Movies & TV
- Metallica: Some Kind of Monster — what a fantastic look at the creative process. It’s grounding to see a group of people considered among the best at what they do struggle and doubt their abilities along the way towards ultimately making something great.
- Dark Matter — I was excited about this series after reading the book earlier this year. Within the first 5 minutes I couldn’t shake the feeling that this was a classic example of “mid TV”. I tried to stick it out but didn’t get through the first episode.
- The Revenant — how in the world is this movie 9 years old? I saw it pop up in Max and thought, “oh nice, I remember wanting to watch that when it came out a couple years ago”. Anyways, I was blown away with the stunning cinematography and intense action scenes.
- Mission Impossible – Ghost Protocol & Mission Impossible – Rogue Nation — I was in between shows and came across these 2 gems. I’ve never seen an MI movie, so figured I’d give them a shot and they totally delivered. Looking forward to watching the other ones.
- Shaun of the Dead — hadn’t seen this for a very long time, but it was on my list of classic horror movies to watch with my daughter. It’s just as sharp, witty, and fun as it was 20 (!) years ago.
Reading
Severance — this post-pandemic book from Candace Chen (written in 2018, by the way) was a dark but fun read. Her writing style, which I have no idea how to describe other than “fluid”, was really enjoyable because the conversations between characters just felt incredibly natural. Reminded me a bit of Station Eleven as she wove a thread between her childhood experience as an immigrant, her adult life as an office worker, and her present-day role as an outcast in a post-apocalyptic group of survivors.
Music
After watching Metallica: Some Kind of Monster, I rediscovered some of their music that I hadn’t spent much time getting into. I was already sold on St. Anger being one of their best albums (which is a controversial opinion?), but digging into Death Magnetic again led me to gain a new appreciation for The Unforgiven III, which is such a great track. That led me to work back to The Unforgiven II, which fell off the map for me somehow but is maybe an even better song. THAT led me to think about the original The Unforgiven for a few seconds before deciding I was good, let’s not get crazy.
On the heels of Pearl Jam’s new album dominating my listening last month, I caught them live in LA at the Forum with my mom. We’ve seen them several times together, but this was probably the most excited I’ve been (other than seeing them in Seattle) based on how much I was looking forward to hearing their new stuff live. As usual, they put on a great show with a setlist that showcased a good mix of the new album.
Games
Sweet Jesus, there’s a new daily game in town, and I’m hooked. It’s Daily Tens, where you try to guess as many things from a top ten list (like “US states with the most coastline”) as you can, and you get five wrong guesses. A few dudes from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo built it. Go Stangs!
Miscellaneous
After having it on my birthday and holiday wishlist for several years and loudly complaining every time I didn’t get one, I finally got a Tidbyt for my birthday. This thing is fun as hell — I love that the screen is intentionally low fidelity, and there are some good community apps. I’ve been playing around with the dev kit and working on an app that randomly displays quotes from my Wall of Quotes project.
Finally, after dealing with some nagging injuries earlier this year, I ran my first 5K since last year (in which I finished 3rd out of 36 in my division!) and did OK. I didn’t train at all for it, so was pretty happy with my time (8th of 31 in my division).