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.

character saturday: adventing 2024, part four

So... overall, this year's Hero Forge Advent Calendar, highly underwhelming. Here we are in Week 4 and we haven't seen a single pair of pants or any shoes outside of the Christmas Day collection. As usual, while I only included one piece from the 25th, that was two full outfits, a bunch of decals and a dog. Dumb, overly crapped up outfits. But outfits non-the-less.

Everything else this week, other than maybe the staff, was craptastic. And the longer I look at the staff, the more it has a weird phallic/sandworm/sex toy vibe to the top section and the less I like it.

I'm not holding my breath for the last four days.

Anyway...

This week, like most years, was something of a complete mess. Just because it's a lot of build up and then it's All Over Red Rover (and did I stop and Google "Red Rover" just to make sure it didn't have racist origins... thankfully, from what I can tell, it did not). I made a quiche, and probably could have stumbled through the first couple of days this week without it, because now I just have a fridge full of food.

Mini Media Reviews this week were Wonka, which absolutely should not have worked at all, and yet managed to be mostly inoffensive and somewhat charming. I mean, the songs are all god-awful, and if you'd asked me to pick a young male actor for the role of Wonka, I would not have suggested Timothée Chalamet, even though I'm very fond of him. He somehow works though.

I followed that up with the anime Suzume, which is really good. It kind of rides that line where, with a couple of small story tweaks to recentre the story slightly more towards the power of friendship and slightly less towards a romance, because it's so very nearly there. I will say that a movie that manages to make a chair emote without giving it a face could have easily done that. I did still thoroughly enjoy it though.

Then I tried the TV show Grimm. Wow. Grimm is fucking TERRIBLE. I made it through the first two episodes before I decided that watching a group of mostly charmless actors incoherently spout vaguely German sounding names for things was enough for me. And that was after watching three shirtless twunks basically enact The Three Bears.

There are levels of trash I am willing to accept, this was not at any of those levels.

I also watched Bubble, an alt-future/parkour scifi anime version of The Little Mermaid that, even with that description, made the cardinal sin of being boring. Also, call me crazy, but I don't find the "girl who is functionally 'a child' mentally but still falls in love with boy who falls in love back" trope in any way hot. Yes, I realise she was heavily Little Mermaid coded, but it's still just not sexy. It just feels icky.

It is a pretty movie though. But the main story just didn't work for me.

Then Christmas happened.

And because I'd functionally been on my feet for most of the day, when we got to Boxing Day, I wanted to do absolutely nothing. And did. I made up some leftovers from Christmas lunch for Boxing Day lunch, and that was it really.

Friday Night DnD was (finally) the big dragon fight that we've been working towards for a little while. And we got there with a little help from our giant ally friends. We also were playing until nearly 1:30am, but other than some wrap up stuff, and the epilogue, we're done.

Anyway...

The weather this week has been rude. Cool weather Monday and most of Tuesday, very hot on Christmas Day followed by an immediate cool change on Boxing Day... and today... rain. And cool enough temperatures that I'm wearing full pants. Just rude.

Today's supermarket trip was fairly chill, after the insanity of the last couple of weeks, and between things left over from Christmas and today's shopping, my fridge is fairly full.

Due to the aforementioned rain, which started just after we got back, we didn't end up doing much of anything before I sent Ma home.

post christmas round-up 2024

The Giant Christmas Moth wishes you a Merry Chrimmas! Yeah, it's just a giant-ass moth that was on the wall when I went for my walk this morning, but you know... I posted it to Instagram with the same caption.

And since we don't really do a tree thing at Ma's place these days, you get what you get.

Because I generally report on the Christmas Weather... it was a warm one this year. It topped out at just over 36°C, and, of course one of those times was when I was driving home... obviously.

So... I headed out for my walk this morning, and much like last year, there were what felt like a far larger amount of people out and about also doing a walk than there is on a regular weekday, and certainly more than I remember from back in the day when I used to walk in North Adelaide.

I came back, threw myself in the shower, had indecision about what to wear before discovering that I had a pair of jeans shorts in the wardrobe that I'd never actually worn and have no memory of getting. Happy Christmas to me.

The run down to Ma's place was good... I didn't get caught by the majority of the lights on the way down, or when I did, they changed basically by the time I'd stopped. So I got there around 9:30.

Was the first little while a slight comedy of errors? Yes, yes it was. Did I put the breakfast croissants into an already hot oven without checking the temperature? Yes, yes I did. Did they end up with a healthy coating of charcoal? Yes, yes they did. Did we eat them anyway? Fuck yes. Did I go to shake the Farmer's Union Iced Coffee from Ma's fridge only to discover as I was doing it that one of them was already open and sealed back up with a bulldog clip? Yes, yes I did. Thankfully the spray was minimal. But was I already by 10am ready to just give up on the whole endeavour and go home? Slightly yes.

But we made it through breakfast. Afterwards I hooked my laptop up to Ma's TV and played the Critical Role Winter's Crest holiday album... which, honestly, is not bad... and then cleaned up from breakfast. Mostly I threw Ma out of her own kitchen all day... for a couple of reasons. One of them being that it was honestly just easier for me to do everything myself, and also because it gave her a day where she didn't have to do anything.

Then we did a very brief round of presents.

Honestly, there was also a few bits and pieces like a couple of packs of Bundaberg Spiced Ginger Beer, because it wouldn't be Christmas without it, but I didn't bother adding them to the photo. There was supposed to be a copy of the new Dungeons and Dragons Players Handbook, but due to retail stupidity, I never got around to picking one up, but I'll do that in January. 

And the PS4 was something that got replaced back at the end of July, with the understanding that it was actually a Christmas present. So I just brought the box down for completeness.

So, the list looks thusly...

• PS4 (500GB in black)
• Dice Advent Calendar (from Mr and Mrs)
• Everyone This Christmas Has A Secret book (from Mr and Mrs)
• LEGO Polaroid OneStep SX-70 Camera (from Fluffy)
• Blokey Strokes magnetic bookmark (from Fluffy)
• LEGO Dungeons and Dragons minifigure Mindflayer and Half-Elf Bard
• Bundaberg Christmas Spiced Ginger Beer x 2
  

Afterwards, I set Ma in front of one of the movies I'd borrowed from the library (Wonka, more on that at the end of the week), while I started sticking things into the oven. Because we gave up on the Weber BBQ after last year's complete failure.

I'll also be honest, I have no idea who we specifically fit it all into Ma's oven last year. I mean, I managed, but it was slightly squished. Also, I really need to read the last year's Christmas Round-Up before the following Christmas, because if I'd remembered that I said last year that I didn't need to microwave the potatoes first, I might have actually listened to myself.

This Year's Me will tell Next Year's Me that we can probably take the potatoes and sausage meat out after about 75 minutes, and coating the turkey with some oil like the box says is a good idea. Also, just microwave the beans for like 30 seconds.

What I did do this year was not dump all the basil into the mixture, but added it to the bottom of the bowls, because honestly, it goes all weird in the leftovers.

It still looks pretty good though, honestly. Not bad for just throwing together basil, green beans, roast potatoes, cherry tomatoes, turkey, sausage meat and making a salad dressing with some cranberry, mustard, vinegar and oil. Voila.

Also, yes, that is essentially pretty much the identical photo I've posted for the last... I dunno, several years. On Instagram if not here on the blog. But these days I'm just lazy and reuse my Insta photos.

So, basically I dipped in and out of watching Wonka while getting lunch prepared. And then after we finished lunch (and the end of Wonka), I cleaned up while I put on the other library movie, Suzume, for Ma. The clean up wasn't too arduous honestly, because I'd been keeping a relatively clean kitchen throughout. But I did dip in and out of the movie a few times.

As is usual, we didn't have dessert directly after lunch, we never do. It generally ends up being late in the afternoon before we even bother. In this case it was after the movie. While I never really keep track of what time anything happens on Christmas Day, I do know that it was after 4:30, because when we turned the movie off, I just flicked through the TV and stumbled across the Christmas episode of Mythbusters from the first season, so we just threw that on.

I packed up afterwards and headed home sometime just before 6pm. Which was also around the time that the temperature spiked again. Good times.

And I got stopped at pretty much all the lights on the way home. Which is what you want when you're in a metal box that has been sitting in the sun all day.

So I got home, unpacked and then threw myself under a cold shower. As one does.

And that, mes amis, is Christmas 2024. For what it's worth.

character saturday: adventing 2024, part three

Not going to lie... this year's Hero Forge Advent Calendar has been mostly underwhelming. The number of items that I would actually use going forward is... not high. It also possibly doesn't help because this week I ended up going for an Evergreen/Gingerbread colour story and... it all because a bit samey by the end of the week.

And, honestly, I kind of lost enthusiasm over the last three/four days. So I just slapped the metal colour swatches I'd already made on things.

Anyway...

So... I'm still not quite there with the pasta salad idea. This week's iteration was slightly better, but I still don't have it completely right.

This week's Mini Media Reviews are... possibly slightly extensive.

We'll start with me finally getting around to watching both parts of Denis Villeneuve's Dune. The short answer is, absolutely NOT my vibe. I loves me some Timothee, but damn. I was so unspeakably bored in Part One. 

So bored that my mind started to wander to questions like "Do the sandworms take these vibrations personally?" and "Are they trying to kill the harvester or fuck it?" and "Are the sandworms just hung over?"... then also statements like "The movie things that Fat Floaty Man is scary. Fat Floaty Man is not in the least bit scary." and "Oh, look, that's Drax, I can't see you as anything other than Drax, sorry dude."

And additional statements like "Somebody absolutely would have tried to set these Benandjerry Space Nun women on fire at some point..." (and yes, I know that's not their names, and I absolutely don't care) plus "Paul's mother is a full nightmare and I fucking hate every time she appears."

Best character in Part One was Jason Momoa. Then he, spoilers I guess, dies.

But mostly I was so phenomenally BORED by this movie.

Part Two was... marginally better. And that was directly due to Florence Pugh, Zendaya and Austin Butler. Mostly Butler. Because Feyd is a goddamn rockstar. A homidical, psychotic rockstar... but still a rockstar. Is he also absolutely Demyan-coded? Oh, 100%. But still absolutely the most interesting character on the screen.

Also, this movie absolutely misuses Christopher Walken. Nay, squanders The Walken. And I don't even like Walken that much.

Mostly these movies are just "What if 90% of the characters were delusional assholes?". I really just didn't enjoy them at all.

Next up was a movie that I picked up on a whim because it was on the shelf, knowing it was going to be bad. And that movie was Monster Hunter. A movie that fails to actually Monster Hunter for a full hour, manages to Monster Hunter for about 10 minutes and then fails to Monster Hunter at the end.

And I haven't even played the Monster Hunter video games. But this movie seems uninterested in actually exploring the World of the Games and instead devises a People From Earth Come To Monster Hunter World narrative, then matches up Real World Character with Character Who Doesn't Speak English. So you just get this issue where the character who should be introducing the audience (via the Earth Character) to the world of Monster Hunter literally cannot do that.

Yeah. It's a mess.

Rounding out the week was Free Guy. Not, as my brain repeatedly tried to tell me, The Fall Guy, but Free Guy. Also, can you blame me... two very similarly titled movies with Guy in the title staring people named Ryan.

It's mostly fine. It's very Ryan Reynolds. Mostly meta, occasionally humorous, but also kind of misses it's own point slightly. It's mostly watchable though. I could have done without Taika Waititi though, because he was painful to watch. Both Doing Too Much and Nobody Told Him No. Best character was probably Joe Keery. 

Otherwise, given that we had Friday Night Christmas this week, I was up to my elbows in chocolate for large portions of the week.

So Tuesday I made Christmas Crack a la B Dylan Hollis. Always good results (well, both times), always a slightly nerve-wracking process. But it's relatively simple and comes out well.

Wednesday was Rocky Road Day. I'll be honest, I often just wing the recipe. Or the proportions at the very last. And this time I had bought just too many marshmallows. And then kind of bought other things to match those proportions in my head. Except because pistachios are so fucking expensive these days, I went with walnuts. And bought two big packs when one probably would have done. And after all thought, I could have done with another container of Turkish Delight.

But I made one batch, then washed the bowls and started again. Ended up with two big trays of Rocky Road, which I then chopped up and still had the entire bottom of my fridge full of Rocky Road.

Then Thursday I wrapped presents for Friday. And got a little fancy with it.

Friday Night DnD ended up just being Friday Night Christmas and Board Games, which was fine. I basically crocheted all my presents again this year, those that weren't just chocolate goodies. And everyone liked them, which was nice. Not perhaps as interesting as last year's, but still good.

And then we played a couple of games of Sushi Go, which I won before playing the co-op game Zombicide: Black Plague, where I played the "Battle Nun". And we mostly succeeded on our run, lost the barmaid character right at the end, but still got the other three characters out.

Anyway.

Today we did the pre-Christmas shop. And I resisted the urge to murder all the other people doing the same thing. And that was it really, because if you think I was even going to consider going anywhere near any other shops today, you're insane.

character saturday: adventing 2024, part two

Weirdly, even though there's only one more item in the second week of the Hero Forge Advent Calendar, and yet it feels much more crammed and busy. Part of that is I had to try and squash in Half-Mannequin Joe today for the final item. And part of it is that they are just much larger items.

This week's theme started off as Battle Santa... and, honestly, kind of ended up that way too. Of the items, the only once I even slightly like are the tools, the vest and the breastplate. Everything else is either crapped up, superfluous to requirements or just dumb. Sometimes more than one of those at the same time.

I will say that the spear is slightly growing on me, but it has become clear that this particular "roughly textured, crapped up design" weapon is 100% their wheelhouse, and I honestly don't especially care for that as a whole. But it is entirely possible that the right character will eventually come along that works for that spear. Unlikely. But possible.

Also, we absolutely do not need any more shields for a good... 18 months. Or not giant, overly decorated shields at the very least. Especially since the posing to get shields to actually look halfway decent is incredibly difficult.

Of all this week's items, I feel like the breastplate is going to be the high turnover item. I do have a slight problem with the way that Hero Forge items with square markings stretch when added to varying bodytypes, but it's a good solid base piece.

Anyway...

This week's Mini Media Reviews are, firstly, the slightly underwhelming Justice League:Warworld. I mean, the couple of parts were decent, with Cowgirl Wonder Woman, Barbarian Batman and 1950's Twilight Zone Superman... but, honestly, the ending didn't really land for me. Not bad overall, but a little dull.

The other thing I watched was The New Legends of Monkey. An Australian/New Zealand co-production with Nexflix, based, more or less on the old Monkey TV show. I mean, it's Journey to the West, there have been like 900 versions of that, but it feels like this is the show they're riffing on.

And it's cheesy and campy and everybody is acting at 11, but, honestly, I really, really enjoyed it. The second season is a little uneven, because seemingly they suddenly decided that they were making a "kids show" and threw a random child character in that makes absolutely zero sense. But the show has it's tongue firmly in it's cheek, isn't taking itself at all seriously and are having the most fun with what they're given. Even the slightly less... practiced... actors kind of do pretty well because the show knows that they're campy and plays it up.

Absolute standout of the show is Emilie Cocquerel as Sandy, I totally adore what she does with the character. And Chai Hansen manages to not only be hot as hell, but also have great comedic chops as Monkey.

There's only two seasons of it thus far, but it's well worth a watch, especially if you loved the old show.

Friday Night DnD was mostly rearranging deck chairs before we go fight the BBEG.

Also I learned shocking and scandalous things about my friends. Specifically the fact that everybody but me is just opening their dice Advent Calendar all willy-nilly the NIGHT BEFORE [clutches pearls]. Rascals, scoundrels, pettifoggers, charlatans and knaves, the pair of them. Is there no decency left in the world?

Escándalo.

Anyway...

Today was mostly just the supermarket, although afterwards we did do a quick sidetrip to Officeworks for more printer ink. Because this is the first point since January, when I bought the $40 printer instead of $128 worth of printer ink.

And I discovered, much to my delight that the normal ink is under $30, the black ink anyway, and to get the "XL" cartridge, which is supposed to print twice as many pages, was under $40. So yay Last January Me.

Then we did a quick wander around Spotlight because I needed boxes for Christmas presents. And they had a lot of Not Exciting Boxes... but I have a plan to make them at least slightly more interesting.

character saturday: adventing 2024, part one

So... it's that time of year again when the Hero Forge Advent Calendar begins and I make weird fucked up guys for the next month.

This particular WFUG is clearly some kind of cat-themed, time travelling barbarian.

There's also lion themed pauldrons to go with the helm, but that literally felt like putting a hat on a hat... or in this case, a tinier lion under a larger lion.

Overall, I feel like the only things I might actually use the cat and the lion hat, with the possibility of the skirt in very specific circumstances. But that's much the way with this advent calendar, there end up being only about half the items I ever end up using, and then only about a quarter to a fifth that I end up using with any regularity.

Honestly, give me a month's worth of hair and clothes and I'll be a happy little camper.

Also, weirdly, they didn't do their using "silhouette/spoiler" image this year. Granted in previous years that has meant that some days were incredibly easy to guess and others were very difficult. But they didn't do anything at all this year, just dropping Day 1 with no previous fanfare.

Anyway...

This week's Tuna Noodle Doo was... somewhat disappointing. Which is entirely on me because I forgot to buy more tuna, used a different canned soup as the base and picked the wrong kind of noodles. Which I knew were wrong, but picked them anyway for some reason. It was fine, but underwhelming.

This week's Mini Media Review is firstly for the sequel to The Three Musketeers movie from a couple of weeks ago, The Three Musketeers: Milady. I'll be honest, I like the first part better. Admittedly this one focuses more on the character of Milady, and for whatever reason, I didn't like her as much as I generally do in adaptations. I think possibly because they tried to humanise her or make her sympathetic or relatable or whatever, and, honestly, I much prefer my villains villainous. It was still good, but, yeah, the first half was stronger.

They also left the potential door open to either do something like The Man In The Iron Mask, or the sequel, which I didn't know existed, Twenty Years After. Because clearly Dumas gave literally no fucks about naming things.

Also, this is your yearly reminder... or, you know, completely new information for you, that Dumas was part French and part African. Because I regularly forget that. And if I'm reading his wiki page correctly, technically he was only a quarter French.

The second review is for Borderlands. And, firstly, I have literally zero connection to the video game, I went in knowing that Claptrap was a thing, Tiny Tina was a thing and that was basically it. Also, you know, guns.

So, to crib from my post movie review to Fluffy...

Thoroughly enjoyable while at no point and by no measure being what anyone would define as actually "good".

It's like if you took a script and put the opposite of jokes into it... not bad jokes... the fundamental opposition to jokes... that cancel out jokes.

But Cate was fantastic.

I was never bored. But the whole movie is painfully obvious, some of the supporting cast is not quite on Cate's level, but it's mostly quite pretty. And I was never bored.

And if that's not faint praise, I don't know what is.

Lastly we have The Glassworker, a movie that is, for all intents and purposes, a Ghibli movie without being made by anybody even remotely connected to Studio Ghibli. It is made by a small Pakistani team. And it's very clearly a love letter to Ghibli and anime in general. While also being incredibly beautiful. I don't know that it always completely sticks the landing, but it's heart is in the right place and they mostly succeeded in what they were trying to do.

Friday was Chiro Day. Also Briefly Wandering Around Town Day.

Friday Night DnD was... slightly more chaotic and less heroic than I was perhaps hoping for. But before the game Fluffy and I played the first game of chess I've played in... at least 25 years. And, as always seems to be the cast, I lost.

Anyway...

Not much to report for today. We did the supermarket... and either we did the thing I said that we shouldn't do a couple of weeks ago (to Ma, I don't think I specifically mentioned it here) and not go as nuts buying groceries in the lead up to Christmas that we really don't need... or they've just jacked the prices of everything up a bunch because it's Christmas... or, you know, both. Probably both.

And that was it really.

character saturday: le petit chat noir

So... this week's DnD Character Colouring Book was... a journey. Which started when I wanted to play around with the new "opera gloves" and their variations. One of which is what the site calls "Long Fingerless Glove". And originally I was aiming for Shadow Sorcerer... forgetting that they didn't actually bring that across in the 2024 rules. So I pivoted to Shadow Monk. The Rogue part came a little later.

The longer I looked at her, the more I realised she was giving me slight Catwoman vibes... and I tried a version using the cat ears and a domino mask... and I liked that... but then I remembered that recently they did a wrestling pack... complete with a Luchador Jaguar mask.

One thing led to another... add in my favourite Hero Forge jacket...

And voila, The Cat. Halfling criminal, Shadow Monk and Thief Rogue. Is a full head mask that limits your vision and muffles your hearing a good idea for someone who relies on sneaking around? No, of course not. When has that ever stopped any superhero or supervillain ever.

But other than the fact that the character wouldn't completely come online until Level 6 at the earliest, this is absolutely a character I would play.

Anyway...

This week I made a much better quiche and added some mustard to my potato salad... which was a good plan.

For Mini Media Reviews this week... well, these are a little more Maxi, but still not full reviews, although I did consider it for the first one...

First up is Boy Kills World. And this absolutely is going to show up if I do a list of the best movies I watched this year, regardless of then they came out. Firstly... Bill Skarsgård. Who is a beautiful, beautiful man. But the whole premise, which I was intrigued by when the trailer came out (although, I'll full admit I had completely forgotten the movie existed until Fluffy mentioned it again), of a "deaf mute" assassin who doesn't remember what his own voice sounds like, so his internal monologue is the voice of his favourite video game, aka H. Jon Benjamin (Bob from Bob's Burgers). And the writing is perfectly pitched and very sharp. 

Yes, it's incredibly gory and bloody and brutal. But also, unlike a lot of other movies, the violence in the finale of the movie actually means something and has stakes to it. It's just a very smart script. The cast is incredibly solid and playing up just the right amount of ham. I can absolutely see this picking up a cult following over time, because it deserves it. If nothing else, it should tell you a lot that I watched it a second time before I took it back to the library. Just because.

The other thing was the very odd anime, That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime. The main character, Human Man From Earth (he has a name, I forget what it is), who... well, the title basically sums up what happens to him... he is a complete pervert. The last thing he tells someone before he "dies" in the first episode is to put his computer hard drive in the bath and make sure it can't be accessed. That tells you everything you need to know about the pornography he has accumulated. Also, he, and the show, are a little too obsessed with bewbs. In a "if you weren't a little round slime, women should be slapping your face continuously" way. I also kind of hoped the show might be self aware enough for him to, for example, lust over Lady Elves, and then have the whole idea flipped on it's head, and have all the elves be highly androgynous or something. But no. Bewbs.

Having said that though, and putting that to one side, it's actually a really interesting concept and executed incredibly well. While he's a little bit of a "oh, he can do everything and is super powerful, blah blah blah" aka Marty Stu type character, the idea that he can just absorb other creatures powers because he acquires a certain set of powers due to the things he said while he was dying is a fun concept. As is the show's premise that "monsters" (I'm sure the show uses Japanese names for most of them, but the English dub and subtitles default to some fairly common fantasy races) don't have names, but once a powerful creature gives them one, they essentially "level up". I only borrowed the first half of the first season... so I do want to at least finish out the season. I don't know if I'm in it for the long haul beyond that though.

I figured I would do what little decorating I do for Christmas... which is essentially the knock off Lego Christmas wreath, the three Christmas themed Winnie the Pooh critters (my three spirit animals, Piglet, Tigger and Eeyore) on a ribbon, the baubles on the support cage for the (slowly dying) parlor palm and the neon Christmas tree. Admittedly, I did also add a little tealight candle holder thing and the clear resin reindeer with the bells that I haven't gotten out in a hot minute.

The intent was to get Fluffy to plug the neon tree in when he got here yesterday, because it involves some Lying On Floor and Reaching For Things, both of which my back has previously not been a fan of. So I was just connecting the neon to the base and I heard a snap noise. Yes. After a very long time, the neon broke. Admittedly, the tree has had a good run.I didn't initially know when the hell I bought it, although I did remember that I got it from Arndale at The Reject Shop. But after a little bit of a deep dive into the blog, specifically the first couple of Decembers, just in case... and I found a post detailing previous Christmas decorations, which lead me back to an "ABC's of Me" post from 2005, including the immortal entry...

N is for Neon Christmas Tree... I got it the other day... it's tacky, stands 32cm high, is really really bright and only cost $10, but I like it

Turns out "the other day" was a post for when we went to see The Corpse Bride. It does actually astound me on occasion how many things I've actually detailed in the blog that eventually, if it happened after July 2005, I can generally find a reference. Which means it was a 19 year old neon tree. Also, for some reason I had $25 in my head... but yeah $10 makes a whole lot more sense.

So, pour one out for the very cheap and elderly neon homie. Who bathed various apartments in green and pink light and made many of my Christmases feel slightly more festive. And absolutely was worth the price. Ye shall be missed.

Friday Night DnD was cancelled for reasons, so instead Fluffy and I did a movie night.

And his choice was One Cut of the Dead, a Japanese movie from 2017. I'm not going to say a lot about it, but it's absolutely worth watching. I went in knowing nothing, was somewhat confused for about 10 minutes, spent the next 20 minutes waiting to see if my theory was correct and then enjoyed the rest of the movie. It's very "low budget indie movie", but it's worth a look. I think I enjoyed it more for what it was trying to do than the movie it actually was, if that makes sense.

In return, I showed him Soapdish from 1991, a movie that completely accidentally, has some superficial connections in theme to One Cut. Also, it's a movie that, in 1991 seemed perfectly fine, but in 2024 absolutely shits the bed in the last... three minutes. And it could absolutely be fixed with two to three very small changes. But it's a movie that is amazing for 95 minutes and stumbles as it takes it's bows.

Anyway...

Today was... a lot of doing things we probably could have done in the last several weeks, but didn't because of reasons.

We started with Supermarketry. This week I'm defaulting to Tuna Noodle Doo. I'm trying to not just make the same thing every single week like I did last Summer, even if I can swap between like three different options, it's enough.

Then we did the Big W/Kmart loop. Ma wanted to poke around Big W, I needed some things at Kmart. It's been a minute, but also, I had slightly forgotten that I need to not be anywhere near the shops for pretty much the whole of December. Because people is nuts in the lead up to Christmas. Obviously.

Kmart was the better result overall. What I did find was an accidental Christmas tree replacement. Not neon, obvs, because lightning does not, in fact, strike twice. But I found a three part candle (well, two parts are a candle, the top is... the top) that make up a tree. Is it perfect? No, the colour is slightly too sagey, and for no reason I can think of, the top is two shades lighter than the rest of it. That would be fine if they were going for an ombre, but I'm pretty sure the bottom two are exactly the same colour.

It's pretty enough though. And also candles.

I also got a gummy bear "drink jar", which is very cute, and some beads with which to perform crochet experiments.

Not a bad run, honestly.

character saturday: making things go kaboom

Today's DnD Character Colouring Book is a companion piece to last week's mentors for my current character. This is Sindri, son of Craftmistress Ulla, and Hali's best friend. Technically also his first friend. And the first gnome he never met.

He originally had a very different design, but I wasn't necessarily vibing with that. Plus he's kind of my Emergency Backup Character if the worst should happen in these last few games. Because, honestly, I can't be bothered pivoting to a whole new class. A new subclass I can handle, especially as I don't know that I'll be coming back to the Artificer well any time soon.

Also pictured is his Homunculus Servant, Bubble. As in "Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and caldron bubble". Because I never quite got to the place where it made sense to have one on Hali.

Anyway...

This week I attempted a pasta salad recipe. And it mostly worked. It's just that the Greek yoghurt dressing kind of needed a) more actual dressing and b) a flavor other than Greek yoghurt. The idea is definitely sound... although it probably needs some refining to get it to a point where it really works for me. But it's better having two different options than making the same thing all Salad Season.

I also finished my crochet project... snek amigurumi for the win. I named him Henry Spofford III... from a minor character in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, for no real reason. It just seemed to fit in the moment. Plus it's fun to say.

I do need to take some photos of everything I've stumbled my way through this year, since I really haven't been doing that. And before I give things to people at Christmas. So there might be spam at some point.

Also... just as a general "Fuck My Life"... it says something when you tear up the roof of your mouth on the pointy part of a peach pit. That something is nothing good. But it says it anyway.

The Mini Media Reviews for this week are Over the Garden Wall, which I did not care for at all. I found the characters annoying and the storyline weird and random for the sake of being weird and random. Mostly I was just bored by it. By the time it got to the "reveal" at the end of 8th episode, I could not have cared less.

The other mini review is for The Three Musketeers: D'Artagnan, the first half of a two-parter (the other half is on it's way, although it might take a minute). And it's the first Musketeers movie I've seen that is actually French. Also, they made D'Artagnan hot, they made the King of France hot and they made Porthos bisexual. What's not to love. But it's very good. It's a little "we set a movie in the past so everything is brown" that you often get with this type of film, but otherwise it was excellent.

This week was slightly strange, as the second to last week in November generally is... because it was the Norwood Christmas Pageant today. Which means that the way to the supermarket is terribly convoluted. So like in previous years, shopping got moved to Friday morning instead.

Which meant that, unlike a normal Saturday morning, I decided to go my Friday morning walk, had Friday morning breakfast and then did Saturday morning shopping with Ma. Which, as always, threw off my brain for the rest of the day. And then because it was going to be quite hot, I sent Ma home relatively early.

Friday Night DnD was relatively short and sweet. Annoyingly the drive there and back wasn't, because just like last week there were roadworks on the very direct route which meant that we had to take the very indirect route along a road I fucking hate driving on, even at 11:30pm. But the game itself was okay.

Anyway...

Today was... nothing. I slept it. I made breakfast. I pottered about. T'was good.

character saturday: home town teachers

Something a little different for today's DnD Character Colouring Book... NPCs. The backbone of any good campaign. In this case, the leaders of the Kaboom Collective, where my bird boy Hali learned his trade. The Craftmistress Ulla Horcusporcus (and yes, it is one of the more ridiculous gnomish surnames, but also one of my favourites), and Forgemaster Tygus Ironcloak.

I also wanted to go for more of a "full scene" for these two, so that both my DM and the other players got a sense of the location. I don't exactly remember where the art behind them came from, but it fit the bill pretty much exactly.

And honestly, I possibly should have posed the the other way around, but I like that it looks like either Ulla has just handed the gem off to Tygus or he's about the hand it off to her.

Anyway...

So, fun fact, that became blatantly obvious once I thought about it for five seconds... when you make something and put a lot of chopped, fresh parsley in it, the water in the parsley has to go somewhere. Which meant that this week's quiche was a little damp. Overall not bad, but it didn't hold together quite as well as it should have.

I also started another crochet project... just for me, and for no real reason... I just decided that I wanted to make myself an amigurumi snake. Mostly because I'd worked out exactly how much fucking yarn I currently own. But also just to make myself something cute.

Weirdly though, while I could work on the previous shrug cardigan project for long stretches of time, I've been doing the snake in shorter bursts. Possibly because I'm basically working a tube that I have to hold with my first two fingers and thumb. But it's coming out super cute. I just have to work out when to stop... because it's a snek, so while I can just keep going until I run out of this particular yarn, I have quite a bit of it left. And there will come a point of ridiculousness. I assume I will stop just on the other side of that point.

Because, you know... me.

There wasn't really much of a Mini Media Review this week. I just watched the third season of The Legend of Vox Machina. It was... fine. I think there's a slight cognitive dissonance with doing twelve half hour episodes for a storyline that was over 50 hours of table game time. And it just kind of squishes things down a little too much and turns what I know would have been impactful battle scenes fighting literal dragons into a five minute sequence Which I get, I do. But both things can be true at the same time. I also don't have a huge knowledge of or emotional connection to the first Critical Role campaign. So it just left me a little underwhelmed.

It wasn't terrible. I just found myself zoning out a little.

Also, insert my yearly vague complaint about car races and the need to also have jet planes flying directly over where I live repeatedly. I mean, do all those things... just do them elsewhere.

Friday Night DnD was the introduction of the aforementioned NPCs. We finally make it to Hali's backstory, which will only really be a flying visit, but it was good because I got to kind of step temporarily into the DM seat in order to introduce the location, rather than just trying to download my entire brain into the DM's brain. And it doesn't completely wrap his backstory up... there are still things to tie up and at least one plot thread that I definitely want to tug on.

It was a good session overall honestly, although, I would say that because it was very My Character focused. But look, everybody else has had those moments, mine just came last. Which I'm fine with.

Anyway...

Today was... warm. Not as warm as it was forecast to be. But still "hide indoors where the sun can't find you with the air conditioner on" warm.

So, we just did the supermarket thing, and then I sent Ma on her merry way before it got too warm.

character saturday: dancing queen

So, I kind of backed myself into a corner with the Bard in the 2024 PHB Character Colouring Book. Because, honestly, while I like the College of Dance Bard, I'm still not really here for Bards. Plus because of the way I'd assigned the other species and done a distribution of gender, I was slightly stuck with "female Aasimar noble" as my starting position.

I mean, nobody but me is making these rules, and I could ignore them, or I could have made a non-binary character or something... but I feel like if I was doing this for real, it would be a world away from that as an idea. And I did already do a trial run of that concept with Micah. There's also a non zero amount of Micah DNA in Oriel's design.

But Oriel is the third iteration of the idea. Not counting Micah. Because I'd also gotten it into my brain that she needed a shaved head. Which was nice, but kind of walled me into a mental cul-de-sac as far as design went.

Have I done this outfit combo before? Not 100% specifically... but Countess used the same jacket and top. And I've used the jacket a lot, including last week on Nightingale. Plus there are some characters who haven't seen the light of day that definitely use a similar combo.

The new nails, the bracelets and the choices I made with the face did make this the one that I finally considered good enough though.

Anyway.

I delved back into the world of quiche and potato salad this week. I am considering leaning into a whole pasta salad vibe as an alternate, because honestly, just iterating on the same thing gets kind boring.

The first dip back into the pool was still tasty tho.

So, this week's Mini Media Review (because I'm still flipping between movies and TV), is the end of Teen Wolf. More on that in a second.

Well, technically I did try to watch Violet Evergarden, but it was absolutely not my thing. I was mostly bored to the point where I half fell asleep during the last episode I watched, and when I was awake I was somewhat icked out by whole "is this woman who make be a robot or some weird genetically engineered slave supposed to be 12 or 37?". Honestly the only part of the story I was vaguely interesting in was what the hell Violet actually was, but the show was interested in something that definitely wasn't that. And I know that there's a lot of technical aspects behind the look of the show that make it "important", but, honestly... m'eh. It wasn't ugly, but there wasn't ever a single moment when I stopped and went "wow, that's gorgeous".

So, yeah, we're filing that squarely in the "not for me" category.

The final season of Teen Wolf on the other hand. Holy fucking shit.

Technically speaking, there are "eight" seasons in Teen Wolf. But seasons 3 and 6 are both divided into A and B parts that each take up half the season and that were aired about six months apart. Seasons 1, 2, 3A and 3B are all 12 episodes long. Seasons 4, 6a and 6B are all 10 episodes long, and Season 5 is the only "long season" that has a single storyline that lasts for all 20 episodes.

But I'm talking about both Seasons 6A and 6B here. They're both amazing. 6A might be the best Teen Wolf season though. And if I had to rank the whole show... it may well be 6A, 3B, 5, 6B, 3A... and then 1, 2 and 4 is some random interchangeable order. If I'm counting the two split seasons as a whole, then I think the ranking is 6, 5, 3, 2, 1, 4 maybe. Again, the last three are a little switchable.

Season 6 as a whole is very, very strong though. I will freely admit that I cried or teared up in pretty much every single episode of 6A at one point or another. And if it wasn't every episode, it was pretty damn close. I love the choices, both the ones the production made and the ones caused by circumstances that they had to adapt to, I love everything about it. Is it incredibly silly at times? Absolutely, but that's Teen Wolf. It's basically a Supernatural Soap Opera, of course it has silly moments. I still fucking love it.

And then we come to 6B. Don't get me wrong, it's excellent. It's just, intentionally, hard to move through. Both halves of the season deal with the same theme, they just come at it from opposite ends. I will also say that given where the world (specifically the US) was in 2016/2017 when this was produced/aired, 6B makes perfect sense.

Are there parts of 6B that I found it hard to watch? Yes. Are there also parts that made me clap my hands like a demented clockwork monkey? Also yes. And as I said to Fluffy earlier in the week as he still lags behind me by a couple of seasons, there are a couple of ways you can end a series like this. One of those ways is the Buffy route, where you just drop the entire location of the show in a giant hole in the ground and leave it at that. Or you can go the Angel route and proudly proclaim that this is probably the end of the world and then never resolve that.

Or, you can do what Teen Wolf did. Life keeps going. We're not going to be watching it on a weekly basis anymore (or, you know, binge watching it over the course of a couple of days on DVD, whatever the case may be), but the characters pick themselves up, dust themselves off and carry on. And it's a fitting way to round out the season and the series.

The movie will be on the radar at some point, but Fluffy made me promise we'd watch it together. So fully expect that to show up in the Christmas/New Year slots at some point if we don't get to it before then.

I also managed to finish my crochet project. I wasn't tracking the length of time it took, which I possibly should have been. I know that it was many, many hours of both Teen Wolf and watching people play video games though. And I did turn it into the cardigan/shrug, which mostly works. If I knew when I restarted it what I know now, would I have made different decisions? Sure. But I gave it a test run last night and it works and it serves it's purpose, and I once again mostly just made it up as I was going along (if making a rectangle and then attaching two parts of it is "making it up").

It was also designed as something the throw on when I was just a little cold, or on DnD nights when I need a little something for the drive home. Because it's not a full on Winter clothing item... it doesn't have any real arms... but it will be useful for just sitting around home at certain points.

And I like how it looks.

It does mean that I am "in search of a new project" at present. I have a few ideas... but I need to get past the "how the fuck do I start this" of it all first though.

Friday Night DnD was... not exactly chaos... but more "expectation of doing A, however B happening instead". Which has happened a few times this campaign and is totally fine. I'd just set my brain to A already.

Anyway...

Today was basically just the supermarket. Nothing much to report other than that.