema Going Experience. Finally started a Teen Wolf rewatch. And started a slightly undefined crochet project, then frogged it and started over.

November: Finished both Teen Wolf and my crochet project, which ended up as a shrug cardigan. Crocheted myself a little snek just because.

December: Friday Night Board Game Christmas. Actual Christmas. Essentially finished the Friday Night DnD campaign bar the wrap-up.

my 2023 in books

At the end of January, I wrote the immortal line in my weekly roundup...

...libraries are very much going to define my 2023...

And that was because I'd read 9 books in a month. I had no fucking idea how accurate that was going to become.

So... because I can... here is the parade of everything I read in 2023, presented in reverse chronological order (mostly, Goodreads occasionally gets confused when you finish more than one thing on the same day).

At the end of 2023, I'd officially read 198 books. Which is more books than I read in 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022 combined. I'll be honest, it might be the most books I've read in a year since I was a teenager.

Even when I did a montage for the first hundred and then second hundred books I read when I first started adding them to the blog sidebar back in 2006, those still took about 18 months.

But this giant up-tick in books is entirely thanks to the aforementioned Libraries SA and their One Card system where you can borrow books from any library in the state and have them sent to your local library to pick up. In fact, of those 198 books, 177 (89%) were from the library.

Also, yes, beyond just logging them all into my Goodreads through the year (and reading 825% of the 24 books I said I was going to read during the year as part of their yearly Reading Challenge), I also might have made a spreadsheet for some end of the year math. Shush.

Digging into the numbers a little more... just over half of them (52%) were books and just under half (48%) were graphic novels. I also stepped my queer reading up, because a quarter of everything I read this year had gay themes.

My average rating for everything I read was 3.3 out of 5. According to Goodread's star ratings, that puts it somewhere between "Liked it" and "Really Liked It". And that sounds about right given that about 60% of the books I read were one of those two ratings.

It wasn't all smooth sailing though. I "Hate Completed" a few titles, pushing myself to finish things that I mostly wasn't enjoying. But I only abandoned 9 books, for a myriad of reasons, mostly because I just wasn't feeling whatever it was or it wasn't grabbing my attention... but sometimes because it was just abjectly terrible. Throughout the year I developed a "100 page" cut off. If I wasn't enjoying the book by 100 pages, I would (and should) just give up on it.

That didn't always work, especially when someone had recommended a book to me, or, like in October, Fluffy and I did a Halloween Book (well, two books by the same author)... and they both sucked.

I discovered (rediscovered? realised?) throughout the year that, for the most part, I love Urban Fantasy, Fantastical Realism or Low Fantasy much more than High Fantasy. Given that I have friends who love to read giant, foot-crushing High Fantasy tomes and every time they talk about them, my eyes glaze over and I'm just not interested. This shouldn't really have been a revelation, thinking back, even to when I was a kid, I'm not sure I ever was. I love High Fantasy movies. Clearly, these days, I love DnD. But I much prefer something more grounded with fantastical elements. Who knew?

That may also have something to do with the fact that my average page count for the books I read was 244 (from a total of 48258 pages read). Honestly, I can't really be bothered with big long books at the moment (with some exceptions)... and it definitely indicates that I read a lot of graphic novels. But, yeah, over the year, I've kind of decided that I prefer books in the 250-300 page range.

I dipped my toes into some Japanese fiction throughout the year, both regular novels that had been translated, but also some manga for the first time. Like, real manga, that you have to read from right to left and from the back.

I went through a cozy mystery phase, specifically a number of ones that were bakery themed. I'll be honest, a lot of them aren't very good. Or that if the book starts out with cozy baking, it will end with somebody being involved in a car chase or being shot at or otherwise one step away from being murdered. I also got sucked into a number of series (both novels and graphic novels) as the year progressed. More on those shortly.

While the majority of stuff that I read was published after 2000, the oldest thing I read all year was from 1884. And was a science fiction/mathematical fiction book that was half social satire, half dimensional geometry. Very strange, and a little dry, but at least I can say that I've read it.

That was one of the fun things about all the reading I did this year, to be honest. If I saw a book that looked interesting, whether that was online, or in the library or because somebody mentioned it to me, I could just borrow it. That included things that have been on my To Read list for several years, things by authors I already liked, or stuff I'd never heard of before. And then, when I was done, whether it was good, bad or indifferent, back to the library it could go.

I also tend to lean towards fiction over non-fiction. Although two of the non-fiction books I read through the year were about working in bookshops. Make of that what you will.

So, taking a leaf out of my yearly movie round up, let's cover some of the best books I read this year...

Before we get there... a brief list of honourable mentions... Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir, The Darkness Outside Us by Eliot Schrefer, Sins of the Black Flamingo by Andrew Wheeler and Travis Moore, Baking Yesteryear by B. Dylan Hollis, the Locke and Key series by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodríguez, and Station Eternity by Mur Lafferty... interestingly, there are several sci-fi titles there.

These following titles are not really in any particular order than mostly chronologically the order I read them... along with except from my Goodread reviews at the time.

Legends and Lattes
Travis Baldree

I don't know that I've fallen in love with a book like this in... a good long while. Or ploughed through something quite so quickly.

This was a very early read, but one that stuck with me through the year. I recommended it to other people, and even thinking back on it now gives me warm fuzzy feelings.

The Travelling Cat Chronicles
Hiro Arikawa

It's beautiful, heartfelt, well written (which, also in this case, means well translated by Philip Gabriel) and just... delightful.

Another early read, and not my first book translated from Japanese, but possible the first one I've read narrated by a cat.

The House in the Cerulean Sea
T.J. Klune

This book is... exceptional. It made me smile, it made me cry, it made me angry (in a good way, at the people who deserved it), and it just made me very, very happy.

I had something of a rollercoaster ride with Klune this year, reading four of his books, and loving three of them. This was the first, and although it has become a little controversial or problematic since, I still love it very much.

They Both Die at the End
Adam Silvera

This book is... sensational. I wasn't sure about it at the start, I wasn't sure I was going to like either of the main characters, but once they meet, the book finds its wings and soars.

This is how you tell a story. And one where Silvera states the end of the book right on the cover, and it still manages to keep you guessing right until the very end.

A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking
T. Kingfisher

Is this exactly the kind of book I would have read when I was in my teens? Oh, definitely that. Is it because it takes place in a universe that has a magic system that I desperately want to explore more of? Hell yeah.

Magical baked good. Gingerbread warriors. Sentient dough. Do I need to say anymore?

The Starless Sea
Erin Morgenstern

This book is deep and layered and interwoven and intense. It smells of old books and long closed up spaces... it tastes of honey and lemon and spice.

I adored Morgenstern's previous novel, The Night Circus... I adore this. But differently. And I'm perfectly find with that.

Bloom
Kevin Panetta

Books about people who bake is so my thing right now. And this is a beautiful self contained story with a great art style. Honestly, there's something really lovely about single-colour tonal colouring in graphic novels.

The sole graphic novel on the list. Not because there weren't other good ones (see also the Honorable Mentions list), but this one just did everything right.

A Psalm for the Wild-Built/A Prayer for the Crown-Shy
Becky Chambers

Chambers manages to create a world with a full and rich history in less pages than other books use to say nothing at all. It's a world that I would desperately like to visit, if only for a little while.

And while I want both of the Monk and Robot books to be made into one book so that I can press a copy of it into everyone's hand and say "just... read this... then come find me when you're done", I also get why they're two different books. Because they're telling two completely different, yet equally valid stories... or maybe asking two different questions.

There were only a small handful of books this year that went onto the list of "I'd like my own copy of this eventually". These were two of them. They might also need a re-read.

White Trash Warlock/Trailer Park Trickster/Deadbeat Druid
David R. Slayton

What I didn't expect this book to be was possibly the single best version of the Urban Fantasy/Magic aesthetic I've ever read. Because this book is flat out amazing. The world building and mythology/fantasy is top notch, the writing is excellent, the mystery that runs through this book ended in a way that I absolutely did NOT see coming. Plus, gay male, magic using protagonist. Not a thing you find every day.

I picked this up because the title was too good not to... I then fell in love with Slayton's world.

The Murderbot Series
Martha Wells

This is also another one of those books that manages to create a whole world in very few pages. Sure, it doesn't really flesh out many of the characters other than the titular Murderbot, but I also don't think it needs to, given that they are our point of view character.

One of the best sci-fi series I've read. Partially, I think, because it's often less about the sci and more about the people. They're also short and sharply written and I will keep reading them for as long as Wells keeps writing them.

Wolfsong
T.J. Klune

There are a handful of books that I count as being Important To Me. This is very much on that list.

So... this feels like cheating. Because as I said in my review, this book speaks to me in a very, very personal way. Which means that recommending it to other people to read feels... weird. It's like saying "here's a piece of my brain, please read and enjoy". I fully intend to read the rest of that series... but I'm almost afraid to.

two thousand and twenty three in review

Here we are... we made it all the way to the last day of 2023. Well done us.

This year started out with me having tweaked my back, and having gotten a library card again for the first time in two decades... so, suffice to say, reading featured really heavily in my overall year initially because I could do it while laying down, but later because I just kept going. But that's getting it's own post later.

Also, brief sidebar... Australia Post have started doing weird things to the images of the stamps they put online (understandable, I guess)... so that's less fun. I might need to revisit the whole stamp idea come the end of next year. Because that's not aesthetic.

After skimming through a year's worth of blog posts, there wasn't a huge amount of anything hugely exciting. So you'll have to deal with the stuff that did stand out to me. 

Also, my life is mostly boring... but the 35 of you who seem to stick around must enjoy it or something. Hi, but the way... thanks for being here. Otherwise I'm just basically prattling on into the void for my own amusement. And so that when I have a "when did that thing happen in my life", I can come here and look it up.

So... like I was saying... prattling into the void.

January: I finished the Friday Night DnD campaign I was running. We played Hero Quest as a breather between my campaign and the next campaign.

February: I started walking in the mornings again (I did extend the walk at some point, I can't find a post about it). I got to meet Baby Owlgirl. I got my fifth booster shot.

March: We went down to Port Adelaide to see Wonderwalls street art. Also, birthday. I ended the month with a rental inspection.

April: I started playing Horizon Forbidden West (sadly my PS4 is old and annoying and I haven't been able to finish it). Ma wasn't well. I reset the Fall Down Go Boom counter.

May: We finished the short Friday Night Hero Quest campaign and started a new DnD campaign.

June: Ma's birthday and a movie. I bought (big monster feet) slippers and an enormous fleece-lined, knee-length hoodie, amongst the best decisions I made all year.

July: We're counting this as the point that my back finally started to be officially on the mend after six months of giving me (a lot of) trouble. Another inspection.

August: I got to hold a very small baby through a whole game of DnD. What? Not a lot else happened.

September: I started learning to crochet, although was keeping it on the down-low. Which turned into The Secret Project. I got my sixth booster shot the same week.

October: Fluffy went on his Grand Adventure for three weeks. I missed his stupid face. There was too much Going To See Doctors And Getting Tests Done.

November: I updated my blog template again. I finished the Secret Project, but wasn't able to reveal it until after Christmas. I accidentally broke my "gentleman drought". Fluffy came home again.

December: Friday Night DnD became Friday Night Board Game Christmas. I got to reveal the Secret Project, finally. Christmas happened and was the coldest Christmas in 17 years.

And... that's a wrap.

two thousand and twenty two in review

This year started off with me being a giant ball of stress.

Moving house. It sucks at the best of times. This wasn't the best of times.

But I got through it. And the new place is... adequate for requirements. It's certainly much quieter than the old place.

I also got to dip my toes back into DMing, and actually DMing a full hardcover adventure for the first time. Which was actually super satisfying.

There were a few post-moving projects, including changing all my DVD covers over to Penguin Book themed covers. And then there was a lot of pre DMing prep.

So, for what it's worth, here's this year's roundup.

January: This month was one long moving related freak out. Up until securing a new place. Then it was just packing. And then I got a new iPhone, because the old one was on the bring of failure.

February: I lost a DnD character and gained a new one. I moved house with the help of Ma and Fluffy. Then did all the things that come after a move. And we got Ma a new iPhone also.

March: We had a tiny, tiny earthquake. I spent too much time printing things at Officeworks. Birthday.

April: I unpacked the last of the moving company boxes. We finished the current Friday Night DnD adventure.

May: I started DMing for Friday Night DnD.

June: I redid my blog banner. Got my flu vax. I got a new drivers license.

July: Got my fourth vax booster.

August: I got sick (just regular, normal sick) for the first time since 2019. The Thursday Night DnD group finally finished our non-campaign campaign after a little over a year.

September: Thursday Night DnD started our new Critial Role campaign with DM Fluffy. I got a new laptop. And then had to make it behave.

October: I had to go and get a second new driving license (thanks Optus). Third anniversary of the Friday Night DnD game.

November: After something like 25 years, I rejoined the library. I had the first proper rental inspection since moving in (the mid year one was cancelled). I put my Christmas decorations up and tweaked my back in the process (although that didn't become apparent until later).

December: Like I said... tweaked my back. I've spent most of the month laying on the bed and seeing my Chiro more than usual. No Christmas Tree decorating at Ma's place this year tho. Boardgame Christmas still happened followed by Movie Night with Fluffy. Also Regular Christmas.

So there's that.

As far as movies go... this year wasn't great for movies. The highlights being The Tragedy of Macbeth (surprising no-one) and Everything Everywhere All At Once. The movie that annoyed me most this year was No Time To Die (and yes, it came out last year, I didn't see it until late March).... fuck that movie.

Current mood:

two thousand and twenty one in review

I very nearly didn't do this. In the end, I only really decided to do it because a) tradition but also b) I would very, very, very much like to look back this time next year and breath a sigh of relief that my life has improved in a significant number of ways.

So... there's that. 

Don't expect a lot of introspection though, because, honestly, I don't have the mental bandwidth for that right now. 

I'm also not really in the mood to reminisce about a mostly shit year and one where when everything is potentially about to fall on it's ass in my life in the next month... or at best is going to be majorly fucking stressful. 

Urgh.

But enough of my mental baggage, 2021.

Almost nothing happened this year. Days passed, things happened. But nothing HAPPENED. You know.

Like last year, I would have gone insane if not for my friends. And having a routine that actually got me out of the house more than once a week.

January: Friday night DnD finished our almost year and a half Descent into Avernus campaign. Still sad, still amazing. 

February: I had a bout of dizziness that lasted a couple of weeks, involved a doctor's visit and then disappeared as quickly as it arrived. 

March: My birthday. For which no shits were given by me. I developed a DnD character basically live on the blog. We went to the movies for the first time in over a year. 

April: I shaved my head after threatening to do it about once a month since March 2020. It remains shaved. 

May: We started a "non-campaign" campaign for the Thursday night Dnd Group. 

June: I explored the DnD Cookbook. We started the new major Friday night DnD campaign. Critical Role Series 2 ended with a 7 hour game. 

July: A roof leak. Getting Ma on the internets. Having to isolate for two weeks and it taking five and a half hours for my first test and 10 minutes for the second and third. 

August: Roof/ceiling shenanigans continued, resulting in a hole cut in the ceiling. 

September: I got my first vax shot. And I ran a one shot game for Fluffy's birthday. The hole in the ceiling got patched. 

October: I got told my lease, which expires in February, isn't being renewed. I got my second vax shot. Friday Night DnD's two year anniversary. 

November: My shoulder stopped being fully functional for no well explained reason. They finally fixed the actual roof leak. 

December: The Christmas Tree went up (see also: Fuck Christmas). We did Board Game Christmas with Mr and Mrs again, followed by Movie Night with Fluffy. Christmas happened.

I did make a lot of additional DnD characters or sketches or ideas for use in place of actual photos this year. DnD was once again... very important in my life.

I didn't really do much in the way of movies this year... even older stuff.

What I will say is that Luca was great, Shang Chi was much better than I expected, Cruella SUCKED, as I knew it would, and Raya and the Last Dragon was uneven but 100% is a Disney movie with a lesbian lead/love story.

Current mood:

two thousand and twenty in review

I thought about starting this out by saying "well, we survived"... but given the state of the world, that seems very tone deaf.

So pretend I said something that conveyed that same message, but wasn't that tone deaf. That thing, I said that thing.

I will say that I've never appreciated living on the world's largest island quite as much as I did this year. And living in a city with a smaller population. And having a government that wasn't actually useless.

Don't get me wrong, fuck this dumpster fire of a year. But at the same time, we haven't had it that bad here.

And you need to be thankful where you can right now.

Sadly, the set of Chinese zodiac stamps I've been using for the last ten years also ran out last year (I was a little late to that particular party, so missed out on 2008 and 2009), so we've got... whatever that is up there. So that might be the thing for the next 12 years. Who knows. Also, postage now costs double what it did when I first used one of these stamps. Because, time.

Weirdly I thought this year's monthly round up was going to be blank for several months in the middle of the year. And, don't get me wrong, it's not exactly the height of thrilling. But this year was basically about small steps or small achievements. Honestly, that's just my life currently. And some of them don't have links because either the reference was a blink and you'll miss it, or it was already covered in a previous link.

So, this was my 2020...

January: I tried dyeing IKEA chair covers. There was much DnD. I went to the ENT doctor.

February: There was too much rain on one day. We finished our Wednesday night campaign after almost two years. I changed my blog header for the first time in six years. Fringe started. I dyed the IKEA chair covers for the third and final time.

March: It was my 46th birthday. Fringe ended. I had the last haircut I'd have for five and a half months. The wheels fell off the world. I finally made the Lego Batman set that had been lurking on top of my wardrobe. We switched over to Discord and Roll 20 for DnD for several months. Wednesday games at the comic book store stopped. I discovered Board Games Arena which helped keep me sane for the rest of the year.

April: One of the Friday DnD characters died. I literally left the house twice a week at most. Plus once a month for my chiro appointment. This continued for some time.

May: I did much colouring in (from March onwards really) thanks to Wizards of the Coast. Life continued in much the same pattern, we occasionally went to places other than the supermarket on a Saturday. A tradie finally turned up to look at my busted oven door.

June: One of my former Monday DnD boys joined the Wednesday group. We skipped over Ma's birthday. Our Friday group finally got to be in the same room together. Ma and I watched Onward, one of only two movies I reviewed this year.

July: After spending much of this year turning 3d character screenshots into character art, I posted some. I finally watched Into The Spider-verse. Critical Role returned. It was the third anniversary of my first DnD game and my fifteenth blogiversary. Fuck.

August: I had my first haircut in 169 days.

September: My oven door was finally fixed. It took 126 days. I made belated birthday sausage rolls for Ma.

October: HeroForge released the ability to colour their models. It was the one year anniversary for our first Friday night game. I went out and took photographs for the first time this year. It was the first time the Wednesday night DnD group all got together in person.

November: I had people come over to my house and play board games. We had the "it's a lockdown, sorry, now it's not a lockdown" lockdown.

December: We put the Christmas tree up. I fell down. We had Boardgame Christmas, followed by actual Christmas.

Yeah, my life is really boring.

I will just stop and say that I would have gone completely around the twist this year had it not been for my friends. And online board games and virtual DnD and Discord and video chat. And Ma. But mostly my friends. 

For as much as I occasionally complain about them, I would have been confined to my house, not speaking to anyone bar Ma and the people at the supermarket. And I would have gone loopy. You gave me things to look forward to, and points in my week so that I actually remembered what day of the week it was. So, thanks.

Also, the completely anonymous randoms I've played the 1280 virtual board games with in the last six months, you get a thumbs up from me also.

As far as movies go, well, you saw the two movies I listed above. Both what I would still call "new releases"... even if one of them was from 2018. And I never set foot in a movie theatre at all this year. In fact, it was 12 months ago last Monday.

But I have watched a lot more movies on SBS On Demand. Older movies, newer movies, foreign movies for the most part. A lot of Asian movies... Japanese, Chinese, Korean, all the Asian movies. The notable ones overall include:

• Alfie (1966)
• Fist of Fury (1972)
• The Young Master (1980)
• Police Story (1985)
• Let the Bullets Fly (2010)
• Little Big Soldier (2010)
• Sacrifice (2010)
• Colossal (2016)
• Train to Busan (2016)
• Loving Vincent (2017)
• The Villainess (2017)
• Alpha (2018)
• Believer (2018)
• The Great Battle (2018)
• Rampant (2018)

I also watched the extended two part version of Red Cliff from 2009. And I kinda wish I'd seen it before this year, because it's excellent. Fills in a lot of gaps, gives characters whole storylines. I also watched other Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee movies, but those on the list were the ones I really liked.

So that's about it for 2020. Take care of each other, look after yourselves, wear a damn mask (where and when appropriate), and let's kick 2021 in the crotch.

Current mood:

two thousand and nineteen in review

2019 wasn't the most exciting year for me... it did have some roadbumps, but nothing devastating. Things did change a number of times during the year though. As they have all through the decade in fact.

Which is about the only reference to the 2010-2019 you're getting... other than for me to remark that today is my 10th year on Twitter. And I've been on Instagram for basically the whole decade also... but that started in October 2010.

And speaking of which, I managed to keep the #leftovertuesdays Instagram idea happening all year (I think I missed two weeks, one because I was sick and one from technical issues), where I posted old photos every Tuesday.

I also broke 4000 blog posts earlier this month... so that's my last decade and then some.

But 2019...

January: Business as usual, many much DnD. Adelaide broke a highest temperature record that I think we re-broke about three times recently during December.

February: Ma moved house (fortunately not far, unfortunately she was not organised in any way, shape or form). Went to a DnD friend's engagement party. Fringe started.

March: I turned 45, Fringe ended.

April: I went through all my books and got rid of a pile of them, which was pretty damn cathartic. I ran the first real DnD game for Ma.

May: I got sick, otherwise nada.

June: Ma's birthday. Burger Theory closed their city store... I didn't find out until August. I ran Ma a DnD game for her birthday. The Thursday DnD group that should never have worked played their last game together.

July: Ma had a car accident, she was fine, car not so much. She bought a "new" (secondhand) car.

August: Circumstances beyond my control (or at least beyond my finances currently) meant I ran my last Monday DnD game. I bought a kitchen table (for DnD... I've yet to actually use it for that). I learned how to make bread.

September: I came down with a case of Bell's Palsey and lost control of half of my face for the rest of the month. Septembers have not been treating me well for the last couple of years.

October: We finally got around to checking out the Wonderwalls street art at Port Adelaide. I got full feeling/function back in my face. I started playing the new DnD hardcover with a small, handpicked group (and make bread for the games).

November: One of my DnD friends invited me to a fortnightly boardgame night at his place. I went to a former workmate's 60th birthday party.

December: The least excited Christmas season ever, including tree trimming, goodie making and then actual Christmas.

Otherwise it was mostly the same old same old.

I finished a DnD "campaign" (I put it in inverted commas because it wasn't a real actual campaign), continued another (more on that in a second) and started two others, one of which fell apart, the other is perfect and brilliant.

As far as the continued campaign, we have had some AMAZING moments, and more than one session with nothing but total roleplay from one end to the other, where the only dice we roll during the game are against each other. And I will be incredibly sad when that campaign ends. However, looking back through the year and seeing how many weeks I mentioned "oh it didn't happen because reasons nobody bothered to tell me" or "we won't be playing again for weeks before the DM has some bullshit reason". I'm also annoyed that one of the players who should not have been allowed to come back and join us, has in fact come back and joined us. Don't get me wrong, his character has kept mine alive, but it's still annoying. As is the fact that yes, we tool November off because one of the players was getting married, but then we never restarted again in December because of the DM (and again, I didn't hear this from him)... so hopefully we get to finish the campaign in January.

We only saw 6 movies this year. Mostly because there were just long stretches of time where there was absolutely nothing we wanted to see. But Captain Marvel and Avengers: Endgame were the only two movies that got full marks. Everything else was fairly good as well.

Current Mood:

two thousand and eighteen in review

Looking back through this year's posts, a few things became apparent.

Firstly, almost all my weeks are the same... DnD games on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday, a monthly haircut and chiro visit, the weekly supermarket/shopping trip. And we didn't go to as many movies, or theatre shows this year either.

It doesn't perhaps make for as interesting a Year in Review as previous years, but 2018 definitely had it's moments.

January: Nothing much to report... a lot of Assassins Creed and not much out of the ordinary.

February: Fringe started.

March: Fringe continued, with a total of 18 shows. I turned 44.

April: I finished Assassins Creed Origins... and was slightly disappointed by the ending. We went to the 2018 Biennial of Australian Art.

May: I didn't realise that running a DnD game on that particular Monday would lead to seven months of running games for a recurring group once a week. And my Thursday group left the game store and started new characters in a new storyline.

June: Ma's 71st birthday. We went to the Waterhouse Natural Science Art show. I kissed a boy I shouldn't have kissed... but am glad I did, even if it broke my brain for a little while. We caught the Musée d'Orsay exhibition before it headed back to France.

July: I got laid in the most spectacular fashion at 3am on a Wednesday morning. I had my 13th bloggiversary. I attended my first ever AVCon, and ran three DnD games.

August: Minor plumbing related issues, one easily fixed, the other which took several attempts for some reason.

September: I sliced the end of my finger off.

October: We went to a Fork on the Road for the first time in what feels like forever (but is probably about 12 months). I had my final appointment with my doctor to change the dressing on my finger. We stopped by the Australian Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year show.

November: I finished up Horizon Zero Dawn, which I haven't written anything about, but really enjoyed. My Thursday DnD group moved our games to Wednesday... for now anyway.

December: All the Christmas things that I was generally unenthusiastic about... tree stuff, chocolate stuff, actual Christmas Day stuff.

Unsurprisingly both the "kissing a boy" and the "slicing my finger off" are the two events this year that haven't completely healed (for want of a better term). The end of my finger is still a little odd... as is my relationship with The Boy, especially now The Boy has A Girl.

For the most part though, I have a routine. Which gets me out of the house and interacting with actual living humans. At least several days a week.

There's also a whole bunch of self reflection there, or would be, if I wanted to dig into it. But I pretty much know what it all is, and why it's there, so to be honest it can stay where it is and mind it's own business.

Like the review, I think my "favourite thing" list for this year is fairly short...

yani's favourite things 2018

More Dungeons and Dragons

Yeah, I've played somewhere in the neighbourhood of 150+ games of DnD this year. And maybe run about a third of those, maybe less.

Me running once a week started off as a way to avoid questionable DMs and players I didn't care for. What it turned into was a group of people (the numbers vary) who came back to my table for seven months. At least one of whom I think is only ever playing on my table.

It's made me a better DM, it's allowed me to give back some of the experiences I've had as a player to other players. It's also let me give some of those experiences back to the DMs who ran for me when I was new. And running for a recurring group has let me play around in the margins of various adventures, making plenty of time for character role play opportunities.

Outside of running, I've played around with who my characters are, I've actually done character voices in a couple of instances, and I feel like I've both knitted groups together and torn them apart (in-game groups that is).

Even the changes to Adventurer's League didn't put much of a dent in my enjoyment (or at least not for long, and it did allow me to have a good long whinge about stuff at possibly the perfect time)... I mean they're still incredibly stupid and I have no idea why the hell they need to be in place... but they're in place and they don't ruin the game, they just create more housekeeping outside of it.

Critical Role

This also comes under the general heading of DnD, and while I was aware of the first season of Critical Role before I started playing, it was only when they started their second campaign that I jumped in with both feet.

I mean what's not to love... professional voice actors (is that a pejorative, are they not just actors? I mean it's how they introduce the show, but still) playing DnD, heavy on the character building and role play (and voices).

Movies

It has been a lean year for movies... we only managed to see 12 things (technically 11, since one was a movie that came out last year).

Either we just never got around to seeing things while they were in the cinemas, or the reviews and word of mouth I heard after things came out made me reconsider wanting to see it.

Only three things ended up with a perfect score... Coco, Black Panther and Call Me By Your Name.

So that's all of 2018 done and dusted.

And as always, today (about an hour ago I think) marks my 9th Twitterversary.

Current Mood:

two thousand and seventeen in review

Here we are, at the end of 2017... it just feels weird, you know... more than any other recent year, 2017 seems to have flown by at tremendous speed... I mean there are perfectly good reasons for that, not least of which is that it's been a singularly weird year.

By all metrics 2017 should be worse than 2016, but I honestly don't feel like it has been for me.

Like last year I wanted to go through and put together a brief history of my year, along with a list of some of my favourite things from this year.

So, let's fire up the WABAC Machine and take a look, shall we...

January: Ma's shoulder was still messed up after her fall. I replied to a 22 year old letter from myself.

February: Good Game came to an end after 10 years. On reflection, it's still a dumb decision. My job at The Nut House finally got advertised. The modem I've had for several years passed away quietly in the night. Fringe started.

March: Fringe continued, culminating in 22 Fringe shows and 2 Festival shows. I turned 43. We found out that Ma's shoulder operation from last year was a flop and would require another try. I had an interview for the job.

April: I didn't get the job. I left work a week later.

May: I started growing a beard, at first through laziness, but then on purpose. I got new glasses, which look exactly the same as the old glasses. I checked out the Wonderwalls artwork at Port Adelaide. I posed nude for a group of artists. Ma had her second shoulder operation.

June: Ma's 70th birthday. We went to 3 Cabaret Festival shows. I threw my back out slightly, again.

July: I went to play Dungeons and Dragons for the first time. Ma started driving again.

August: I had iPhone drama. I went to see the folks from My Dad Wrote a Porno live.

September: Ma drove to my place for the first time in ten months. We saw yet another version of Macbeth. I played DnD at a convention, my character died. The modem I replaced in February died.

October: Nothing much of interest happened, although we did go to more theatre.

November: I DM'd my first game of DnD. We went to Fork on the Road for the first time since July last year.

December: The usual Christmas insanity happened... putting up the tree, making goodies, having Christmas at Ma's place. I played DnD at one of the DM's houses, as well as a charity game.

See, it should have been a shit year, I lost my job and spent over half the year unemployed. But Ma is definitely on the mend, and DnD became something major in my life (more on that in a sec).

Like last year, I didn't get laid a lot (am I surprised, no, not really), but unlike last year there were relatively few "major" health things that sprang up, beyond the occasional issue with my back and the recurring ear problems.

I also wore my glasses a whole lot less this year, not because my eyes got any better, in fact my prescription got stronger, but it now means I can't view things close up while wearing them as well (as opposed to far away, which is what they're for), and most everything I do is close up stuff.

I also feel like I didn't gain much weight this year, due in part to being out of the house three times a week, and not eating quite as much generally.

I've also been generally a lot calmer, part of which I attribute to the lack of work stresses.

Moving on to things I really liked this year...

yani's favourite things 2017

In no particular order...

Dungeons and Dragons

It should be pretty fucking obvious given the number of times I've mentioned it in the above rundown, but DnD became pretty important to me this year. It's something I've wanted to do since at least 2003. But I never had anyone to do it with.

That all changed when I discovered Adventurer's League, I've now played 68 games and DM'd 14 more. It also makes me leave the house three times a week and talk to actual real live people face to face and everything.

Acquisitions Incorporated: The C Team

Closely linked to the previous thing, The C Team is an offshoot of the long-running Acquisitions Incorporated DnD podcast/live show which premiered two days after my birthday (or 16 March) and has become a weekly ritual.

AI has always been yet another reason why DnD seemed like an amazing thing to do, but the main game episodes were always few and far between. Being a weekly show though, C Team really stoked that fire in a big bad way.

It also contains some of the best roleplaying I've seen, and has attracted some of the most amazing fan artists. Hell, I even broke an incredibly long creative writing drought to write some NSFW fan fiction.

One of the characters on the show is a grandmotherly monk, Rosie Beestinger, who canonically has a lot of biological and adopted children, and her player, Kate Welch gave the community free reign to come up with their own Beestinger children/grandchildren/etc.

The combination of this and me not working and finding a local AL group really got me through the door to play DnD.

To quote myself from the last C Team AMA on Reddit:

And a very big and specific thank you to Kate... Rosie's great grandson, Belben Beestinger (of the Silverymoon Beestingers, the ones with the bakery), is now a L8 Arcane Trickster Rogue with entirely too many magic items. I've met more people I now consider friends in the last six months than I had in the last ten years, and it was your generosity in allowing us to play Beestingers that finally got me so excited about playing that I got off my butt, out the door and into a game. I've also DM'd a bunch of games and love doing it. AI and the C Team got me almost all the way there, but playing a Beestinger was that last push I needed. Stay awesome.

Firewatch

Firewatch was an indy game I'd had my eye on for a while, although I don't remember when or where I first saw it... it may have popped up in either YouTube "Let's Play" videos or a list of the top games of 2016, but I didn't get around to playing it until 2017.

It's amazing. And I love it. It also has one of the most interesting ways into a game I think I've ever come across.

I'm also very excited about the game they announced recently, In The Valley Of Gods, although that won't be out until 2019.

Uncharted 4

I never got around to writing anything up for it, but I also played Uncharted 4 this year. In many ways it feels like a game that nestles neatly into the Assassin's Creed universe, even though it's from a completely different developer.

And yes, there were probably a ton of references that I missed given that this is the first Uncharted game I've ever played, but none of it got in the way of me really enjoying myself or the absolutely stunning visuals.

Movies

We're still not up to the "every other week" model of movies, but I did see 14 movies actually at the cinema this year (as opposed to last year's 10). Still not enough for it's own post anymore I don't think, but there were definitely some standouts.

In no particular order, Hidden Figures, Moana and Thor: Ragnarok (although if you wanted to push me, I'd probably rank them in that order).

They're all very different, but what they have in common is a great story and memorable characters.

So that's that... 2017, done, dusted and in the bag.

All I really want for 2018 is "good changes"... I have no idea what that looks like on the ground, but I just want things in general to be better this time next year.

And as always, tonight just before 5:30pm marks my Twitter anniversary, this one being my 8th.

Current Mood:

two thousand and sixteen in review

Well this is it 2016... your last day... and I think I speak for many folks when I say that it will be good to see the back of you.

Normally I would pull out the meme I've been using for the last few years where I post the first line of the first post for each month, but as regular readers will know, the blog has essentially become a once a week thing with the occasional extra post, so that's not going to work quite so well.

Also there has been a lot of shit (quite a bit of it shit, some good) that happened this year that I kind of want to pay homage to... and put to rest properly I guess.

So, let's try this...

January: I got word my lease wasn't going to be extended, so I spent the whole month looking for a new place and also packing.

February: I moved into the new apartment and had some form of catastrophe with every service provider except for the gas folks. I also started this year's Fringe.

March: The Fringe continued, culminating in 25 shows. We also didn't do anything excessively exciting for my birthday.

April: My first session of my new tattoo... it was supposed to take 2 sessions, it ended up being 4 sessions spread across 5-ish months.

May: Not a lot happened in May, but that is the month that really rekindled reading and buying books for me again (more on that later).

June: As always, Ma's birthday... and another tattoo session.

July: We lost half of the team at work... many, many, many drinks were had. There was also the only Fork In The Road I went to this year, down at Port Adelaide. And it was also my eleventh bloggiversary.

August: We haven't seen enough movies this year to actually do a full on movie post like I usually do (we only saw 10 things at the movies, which is honestly just pathetic), so I'll just say, Kubo and the Two Strings which came out in August is hands down my pick for movie of the year.

September: My tattoo was finally finished. Also, the whole of South Australia had a massive blackout, so we did what any right thinking person would do, we went to the pub. And after the blackout I discovered that my roof was leaking... making 2 leaking roofs in 2 apartments in 2 years.

October: Felt a little like old times with a visit to an Espionage Gallery art show. And I finished Assassin's Creed Syndicate.

November: Ma fell and fucked up her shoulder. And on an unrelated note, I'll say what I said at the time, what the actual fuck America?

December: The saga of Ma's shoulder continued... culminating in an operation just before Christmas, which has meant a very different December for both of us. We still put the tree up at her place, but we had to cancel the traditional Christmas goodies, so I just made a fuck-ton of Rocky Road instead. We also discovered that Princess T had a baby and didn't tell us (I met her today, she's gorgeous and adorable and I want to eat her little chubby hands). And due to the heat we made a last minute decision to move Christmas to my place.

So that's the year that was... for me personally I'm a little fatter than I was this time last year (hell, I'm a little fatter than I was six months ago)... I've had a couple of weird health things pop up but then prove to be nothing at all, or else more related to my ongoing issues with my back than anything else. I've gotten laid a lot less this year which I think mostly has to do with my ongoing attraction to guys best described as flaky timewasters.

Work continues to annoy, challenge and otherwise consume much of my brain (at least until I walk out the door in the afternoon). I've had 4 different offsiders through the year... 2 we lost in the cull, and 1 is temporarily filling in for guy who got the job on a permanent basis. Management also continues to make decisions that are best described as mental.

The other thing I wanted to do this year was try out a "favourite things" list... or at least things that I've discovered this year that were new to me.

So...

yani's favourite things 2016

In no particular order...

Good Reads

One of the women at work mentioned this to me earlier in the year, but then at some point sat me down and showed it to me.. and I fell in love a little. I love a list, I love keeping track of things, this lets me do that, including keeping track of books I want to buy.

It also got me back into buying books in a way that I'd really moved away from. The only probably with that is a limited amount of space to put them.

99% Invisible

See also My Dad Wrote A Porno, Invisibilia, Alice Isn't Dead (and to a less extent Within the Wires), The West Wing Weekly, Good Game Roundtable and Death by Discography.

Again, 99PI was recommended to me by people at work, and I dived into it in a big way, going all the way back to the beginning and listening to every single episode one after another... it took me a couple of months but at the end I was very sad to not have Roman Mars's velvet voice inside my head on a daily basis.

The other podcasts mentioned are all ones that either I discovered this year (MDWAP, Invisibilia, GGRT) or that started this year (AID, WTW, DBD). I'm very much a podcast type of person, so discovering new, good podcasts is like other people discovering new music.

Grayson and Midnighter

Along with a resurgence in reading books, 2016 also very much saw me get back into graphic novels in a big bad way. This went hand in hand with a new comic book shop opening here in Adelaide, Greenlight Comics. And it's an incredibly open and welcoming place, much more so than any of the previous stores we've had.

So I've been developing a relationship, taking suggestions and just taking chances on things recommended to me.

One of those was Grayson, as in Dick Grayson (or the original Robin from Batman and Robin)... it's less superhero-ey and more "spy-ey"... but it's also a little bit homoerotic and doesn't take itself terribly seriously.

And weirdly it also ties into both the Batman books I was already reading, and another graphic novel I was interested in, Midnighter... think an out gay cross between Batman, Captain America and Wolverine... yeah, that.

Gin

I tried gin for the first time a couple of weeks ago, and really like it, mostly for the smell... that's all there is to that really. But I'm planning on making a gin slushie shortly.

Fidget toys

I'm a fidgeter, I fidget...  I also fiddle and whatnot.

I accidentally discovered fidget toys after getting a very simple one from one of those craft markets... it was essentially just a marble inside a knitted disc... then I fell down a YouTube hole at some stage and discovered Fidgetland.

I now own one of their Tutties and one of their Noahs... and I play with the Tuttle all the time (especially if I'm watching stuff on TV or YouTube). It gives my hands and the back part of my brain something to do while the rest of me is occupied. And I love it to bits.

So, yeah... I think that's it for this year in review. I've very much hoping we move onwards and upwards in 2017, because I'd love to do this again next year and be all "2017 was a truly amazing year".

And for the sake of tradition, tonight... right about nowish in fact, marks my 7th Twitter anniversary.

Current Mood: