tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-872336590397755612024-03-12T23:34:17.451-05:00Gumby, Tink & FamilyWhat's going on with Greg & Maria Whitehead (Gumby & Tink) and their three boys Colin, Spencer & Jaden.Gumbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16164366902768547090noreply@blogger.comBlogger365125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-87233659039775561.post-33300689800511745642024-01-11T09:54:00.004-06:002024-01-11T09:59:20.564-06:00Greg's Favorites of 2023<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMxbBfwezDM3_3SiH_87_hh5atHwM8ZRjnlQiLnEHLEkGJ-kYi2_KZANQ1kWkqA7VY5q-Jd_6b0aCG4xPlkkXtd2ToJdyzhC_zeCngomj4uXigI2QhrjuVlqywOnBHbEKw8Zzu0xkCKB8p9kSGMIvMcUlOwbHVe47Rl5wcj89dZQ0ji6lT3WNFa-EsaQs/s792/2023Collage.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="612" data-original-width="792" height="494" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMxbBfwezDM3_3SiH_87_hh5atHwM8ZRjnlQiLnEHLEkGJ-kYi2_KZANQ1kWkqA7VY5q-Jd_6b0aCG4xPlkkXtd2ToJdyzhC_zeCngomj4uXigI2QhrjuVlqywOnBHbEKw8Zzu0xkCKB8p9kSGMIvMcUlOwbHVe47Rl5wcj89dZQ0ji6lT3WNFa-EsaQs/w640-h494/2023Collage.png" width="640" /></a></div><p>Hello 2024. I'm absolutely shocked every year when I discover that this blog still exists. So let's resurrect it for one more year and see if it still works, shall we?</p><p>2024 almost felt like a normal year. Maria completed some post-cancer surgery procedures which met our entire 2023 medical deductible in the first week of January! Unfortunately we did not have enough money put aside for that since it was the beginning of the year and our contributions hadn't had a chance to build up yet after paying out for the surgeries at the end of 2022. Maria's online friend community stepped up and put together a GoFundMe for her which was more than enough to help offset the costs. As far as we can tell, everything is fine with her and hopefully will continue to be.</p><p>My year was much the same as it has been for the last few years. I continue to work primarily at home despite most people returning to the office at this point. I actually had to surrender my cubicle because they needed it for people who actually work in the office! I went to Utah a couple times for work and a couple quick trips to Virginia in April and San Diego in November for some training.</p><p>Maria and I celebrated our 25th year anniversary with an extended weekend trip into Texas Hill Country during wild flower season where we enjoyed the beautiful colorful country scenery.</p><p>One of our more memorable outings this year was to the friends & family opening event of "Meow Wolf" in Grapevine Texas where Colin got hired as well as Spencer's girlfriend, Max. So we were among the first to go through this fun and trippy museum/art installation/experience/tour-thing. It's hard to describe but it's worth the visit if you come to town or can find one of the few other installations out there in the US.</p><p>As usual, I kept a log of everything I watched, played, listened to, read, and did this year. Here are my favorite and notable items from various categories:</p><h2 style="text-align: left;">MUSIC</h2><p>Over the past few years I've learned to rely on Spotify to tell me what I liked this year, but since it quits keeping track at the end of the year, my wrap-up did not accurately reflect what I personally liked best this year. So I have cross-referenced my own notes to figure out what I should mention here.</p><p>First, as usual, I made a new song for Christmas. In my quest to fill in the gaps that are missing from the vast Mannheim Steamroller Christmas Music Collection, I chose this year to do my own rendition of "Ding Dong Merrily on High." This one doesn't appear to be as well known in the US, but I hear it regularly on British shows. I believe one of the original places I heard it was during an episode of "Monty Python's Flying Circus."</p><p>Greg Whitehead - "Ding Dong Merrily On High"</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/DY8lkgsFiX4" width="320" youtube-src-id="DY8lkgsFiX4"></iframe></div><br /><br /><p></p><p>Music I listened to in 2023:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>Jacob Collier - "WELLLL"</b><br />My favorite song of the year was #37 on my Spotify playlist. I'm shocked. It's possible because I watched the video on YouTube quite a bit and it originally showed up under a different artist's name (possibly the same artist, but in Japanese writing) one week on my Spotify recommends playlist. The artist is Jacob Collier whom I'd never heard of before this year. From what I can tell the man is a musical genius. I watched quite a few videos of his--especially live performances--that just blew me away. Oddly, though, this one track is the <i style="font-weight: bold;">only</i> song of his that I found that I like. I have yet to find anything else this good. So though I think he's an amazing musician, I only like one song, but it's an amazing song!<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4lSqCdA2yAI" width="320" youtube-src-id="4lSqCdA2yAI"></iframe></div><br /><br /></li><li><b>Trevor Rabin - Rio</b><br />My favorite album of the year was released near the end so Spotify probably didn't get all my listens to this either. Trevor Rabin was the key ingredient to one of my favorite albums of all time, Yes - "90125." Now 40 years later this solo album easily stands right next to "Big Generator" and "Talk" (the two other Rabin-lead Yes albums.) Packed full of singalong choruses, stacked harmonies, amazing guitar work, and a plethora of musical styles and genres, this album is a fun ride that only disappoints because it's been so long since Trevor has put out this album. We should have had more of this!<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/KPzga7UJwy4" width="320" youtube-src-id="KPzga7UJwy4"></iframe></div><br /><br /></li><li><b>Gum - Saturnia</b><br />This is the album that Spotify insists is my favorite of the year. 5 songs from it made the top 5 songs in a row on my wrap-up playlist. I was not familiar with Gum prior to this year and I forget how I discovered him, but there was something hauntingly beautiful about this album that held my attention. It's a great mix of psychedelic rock and dreamy indie-folk with some Jazz, funk, prog, and spacey synthpop mixed in. <br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/mTJMvaaP7C8" width="320" youtube-src-id="mTJMvaaP7C8"></iframe></div><br /><br /></li><li><b>Temples - Exotico</b><br />Temples had one of my favorite albums a few years back in 2019 and was one of my most anticipated releases of the year. This new one was good but disappointing because I merely really liked it rather than loved it. Still, I listened to it a lot and I highly recommend it as a great addition to their discography. It's really good modern psychedelic rock.<br /><br /></li><li><b> Hoosiers - Confidence<br /></b>This post Britpop band showed up this year with a new album that felt like a return to their 2007 debut "The Trick To Life." As a whole I actually enjoyed the album better than most of their other albums. They always had great songs, but there were often a bunch of weaker ones mixed in. This album is packed with nearly all great songs and a few short interludes. Highly recommended.<br /><br /></li><li><b>Peter Gabriel - i/o</b><br />I almost missed this album entirely. I had no idea Peter Gabriel was making new music. He hasn't put out a new original album since 2002 so I wasn't paying attention. Spotify kept telling me he had new songs, but they all had "Light Side Mix" and "Dark Side Mix" tagged on the end so I just dismissed them as old songs being released as new remixes as often happens on Spotify. I had no idea he was actually releasing new music with two different mix styles on each song. The final album is essentially two discs, a "Light Side" and "Dark Side" but the same exact songs on each. My first reaction upon listening was "Wow, Phil Collins must be rolling in his grave!* This is so good!" (*Note: As of Jan 2024 Phil Collins is alive, but he has retired from music.) There are songs on here that are as good as anything from "So" which has my favorite Peter Gabriel songs. In fact, I'd say that there are multiple songs on this album that are better than anything I've heard from Peter Gabriel since 1986. The album came out in December, so Spotify had no idea I even listened to this album in my year-end wrap-up!<br /><br /></li><li><b>Duran Duran - Danse Macabre</b><br />Speaking of old artists putting out great new music, Duran Duran put out a Halloween-themed album this year. There were only 3 original songs, and the rest were covers of other artists and, interestingly, several covers of their own songs. However, I enjoyed this album quite a bit--especially two of the new songs, "Danse Macabre" and "Black Moonlight" -- the latter of which is probably their best song since the 80s. Definitely one that I'll pull out regularly in October for future listens.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/SXYkI64WK3g" width="320" youtube-src-id="SXYkI64WK3g"></iframe></div><br /></li><li><b>Young The Giant - American Bollywood<br /></b>This is technically a 2022 album, but it came out at the end of the year and I discovered it in the spring. I was only vaguely aware of this band before, but stumbled upon this album and it really grew on me. It's a concept album that incorporates a lot of indie-rock, folk, and traditional Indian music. The second track "Wake Up" was so catchy that it instantly inserted into my head and I found myself trying to sing it to Maria a day later because it was stuck in my head and I was so sure it was an old song that I was remembering instead of a new one I'd just listened to the day before.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/bzk0r2yESHE" width="320" youtube-src-id="bzk0r2yESHE"></iframe></div><br /></li><li><b>Hatchie - "Lights On"</b><br />Hatchie is a female artist that seems to specialize in a specific genre: late 90s female alterna-/techno-/trip-hop/dream pop. Her 2022 album "Giving the World Away" on which this song appears has a sound that emulates everything from Cocteau Twins, Kylie Minogue, the Sundays, Cranberries, and Robyn to Garbage and Republica and just about every other female-led pop band in between 1996-1999. It would feel right at home on the Gwyneth Paltrow "Great Expectations" soundtrack or maybe "Romeo + Juliet". The rest of the album is really good, but this song instantly stands out.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/azPYg7N9leo" width="320" youtube-src-id="azPYg7N9leo"></iframe></div><br /></li><li><b>The Beatles - "Now And Then"</b><br />I certainly didn't expect to hear a new song from the Beatles this year. First listen, I thought it was okay, but after a few more it really grew on me. It's one of the most fascinating songs of the year especially watching the featurette on how it was made and the technology used to put it together. But even more interesting than this song, was many of the videos to pop up around it using AI and other techniques to recreate the song in different styles. I highly recommend this version of the song as though it were recorded in 1964:<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4rER9RPHN3g" width="320" youtube-src-id="4rER9RPHN3g"></iframe></div><br /></li><li><b>Circe Link & Christian Nesmith - Cosmologica</b><br />In 2015 or so I found an album called "Groovy Lemon Pie" with Christian Nesmith (son of the Monkee) and Michael Sherwood. I was sad to learn that Michael Sherwood passed away a few years ago because Maria and I both loved that album and had hoped for more. So I was thrilled to discover this new album with Christian and his wife Circe Link. The genre is Melodic Prog Rock, think Abba singing 70s Yes or artsy Styx songs. A lot of great analog synths and fun harmonies made this a nice find this year.<br /><br /></li><li><b>Eight Seconds - Almacantar / Big Houses</b><br />This is an 80s band that I recently discovered. I'd heard their only minor hit "Kiss You When It's Dangerous" before, but I'd never paid any attention to them until now. They have two albums, one from 1986 and the other 1990 (though it was recorded in the 80s and was delayed a few years before coming out in the 90s). They were produced by Rupert Hines who was a huge influence on a lot of bands that I liked in the 80s such as The Fixx and Howard Jones and my favorite albums from Rush. This sounds like The Fixx's twin brother. You could almost believe these are two lost albums from that band. So if you ever feel like you wish there was more authentic good music from the 80s out there, here are two albums you probably missed.<br /></li></ul>Some other musical items I didn't list above, there was a new album from OMD (Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark) that I really liked and had some songs that really harkened back to great 80s music. Men Without Hats put out a new album that had a surprising amount of good songs on it. I discovered an 80s synthpop band called Slam Bamboo that featured a young Trent Reznor (from Nine Inch Nails.) Ben Folds put out an album that I didn't care for, but wasn't bad. Blur put out a new album that I didn't care for, but wasn't bad. There was an album from the band The Guess Who who as far as I can tell only has a single member from the original band in the 60s/70s and sounds nothing like them, but was pretty good nonetheless. <p></p><div>Last year I had no projections for what I thought I'd like this year, however, for 2024 I'm looking forward to a new album from I Don't Know How But They Found Me.</div><div><br /></div><h2 style="text-align: left;">MOVIES</h2><div>I watched 206 movies in total this year. That's up from last year, but I'm actually a bit surprised because a little game called "Tears of the Kingdom" got a lot of my attention this year. More on that later. It also should have been higher if an extended writer/actor strike didn't push several major films off the calendar release this past year into 2024 or beyond.</div><div><br /></div><div>I watched 40 movies in theaters (way up from last year's 27); another 34 new releases at home; another 53 new-to-me older movies; and finally 79 rewatches of films I'd already seen before.</div><div><br /></div><div>Here are some of my favorites of the year:</div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>Barbie</b> - The initial trailer for this film with its homage to 2001: A Space Odyssey sold my ticket to this movie before the whole "Barbenheimer" event began. And the film kept the crazy left-field comedy coming throughout. I genuinely laughed multiple times throughout the film and the film kept going places I didn't expect. While I wasn't completely satisfied with the final result (Like why does the "real world" feature just as much cartoon-like bizarre stuff in the Mattel office building as Barbie's imaginary world?) overall this took me completely by surprise and was one of the few films I watched more than once this year. "Oppenheimer" on the other hand was an interesting watch but the time-hopping was confusing and the structure around the two hearings didn't add up to anything satisfying for me.<br /><br /></li><li><b>Evil Dead Rise</b> - I was not looking forward to this. I loved the Evil Dead trilogy in the 80s with Evil Dead II and Army of Darkness being among my favorite films in general. I despised the Evil Dead remake from 2013. It was too serious and seemed mostly interested in torture and mutilation and then had a huge cheat near the end that completely ruined it for me. (I rewatched this year and I hate it a little less, but I still don't like it.) This new film maintained the dread from the previous movie as opposed to the silliness that the original trilogy turned into, but was just crazy enough and creative enough that it won me over. It was one of the few horror movies I watched that I was truly scared in, but then it went places that harkened back to the original Evil Dead trilogy that had me cheering by the end.<br /><br /></li><li><b>Wonka - </b>My son Jaden participated this year in his high school's production of "Willy Wonka -- The Musical." So we watched the original 1971 film, the Johnny Depp remake, and then this. I've never been a huge fan of the prior films, but loved the book and many Roald Dahl stories in general. This movie was quite a surprise. I knew going in that it was a musical (despite the trailer's attempts to hide it) and that it was made by the same people who made the Paddington movies. This fits right alongside Paddington and other great Roald Dahl movies with its whimsical fun, nasty villains, and genuinely funny moments. It is currently my favorite Wonka movie.<br /><br /></li><li><b>Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves</b> - Didn't they already try a D&D movie? And it was one of the worst movies ever made. This movie had very little it had to do to at least improve on the previous film (though technically not the same franchise) and somehow ended up being a really fun comedy adventure fantasy movie that we haven't seen regularly since the 80s (except maybe 2007s Stardust.)<br /><br /></li><li><b>The Creator</b> - I feel like I was the only one who watched and/or liked this film. I went in knowing nothing just a recommend from an online movie critic and found myself immersed in a brand new world that fascinated me. To me it was a weird mix of Blade Runner, Aliens, Elysium, and Alita: Battle Angel. And while the final story wasn't as great as it promised to be at the start, I still went on an amazing journey with the characters.<br /><br /></li><li><b>Spider-man: Across the Spider-Verse/Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (2022)/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem - </b>I'm grouping all three of these animated movies because all three broke from the traditional animated Pixar/Dreamworks-esque smooth CG style and instead followed the trend started by "Spider-man: Into the Spider-Verse" by adopting this nouveau comic graphic-art style that stood out over all the other animated movies this year. I liked all three better than Disney's "Wish," Pixar's "Elemental," or Illumination's "The Super Mario Bros. Movie."<br /><br /></li><li><b>Birdemic 3 </b>- The first "Birdemic" was awful and one of the best worst movies ever made. The second was the same movie but everyone was in on the joke and so it wasn't fun. The third is the first movie all over again. Somehow just as bad. At times worse. I kept thinking, surely the director has learned something to make this better than his previous films. Nope. And though the initial novelty is gone, this film definitely stands right next to the original as a shining example of just how bad a movie people can make.</li></ul><div>Last year I was most looking forward to Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part 1,John Wick 4, Ant-Man, Guardians 3, and Barbie. For one of the few times, a film I was looking forward to actually delivered (see Barbie.) I really did enjoy Mission Impossible, but that "Part 1" made it feel incomplete. John Wick 4 I may have to rewatch, but I really did not like it compared to 1 & 3. I rewatched 2 last week and I still don't care for that one but the refresh actually helped 4 make more sense. Still, I found myself bored during these amazing action scenes because I had no idea what was actually happening or what the stakes were or why people were fighting. As a result, John Wick 4 was just a frustrating experience--and a really, really long one! I enjoyed all the Marvel movies (including The Marvels) more than some out there, but they do really feel like diminishing returns at this point.</div></div><div><br /></div><div>There was a weird trend of half-movies this year. Many of which did not tell you until the end of the movie. Spider-Man, Fast X, Mission: Impossible, and Zak Snyder's Rebel Moon all were Part Ones. Dune (which got pushed into 2024) did that a few years ago as another secret Part One and supposedly may continue past Part Two. I'm not a fan of half movies. Especially if they aren't ready for the second movie soon afterwards.</div><div><br /></div><div>I think the movie I was most disappointed in this year was "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny." I quite liked the younger Indiana opening but I felt like the overall story was too ridiculous and the resolution was unsatisfying. Plus no bad guys got melted or exploded which I need in my Indiana Jones movies. There were good elements in the film, but overall they should have just left it alone or rebooted with a new actor.</div><div><br /></div><div>Looking into 2024 there aren't any movies I'm super excited about so I'll just list a couple that I'm mildly curious about: Furiosa and The Fall Guy. With the big strikes of 2023 I have no idea what, if any, big summer blockbusters there will be this year. Marvel and Superhero movies seemed to have fallen big this year and I'm unaware of any other major franchises ready to go, so it may be a slow year. We'll see.</div><div><br /></div><h2 style="text-align: left;">TV</h2><div>I continue to watch fewer and fewer network TV shows and almost no cable-based shows any more. So that pretty much left streaming channels and YouTube channels posting UK shows.</div><div><br /></div><div>Here are some of the shows I watched this year:</div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>Taskmaster - </b>For the 4th year in a row, this is still my favorite series. I discovered it during COVID and binged 9 series and have watched another 6 since plus international versions from New Zealand, Australia, and a bit of Canada. This is one of the few series where I find myself refreshing video sites looking for the post of a new episode as soon as it is uploaded!<br /><br /></li><li><b>Muppets Mayhem</b> - A show about the Electric Mayhem from the Muppets? Yes please! This show tickled me like no other show did this year. I found myself belly-laughing multiple times over the series and otherwise just smiling through most of each episode. Any show that can do that gets my love. It wasn't a perfect show. The human characters, like most Muppet shows, were worthless and got in the way of the story I wanted to see, but otherwise it's an easy recommend to any Muppet fan or anyone who enjoys a good rock band documentary or musical bio-pic. The episode that is a nod to Peter Jackson's "Let it Be" Beatles documentary is a must see.<br /><br /></li><li><b>Picard Season 3</b> - I watched the first season of the Star Trek The Next Generation Revival with hope that was quickly dashed as the show ignored all the elements of Star Trek that make it Star Trek (where humanity has evolved and settled their pettiness and greed, literally the entire point of the TNG pilot episodes) and made Picard himself a shell of what he was in the original series. There was an intriguing mystery, but overall it was bad. I hate-watched Season 2 which was even worse than the first and vowed to ignore any further seasons. But then people online began mumbling about how S3 was good--really good. I started watching and realized we finally got the Star Trek The Next Generation follow up show that we always wanted that the post show feature films never gave us. It's definitely worth watching and probably okay to just skip the first two seasons entirely.<br /><br /></li><li><b>What We Do In the Shadows</b> - I quite enjoy this Vampire mockumentary comedy series though it is starting to feel like it has run its course. Still, every season of this show has something new that amuses me and keeps me watching.<br /><br /></li><li><b>Poker Face </b>- This was a fun retro-style show that felt like a nod to 70s/80s "hero on the run" series (A Team, Hulk, Kung Fu) mixed with Detective shows like Columbo. Plus the conceit of showing the murder/crime in the first act and then rewinding time to show the events leading up was an interesting gimmick.<br /><br /></li><li><b>The Last of Us </b>- I was hesitantly pulled into this series about a fungus-based zombie-like apocalypse survival series that is starting strong but has too many weird parallels to the Walking Dead that makes me very reserved in my opinion of the show. Yes, I am enjoying it, but the pain of Walking Dead is still too recent to give in to another similar show.<br /><br /></li><li><b>Mandalorian Series 3 / Secret Invasion / Ahsoka / Loki Series 2 / Marvel's What If S2 - </b>I'm lumping all these Disney Star Wars and Marvel series together. I mostly enjoyed S3 of Mandalorian and still really like the character, and there were some fun parts of Loki S2, but Secret Invasion was boring and awful and Ahsoka and a lot of Mandalorian was tied way too deeply into deep Star Wars animated TV show stuff that I've never watched and the live-action shows don't give enough detail to be able to follow them sufficiently. I have to do homework on almost all of these shows to be able to understand them, which isn't very fun. Of all the above, the animated "What If" series was probably my favorite.<br /><br /></li></ul>Shows I'm looking forward to in 2024: A new attempt at a live-action "Avatar: The Last Airbender" has my interest. Though I never played the game, "Fallout" also looks really interesting.</div><div><br /></div><h2 style="text-align: left;">Online Media & Podcasts</h2><div>These are the YouTube and non-network-based streaming sites and podcasts shows that I listened to and watched last year.</div><div><br /></div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>Dropout (formerly College Humor) - </b>I found these guys through the "Um, Actually" show and have watched many other panel-based comedy shows from "Game Changer" to "Make Some Noise" and "Breaking News."<br /><br /></li><li><b>Ryan George/Pitch Meeting/Honest Trailers - </b>I look forward to each week's Pitch Meeting and Honest Trailers that occasionally feature the same film. Ryan George's other sketches are often very funny and even his adbreaks are must watches.<br /><br /></li><li><b>Movie podcasts: How Did This Get Made / We Hate Movies / With Gourley and Rust / Filmcast / RedLetterMedia / Dan Murrell - </b>These continue to be my standard weekly podcasts/YouTube shows about movies which also dictate many of the films that I watch throughout the year (may of them often bad movies) to be able to enjoy the discussion.<br /><br /></li><li><b>Taskmaster Podcast</b> - Because why not listen to a podcast dissect every episode of my favorite show. It only makes sense.<br /><br /></li><li><b>Professor of Rock - </b>Still enjoy his daily features that regularly educate me on many favorite bands and even bands that I know nothing about or despise completely. There's usually some new interesting trivia to learn every day.<br /><br /></li><li><b>Board Game YouTube channels: One Stop Co-op Shop / CeePhour / The Dragon's Tomb / No Rolls Barred and others </b>- If I can't play a board game, I'm often watching one. Either to learn about how to play a game I have or am getting, or just to see how others play certain games, or get introduced to games I am not familiar with. I watched a lot of people playing "Final Girl" this year especially since the game plays so differently for everyone and it is inherently an emergent story-based game so each game plays like a new story.<br /><br /></li><li><b>Corridor Crew - </b>This movie effects channel always has something interesting that they are playing with from creating really satisfying CG shorts to adding their own effects to existing films to this year creating two entire animated short films using AI generation. Even their simple reviews where they look at stunts or effects or animated films are always interesting.</li></ul><h2 style="text-align: left;">Video Games</h2></div><div>I played a lot of different games this year, but it was far and away completed dominated by one game, "Tears of the Kingdom." I continued to also play a lot of games on my Steam Deck, phone, laptop, and Meta Quest (VR system). Here's some of the games that I played:</div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (Switch) - </b>I got this near my birthday at the end of April. I played it for months! It wasn't until October that I finally decided to wrap things up and go to the final battle to fight Gannon. I played it for hundreds of hours and I still have lots of things I haven't done, quests incomplete, and even a few more shrines to find. I was hoping they'd announce some DLC and so I left some things in the game to do when that happens. I didn't fully enjoy the DLC of "Breath of the Wild" as much because I didn't have much left to do at the point they released it. Either way, six months of gaming for one game is amazing and I was surprised how much more I liked this game over Breath of the Wild despite it being built over the same world and essential gameplay of that game. I figured this would be one of those sequels that repeats the previous move/game but ends up lesser as a result. Instead it somehow surpassed it's predecessor into a better game. "Ocarina of Time" is still my favorite Zelda, but this is very closely next.<br /><br /></li><li><b>Supernatural (VR) - </b>This is a subscription-based workout program that Maria discovered and that we purchased. I use it 2-3 times a week to do an aerobic workout put to different music sets that are released daily so there's always something new to exercise to. They offer a boxing style and a "flow" or Beat Saber-esque workout in different intensities and lengths all with human coaching to help encourage and instruct you as you play. I usually alternate this with running every other day.<br /><br /></li><li><b>Tabletop Simulator (PC) - </b>If I can't play on a table, I play on a computer instead with this board game-based physics simulator. This year I started to create some of my own mods for TTS (as it is abbreviated) to fill in gaps of some of the games that I own already but were missing elements from what exists on TTS, or that were missing and no one else had made a mod for it. I haven't got into the deep scripting aspect, but I'm happy with what I've been able to do. I hit an "achievement" of over 1000 hours on TTS this year.<br /><br /></li><li><b>Survivor.io / Triple Match (iOS) </b>- I usually have one or two simple games that I play incessantly on my phone when I need to pass some time for a few minutes. I started playing Survivor.io early in the year but eventually they added too much to the game to be able to keep up with everything I "had" to do every day. Later I found "Triple Match" which is one of those casual games where you simply tap the screen on matching objects. Somehow it is just the right amount of addicting to me. There's no deep game play. It's just find similar items, tap on them, repeat. But like any good solitaire game, it's the joy of the little puzzles and organizing the chaos.<br /><br /></li><li><b>Cracking the Cryptic Sudoku (iOS) - </b>Speaking of good solitaire games, the Cracking the Cryptic series of Sudoku games on iOS aren't super cheap, but they all feature a good amount of hand-crafted puzzles featuring many different variations on Sudoku that all change the game significantly. My favorite is Magic Sudoku where it's possible to solve an entire puzzle without a single clue on the board!<br /><br /></li><li><b>Walkabout Mini Golf (VR) </b>- This little mini golf simulator takes mini golf into all sorts of fantastical worlds as well as courses based off of familiar locations such as Jim Henson's Labyrinth, the game Myst, and even one for Meow Wolf (the art installation-experience thing where Colin and Max work--see my intro for the year for more.) On top of a fun golf experience, each course comes in two varieties and has a hidden golf ball hunt in one and a follow-the-clues treasure hunt for a new putter in the other. I just wish you could do multiplayer in the same room though you can with friends online.<br /><br /></li><li><b>Pistol Whip / Synth Riders / Racket Nx (VR) - </b>These were three other active VR games that I played as alternative aerobic exercise. The first is a rhythm-based shooting game on rails that also requires a lot of dodging. The second is another rhythm game like Beat Saber with a great retro synth-wave soundtrack. And the last is a solo-tennis racket/breakout style game that gets pretty tricky.</li></ul><div>For 2024 I'm looking forward to playing "Mario Wonder" that we got for Christmas but I've only played a small bit of; a new Prince of Persia game that looks like a Metroidvania-style platformer; "Star Wars: Dark Forces" remaster -- one of my favorite early first person shooters but is nearly unplayable now; and possibly the "Hollow Knight" sequel and if we're really lucky, "Metroid Prime 4." Oh, and of course, the "Taskmaster VR" game!</div></div><div><br /></div><h2 style="text-align: left;">Board Games</h2><div>I have a lot more stats for my board games since I keep track of those in a specific app (called BG Stats). In 2023 I played 441 games (assuming I recorded everything. I forget on occasion.) Almost exactly what I played last year. I played in 16 different locations and with around 90 different people. Of those 441, they were spread across 144 games. 96 of which were new games I hadn't played before. Also, the numbers above may be a little high because the app counts expansions as 2 plays: 1 for the base game and 1 for the expansion. So some games I played can count as many as 4-5 plays at once for mix-and-match games like Legendary or Final Girl.</div><div><br /></div><div>I played a ton of solo games this year. Most of my new game acquisitions were made depending on whether they could play single-player.</div><div><br /></div><div>The games that I played the most and/or enjoyed the most were:</div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>Legendary Deck Building Game: James Bond </b>(38 plays)<b> / Marvel </b>(42 plays)<b> / Matrix</b> (23 plays)<b> / Buffy </b>(10 plays)<b> / Alien </b>(12 plays)<b> / Predator </b>(6 plays)<b> / X-Files</b> (2 plays)<b> - </b>Still one of my favorite games and is usually my default for when I want something to play and have nothing else new or exciting to try out. I was hoping there would be a new expansion this year for James Bond which was announced but hasn't come out yet, but all the other boxes, which dominate my game collection, got played quite a bit. I especially enjoyed the new Marvel "What If?" set that came out late this year as well as the new "Legendary Encounters: The Matrix."<br /><br /></li><li><b>Final Girl</b> - (30 plays) This is an amazing Horror-themed solo game. I got Season 1 near the end of 2022 and Season 2 early in 2023. Then there was a special feature Christmas addition that arrived just before Christmas. I spent a TON of time painting all the figures before playing. I'm not sure why the board game hobby also requires miniature painting, but I got a lot of practice in this year.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5MAQCOa86VZ7d3JXSMxkxnWRylqe3MUq36FNo3xs4YqufzGn5ylDj2CUEFiaJW40wuwO68xdzj6oVde7Uj8RXJL7dsEXx0ZmOwGxN7Q4OY9I-kp0oet_me-e6_ZUPcZi7xIaDMWtFwxUny2yQYuIUkMI_zTaDNgMmegQiUod-2SzluXqE8dp26RV_lb4/s2500/IMG_0446.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1258" data-original-width="2500" height="161" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5MAQCOa86VZ7d3JXSMxkxnWRylqe3MUq36FNo3xs4YqufzGn5ylDj2CUEFiaJW40wuwO68xdzj6oVde7Uj8RXJL7dsEXx0ZmOwGxN7Q4OY9I-kp0oet_me-e6_ZUPcZi7xIaDMWtFwxUny2yQYuIUkMI_zTaDNgMmegQiUod-2SzluXqE8dp26RV_lb4/s320/IMG_0446.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqy01kO5M8OUFY_Kx3A9Al6wuRlbbwt9FHmSOMQl5GhLuUc6W4vpk12XFo212hL8wyR5TG8eRCNOzAS7x2srTbRJO-HrR5y4EqnL0aRzP3jfbV2mJkEiXcvlkLt9bcYssWKP-3Ad4gH7kJFauYLFMvsccou4he_kB3sPV0PLc7Y2nV9nIgtp1TJyngGEg/s2048/IMG_4364.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqy01kO5M8OUFY_Kx3A9Al6wuRlbbwt9FHmSOMQl5GhLuUc6W4vpk12XFo212hL8wyR5TG8eRCNOzAS7x2srTbRJO-HrR5y4EqnL0aRzP3jfbV2mJkEiXcvlkLt9bcYssWKP-3Ad4gH7kJFauYLFMvsccou4he_kB3sPV0PLc7Y2nV9nIgtp1TJyngGEg/s320/IMG_4364.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAtvD9CTfZLoatpmnHGyy707Ighdswi5FoA8XUxpjTigeDcx0RwpIFNDUWn766I5kMddr4ZbKcXuKehqVdaCnRyN2xwIluwIXPtwTLQCH2QmyZPIniH3pDNobFcweoqYfBJ2kLWE_4GjtjS-uGXnaFd2CupwOMmRkq-YhyphenhyphenSf5NnnVVAYB7AsMFLH8t958/s2048/IMG_4397.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAtvD9CTfZLoatpmnHGyy707Ighdswi5FoA8XUxpjTigeDcx0RwpIFNDUWn766I5kMddr4ZbKcXuKehqVdaCnRyN2xwIluwIXPtwTLQCH2QmyZPIniH3pDNobFcweoqYfBJ2kLWE_4GjtjS-uGXnaFd2CupwOMmRkq-YhyphenhyphenSf5NnnVVAYB7AsMFLH8t958/s320/IMG_4397.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /></li><li><b>Warp's Edge - </b>(15 plays) Another great solo game that I added to this year with an expansion and some game upgrades. I have a lot of fun with this space battle-themed bag-building game.<br /><br /></li><li><b>Frosthaven </b>- (13 plays) I joined a random campaign group this year and play this card-based tactical dungeon crawler every few weeks. I'm not sure what I got myself into when signing up because based on the game materials that I've seen (and there are a lot!) we have maybe 100+ games to get to the end of the campaign--and that still has you skipping various possible levels as you take branching paths from your game decisions. This is a beast of a game. The levels are fun, but the in-between city building and up-keep gets a bit tedious.<br /><br /></li><li><b>Mini Rogue - </b>(11 plays) This is a very quick dungeon exploring game where you pretty much flip over cards decide what direction you want to go and then roll some dice. Very simple, but has a fun progression and leveling up element along with a variety of characters that makes it a lot of fun for a quick, simple game. There is supposedly a new Kickstarter for this game this year to add some more to it.<br /><br /></li><li><b>Deep Rock Galactic - </b>(7 plays) This is technically Jaden's game. He was familiar with the video game and asked if we could get the board game. Once again, I painted the boring gray mini figures to spruce them up, but we opted for the less expensive standees for the enemies which saved a lot of work! This is another dungeon explorer with a mining theme and it's fun carving out paths to different locations while running away from monsters.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibJwkfC_Z1iHluhb4Q7m7yyckhJM-IJsbt0zewhTEvt8hzBNn-J-N97e0s8aHOugZO9-Rq7JIsj9sR7AhQtK8uF5ygvkOpo9QQS6QC4mkvsQ_xDQK419hqrVyBNL803UAkP-wCEf8j6T1OIDw7Fi_EnmdJCkmlTA_Esg2g0A0hLYdBYyKXZU6PcK6-SZU/s2615/IMG_4402.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1202" data-original-width="2615" height="147" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibJwkfC_Z1iHluhb4Q7m7yyckhJM-IJsbt0zewhTEvt8hzBNn-J-N97e0s8aHOugZO9-Rq7JIsj9sR7AhQtK8uF5ygvkOpo9QQS6QC4mkvsQ_xDQK419hqrVyBNL803UAkP-wCEf8j6T1OIDw7Fi_EnmdJCkmlTA_Esg2g0A0hLYdBYyKXZU6PcK6-SZU/s320/IMG_4402.jpeg" width="320" /></a><br /><br /></li><li><b>Ticket To Ride Legacy: Legends of the West </b>- ( 5 plays) This is one of the few games I've been able to consistently play with the family. Jaden, Maria, Colin and I have been playing through this campaign since November whenever we are all available for an evening. It's been a lot of fun seeing how the game continues to change and evolve and expand after every session. We'll be playing this into 2024 for a while.<br /><br /></li><li><b>Unlock! / Exit / Mystery House / Indiana Jones Cryptic / 50 Clues / Cantaloop / Deckscape / Decktective / Escape Room in a Box / Doctor Esker's Notebook / Unfold / Lost in the Shuffle - </b>I'm lumping all these games together as my favorite genre: Mystery/Escape Room games. These are all one-off puzzle games that are usually a one-time play with lots of puzzles to solve. Some have you go through cards, some have you build dioramas, and some have you physically manipulating the game itself to solve the puzzles to win. Most of these encourage playing with other people, but more often than not I play on my own since I'm the only one really interested in these. Of the group above, my favorites that I played were "Cantaloop: Book 2" and "Cantaloop: Book 3" which are essentially book renditions of the popular point & click adventure games from the 90s (like King's Quest or The Secret of Monkey Island). They've found a real interesting way to incorporate a card-based inventory system and codes for combining things that represents the endless frustration of typing "give bone to dog" or "tie rope to bedpost" with a spiral-bound book. The other was called "Lost in the Shuffle" which is a puzzle game that looks like someone just doodled over a standard pack of playing cards, but as you study them more you realize each one has a puzzle on it and many of them combine for even more puzzles. It was probably the most fun I've had with any of these type of games moving from "I have no idea what is going on here." to "I must solve every last puzzle!"--which I did! If you can find it, I highly recommend getting it--or ask to borrow my copy! Also, over Christmas I built my own Escape Room Book Nook that was a lot of fun:<br /><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqcd2lT-22GKQckef7luzB0RE0EtLuuRZQY8-E4HzCB18a0tSCw8UvDAocTOasGSBfGQJDVVMt7GybQIqJ7DV002T32fZwRsCKhHT76uAYtUi9Ly21bRndpSLu6V4mG-_nM12bhX95a4jxcBm9edB0Bncdm3klg5PcqHn_jwECvb_J-yNunfXlgq1pA0I/s2048/IMG_0425.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqcd2lT-22GKQckef7luzB0RE0EtLuuRZQY8-E4HzCB18a0tSCw8UvDAocTOasGSBfGQJDVVMt7GybQIqJ7DV002T32fZwRsCKhHT76uAYtUi9Ly21bRndpSLu6V4mG-_nM12bhX95a4jxcBm9edB0Bncdm3klg5PcqHn_jwECvb_J-yNunfXlgq1pA0I/s320/IMG_0425.jpeg" width="240" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhy4yh0jWeur77bWHtH8-WDXEaa5LhwrtMRCus4yjoH7vaiMRuvqu10N49FAUARLJZ2Hdbuw81GvZhmDMTh0D83pUaYFT42lI1e9OTCwL5pmhjh907Nz-udg4767LgmrITLndnBj4bPI8rnlrVfldrITE144rItYFInqWmmpBxTxwQWYHo0XHZgg1lStrc/s2048/IMG_0426.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhy4yh0jWeur77bWHtH8-WDXEaa5LhwrtMRCus4yjoH7vaiMRuvqu10N49FAUARLJZ2Hdbuw81GvZhmDMTh0D83pUaYFT42lI1e9OTCwL5pmhjh907Nz-udg4767LgmrITLndnBj4bPI8rnlrVfldrITE144rItYFInqWmmpBxTxwQWYHo0XHZgg1lStrc/s320/IMG_0426.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /></li></ul>Last year in 2023 I said I was looking forward to the following games (all of which I backed on Kickstarter and have technically paid for already!): Quodd Heroes, Slay the Spire, Drop Drive, and Final Girl Season 2. Only one of those actually came out (Final Girl.) So for 2024, I continue to look forward to Quodd Heroes, Slay the Spire and Drop Drive as well as Final Girl Season 3. Plus a few more: Worms the Board Game, Dead Cells the Board Game, and Gloomhaven Buttons & Bugs.<br /><br />My hope in 2024 is there aren't as many games that I'm excited for so I can stop buying so many! I need to play more of the ones I already have!</div><div><br /></div><h2 style="text-align: left;">BOOK</h2><div>I read one book last year: <b>"Tales from the Gas Station, Vol. 1"</b> - a very strange horror, comedy, surreal adventure that takes a bunch of silly creepypasta ideas that I guess started from a blog (like a weed garden with human-like hand-shaped plants or novelty garden gnomes that keep showing up in unexpected places and multiplying) mixed with some type of elder-god end-of-the-world scenario in a small-town gas station that's out in the middle of nowhere. I enjoyed most of it, and it was very funny, but I never felt like I understood it.</div><div><br /></div><h2 style="text-align: left;">Wrap up and 2024</h2><div>So that's it for 2023. Most of what I was hoping for in my post in 2023 didn't happen. My weight plateaued (which is good) until the end of the year when I overdid it a bit for Christmas! My back continued to hurt and I attempted quite a few months of physical therapy that had some results but didn't fix the issue. At the end of the year I had a surgical procedure to get an epidural shot in the spine to hopefully help. It's still too recent to tell how well it will work, but the pain has seemed to de-intensify. It's possible I will have another procedure at the end of January to bolster it. I did get out to play a few more games with people, but not consistently. I joined the random group for Frosthaven, and have played a new campaign game with some friends covering the Harry Potter Hogwarts battle game and we hope to continue after that regularly.<br /><br />So what do I hope for in 2024? I hope the Presidential election doesn't destroy our country with the inevitable rematch of 2020. I hope to continue to be physically active as I have this past year, running regularly and other exercise. And I'd be happy just to maintain things as they are for the moment. It's a nice feeling when things are "good enough." Can things improve? Sure. They can also decline real fast. So maintaining is still quite an effort!</div><div><br /></div><div>I hope you all have a great year. See you in 2025 if we're all still around!</div><div><br /></div>Gumbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16164366902768547090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-87233659039775561.post-6644865362421637452023-01-04T12:58:00.000-06:002023-01-04T12:58:08.324-06:00Greg’s Favorites of 2022<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0eUq9kH3VRiDafblve17Xlzx7DzZ0ETF847ymN5sDsu8zbQioWTON73CQpayTtk57aI-NrenUjdTXUrx2dYopF4pUM2hJsPjeuwtqtiX-ZvsipFv_l937i9gQ4Q-J041-YGNsk8Tm5R1vdbiPj1b0b8GgJ3bhXSzuLPFpL3uiTyl04KVX5ZnVwqtf/s792/2022Collage.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="612" data-original-width="792" height="494" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0eUq9kH3VRiDafblve17Xlzx7DzZ0ETF847ymN5sDsu8zbQioWTON73CQpayTtk57aI-NrenUjdTXUrx2dYopF4pUM2hJsPjeuwtqtiX-ZvsipFv_l937i9gQ4Q-J041-YGNsk8Tm5R1vdbiPj1b0b8GgJ3bhXSzuLPFpL3uiTyl04KVX5ZnVwqtf/w640-h494/2022Collage.png" width="640" /></a></div><p>Welcome to 2023, everyone. Time to look back at the previous year and distill my favorite things I saw, heard, smelled, or experienced in 2022 into one lengthy post.</p><p>2022 started off shaky and ended the same way. Maria had just completed some surgeries at the end of 2021 and everyone in the family finally got hit with COVID (except me!) and I started the year off by learning that I had type 2 diabetes and had somehow unknowingly lost 70 pounds from my body starving itself due to not being able to process sugar properly. So I spent the first half of the year trying to educate myself and completely revamp my diet and exercise to get a handle on things. At the end of the year I had lost another 40 pounds, but this was from me actively working to remove it and not the dangerous weight loss from before. All said, I'm down 110 pounds from my heaviest weight that I was aware of (328 in 2019 to 216 at the end of December.) Then by the end of the year, Maria had undergone three more surgeries (two for thyroid removal from a growth that turned out to be cancerous and one reconstructive lip surgery from the previous year to try improve where the worked on her before) and I got to spend the last week of 2022 sick with the flu (or something similar, still not COVID!) I'd been pretty lucky most of the rest of the year avoiding several bouts of illness that hit our family here and there.</p><p>I got to head to Utah to attend my 30 year Hillcrest High School Reunion event in October and see old friends I hadn't seen in a long time. I was able to spend an extra day with a couple of my best high school friends whom I haven't been together with at the same time in over 20 years. And a couple months before that the family took a quick summer trip to Colorado to enjoy a rented cabin in the mountains.</p><span id="docs-internal-guid-ff16a532-7fff-cabf-3cf3-ac0f373e25cf">So that's my year summed up. Moving on to the things I liked this year:</span><div style="text-align: left;"><span><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">Music</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It's really nice using Spotify so it can automatically tell you what you liked the most this past year. I keep track on my own, but it wraps everything up so nicely, I just had to do a quick comparison to ensure that these were indeed my favorites.</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">First, if you will indulge me, as I often do, I'd like to share my Christmas song I made this year. Not sure why I chose this one, but it feels like a good companion piece with last year's. Here's my synthpop version of "We Wish You A Merry Christmas"</span></span></p>
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/t4ab6L1p6Jk" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe>
<p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Bands/Artists I listened to in 2022</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">C Duncan - Alluvium. </span>“Heaven”<br /></b>C Duncan is a very mellow artist with some really lovely songs and gorgeous harmonies. I usually only really like half or less of his songs on each album, but those songs are always really good and the rest are all still really beautiful. This was not the album I listened to the most this year, but this song was definitely the one I listened to the most.<br /><br /><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/J07tYXMy9P0" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe><br /><br />
</li><li><b>White Lies - As I Try Not To Fall Apart</b><br />C Duncan had the song of the year, but this was definitely my album of the year. These guys were on my list a year or two ago with the song "Tokyo" which is way high up on my all-time favorites. And while nothing on this album reaches the level of that one song, nearly every single track on this album is super-strong. It's hard to even pull a single one out because I like them all. They even released an extended version at the end of the year with even more songs that are just as good as those on the original release.
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</b>Roger Manning's project put out their final EP and then called it quits, unfortunately. I wish they'd package these three EPs together to make for one great single album. 4 songs every 8 months or so just didn't work for me, though I enjoyed everything they put out save for 1 song. Sad to see the project complete, but hopefully there will be more Roger Manning music in the future. This song "New Days" is a great California 60s-psych-pop throwback.
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<br /></span></li><li><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Jukebox the Ghost - Cheers
</b>This was just a fun album all the way through. I love their cheerful piano-based pop and their Jellyfish and Queen-adjacent leanings. Although nothing here is better than "Jumpstarted" on their previous album, the album as a whole I enjoyed more than their others.
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<br /></span></li><li><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Muse - Will of the People
</b>Muse decided this year to do something no one had ever done before: release a greatest hits album of all new material. In other words, rather than repackaging their earlier songs, they wrote all new songs that essentially captured the essence of Muse. And this was definitely the most "Muse" of all their albums. Sadly, though, with nothing actually new, this doesn't come off as Muse at their greatest, but definitely at their most "Muse." Still there were several songs I quite enjoyed.
Here's "Compliance"
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</span></li><li><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>St Lucia - Utopia
</b>This was a new find for me this year. A synthpop band that had several tracks that I really enjoyed. I don't know much else about them, but found myself listening to the following two tracks quite a lot: </span>“Another Lifetime” / “Separate World”<br /><br />Here's "Another Lifetime"<br /><br />
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4NewvHiieho" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe><br /><br /></li><li><b>Twen - "HaHaHome"</b><br />This DIY band I discovered has this very psychedelic BritPop track that dug into me on the very first listen. I would have no idea they were American from this song. Highly recommend this track!<br />
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<br /><br /></li></ul>Other bands and albums that I listened to: Two Door Cinema Club - Keep on Smiling, Wooze - The Magnificent Eleven EP (Favorite song title of 2022: "Bittersweet Timpani"). There were several classic rock bands that had some good releases this year: Jethro Tull - The Zealot Gene (Probably the most listenable Jethro Tull album since the 70s), Styx - Crash of the Crown, Fixx - Every Five Seconds. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span>My biggest disappointment of the year was probably the new Tears For Fears album. I'd been waiting since 2005(?) for another release, and despite trying, I just couldn't get into this new album. It wasn't bad, it just wasn't great. I can't remember anything on it despite listening 6-7 times.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">I don't have any current artists or albums on my 2023 watch list, so it's completely open season on what will win me over in 2023.</p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><br /><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: large; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Movies</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This year I watched 196 movies. A bit of a dip for me as I usually watch over 200. A big reason for this was likely due to me getting a Steam Deck and turning my attention to playing some games that I hadn't been able to play lacking a PC game capable device for several years.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I watched 27 movies in theaters, up from last year's 23; 42 new release movies (within 3 years); 41 new old movies; and 86 rewatches. Most of the rewatches were going back through all the Marvel films with Jaden to catch up to the summer release of Thor as well as all the Spider-Man movies to watch the re-release of "Spider-Man: No Way Home" that came out this fall.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">Some of my favorite movies I saw this year (not in ranked order):</p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>“The Lost City” </b>- This was a great throwback to the old comedy adventure films of long ago (see: "Romancing the Stone") There are not a lot of theatrically released Hollywood comedies so I was very happy with this.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>"Everything Everywhere All At Once" / "Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness" - </b>I'm tying these two together because they were both movies that dealt with the idea of a multiverse. "Everything..." was a much better film, and was an amazing head-trip of a movie, but I find it really interesting how these two movies would come out so close to each other, one a giant budgeted Hollywood movie with every resource at its command and another a tiny underground indie movie that showed it up in almost every way. However, unlike some, I really really liked "Doctor Strange" and it was one of the few movies I saw this year multiple times in the theater. I loved all the Sam Raimi touches it was able to incorporate. So I'm happy to have both films. As well as "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse," and its upcoming sequel.</span></span></li><li><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>"Weird: The Weird Al Yankovic Story"
</b>I loved this documentary. It's the best Weird Al movie since UHF (and only). It had me laughing over and over again throughout. It's so sad we lost Al so young.</span></span></li><li><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>"Top Gun: Maverick"
</b>The biggest movie of the year (unless Avatar 2 surpasses it). I had the most fun at the theater with this movie. We went as a work team to watch it. Watching a movie about Jet Fighters with a team of people who develop them as a career was very interesting. There was a lot of snickering going on and laughing at places that were not intentional. But overall, I think we were all impressed at what they got right over all the things that they might have changed for dramatic effect. No one thought those old jets would have a chance against the 5th generation fighters.</span></span></li><li><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>"Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes"
</b>This Japanese film from 2020 is about as close to a magic trick as I've ever seen in a movie. Apparently all taking place in real time in a single continuous shot, a man discovers a monitor that shows the future--except just 2 minutes. Still, this discovery and where the movie goes with it is a wonderful trip. I super recommend this movie as well as recommend not learning anything else about it before watching.</span></span></li><li><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>"Deadstream"
</b>Just when you think found footage is old and done with, someone finds something new. A Twitch-style live-blogger goes to spend a night in a haunted house and it turns into something close to a Sam Raimi "Evil Dead 2"-style experience. Having the streamer being able to interact with his audience mixes things up a bit and introduces something new to the genre. Also it was filmed in Utah, so I enjoyed seeing familiar mountains.</span></span></li></ul><div><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">For 2023, a few films I was looking forward to in 2022 didn't yet come out: new Mission Impossible and John Wick 4. I'm also looking forward to Ant-Man: Quantumania and Guardians 3. I'm cautiously optimistic about the animated Mario Movie. And based on the trailer, the "Barbie Movie" could be amazing! Let's see how I feel at the end of 2023!</span></span></div><div><br /></div><p></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: large; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">TV</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Here's the notable stuff I watched on TV:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Taskmaster</b>: New Years Treat, Series 13, Series 14, NZ S3, Champion of Champions 2
Still my favorite show, and I still watched a lot of it this year. They were finally able to go back to a normal series with a live audience and contestants sitting next to each other after COVID precautions of the previous series. It was so much better.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Lego Masters.
</b>This is the one show that Maria, Jaden and I all wait to watch together. We still have a lot of fun with it.</span></span></li><li><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><b style="font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">Disney's Star Wars and Marvel Shows: Book of Boba Fett / Moon Knight /
Obi-Wan Kenobi / Ms. Marvel / She-Hulk: Attorney at Law / Andor / Werewolf by Night /
Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special</b><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre;"><b>
</b></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial;">Of the series listed above, the only ones I really liked were She-Hulk and Guardians Holiday Special. A lot of people really liked Andor, but I found it boring and very un-Star Wars. Where did all the aliens go? </span></li><li><span style="font-family: Arial;"><b>Stranger Things Series 4</b><br />Though I wish they'd stopped after series 1 or made it more of an anthology series, I had to admit that this recent series was quite good despite the whole Russian prison sub-plot.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: Arial;"><b>Adult Swim Yule Log</b><br />I watched this on Christmas looking for interesting Yule Log videos and stumbled upon this. What starts as a fireplace video turns into the craziest messed up horror movie I've ever seen. From the people that brought you "Too Many Cooks," I don't want to say more than just that it's not for the squeamish.</span></li></ul><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: large; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Online Media and Podcasts</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is the online media (mostly YouTube and Podcasts) that I subscribe to and enjoyed watching this </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">year:</span><br /></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Professor of Rock</b> - This guy always has a great story to share with a great band or artist or song including many I've never heard of. I just wish he didn't have to use clickbait titles.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Ryan George & Pitch Meeting</b> - Still enjoy this guy's humor and his Pitch Meetings, which have their own channel now, are probably the funniest and most insightful sketch's on the Internet.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Red Letter Media </b>- Loved them since their Star Wars Plinkett review years ago and still enjoy them today. I love that they barely care about "how to Internet" yet somehow maintain a strong following.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Corridor Crew </b>- My newest find this year. They've been around a while but I just found them from stumbling into a video where 3D artists try to follow a Bob Ross tutorial in real-time. Their random challenges from creating satisfying renders to updating bad CGI to playing with AI and other cutting edge technologies is really fascinating. </span></li><li><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Screen Crush </b>- Their regular Easter Egg and movie theory breakdowns are always a must watch for me after every Star Wars, Marvel, comic book, or other geek-related media movie or TV show drops.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Um, Actually </b>- Still really love this geeky game show. I Kickstarted a board game version of this so we could play it in real life.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Dan Murrell </b> - Though I wish he had a screen partner, he's my current go-to movie review and news guy. I enjoy his regular box office breakdown and well researched takes on movie trends.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>GeoWizard </b>- I found this guy from his detective videos where he takes a submitted photo and find the exact location on earth where it was taken from clues in the photo. Kept watching through his various adventures such as his "straight-line" trips where he has to travel as near as possible on a geographic straight line across a country.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Taskmaster Podcast </b>- It's my favorite TV show, so of course I listen to the accompanying podcast.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>We Hate Movies/ </b></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>How Did This Get Made </b>- My two favorite bad movie podcasts are pretty much staple for me in my podcast listening.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>With Gourley and Rust </b>- The "Easy-Listening" horror podcast. Continues to grow and evolve finding new horror movie themes such as this year's "Yuppies in Peril" group. They've regularly found me new movies to watch as well as old favorites to rewatch.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Filmcast </b>- The oldest podcast I still listen to. It's my go-to podcast to listen to after I watch a new movie to hear their conversation on the film.</span></li></ul><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: large; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Games</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This year I got both a new laptop and a STEAM DECK! The steam deck is a portable handheld PC with a built in controller from Valve. I haven't had a gaming PC in years and years and so I finally had a machine capable of playing the library of games I had been building up on Steam. I spent <i>a lot </i>of time playing with this new toy that I absolutely adore.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Here are a few of my favorite games I played this year:</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Tabletop Simulator</b> (PC) - I still love board games and this a great tool for collecting and playing digital versions of games. The setup time is just as fast as it loads. And it works so much faster on my new laptop. Not quite so great on the Steam Deck, but that's okay.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Metroid Dread</b> (Switch) - Really enjoyed this throwback/update to 2D Metroid games. I started the year playing through this game from last Christmas.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Happy Color / </span>Legendary DXP 007 / Survivor.io</b> (iOS) - These are the apps I spent the most time playing on my iPhone this year.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>I Expect You To Die 1 & 2 / Synth Riders / Pistol Whip / Puzzling Places</b> (Oculus VR) - I've really enjoyed playing on our Oculus/Meta Quest this year and these were the apps I played the most.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Inscryption </b>(PC)<b> </b> - A very strange mix of card battling, escape room mystery adventure, and a few other game genres. It got me quite involved.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rogue Legacy 2 / </span>Slay the Spire / Black Mesa / 20 Minutes Till Dawn / Hollow Knight</b> (Steam Deck) - Rogue Legacy 2 was the perfect game for the Steam Deck. I tried playing on PC and got completely frustrated with the controls, but it was perfect on the Steam Deck. Slay the Spire I had never got into but they brought a physical game to Kickstarter that I backed and it got me to reinvestigate this game. Black Mesa is a remake of the original Half Life and the changes they made to the alien environment of the game's back half was just amazing! 20 Minutes... got me started on a mass shooter game kick including Vampire Survivors and Survivor.io and Spirit Hunters along with several others. Hollow Knight is a Metroidvania-style game that I played about 95% but didn't finish as I got frustrated with never understanding what was going on in this surreal game.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Spider-Man Remastered </b>(Seam Deck) - I'm still just early playing this one, but I'm shocked how much it completely steals from the Batman Arkham City games. I love those games, so I'm enjoying this Spider-Man version of it.</span></li></ul><p></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Board Games</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Despite COVID calming down and people being able to meet for gaming again, I attended very little game gatherings this year. Part of it was in May when I attended BGG Spring convention, my back started really hurting to the point where I have been unable to sit upright at a table for longer than an hour at a time, which significantly reduces my ability to participate in game nights. Our church started doing bi-monthly game nights, though, which usually were much shorter than hardcore gamer nights and I really enjoyed those.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">I keep my game plays recorded in an app called BGStats. It tells me I played 439 games this year in 20 locations with 109 players. Of those 439 game plays, they were of 114 different games.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Here are the games I really enjoyed playing this past year:</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Legendary: Marvel, James Bond, Buffy, and Big Trouble in Little China</b> - Legendary was my obsession this year. I finally bit the bullet and fell down into the Marvel end of things fully completing my collection of every single Marvel expansion. This included several out of print expansions which were not inexpensive. I spent a lot of time sleeving everything and printing out and cutting dividers and built a special box to hold the main game plus a few extra expansions. I also did some 3D designing and printing for extra enhancements to the game. I just really love playing this game! And it's very easy to play solo, so I don't need to rely on other players.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Tiny Epic Dungeons</b> - A fun little dungeon crawler. I spent a lot of time playing both with my physical copy as well as digitally on Tabletop Simulator. This was the first Tiny Epic game to come with miniatures so I spent a lot of time painting all of the figures including those that came with the expansion.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Slay the Spire - </b>The virtual version on Tabletop Simulator is the only way to currently play this while it goes through production from Kickstarter. I'm really looking forward to playing this in real life with other people.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Warp's Edge - </b>This is a really fun solo game, part of a solo hero series with "Proving Grounds" and "Wreckland Run" (just released.) It's a bag-building game where you are a ship fighting hoards of enemy ships in order to take down a final mother-ship. You only have so long before having to reset and start over again similar to Groundhog's Day or Edge of Tomorrow, except your bag of weapons gets more powerful each time you start over. There are many different ships and many different Mother ships to fight that all require a different tactic so there is a ton of gameplay here. I've only scratched the surface.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Final Girl</b> - Another solo game that is the perfect horror movie scenario generation game. The game comes with many different locations and bad guys playing homage to classic horror movies such as Friday the 13th, Poltergeist, or Nightmare on Elm Street. The game is quite difficult, and very often unfair, but in so doing perfectly captures the nightmarish scenario of a typical horror movie. You are trying to stop the villain and rescue "victims" while finding weapons and tools to fight back. Every game creates its own unique story even if you play the same location and bad guy multiple times. Season two should be arriving within a couple months to add a second giant box to my collection. I spent a long time with this game painting all the miniatures and both look forward to and dread painting even more when the second box arrives.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Space Base: Mysteries of Terra Proxima </b>- Enjoyed playing this second expansion with Maria and Jaden over several sessions. It wasn't quite as fun as the Shy Pluto expansion, but it added a few interesting new items.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Dice Throne: Marvel & Santa vs Krampus </b>- Some new Dice Throne items added to my collection this year. The new Marvel Dice Throne took the system and applied it to Marvel Heroes. I really enjoyed how they incorporated each hero (or villain) into the system and not just re-skin previous Dice Throne characters. The Santa vs Krampus arrived just in time for Christmas and was a fun little themed-addition to the game.</span></li></ul></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">In 2023 I'm looking forward to several games that I Kickstarted this year: Quodd Heroes, Slay the Spire, Drop Drive, and Final Girl Season 2.</span></div><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: large; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Books</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I didn't take the opportunity to read much this year. So I only completed two novels:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Jurassic Park </b>(reread) - I read this originally back before the original movie came out. After enjoying the Martian and Project Hail Mary last year, this seemed like a good one to revisit.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Horrorstor </b>- A haunted IKEA-esque store presented almost as though it were in an IKEA catalog. This book gets an A+ in presentation. The story itself went almost too surreal jumping from "is it just our imagination" to "HOLY COW EVERYTHING IS GOING CRAZY" so quickly that I almost got whiplash. But I am intrigued to track down some more of author Grady Hendrix's novels.</span></li></ul><p></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">2023</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span><span style="font-family: arial;">Looking into this year, I expect it to be pretty much a continuation of last year, but hopefully getting back to more of a sense of normal. I hope to continue to improve health-wise possibly falling under the 200 pound milestone. Maybe I will finally get back to playing games with others. My back has been hurting all year, but it's been improving. We don't have any big plans for this year, so let's just hope we survive intact and maybe better off.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><br /><br /></span></div>Gumbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16164366902768547090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-87233659039775561.post-35122047756010426952022-01-04T14:34:00.001-06:002023-01-04T12:19:44.892-06:00Greg's Favorites of 2021<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhchhPy6WCnnZJd7mikyNlbDTJClADPQt01ds1SG0vBXn41V7d-67GzEpFWdZJa5BdwSJTnv3zianFp1ksiD9HofNEMjSjiGzUt2QcBoFlKMbvnP0tWCU-6eLf_kB_wH-3-B_YBVXiBY0zfSLpP1NOPXNWc-WRUBPVqKFBXgRBKEABwg0nAeGblOU8e=s792" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="612" data-original-width="792" height="494" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhchhPy6WCnnZJd7mikyNlbDTJClADPQt01ds1SG0vBXn41V7d-67GzEpFWdZJa5BdwSJTnv3zianFp1ksiD9HofNEMjSjiGzUt2QcBoFlKMbvnP0tWCU-6eLf_kB_wH-3-B_YBVXiBY0zfSLpP1NOPXNWc-WRUBPVqKFBXgRBKEABwg0nAeGblOU8e=w640-h494" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p><br /></p><p>Today is the first day of 2022. Time for me to look back at the previous year. This year started a bit tense with the January 6 insurrection, but Biden was eventually sworn in as President. Maria and I followed by our older boys all were able to get vaccinated in the first half of the year and we followed that up with a wonderful family reunion in Utah celebrating my parent's 50th anniversary. Unfortunately shortly thereafter a new COVID variant emerged slowing things down a bit. Then another new variant came out of nowhere and hit us all right at the end of the year with Jaden (who got vaccinated in November) testing positive for COVID and presumably the rest of the family has it too. For now, everyone feels like they have the flu and I'm feeling fine but also feeling the inevitability that it will get to me soon.</p><p>And with that out of the way, let's look at my favorite things I watched, listened to, played and read this past year:</p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Music</h2><div>I continue to use Spotify as my main method for discovering new music this year. It found me several new interesting bands and songs this year. I usually listen to the random weekly recommended playlist each week and review the new releases on Friday. Then I'll try other recommended artists on occasion. I also watched a lot of "The Professor of Rock" on YouTube this year and discovered some new oldies as well.</div><div><br /></div><div>First of all, though, before I post the songs and bands I liked this year, I made a new song arrangement this year for Christmas that I figured I'd share here. It's been a few years, so I was determined to finally do a new Christmas song this year. The song is "Il est né, le divin Enfant," a piece I arranged about 11 years ago as a duet with Spencer. This time I thought I'd make a fuller synth arrangement and have some more fun with it using a keyboard connected to my phone and GarageBand:</div><div><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZPah6oQSr3M" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>And now some of my favorite music this past year:</div><div><br /></div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>Lickerish Quartet: "Threesome, Vol. 2"</b> - According to Spotify, I listened to this ep that came out in January the most this year. And most of my listening was in January. Having such a head start at the beginning of the year, it very easily made it to the top of my list. This didn't have any standouts like the first ep, but all of the songs (except one) are nice and easy on the ears. I think there were supposed to be 3 eps, but the band has seemingly gone quiet after the release of this ep. Anyway, I don't know which song is my favorite, so here's one of the three songs, "Sovereignty Blues."<br /><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Iv0cO-uE_2g" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe><br /><br /></li><li><b>Wooze</b> - This was a band that randomly came up on my weekly Spotify recommend playlist with a song that sounded like Sparks mixed with the synths of Gary Numan and the noisy guitars of Blur called "I'll Have What She's Having." They've got quite a few songs, but no albums. Mostly just releasing singles and a few eps. They are definitely my favorite new band that I discovered this year.<br /><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/A3BOnncmYxk" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe><br /><br /></li><li><b>Silvertwin: "SilverTwin" - </b>These guys sound like an easy listening 70s band with elements of Paul McCartney, Sweet, and late 70s disco-leaning ELO. This track, "Ploy," especially seems to borrow liberally from the chorus of "Last Train to London" but it that's not necessarily a bad thing:<br /><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/9csNNP3Ni0E" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe><br /><br /></li><li><b>Gaspard Augé: "Escapades" - </b>This is one of the guys from the band Justice doing a solo album but still sounding exactly like Justice. It's a great instrumental synthwave album.<br /><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/CwvLsq1mGMM" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe><br /><br /></li><li><b>Berlin - "Like Flames" - </b>This song is from back in 1986. I've only ever half-liked Berlin. Some good songs, some I don't care for at all, but I was introduced to this over-looked song by a "Professor of Rock" video earlier this year that he focused on Berlin and I was immediately taken by the song and sad that it took me 35 years to find it.<br /><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/bwXlj3zI_8c" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe><br /><br /></li><li><b>Royal Blood - "Typhoons"</b> - I heard this on SiriusXM's modern station just as I was parking so I had to go back and find it later. It has a very strong Muse style and it instantly hooked me.<br /><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/k9SQ2xfHEiM" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe><br /><br /></li><li><b>C Duncan - </b>I think I discovered this artist from another random Spotify recommend. At the end of/ the year apparently Spotify told me this was my most listened to artist of the year. That was a bit surprising, but I did enjoy listening to him. I was also in his top .01% listeners for the year. The element that really stands out for C Duncan is very thick and lush vocals. I presume they are all him. Some songs are upbeat and quirky and others are very slow lullabies, but almost all are covered with harmonies. One of my favorites below is "Talk Talk Talk" from 2019:<br /><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/a8B5nRgabCw" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe><br /><br /></li></ul>Looking into next year, I am anticipating a new album from Tears for Fears, the first since the 2000s. Beyond that, I have no idea what's coming, so we'll see. </div><div><br /></div><h2 style="text-align: left;">Movies</h2><div>So I started going back to movies this summer catching up on all the movies that were delayed from 2020. As of this moment, there are still several delayed 2020 movies that haven't been released yet so we're still catching up. Starting with "A Quiet Place pt. 2" at the end of May and finishing with "Matrix Resurrection" in December, I saw a total of 23 films in theater. That's way up from 9 last year, but much lower than the 56 I saw in theaters in 2019. In total I watched 232 movies in 2021 up from the 211 I watched last year, which is surprising given I was more housebound in 2020 so I would have expected some more movie watching to fill the time. Along with the 23 theatrical films, I watched 50 new new films (anything newly released within 3 years) at home, and another 70 new old films, and then 89 rewatches. Many of the rewatches were showing films to Jaden. We started the Marvel Cinematic Universe and got through the middle of Civil War on New Years Eve. There's still some really great films I'm excited to watch with him in Marvel and from everywhere else.</div><div><br /></div><div>Some of my favorite and or remarkable films of the 2021 are:</div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>Spider-Man: No Way Home/Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings/Suicide Squad - </b>These three superhero films were among my favorites of the year. With each being entertaining, surprising, and memorable. On the other side, <b>Black Widow</b> was okay but too late, <b>Venom </b>was unnecessary and exhausting, and <b>Eternals </b>is my new least favorite Marvel film coming in solidly at the bottom. It's a shame because I can see where a good film could be there but it failed on too many levels including just being boring.</li><li><b>Free Guy</b> - This movie reminded me a lot of the new Jumanji film where it has fun with video game tropes and embraces the ridiculousness of a life in a video game. I wish so much hadn't been spoiled in the trailers, but this was my favorite original movie of the year.</li><li><b>Dune - </b>I'm mad this was marketed as "Dune" rather than "Dune pt. 1." Nobody said this wasn't a whole movie. That being said, this is a good part 1. The 80s version took me years before I was able to make it all the way through. This is just as deep and hard to understand, but somehow is sugar-coated enough that I could swallow it easier. I just wish more than Jason Mamoa was having fun in the film.</li><li><b>Last Night in Soho/The Sparks Brothers - </b>I have to mention the two films from my favorite filmmaker, Edgar Wright. "The Sparks Brothers" was an interesting if overlong look at the band Sparks with lots of recognizable talking heads telling me how good the band was. "Soho" was atmospherically really cool but ultimately a failure. I feel like the movie unforgivably lies to the viewer in a very significant way to pull off a twist that wasn't earned. If the mystery were more organically revealed in the movie, I probably would have loved the film.</li><li><b>Ghostbusters Afterlife/Matrix Resurrections - </b>The first of these I liked the second I did not care for at all. I group these together because these movies exist entirely to say "Hey, do you remember that first movie?" Ghostbusters was able to weave a bit of an original story into it, but still hit most of the same beats as the first movie. Matrix almost felt like a clip show flashing back to the original and referring back to it so much that it didn't have anything new at all to say and was just a waste of time. <b>Halloween Kills</b> was another film that seemed way too fixated on the original Halloween movie to come up with it's own reason to exist. </li><li><b>Zak Snyder's Justice League - </b>This was very interesting. The theatrical Justice League movie was pretty bad. But supposedly it fixed all the stuff Zak Snyder tried to do to ruin the DC movies. Now seeing the film as the original director intended, I gotta admit that it was way better. STILL A BAD MOVIE, but it works so much better. And it's really interesting to see how to different directors can assemble the same movie and make it completely different.</li><li><b>Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar - </b>This type of weird, quirky surreal comedy just doesn't get made any more. It fits in alongside Anchorman, Hot Rod, or Pee Wee's Big Adventure. The kind of film that can have a musical number in the middle and it doesn't feel out of place. I'm not saying its as good as those other films, but it would fit in well together in one of those Wal-Mart multi-movie DVD collections.</li><li><b>The Mitchells vs the Machines - </b>A great animated movie about an apocalyptic robot war and a family on a road trip that ends up saving the world. Quite funny.</li></ul><div>Some other films of significance that I watched: I saw the Beatles first two films, "Hard Day's Night" & "Help!" It was a coincidence that then I saw the "Get Back" documentary at the end of the year. I really got a greater appreciation of the Beatles this year. I didn't have time to rewatch all the Bond movies like I've done before each of the previous new movies came out. I did rewatch all the Daniel Craig films leading up to <b>"No Time To Die." </b>I think "Casino Royale" and "Skyfall" are the best Craig films. "Quantum" and "Spectre" are the worst. "No Time to Die" falls right in the middle. You really need to have all the Craig films in your head with the last movie to understand a lot of what happens. And even then you won't be able to understand everything because the film makes a lot of weird choices that don't make sense. Ultimately it's an okay movie with some amazing parts that is too long and makes some really weird choices with it's antagonist and finale that aren't quite satisfying enough to make it a good movie.</div></div><div><br /></div><div>Looking ahead to 2022, there's a bunch of Marvel films including "Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness," and "Thor: Love and Thunder." New "Mission Impossible" movie, a franchise I really love. There's "The Lost City" with Sandra Bullock looking like an updated "Romancing the Stone." "John Wick 4" could be good. Jordan Peele has a new movie, "Nope" with no plot details yet. And maybe we'll have a new "Avatar" movie? Let's see.</div><div><br /></div><h2 style="text-align: left;">TV</h2><div>Notable series and specials I watched this year:</div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>Taskmaster - </b>Like last year, I'm still in love with Taskmaster. This year started off with a New Year's special, and then had two series in the spring and fall. Also New Zealand began their own version which is almost as good (other than I don't know anyone on it,) and had two series as well.</li><li><b>Lego Masters - </b>This was one of the few shows that we watched together as a family (Maria, Jaden, and me.) We really enjoyed the projects and challenges the show came up with.</li><li><b>Wandavision/Loki/Marvel's What If.../Hawkeye/Falcon and the Winter Soldier - </b>I really enjoyed all the Marvel TV series that Disney spread through the year. Wandavision had the best concept that made it unique for TV. The rest I enjoyed in the order I listed above. "Falcon" was the only one I was bored with. I just didn't have the fun that most other Marvel shows normally had.</li><li><b>British panel shows: Hypothetical, Would I Lie To You, QI, Rhod Gilbert's Growing Pains, Alan Davies As Yet Untitled, Mel Gedroyc's Unforgivable, 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown, Big Fat Quiz of the Year, and more.</b> I'm a sucker for British panel shows. Comedians saying funny things with a British accent makes me happy.</li><li><b>Squid Games</b> - This started out way stronger than it ended, but it was captivating enough that I had to get up in the middle of the night to keep watching because my mind wouldn't stop thinking about it.</li><li><b>Dave Gorman specials: Are You Dave Gorman?, Googlewhack Adventure, Important Astrological Experiment </b>- I was introduced to Dave Gorman as an early contestant on Taskmaster. I discovered he had emerged from a series of TV specials in the earlier 2000's where he took and ran with some crazy ideas such as trying to meet as many other Dave Gorman's in the world as possible or taking his astrological advice literally every day for a month and acting on it. Very fun and funny.</li><li><b>The Beatles: Get Back</b> - as I mentioned up in movies, I watched a lot of Beatles stuff this year and capped things off with this amazing, over-long, voyeuristic documentary. There was too much, but it was great to see the moment Paul McCartney "invented" the song "Get Back." As well as seeing the song-writing and creation process at work. I have a stronger respect for my least-favorite late Beatles album. And I had no idea just how much Billy Preston contributed to the music. His arrival really boosted all the songs they were working on.</li><li><b>Wheel of Time -</b> I should have loved the "Wheel of Time" series that is 30 years in the making, instead over two episodes (have not watched it all) it was over-serious with almost no interesting characters except for an over-focus on a secondary character who happens to be more famous than everyone else so they somehow (at least at the beginning) became the star of the show. </li></ul><div>For 2022 I'm looking forward to more releases on Disney+. Marvel TV: Moon Knight, She-Hulk, Secret Invasion, and Ms. Marvel. In Star Wars there's Book of Boba Fett that just started, and Obi-Wan Kenobi. And more Taskmaster and other British panel and comedy shows.</div></div><div><br /></div><h2 style="text-align: left;">Media</h2><div>This is for non TV YouTube and Podcasts. I was able to let go of many of the politically edged channels this year since the successful regime change, so most of what I partook in was more entertainment oriented.</div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>Movie Podcasts: We Hate Movies, How Did This Get Made, Filmcast </b>- Sitting at home working meant listening to less podcasts, so I'm way behind on many many of these, but these are still my favorites.</li><li><b>Taskmaster Podcast - </b>Because of course I'd listen to the official podcast of my favorite TV show.</li><li><b>Ryan George/Pitch Meeting - </b>Still really love this guy's take on movies. He really finds the ridiculousness of most Hollywood films in a few minutes more than any lengthy in-depth analysis video.</li><li><b>RedLetterMedia - </b>Bad movies, move reviews, retrospectives, and just weirdness. I love everything these guys do on YouTube.</li><li><b>With Gourley and Rust</b> - An "easy listening horror" podcast. I really enjoy these guys going through horror series (Friday 13th, Aliens) and then themed series (Christmas, Sharks). I was introduced to Gourley through his James Bonding Podcast and followed him to here.</li><li><b>Professor of Rock - </b>This guy is excited about anything that came out between 1965 - 1990, but he really has an encyclopedic knowledge about nearly every song and band that came through the rock era. I often learn something new about a song or band I thought I knew everything about, or get introduced to something I somehow overlooked, or gain a new appreciation for something that I may not have exactly cared for originally.</li></ul><h2 style="text-align: left;">Video Games</h2></div><div>Most of my playing this year was between casual iPhone games, a few Steam games, and occasionally the Switch.</div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>Tabletop Simulator - </b>With the pandemic still coming in and out, this was still the main way I played and/or learned tabletop games this year.</li><li><b>Legendary DXP 007 - </b>This is a digital implementation of my favorite deck builder game, "Legendary James Bond." But rather than being an exact port of the game into an app, they really took advantage of the digital experience allowing cards to be modified and manipulated in a way you can't do on a tabletop, making this digital game completely different from the physical game despite using the exact same art assets and basic gameplay. I loved this so much that with the initial release being super-buggy, I jumped onto the company's Discord server to become an unofficial beta tester and bug reporter and record and report every issue I discovered so they can hopefully fix and improve (which they have and continue to do.)</li><li><b>Dicey Dungeons - </b>This Steam game was a really unique Dungeon Crawler mixed with dice builder, with a bunch of different fighters that all play completely differently.</li><li><b>Pop! Blitz - </b>I was having a lot of fun with this new matching game that I found until I rage quit after three weeks in a row trying to get all the blind-boxed apps in a set and failing. </li><li><b>Return of the Obra Din - </b>This game is a few years old, but I discovered it this year and really found myself intrigued by the non-chronological telling of the story and actually feeling like a real detective, using very subtle cues and clues to determine the fates of each of the passengers of an ill-fated ship back in the 1800s. The art style is entirely unique, the gameplay is entirely unique, and the experience is, yes, entirely unique.</li><li><b>Oculus Quest 2 - </b>Not a game, but a Virtual Reality unit that my oldest son amazingly gifted the family at Christmas. Since he took his own VR system away, he replace it with this stand-alone system that requires no extra wires or PC to connect to. It's totally stand alone and a ton of fun. We really haven't had a chance to explore it completely yet, as I'm currently awaiting shipping some upgrades to make it a bit more comfortable to use.</li></ul><div>Next year "Breath of the Wild 2" is my most anticipated game and the Steam Deck, a portable switch-like gaming device that plays Steam Games, is my most anticipated new gaming device.</div></div><div><br /></div><h2 style="text-align: left;">Board Games</h2><div>Most of my game playing this year was solo, on-line, or with family. I backed a lot of games on KickStarter and purchased or was gifted a lot more games. Sadly, it's still a bit of a struggle to get anyone to play with me. :( I played 277 recorded games in 2021 (down from 346 in 2020.) Those 277 were across 76 different games with at least 55 of them being new to me this year. I played with Jaden the most (76 times) then Colin (37) and Maria (33). All my top players were people in my house this year. I played in 7 different locations, with 47% at home, another 47% online, and the rest split between a few friend homes, hotels, and extended family locations while traveling this year. Here are some games of note for the year:</div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>Legendary James Bond - </b>Not just one of my most played games on my phone, this was the most played game of the year for me, with 41 recorded plays of both my physical version and the TableTop Simulator (TTS) version. I love this system (Legendary deck building) and feel like James Bond is the best version of it.</li><li><b>Legendary Deck Building Games: Marvel, Alien, Buffy, Big Trouble in Little China - </b>I started buying expansions for Legendary Marvel this year which is a dangerous thing because there are a *TON* of them. The best ones are the ones that are self-contained rather than large sandboxes. Usually they modify the rules enough thematically that they become their own unique game.</li><li><b>Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion - </b>I had a ton of fun playing this virtually on TTS. Then I purchased the physical version from a friend and played about half of the scenarios with Colin. Since he's moved out, it has made it difficult to keep playing. I bought the full Gloomhaven giant box game as well to play some day.</li><li><b>Cubitos - </b>This was my favorite new release of the year. It's a dice builder rather than deck builder and is a really fun racing game with a lot of varieties of dice abilities, and tracks that each game can play completely differently.</li><li><b>Dice Throne Adventures - </b>This was my most anticipated game for the year and arrived early in the year from backing it on Kickstarter. Unfortunately, it's very difficult and long. Despite starting two campaigns (one with my son Jaden and the other with a friend Ron and his son) we've barely made progress in either. One lasted 3 games and the other 4.</li><li><b>Micro-Macro: Crime City - </b>This is a very unique game in which you are presented with a giant mat and you have to search to find clues of crimes that have been committed throughout the city and trace them back and forth in time to find out who did it and why. Jaden and I played most of the games online where we could more easily zoom in and around the giant city without getting in the way of each other or messing with the physical logistics of bending over a table and trying to find things.</li><li><b>JustOne - </b>I bought this for my brother when I was in Utah during the summer and played with his family and mine then. Then we played it at the family reunion. Then with a good price, I got it for our family at Christmas and we had a fun time playing with a full set of players. It's one of those simple premise word guessing games that is fun enough you don't have to play the formal game, just keep going around the table and have a great time.</li></ul><div>Next year I'm looking forward to the next Legendary James Bond expansion(s), the next Space Base expansion (will I be able to fit it in the "Big Box"?) as well as quite a few Kickstarters: Dungeon Drop expansion, Tiny Epic Dungeons, Um Actually game, and the Shivers pop-up game.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><h2 style="text-align: left;">Books</h2><div>I actually did a bit more reading this past year than I have in recent past. Part of that was having something to do while sitting in a secure lab while traveling for tests for work where I'm not always 100% involved and need something to do.</div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>The Martian - </b>I'd seen the movie but had heard good things about the book so I picked it up to pass the time in a lab trip. I really enjoyed it, but it's pretty much exactly the movie.</li><li><b>Project Hail Mary - </b>Lots of people were saying if you like the Martian, this spiritual follow up from the same author (Andy Weir) scratches the same itch. I'd say, yes it does. It also scratches the same itch that Michael Crichton used to provide of blending science with science fiction. I highly recommend this book if you like the Martian, just don't read too much about it ahead of time, there's some mysteries and twists that I really didn't expect and was glad I went in blindly.</li><li><b>James Acaster's Classic Scrapes - </b>Just a series of little stories from a British comedian who always seems to find himself in entirely unique situations. Enjoyable.</li><li><b>Whitehead histories - </b>My parents last year sent several family history books including a compilation of Orville & Della Whitehead Family Reunions, life history of Orville Whitehead, life history of Della Eva Gledhill Whitehead, and another with the story of Eileen and Charles Whitehead, and then for Christmas a scrapbook of our family reunion this summer for Mom & Dad's 50th wedding anniversary.</li><li><b>Monty Pythons Flying Circus: Hidden Treasures - </b>For the most part this book just told the story that I was already familiar with. However, it was true to its word and detailed several things that the comedy troupe had done that I was not aware of. Most I was able to look up and find on YouTube and so here I was 50 years after some of this was made and 35 years after first devouring Monty Python that I found myself watching completely new (to me) Monty Python sketches! That was a treat.</li><li><b>Pop Culture kids books: </b>We discovered a whole bunch of illustrated children's books (Pop Classic and Little Golden Book style) that Maria got me for Christmas: Goonies, Back to the Future, Haunted Mansion, Ghostbusters, Labyrinth, Karate Kid, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Universal Monsters, Parks and Recreation, and more.</li></ul></div><h2 style="text-align: left;">2022</h2><div>Last year we were waiting for the vaccine. It came and we thought things might get back to normal. Now we are once again breaking records for COVID cases and wondering when anything will be "normal" again. So for now we have no 2022 plans. It's mostly a take things as they come until we can start looking ahead again. So while I have hope for 2022, for now it continues to blend with 2021 and 2020! Hopefully I can look back at this post next year and think "You are in store for some great things in 2022!" Here's hoping! See you next year.</div>Gumbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16164366902768547090noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-87233659039775561.post-33139158940149388682021-01-02T16:28:00.008-06:002021-01-02T16:28:58.006-06:00Greg's Favorites of 2020<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QOuDeuxcq50/X_DiJePyhXI/AAAAAAAACTU/CCfmKGZ6bpMFYZersdDlAiIrZn2LE6uuQCLcBGAsYHQ/s792/2020Collage.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="612" data-original-width="792" height="309" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QOuDeuxcq50/X_DiJePyhXI/AAAAAAAACTU/CCfmKGZ6bpMFYZersdDlAiIrZn2LE6uuQCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h309/2020Collage.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p>Ah, what a dumpster fire of a year! I almost feel like I should censor the title of this post as 2*2* as it will be a triggering number for many for a long time.</p><p>There were a lot of terrible things this year, but we also had a lot of good. Working mostly from home since March was great. I spent a lot more time with family than expected since moving to a 10 hour work day in January (with Friday's off.) I moved to some different projects and teams with work that was interesting and much more fulfilling than before. I got outside a lot more and completed a Couch-to-5K running challenge with Jaden, plus we went on a lot of outdoor park adventures. Maria cut back on some of her editing to focus on homeschooling, so it was nice to see a bit more of her this year as well! The rest of the kids are doing well, and we had a nice COVID-safe family vacation to a remote cabin in the Smokey Mountains in July while Colin went up to Wyoming to help his Grandparents. He bought his first car there which he immediately lost running into a deer on the way home in Colorado. He was fine, but we had to do an emergency rescue over Memorial Day weekend to get him, and had to essentially abandon the vehicle. We now have two kids with cars and our driveway is overloaded.</p><p>So many things were affected by COVID this year, including many of the things in my media consumption list. Movie theaters were all closed and Hollywood mostly stopped releasing movies over the year. Since March I only saw two theatrical screenings via a local drive-in. I couldn't gather to play board games, so most of my playing was solo play and most of that was on TableTop Simulator on Steam. Otherwise, I spent a lot of time watching YouTube videos and streaming services such as Netflix, Disney+, HBOMax, and Hulu. This was my first full year with Spotify, where I've been introduced to a lot of new music--much more than in the recent past. However, with no commute time, a lot of my listening time was limited this year.</p><p>Anyway, let's move on to the regular categories of favorites:</p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Music</span></p><p>As I mentioned above, Spotify was my main music consumption method this year. Coupled with a new unlimited phone data plan, the whole family was able to listen as much as they wanted and where we wanted. Every Monday Spotify puts a playlist together with recommended songs to discover, which is where I found some of the songs I liked this year and a few new bands. Others came from Spencer, Jeffrey, or just random encounters through the year. Spotify makes it easy to figure out your favorite songs by making a playlist of everything you listened to most, so it makes this section easy.</p><p>My favorite songs/bands/albums this year are:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>The Lickerish Quartet:Threesome Vol 1:"Lighthouse Spaceship"</b> - A couple years ago my brother Jeffrey and I went to California to visit a shared musical hero, Roger Joseph Manning Jr. He had just released a solo EP and we visited his studio where he walked through several tracks and spent the evening answering questions (from us and a small group that had purchased this evening as a "reward" from his crowdfunding.) We learned that he was working on a new project with Eric Dover and Tim Smith (who had worked with Jellyfish and other related projects over the years.) Their debut EP finally came out this year and did not disappoint! Plus there are several more releases coming, with the next one in another week or two this January. "Lighthouse Spaceship" was easily one of my favorite tracks this year: an epic six-and-a-half minute rocking track with harmonies, guitar riffs, sci-fi themes, squiggly analog keyboards, and a catchy sing-along chorus. All the things I love.<br /><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/p8tzd6UNA4k" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe></li><li><b>I DON'T KNOW HOW BUT THEY FOUND ME:Razzmatazz: "Leave Me Alone"</b> - After a promising EP release a little while ago, IDKHOW finally released their first full album and it was great. This was the first single and my favorite track from a fun album. Lots of great, quirky songs with a mix of funk, 80s synths, Boingo-esque macabre, and more. Highly recommended and definitely my favorite full album of the year. (Lickerish Quartet was just an EP.)<br /><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/iwpnuaBoKPU" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe></li><li><b>Joywave: Possession: "Half Your Age" </b>- A song and then album discovered over Spotify. This particular song reminds me of the Shins if they were more synth oriented. Another of my favorite albums this year. Though oddly I haven't taken the chance to explore more of their work. (Warning: some slightly adult themes in this video.)<br /><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/eXmy5gyELrc" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe></li><li><b>The Explorers Club: s/t & To Sing and Be Born Again - </b>This is a band I discovered this year who actually put out two albums: one of originals and one of covers. They are a modern band emulating late 60s sunshine-pop music mixing Beach Boys and Burt Bacharach among others. I spent more time listening to the self titled album, but I've enjoyed most everything I've heard from the band. Here's <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6Omz4jEzqM">"Ruby"</a> one of my favorite tracks.</li><li><b>CRX : Peek : "New Obsession" - </b>Another random album found and enjoyed later this year. I'm not linking to it, because I'm offended by the album cover. So feel free to look for the album/track on your own!</li></ul>Some other bands/albums/songs I listened to this year: Dowling Poole: See You, See Me; Bebopalula; The Cowsills (family band from the 60s similar to the Association); the Pearlfishers: Love & Other Hopeful Things (Soft rock similar to Explorers Club); Wang Chung - Orchesography (Hits recorded with an orchestra); The Claypool Lennon Delirium (Les Claypool from Primus and Julian Lennon doing Yes-type prog rock); Rosalie Cunningham.<br /><p></p><p>For 2021, I'm looking forward to more Lickerish Quartet. No idea what else will be in store this year.</p><p> <span style="font-size: large;">Movies</span></p><p>This is an interesting section this year since my movie-going ability ended in March along with most Hollywood new releases. In total I watched around 211 movies this year. I saw only 9 movies in theaters this year (including 2 Drive-In movies.) In comparison, I saw 56 movies last year in theaters! Strangely, that's the exact same number (56) of other new movies I saw at home (25 in comparison to last year.) There were 55 older new-to-me movies (compared to 39 last year) many of which were for watching along with my bad movie podcasts. And 91 re-watches this year (compared to 41 last year.) A lot of that was comfort watching due to the pandemic, and some was introducing Jaden to some great classics that he was now old enough to enjoy.</p><p>This will probably be a bit shorter than previous years, but here's some of my favorite movies this year:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>1917 </b>- I'm not a fan of war movies and wasn't particularly excited to see this, but the concept got me to the theater which was that this film was made to look like it was shot in one single take. Even if some cuts were cheated, it still really held my attention and the novelty of the single-camera, single-take style made me enjoy it more than almost any other film this year.</li><li><b>The Invisible Man - </b>One of the last films most people saw this year in theaters. I really enjoyed how the film took the concept of the title but rather than following the monster, it followed the people who were being affected by the unseen menace. Some very creative decisions like that made this a great horror movie.</li><li><b>Onward</b> - Another film that I got to before theaters closed. I really enjoyed the completely insane and original story. Pixar movies can often find completely original situations putting me in places I've never been before with no idea where we will be going. <b>Soul</b> had a bit of that at the end of the year (also by Pixar) but somehow it's original situations lost and confused me. So while I ultimately enjoyed it, I feel like Onward worked much better.</li><li><b>Bill and Ted Face The Music</b> - Watched at home, and while I would have preferred to see it in theaters, this was still a fun return to an old franchise. I can't think of the story too much without seeing all the plot-holes and other logic problems, so I just focus on the silliness and fun of the movie and that it makes me happy.</li><li><b>The Sleepover - </b>A random Netflix film about some kids rescuing their parents Spy Kids-style. I started watching it and stopped so I could share with Jaden. We both really loved it.</li><li><b>Witches - </b>Another streamed film we watched together as a family and really enjoyed it. I wasn't sure what they could do to improve or change over the 90's version, but it was enough to make this feel like its own movie.</li><li><b>Love and Monsters</b> - I randomly picked this to watch one night and discovered a really fun monster adventure movie. A young man in a post-apocalyptic monster-filled world takes a trip across the perilous outside world to find a girl he had a crush on as a younger teen. Take Shyamalan's After Earth, but mix it with Zombieland's sense of post-apocalyptic humor, and you get something a bit like this. </li><li><b>Freaky - </b>Mix Freaky Friday body swap with Scream. A body-swap horror movie. Should have been a bit better with that unique premise, but it was still a fun film. Part of it was I didn't think Vince Vaughan worked as a slasher, but did rather well as a teenage girl.</li></ul><div>Some other notable films and watching experiences: I saw "Cats" just to say I did. (End of 2019 "Cats" comes out. Then in 2020 everything falls apart. Coincidence? <<Not my joke>>) I was looking forward to "Tenet" which I saw at the Drive In. The viewing experience was sub-optimal, and I spent the entire 2+ hours wondering what was going on. "Palm Springs" Groundhog's Day comedy with Andy Samburg had an interesting original angle to this new repeating-day genre. "WW84" (Wonder Woman 1984) was the only big superhero film to come out (ignoring "New Mutants") this year on Christmas. It didn't quite live up to the original. Not sure why it was even set in the 80's. I enjoyed sitting through it, but the story was ultimately unsatisfying, and it just didn't love up to the World War battle scenes of the first one.</div><div><br /></div><div>Some older notable movies and series that I watched or re-watched this year: Pirates of the Carribean (completely forgot about the last one that came out a couple years ago); Underworld series; Bill & Ted series; Wishmaster 1-3; Tron/Tron Legacy; Scooby Doo 1 & 2 (live action), plus Scoob! (2020); Superman 1-4; The Fugitive/US Marshals (Jaden randomly picked the Fugitive to watch one movie night and really liked it. US Marshals still doesn't work anywhere near as good as its predecessor.)</div><div><br /></div><div>Looking towards 2021, I have no idea what to expect. So many 2020 movies got pushed into 2021 that there won't be much room for the 2021 movies that were already there. Plus, theaters are still not open and we're not sure how long it will be. So here's just hoping we get our movies back sometime this year!</div><div><br /></div><div> <span style="font-size: large;">TV</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div>I watched a lot more TV this year including streaming most of the movies mentioned in the previous section as well as YouTube videos. I'll focus mostly on series here and then other media next.</div><div><br /></div><div>Here are my favorite shows I watched this year:</div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>Taskmaster - </b>I have watched a lot of British comedy panel shows (QI, 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown, Would I Lie To You, etc.) and even though this has been on the air for quite a few years, this is the first year I'd heard of it. Missing it gave me the opportunity this year during lockdown to find and binge 9 seasons of the show plus the newest 10th season that just aired, as well as an American and New Zealand version (and I believe the show exists in several other foreign language versions I have yet to try to find). This over any other movie, music, or game, was my favorite thing this year. I absolutely adore this show. The basic premise is 5 comedy celebrities are given a series of ridiculous tasks to complete for points. They are always different and they have never repeated the exact same challenge for all 10 seasons. The tasks usually have a very strict set of rules but usually have enough ambiguity that creative lateral thinking can often win over pushing straight through. It's a bit hard to explain beyond that, but here's a clip of some of the greatest hits (oddly, most of these are songs which only occasionally occur as tasks in the regular show):<br /><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/dUQhADKoqv8" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe><br />Aside from the tv show, there's a book that I got. There's a board game that I have yet to get. There's an official podcast that I listen to. And there was a series of "At Home" tasks that anyone could participate in during lock down earlier in the year on YouTube with some genuinely amazing entries. This show also introduced me to Alex Horne, the Taskmaster's assistant (and the real genius behind the show) who has his own podcast and TV specials with his comedy band "The Horne Section." </li><li><b>The Mandalorian Season 2 - </b>I loved the first season, and the second season kept it going. Still the best Star Wars thing since the original trilogy. It's veering a little too close to all the expanded universe stuff that I barely understand since I've never watched Clone Wars or Rebels, but it gives me enough information that I can follow along. Anyway, this was the first thing I watched on my Friday morning every week when a new episode premiered. Very few shows had me excited to watch immediately upon being available.</li><li><b>The Goes Wrong Show - </b>After seeing the Peter Pan Goes Wrong special, and the Christmas Carol Goes Wrong special, I was excited to learn that there was a series. This was six episodes of six live original plays of a variety of genres from a fictional acting troupe and guess what? They all go wrong in increasingly unique ways! They also did a Christmas special again this year (an early Series 2 episode, I believe) of the Nativity. We also watched a live improv show online from the group (Mischief Theater) that we purchased a ticket for where they improvised a Sci-Fi Space Musical in real time. My dream is still one day going to see the original "Play that Goes Wrong" in a live theater, which is where this show started.</li><li><b>Saturday Night Live - </b>Not always great, but I'm always excited to watch a new episode. In the lead up to the election they did like six episodes in a row (normally they only do 2-3) which was crazy. It was also interesting when the last few episodes of the previous season took place during lock down so all the sketches were done mostly solo. A crazy experiment that didn't quite work, but was impressive due to having to pull it together when everyone was at home and isolated.</li><li><b>Wellington Paranormal/What We Do In The Shadows S2 - </b>Both of these shows are spin-offs from the Taika Waititi directed "What We Do In the Shadows" film. I didn't love S1 of WWDITS, but there was some enjoyable stuff. I really fell in line with it in S2, though. One specific episode about an e-mail chain letter was probably one of the funniest episodes of TV ever. Wellington Paranormal follows 2 cops that were only in the movie for one scene, and now have their own X-Files-meets-Cops spin-off where they investigate ghosts and zombies and many other paranormal matters. It's got that dry New Zealand comedy that I really enjoy.</li><li><b>Penn & Teller Fool Us: </b>They are still doing it and it's still my favorite magic-themed show on TV.</li><li><b>The Boys S2/Umbrella Academy S1 & S2 - </b>Both of these streaming shows had me following along but hating that I liked them and had to keep watching. Not sure why.</li><li><b>Animaniacs - </b>The cartoon was revived on Hulu and was just as good as the original. Even better in some ways because it was just the Animaniacs and Pinky & The Brain. No Goodfeathers or Slappy or Chicken Boo or other lesser shorts.</li><li><b>Truthseekers - </b>Another post modern X-Files. This was a collaboration with Nick Frost and Simon Pegg about a roving van of cell service technicians that are also paranormal investigators. It started a bit episodic, and sadly Simon Pegg has only a small part, but it turns into something pretty big and crazy by the end and sets itself up for more if gets another series.</li><li><b>Life On Mars/Ashes to Ashes</b> - I rewatched the UK version of "Life on Mars" and then discovered there was a follow-on series called "Ashes to Ashes" set in the 80s that I had totally missed. I spent a lot of my free time during lock down crawling back through these 5 series. I think Life on Mars is better, but there was a lot to like in Ashes to Ashes.</li><li><b>The Floor is Lava - </b>This was stupid. But it was fun anyway. If you can read the title you understand what this physical challenge inspired game show is about.</li></ul><div><br /></div></div><div>Some other shows of note that I watched: "Picard," an awful revival that ruins Star Trek and this amazing character. There was another "Red Dwarf" special that I watched that I can't remember. "Prank Encounters" puts two innocent people crossing paths in an orchestrated horror prank. Some of them were pretty amazing. "Emily in Paris" had me nodding my head saying, yup, that's what it's like in France and it appears to still be like that since I was there in 1993-94. "Aunty Donna's Big Ole House of Fun" on Netflix was surreal comedy the way I like, though with too much language. "Queen's Gambit" was interesting. Not sure why it was so huge. And I watched "Tiger King" like everyone else. Not sure if I hate-watched it or love-watched it.</div><div><br /></div><div>Looking forward in 2021 to more Taskmaster, of course, with Season 11 on its way. Also more Mandalorian, with several other Star Wars shows and spin offs (like Boba Fett.) Also the various Marvel series on Disney Plus is set to start up with "Wandavision" scheduled for January.</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Podcasts and Other Online Media</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">As always, there's a lot of other media that I consumed via podcasts and YouTube channels. Here are some of my favorites this year:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>RedLetterMedia </b>- Their reviews slowed down a bit because of COVID, but their shows are always entertaining.</li><li><b>Movie BS With Bayer and Snider</b> - Life changes had these guys end their movie review podcast this year. A few weeks later, Hollywood decided to stop putting out movies. Coincidence? <<Not my joke>></li><li><b>We Hate Movies/How Did This Get Made - </b>My two regular favorite bad movie podcasts. I watch a lot of bad movies because of these shows, and then enjoy the podcast afterwords. A few of them this year ("Under the Cherry Moon") were almost too painful for me to make it through, but I still survived. It's almost like a badge of honor to me. Partly why I watched "Cats."</li><li><b>The Dragon's Tomb - </b>Board game comedy channel. So niche, but yet very funny.</li><li><b>Screenjunkies/Fandom/Dan Murrell - </b>The Fandom daily show means I know there's at least something new for me to watch each day. I was very sad to see Dan Murrell leave. I'm happy he has his own channel, but it's not the same and I think he works better in a group than solo.</li><li><b>Um, Actually - </b>A game show for nerds.</li><li><b>Cracking the Cryptic - </b>I'm amazed at how interesting it is to watch someone solve super-difficult sudoku puzzles. </li><li><b>Chris Ramsey - </b>I'm amazed at how interesting it is to watch someone solve puzzle boxes. Mostly I'm just jealous that he gets to do them and I never will.</li><li><b>Ryan George/Screen Rant Pitch Meetings - </b>Very funny sketch shows.</li><li><b>Ghost Town Living - </b>I'm amazed at how interesting it is to watch someone live all alone in an abandoned town that they bought, especially during a global pandemic which makes them all the more isolated.</li></ul><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">Video Games</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div>I didn't play a lot of console games this year. Mostly because Maria got Animal Crossing and it was always being used. So most of my gaming was via phone, my computer, and on VR when Colin got his Valve Index VR set this year (and brought it home from his summer in Wyoming.) I also subscribed to Apple Arcade to try some of the games there. Here are some of the things I enjoyed playing:</div><div><br /></div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>Tabletop Simulator </b>(Steam) - This is actually more of a platform than a game. It provides a physics engine to emulate cards, dice, boards, and figures to allow people to recreate their board games virtually. This was something that I'd bought earlier, but found very intimidating to figure out. With the pandemic, it was finally time to learn it, and I've spent over 300 hours playing on it since. I've got just as large a board game library, if not larger, on this platform than at home. I'll talk a bit more about the games in the next section.</li><li><b>Half Life: Alyx </b>(Steam VR) - I was shocked that another Half Life game has finally come out--and the VR element is amazing! This game makes all the equipment and Colin's expensive gaming hardware worth it. Still working my way through this game.</li><li><b>Legendary DXP </b>(Legendary Digital Experience) (iOS) - Phone version of the Marvel Legendary game, but without the Marvel license so the cards are the same but re-skinned with fantasy characters. More on Legendary later.</li><li><b>What the Golf </b>(Apple Arcade) - A pretty inventive golf game where every level is completely unique. You never know what you are going to hit and how it's going to get to the hole.</li><li><b>Idle Miner Tycoon </b>(iOS) - A nothing game where you build a mine and upgrade your miners and stuff. I'm not sure why I play it, and yet I've spent dozens of hours and many dollars trying to see if I can see this through to the end.</li><li><b>Cracking the Cryptic Sudoku </b>(iOS) - This is actually a series of apps: Miracle Sudoku, Chess Sudoku, Sandwich Sudoku, Thermo Sudoku. They are all unique styles of Sudoku and the levels are all handcrafted with guides. A lot of fun and the variations are all quite interesting.</li><li><b>Beat Saber </b>(Steam VR)<b> -</b> This is VR's version of DDR/Rock Band. Wave your arms to move Light Sabers to hit color-coded targets to the beat of the song. Very simple to pick up and understand, super difficult to master. You can download custom songs so there were lots of tracks ("Owner of a Lonely Heart" in particular) that I loved to play.</li><li><b>Jackbox 7 </b>(Steam) - Some great additions to the Jackbox library this year with one game that we never finished or played again because we just couldn't understand or get into it.</li><li><b>Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity - </b>The one Switch game I've been playing since getting it for Christmas. Sometimes I have to fight Maria for the Switch, but I feel like she's had plenty of time with Animal Crossing! I love the prequel story line that this gives to the last Zelda game, as well as the fun of killing hundreds and thousands of monsters.</li></ul><div>Looking to 2021, I have nothing I'm specifically looking forward to. The PS5 and new XBox just came out but I'm not particularly interested. With the Switch I'm looking forward to see if Nintendo does anything special with Zelda this year. They celebrated Mario's 35th anniversary last year and we suspect they may do something similar for Link this year. I'm also waiting for more detail about the next Metroid game. Not sure if it will be this year or not, we'll see.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">Board Games</span></div></div><div><br /></div><div>After falling hardcore into board games last year with conventions, weekly gaming gatherings, and more, the pandemic threw all of that out. I haven't met to play with anyone since March. We started out semi-promising with a kids day event at a nearby Braums where Jaden and I played all day long and had a blast. We had a second one scheduled but it fell victim to the lockdown in March. After that I was on my own. I played a bit online with people, but it never seemed like anyone was particularly interested, so eventually I just started mostly playing on my own. How do you play on your own? Well, mostly with games that are either built for solo play or games that are cooperative. Most cooperative games have you battle against the game rather than another player, so to play it solo, you just play one or two characters by yourself. </div><div><br /></div><div>I kept track of all my games on an app called "Board Game Stats." It has some great tools to keep track of your playing habits, wins and losses, and much much more. For 2020, I played 346 times with 133 games. I played in 13 places (mostly home and online, a few hotels, and a few homes at the beginning of the year) and with 36+ players (the plus is for people I didn't name in my records.) 56% of my games were solo. 14% 2 player, 12% 3, and 11% 4. 48% plays were at home. 40% were on TableTop Simulator. My favorite game was played 56 times this year! </div><div><br /></div><div>Several categories were also played quite a bit (similar games with multiple titles.) I played Legendary games (Marvel, James Bond, etc.) 115 times. I played Cryptozoic Deckbuilder games (DC, Lord of the Rings, etc.) about 20 times. I played one-off escape games (Exit, Unlock, etc.) 48 times. In fact I went all-in with my Escape room game collection and tried to fill in as many holes as I could. It's difficult to keep up with all the varieties, but I try to hold on to them when I complete them.</div><div><br /></div><div>Here are a few of my favorite games of the year:</div><div><br /></div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>Legendary James Bond</b> - I played a *<i>lot</i>* of Legendary this year. It's a deck building game where you recruit better cards to use in fighting of villains and completing missions while ultimately trying to defeat the Mastermind. This base game came out last year, but they added an expansion this year so now it has a campaign for each Bond actor. The two new movies that came in the expansion ("On Her Majesty's Secret Service" and "License to Kill") added some really interesting elements that make them my favorites of the game (and they are two of my least favorite Bond movies!) </li><li><b>Other Legendary Games </b>- Aside form James Bond, I have Marvel (the base set plus a couple small expansions--including my favorite, Guardians of the Galaxy), X-Files, Firefly, Big Trouble in Little China, Aliens, Predator, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Of the list, Aliens is probably my favorite, but all of them are quite fun. I have the least connection to Marvel, but that's mostly because it goes deep into comics lore that I just don't know anything about.</li><li><b>Unlock!/Exit: The Game/Escape Room the Game/Escape Room in a Box/Escape the Room</b> - These make up the majority of the major escape room games. I was stacking up a significant collection but when it turned out I wasn't going to have anyone to play them with (the rest of my family aren't as interested in these and the pandemic meant not finding other players) I just decided to start playing them myself. I seldom figure any of them out without hints and having to look up answers, but I still enjoy the challenge. Unlock! is my favorite of the batch because it's such a simple system with just cards. Some of these others can get quite elaborate including one where we constructed a full size dollhouse, but the puzzles are what make it the most interesting, not necessarily the components.</li><li><b>Machi Koro Legacy/Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle - </b>These are two completely different games but both have a progression element and so I was able to play them with Colin, Maria, (and Jaden for Machi Koro) on a regular schedule. They were both a lot of fun. I got an expansion for Hogwarts Battle, but that was just as Colin left and we never quite back into it. I have a Toy Story game that's based on the same system waiting to play too. We were also getting ready to play "Betrayal Legacy" with a group of Colin's friends before the lock down. I'm still anxious to play that with a group someday.</li><li><b>Cryptozoic Deck Builders - </b>This company made the DC deck builder game which is a simpler system than Legendary. However, it mostly can only be played competitively rather than solo, which is why I didn't play it nearly as much. There are a bunch of games that use the system including The Hobbit which I physically own, plus one for each of the Lord of the Rings movies which I played on TableTop Simulator (TTS). There I also played several other versions including some custom versions such as Legend of Zelda, Smash Brothers, Universal Monsters, and more. There's one DC version called "Rebirth" that is cooperative, which I attempted to play (it also has a progression/legacy system with it) but it needs more than two players and managing multiple players solo gets very difficult.</li><li><b>Quacks of Quedlinburg - </b>This fun blind bag drafting game is a blast to play with its push-your-luck element. I also had a lot of fun with my new 3D printer I got this year, printing out special storage components for it. I also made crocheted bowls before I got the printer, which I'm now just using for general organizing. I got this and the expansion just before the lock down.</li><li><b>Dungeon Drop - </b>This was a fun little game that I Kickstarted (as well as an expansion that's coming in 2021). The gameplay is unique in that you drop a bunch of cubes from the box onto the play surface and it creates the dungeon that you loot.</li><li><b>Zombie Teenz Evolution - </b>This sequel to Zombie Kidz Evolution is a separate game (though there are some crossover elements.) It only took four days from getting it to land on my top ten played games for the year. Jaden and I have had a lot of fun with it. Like Zombie Kidz, there's a Legacy style progression system with stickers and new abilities that come out every so often in envelopes that change the game. The mystery is exciting and the game is very simple and fun but tense.</li><li><b>Zorro the Dice Game - </b>Another Kickstarted game that's fairly simple where you roll dice and try to win equipment and defeat villains. I'm a sucker for a good dice rolling game.</li></ul><div>In 2021, I'm looking forward in a few weeks to get "Dice Throne Adventures" with an updated version of "Dice Throne Season 1" which adds to my second favorite game of last year. I've also got a few other outstanding kickstarter games that will hopefully be coming this year including "Hunted," "Mint Control," "The Shivers," and "Dungeon Drop: Dropped Too Deep expansion."</div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">Books</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div>I read a few books this year. Some of them I played.</div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>Ready Player One/Ready Player Two</b> - With the sequel coming out this year, I re-read the first one and enjoyed it. It had been quite a few years and I welcomed reading it again because there were details I'd completely forgotten, plus the movie had changed quite a bit so I needed the reminder. Sadly, the sequel is not great. I had a hard time putting the first one down again, but I had to really push myself to get through Player Two. It takes 150 pages of 380 just to set things up. Then it goes back to the same pop-culture infused treasure hunt of the first book, but in a way that is much less interesting. It spends multiple chapters deep-diving into things that neither I (nor the protagonist) care about which made it really difficult to get through. (I'm looking at you, Prince.) It sets up some interesting ideas and new technologies, but I don't feel like it really used or explored them effectively. </li><li><b>The Weird Accordion to Al - </b>A track by track walkthrough of every single song on every single Weird Al album. I was hoping for lots of trivia and back story. Instead the author just explained why he thought the song was funny. Pretty terrible. Some of the information was just plain wrong (Author thought "Slime Creatures from Outer Space" was a B-52s style-parody, when it's quite obviously Thomas Dolby. This is well documented online if he bothered to look.)</li><li><b>My Wife and I Bought a Ranch - </b>Not technically a book, but my favorite new thing I read this year. This was published as a series of posts on the /r/Nosleep subreddit. A news article saying that this was going to be turned into a film caught my attention and led me to the story. It was quite a fascinating and creepy read. There were elements of Pet Semetary (house in the country) mixed with Gremlins (horror with a very specific set of rules.) I love how the story sets up the rules of the horror right off the bat and then the rest of the story is seeing how they play out over four seasons of the year. Looking forward to the potential eventual movie.</li><li><b>Journal 29/Adventure Maze - </b>These were two interactive books. The first was an "escape room" game where there's a puzzle on every page and the results helped you solve the other puzzles. The Adventure Maze books were a kickstarter I bought into where the puzzles cross other pages, requiring creative page folding to progress through the mazes and inventory objects to pick up and use in other places. Lots of fun and very tricky.</li></ul><div>And that's 2020. While we wait for the COVID vaccine, no one is making that many plans. My parent's 50th wedding anniversary is this year and we hope to travel to Utah this summer to celebrate. Otherwise, we just hope that normalcy returns and remain curious to see what will change for good.</div></div><div><br /></div><div>See you next year!</div></div>Gumbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16164366902768547090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-87233659039775561.post-56950767765565781772020-01-10T16:51:00.000-06:002020-01-10T16:51:59.387-06:00Greg's Favorites of the Decade, 201x<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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At the prompting of my son who asked if I was going to do a blog post covering the entire decade, here it is. I hadn't really considered it, but after his asking I started mentally trying to think what my favorites would be. Then I started bemoaning the fact that I only started keeping a media diary since 2012 and that I'd lost two of the earliest years of the decade--only to be reminded when I came to make my end of year post, that I'd been doing an annual wrap-up for well over 10 years, so everything was already here for my reference!</div>
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So I'm going to step back through several of the various categories such as movies, music, games, etc. and pick through some of my favorites of the past ten years. I did my best to make sure everything wasn't weighted towards the end of the decade with the items that are still freshest in mind.<br />
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<h2>
Movies</h2>
I'm starting with movies for this list, because I've spent the most time thinking over my list of favorites films over any other category. It's the easiest category because even if I didn't have my previous lists, I can pull up a list of movies from any year and find my favorites pretty quickly. I can't say that about most other categories.<br />
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Looking across my lists from the past 10 years, it's interesting to see how many favorite movies of the year will not be listed here, but how many that were lower down the list or only briefly mentioned have made it here. A lot of them boil down to how well they resonated. Sure they may have been a great watch in the theater, but which have I returned to over the decade or have stuck in my mind?<br />
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Of course, the Marvel Cinematic Universe was the biggest winner for me (and parent company Disney.) There were only a few duds in the lot, and even the lesser movies all had a sense of fun that made them enjoyable. Looking across my lists by year, 2015 seems to have been my best year for movies. Making a first cut over each year and leaving only movies that have made a significant impression on me, most years had around 2-4 films that stood out, while 2015 had 13! 2014 and 2017 both had 8, and 2016 had 7.<br />
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Some brief thoughts on movie-going over the decade: Some of the biggest changes were with subscriptions such as MoviePass and AMC A-List which made going to the movies much more common the past couple years from a few times a month to weekly. Many theaters have upgraded to recliner seating and reserved seats with online or app ticketing, which makes choosing to see a movie much easier and more comfortable.<br />
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Here are my favorites of the decade:<br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-flyUnjjk3RE/XhI5fa3bj6I/AAAAAAAACJE/Chpp988zdhQ5A9i2MfRpyrkp4IZIKPUMgCEwYBhgL/s1600/mi-gp.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1081" height="120" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-flyUnjjk3RE/XhI5fa3bj6I/AAAAAAAACJE/Chpp988zdhQ5A9i2MfRpyrkp4IZIKPUMgCEwYBhgL/s200/mi-gp.jpg" width="81" /></a><b style="font-weight: bold;">1. Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (2011) - </b>After JJ Abrams revived the series with Mission Impossible III, Brad Bird took over and made what is easily my favorite film of the decade. The movie has so many amazing set pieces, coupled with humor and fun that made me love this film. The opening prison break, the silent Kremlin heist, and the entire Dubai sequence (climbing the building, making the trade, chasing the bad guy in a sand storm) are all moments that have stayed in my head since the original watching. I love this movie.<br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Vx1iFTTD-3U/XhI-QtX_3cI/AAAAAAAACJQ/3Pc-Vcnvihg0GR7G7xaP3v4U3Xw4Vm-1wCEwYBhgL/s1600/cabininwoods.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1080" height="120" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Vx1iFTTD-3U/XhI-QtX_3cI/AAAAAAAACJQ/3Pc-Vcnvihg0GR7G7xaP3v4U3Xw4Vm-1wCEwYBhgL/s200/cabininwoods.jpg" width="81" /></a><b>2. Cabin in the Woods (2012) - </b>This random little horror film has such an amazing twist that it instantly became my favorite horror movie of the decade and of my favorites of all time. It rewards people who are familiar with other horror movies with dozens of amazing easter eggs and references, and capitalizes on many of the genre's tropes, cliches, and stereotypes making it, like "Shaun of the Dead" last decade, a movie that is both an entry and parody of the genre.<br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NczBvyEqgfM/XhJCIYT9UiI/AAAAAAAACJc/XRwUynUUXVEfgPicKa_Jc1QzddGfNT7EwCEwYBhgL/s1600/av-end.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1080" height="120" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NczBvyEqgfM/XhJCIYT9UiI/AAAAAAAACJc/XRwUynUUXVEfgPicKa_Jc1QzddGfNT7EwCEwYBhgL/s200/av-end.jpg" width="81" /></a><b>3. Avenger's Endgame (2019) - </b>I feel a little weird putting this here. A movie that just came out this year. It hasn't had the time to work itself into the list like the others. And yet, it was my favorite film this year, one of the few I went back to see again, and it is such a roller-coast ride. I laughed out loud, I cheered, I cried both tears of sadness and joy--in fact I cried 3 or 4 times during the movie! I almost never cry in real life and this film kept me wiping my eyes every 30 minutes! It was bold, killing off certain characters, putting others in new places, and going in directions that were unexpected, yet in the end found a way to make the entire journey feel worthwhile. It is currently the biggest movie ever and I think it deserves the crown--until Avatar 2 somehow finds a way to take it back!<br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-D6_Q8ojYFX0/XhJIbxXdkAI/AAAAAAAACJo/UXH5ozgH0LQloACAdgFhg_OGHxYlWeZiACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/what-we-do-in-the-shadows.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="807" height="120" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-D6_Q8ojYFX0/XhJIbxXdkAI/AAAAAAAACJo/UXH5ozgH0LQloACAdgFhg_OGHxYlWeZiACLcBGAsYHQ/s200/what-we-do-in-the-shadows.jpg" width="81" /></a><b>4. What We Do in the Shadows (2014) - </b>This New Zealand vampire mockumentary was barely mentioned on my list in 2014, partly because it hadn't been officially released in the US, so I watched it online. Regardless, this was my favorite comedy of the decade hands-down. It introduced me to Taika Waititi as an actor and director (though I'd seen Flight of the Conchords and a few other things, but this was what brought him to my attention specifically.) I've rewatched this many times and is probably the film I've recommended most to people looking to find a new movie. There have been two TV spinoffs, "Wellington Paranormal" and "What We Do In the Shadows (US)" and they both have the same dry humor of the original.<br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LZWVXpXT4Yw/XhJIbyUL44I/AAAAAAAACJk/HI2_Lh35BtMqHb5LbmGNrpsAt6Gbb0NFwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/220px-X-Men_Days_of_Future_Past_poster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="325" data-original-width="220" height="120" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LZWVXpXT4Yw/XhJIbyUL44I/AAAAAAAACJk/HI2_Lh35BtMqHb5LbmGNrpsAt6Gbb0NFwCLcBGAsYHQ/s200/220px-X-Men_Days_of_Future_Past_poster.jpg" width="81" /></a><b>5. X-Men: Days of Future Passed (2014) - </b>I've only liked a few X-Men movies and I was only slightly okay with the reboot cast after "First Class." Yet somehow this film finally made X-Men fun and extremely watchable. The opening scene in the alternate future where X-Men are being hunted with the original cast was the first time we actually saw the X-Men using their powers like superheroes (limited budgets and technology from the original films really stand out now.) I'm always a sucker for a good time-travel story, and the scene with Quicksilver running around the room during the prison break scene is up there for best scene of the decade for me. Of course, the next two X-Men films (Apocalypse and Dark Phoenix) succeeded at ruining the X-Men yet again, but there was a moment in 2014 when I was excited about X-men for the first time.<br />
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I would love to continue to elaborate, but instead, I'll just list a few more of my favorites after my top 5 or this will take me the rest of the year to complete:<br />
<ul>
<li><b>Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation (2015)</b>: Nearly as good as Ghost Protocol.</li>
<li><b>Captain America: Civil War (2016):</b> The airport battle was just amazing.</li>
<li><b>Edge of Tomorrow (2014)</b>: Loved this sci-fi premise</li>
<li><b>Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)</b>: Better than any Star Wars movie this century</li>
<li><b>Paranormal Activity 3 (2011)</b>: Paranormal Activity 1 was amazing, this prequel found some fun ways to keep it interesting</li>
<li><b>Mad Max Fury Road (2015)</b>: This movie is practically one extended action scene. It just doesn't stop.</li>
<li><b>Thor Ragnarok (2018)</b>: Taika Waititi brought his humor and Flash Gordon to Marvel and it was hilarious.</li>
<li><b>Get Out (2017)</b>: A great Twilight Zone horror movie with a great mystery premise.</li>
<li><b>John Wick (2014)</b>: Missed this in theaters and completely forgot this film after the first home viewing, yet three watches later and it's a masterpiece.</li>
<li><b>Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017)</b>: The best video game movie ever made.</li>
</ul>
Honorable Mentions:<br />
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The movie that I watched more than any other film this decade was: <b>Birdemic (Shock and Horror) (2010). </b>One of the worst movies ever made, I have shown this to sooooo many people and have delighted in just how jaw-droppingly bad this film is. It's awful, but somehow in an actually entertaining way.<br />
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<b>Fast Five (2011). </b>I completely ignored the Fast and Furious franchise until this film. Suddenly it changed from illegal street racing to international spy and heist movies. The final sequence of this film with the safe being dragged around the city is one of my favorite movie moments of the entire decade and has pulled me back into watching this franchise which just keeps getting bigger and dumber. I both love and hate these films.<br />
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<h2>
TV</h2>
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I don't believe we had cable at all over the past decade, so our television watching habits significantly changed these past 10 years. (My youngest son doesn't even understand watching TV that can't be paused or allow you to skip commercials!) Appointment viewing has all but disappeared, but binge watching, particularly with Netflix, has become the norm. There are only a handful of shows that I try to watch as soon as they air any more. Saturday Night Live being one of the consistent few that I still look forward to.</div>
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Here are some of my favorite shows over the past decade (in no particular order):</div>
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<ul>
<li><b>Biggest Loser</b> - We discovered this show around 2009/2010 and it was inspiring! It was also about the last show that Maria and I watched consistently together.</li>
<li><b>Community</b> - As this show got stranger and stranger it became more and more fun. Especially when the episodes starting becoming exercises in genre. It fell apart the last couple seasons, but when it was on, it was amazing.</li>
<li><b>Sherlock </b>- The show that launched Benedict Cumberbatch. The first three episodes were so fresh and interesting. The second season had an amazing cliff hanger. And then suddenly I realized that the show was more interested in itself than it was in any actual mysteries and my love for it eventually ran out.</li>
<li><b>QI </b>- I loved this British panel show with Stephen Fry and all the amazing facts that people don't know are actually wrong. I have several books that emerged from the series and even listened to a companion podcast for a while ("There's No Such Thing as a Fish.") Sadly I lost interest after Stephen left and haven't really watched the past few seasons.</li>
<li><b>America's Got Talent</b> - One of the few consistent shows I watched all decade (until this most recent season.) I really love the variety show aspect, but get very frustrated when singers win!</li>
<li><b>Studio C</b> - The family really enjoyed this BYU-based sketch comedy show. We even visited the actual Studio C a few years back when we were in Utah!</li>
<li><b>Saturday Night Live </b>- With the regularly rotating cast and hosts, and fresh commentary, I seem to be one of the few who thinks SNL is just as funny now as it was when "my cast" was there. (Which is to say, 1 or 2 actually funny sketches per episode.)</li>
<li><b>Face Off</b> - This strange special effect make-up competition reality show helped me survive when I discovered it and binge-watched 6 or 7 seasons during the month when I had my gall bladder surgery and literally could not sleep. I needed something to do to keep me occupied all night and this was it.</li>
<li><b>Last Week Tonight </b>- John Oliver with his humor found a way to get me interested and educated about topics that I normally could care less about (FIFA? Brexit?) Another one of the few shows I have to watch as soon as a new episodes is available.</li>
<li><b>Black Mirror</b> - An amazing and amazingly dark sci-fi Twilight-Zone series showing the potential horrors of technology and other near future concepts. Though the last season (this year) was mostly forgettable, every season before has had at least one or two hauntingly memorable episodes.</li>
<li><b>Stranger Things - </b>This show came out of nowhere and blew me away. It was such a perfect blend of Spielberg, Carpenter, Craven, and King along with seemingly every other 80s horror and adventure movie. I wish they'd have stopped with one, or made every subsequent series an anthology with a new story and characters. However, we got one amazing season that I still love.</li>
<li><b>Penn & Teller Fool Us - </b>This series that started as a British show then moved to the US is one of the few magic shows on TV that I consistently love. Particularly since the magic is made to fool Penn & Teller, and not the TV audience. That somehow makes the magic performances feel more authentic because you know it's not about camera tricks, it's about cleverness and practice.</li>
<li><b>Derren Brown specials - </b>My favorite magician, Derren Brown, puts out regular specials over the past decade from convincing a schlub that he can emergency land a commercial airplane with no flying lessons, to planning an art heist using retirees, to making someone commit (simulated) murder, and then someone else jump in front of a bullet for a stranger. He's always got some concept that just seems impossible, but is always entertaining. He also released many of his stage shows as well, which are always amazing.</li>
<li><b>Mandalorian - </b>Disney+ debuted at the end of 2019 and this was the best show on it and the best Star Wars show since the original trilogy.</li>
</ul>
<h2>
Music </h2>
Music has sadly become less important to me for some strange reason over the decade, replaced mostly with listening to podcasts. Partly is the work involved in finding new good music. Most of the decade was me listening to newer releases from older bands I already knew, or occasionally searching music blogs to find a hidden gem I wasn't aware of. Once in a while I would find a band through someone's recommendation like my brother, or more recently my son. One or two might come from a random suggested video on YouTube, and finally this past year via recommendations from Spotify. I'm really interested to see how Spotify changes my listening habits and new music finding ability in the future. For now, it's still a new service to me.<br />
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The decade also started out with me putting out a lot of my own music, including my self-recorded album "Another Fine Mess" in 2011. I finished another half an album's worth of material before hitting some creative roadblocks that have kept me from recording anything more for a few years. I still have quite a few songs in me waiting to come out, so hopefully they'll emerge eventually.<br />
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Greg Whitehead - Another Fine Mess (album playlist)<br />
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<br />
My favorite song I recorded over the past decade and that I feel I've ever written is this one from 2013, "Again Tomorrow." This was when I first got Garageband for my phone and my new Mac computer, and it added some extra technical orchestration abilities that I didn't have on my earlier songs.<br />
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Greg Whitehead - "Again Tomorrow"<br />
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The artist (outside myself) that I listened to the most this decade is most likely the band Muse. They released 3 albums over the decade, with a 4th that was still new at the end of 2009 that I was likely listening to regularly in 2010. Right next to Muse was the Darkness with another four albums over the decade. Never my favorite band, or favorite album of the year, yet they remained fairly consistent with their sound. Sadly they've never improved upon their second album "One Way Ticket" which is still my favorite of theirs.<br />
<br />
Here are my favorite albums of the decade, in only slightly significant order:<br />
<br />
<br />
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<b>Yes - Fly From Here - </b>I had pretty much given up on expecting any more albums from Yes--or any classic rock band--to release an album in the 2010s that I would end up liking. Maybe it's the magic of Trevor Horn returning to producer chair, or that technically these songs all originally came from the late 70s/early 80s, or that (*gasp*) Jon Anderson didn't sing on it. Whatever the case, it was one of my favorite albums of the decade and probably my third favorite Yes album overall. If only Trevor Rabin were also involved to really give it that 80s feel! With the recent death of Chris Squire, I doubt there will ever be another great Yes album. We'll see.<br />
<b></b><br />
<br />
<br />
<iframe seamless="" src="https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=255060315/size=small/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=0687f5/transparent=true/" style="border: 0; height: 42px; width: 100%;"><a href="http://michaelsherwoodchristiannesmith.bandcamp.com/album/groovy-lemon-pie">Groovy Lemon Pie by Michael Sherwood & Christian Nesmith</a></iframe><br />
<b>Michael Sherwood & Christian Nesmith - Groovy Lemon Pie</b> - Two artists whose names I can never remember and only made this one collaboration that I am aware of, made an amazingly beautiful collection of pop songs merging Genesis-era Peter Gabriel-style vocals with haunting arrangements and catchy hooks and harmonies. We took this album on a summer trip to Utah and Yellowstone Park and it will be forever connected to the gorgeous scenery we experienced on that trip. "Look Out Below" is a particular favorite.<br />
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<b>Muse - The 2nd Law - </b>This album starts off with Muse attempting to write a Bond theme (hoping to be used for "Skyfall" if the stories are true) which is better than any other Bond theme this century. Then they go on to write an amazing song for the Olympics ("Survival.") This album has them playing with glam rock, funk, more Queen, and finally orchestral dubstep. None of my most favorite Muse songs are on this album, but it's probably the one in total that I've listened to the most rather than just culling out a few of my favorite songs.<br />
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<b>Gotye - Making Mirrors - </b>This is the first time in the decades that I've watched SNL that a musical guest intrigued me enough to go find out more about them. Gotye came out of seemingly nowhere in 2012 with this album and then seemed to have returned to wherever it was he was originally hiding because he's never made a follow up, despite a massive hit with "Somebody that I Used to Know." Still this album and his prior album and a few other songs ended up playing on repeat in our car for quite some time becoming a family favorite.<br />
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<b>OK Go - Hungry Ghosts - </b>Not my favorite band or album musically, though I do enjoy this for the most part. However, the videos these guys make elevate every song from good to amazing. Once in a while a great video can improve a song but these guys make it a regular habit. Plus the videos are always amazing.<br />
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<b></b>
A few more favorites albums from the decade:<br />
<ul>
<li>Hoosiers - Illusion of Safety - one of the few last surviving Britpop bands</li>
<li>Tally Hall - Good & Evil - forever associated with our family trip to Aspen Grove in 2011</li>
<li>Chateau Marmont - The Maze</li>
<li>Rob Cantor - Not a Trampoline</li>
<li>Beck - Colors</li>
<li>Roger Joseph Manning Jr - Glamping - had a wonderful experience meeting Roger with my brother Jeffrey and doing a deep dive on each of the songs on this EP at the end of 2018</li>
</ul>
Thinking about favorite individual songs of the decade, that's quite a bit more difficult to figure out and narrow down, but there are a few that spring to mind so I'll add few here:<br />
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<b>Jukebox the Ghost - "Jumpstarted" - </b>First listen to this song hurt my head because of all the constant changes, but once it clicked---Wow! I loved it. Very Queen-esque, but since this band worships Queen, I'm okay with that.<br />
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<b>The Producers (Trevor Horn Band) - "Freeway" - </b>One of those songs that I can just listen to on repeat. The harmonies are beautiful, and the song builds and builds to euphoria. I instantly loved this from first listen.<br />
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<b>The 1975 - Love Me - </b>The odd funky retro 80s mix of David Bowie ("Let's Dance" -- oddly, just before he passed,) Peter Garbriel ("Sledgehammer,") and Scritti Politti ("Perfect Way,") came out of nowhere in the middle of the decade, and it immediately became one of my favorite songs that year in spite of me not really caring much for anything else the band did. <br />
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<b>Tally Hall - Out in the Twilight - </b>This song starts as a regular pop song. Catchy, but nothing special. I'm not sure what happens, but at 2 minutes into this great little song everything just comes together and it suddenly soars like a long lost 80s Yes song.<br />
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Honorable mention: <b>Stefan Zauner (as S.O.L.) - "Something for Beginners"</b> - this came out in 1995, but I just found it recently and I love it. Took me forever to track down the full album on CD which is amazing in a digital world. Nothing is quite as good as this, but I'm happy to have found it nonetheless.<br />
<br />
<h2>
Games </h2>
When the decade started out we had the Wii and XBox 360. The Wii U came and went, and then we moved on to the Switch and XBox One. We also went through quite a lot of versions of portable DS's as a family. Most of my casual gaming has been taken over by the iPhone where it has pretty much remained. I'm still primarily a Nintendo fan, while my son Colin pretty much lives on the XBox. <br />
<br />
Here are the games that I liked best this past decade:<br />
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<b>Portal 2</b> - This is almost a perfect game. It takes the crazy Portal transport idea from the almost mini-game of the original and fleshes it out into a full game, with a crazy story and new crazier mechanics, full of humor and surprises. The miracle of this game is that it presents you with a new puzzle that makes no sense and after experimenting for a while you suddenly feel like a genius when you solve it. I'm sad that Valve has seemingly moved away from this and Half Life story games that were all so amazing.<br />
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<b>Zelda: Breath of the Wild </b>- This game is beautiful, epic, and wonderful. I'm struggling to decide <br />
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whether this or Ocarina of Time is the superior Zelda game. Ocarina of Time took a 2D franchise into 3D and found a way to reimagine the game into an amazing fully realized world. Breath of the Wild finds a way to completely reimagine the Zelda game from the ground up while keeping enough elements that it still feels familiar. Both are groundbreaking and feel like entirely new, fresh experiences. I think the nostalgia factor has the edge on this last Zelda game, but the fact that it stands next to that game while containing many elements that are demonstrably superior says something.<br />
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<b>Batman Arkham Series (Asylum, City, Origins, Knight) </b>- With the exception of Origins which felt like it was rehashing the formula a bit too much, this entire series, with Arkham City being my favorite, is just excellent. I've played no other game that makes me just enjoy wandering around like this series. Having a full city to explore with hundreds of secrets and riddles to discover alongside the overall story and being able to grapple up into the sky and glide around is so much fun. I was never a comic book fan nor particularly interested in Batman, but this game changed that and educated me on Batman's lore while allowing me to have fun being a superhero detective.<br />
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game. This makes no sense and surely can't be fun. Yet the whole concept of building your own Springfield piece by piece by earning characters and landmarks and random walls, chairs, and other accessories was so enticing to me and my obsessive collector personality that I played this for years. From the seaside, to the giant mall, to Mr. Burns expansive property, to the particularly spooky haunted Halloween areas, I had a fully fleshed out, thriving city of my own. Then I reached the tipping point where I had so much stuff I was just stashing it into corners until the day I decided to reorganize everything. The sheer size of all the items waiting my careful creative decisions frustrated me to the point that I finally had to stop playing the game. But that was after 4 years. I can't think of any single game that has had me playing that long.<br />
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<b>Jackbox Series/Use Your Words - </b>My brother introduced me to the Jackbox party game series a few years ago and it was an instant hit in our house. The game plays by having all the players use their phones as input devices while you play various quiz, trivia, fill-in-the-blank, and other variety games. A new set of games comes out every year and we have them all. My sons regularly invite people over to the house for Jackbox parties and they always have a good time. Not every game is a hit, but every year there are at least 1 or 2 worthy games that require returning to regularly. The concept of playing with your phones was so great that another game "Use Your Words" came out with the same mechanic and is every bit as fun as the best of Jackbox. <br />
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<b>Super Mario Galaxy 2/Odyssey - </b>Super Mario Galaxy 2 came out at the beginning of the decade <br />
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and Odyssey came out near the end. Because it's been 10 years, I don't remember much about Galaxy, other than really liking it and that it would regularly introduce new gameplay ideas and mechanics that any other company would build a whole game around it. Super Mario Odyssey continues Nintendo's knack of finding new, innovative, and most importantly, fun ways of using their iconic mascot.<br />
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<b>Angry Birds (Seasons, Rio, Friends, Space, Star Wars, Bad Piggies, etc.) - </b>It's 2020, aren't we over Angry Birds yet? Yes. Yes we are. However, at the beginning of the decade this game and game series were huge. It was a huge part of defining and evolving smartphone/portable gaming. And for that alone, I must acknowledge this series as being hugely influential to gaming as a whole in the past ten years. I also played every single entry in the game for at least five years.<br />
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<b>Unfinished Swan - </b>I purchased the PS3 after the PS4 released and everyone <br />
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was getting rid of their old consoles. This beautiful gem of a game made the purchase almost single-handedly worth it. You start the game with just a white screen. No instructions. You push some buttons and suddenly a glob of blank ink shoots out and hits something. Surprised, you push the button a few times, and paint the wall black in front of you. You turn your stick to spread out your painting and suddenly realize you are in a completely white room and based on where the ink has hit you can start to make out corners and a hallway. I won't spoil things beyond that, but this single mechanic of discovering a completely white world by throwing paint is both incredibly simple and mind-blowingly innovative.<br />
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<h2>
Other things </h2>
I had a few other topics I normally list such as podcasts, board games, books, etc. However, I've been working on this post for a week now--something I thought I'd knock out in an afternoon!--and it's exhausting me.<br />
<br />
So I'll just give a few quick shout outs:<br />
<br />
Board Games favorites of the decade:<br />
<ul>
<li>Mysterium</li>
<li>Betrayal at House on the Hill</li>
<li>Munchkin</li>
<li>Superfight!</li>
<li>Legendary deck builders (James Bond, Buffy, Aliens, Predator) </li>
<li>Dice Throne</li>
</ul>
Podcasts I listened to the most over the decade:<br />
<ul>
<li>Slashfilmcast</li>
<li>Nerdist</li>
<li>Movie B.S. with Bayer and Snider</li>
<li>How Did this Get Made</li>
<li>Now Playing</li>
<li>We Hate Movies</li>
<li>Empire</li>
<li>James Bonding</li>
</ul>
Books I loved the most:<br />
<ul>
<li>Ready Player One</li>
<li>World War Z</li>
<li>Hunger Games</li>
</ul>
<div>
All in all, it's been an eventful decade. One would hope, right? I did start and end this decade in the same place with the same home and same job. Biggest difference: we added one more new member of the family who is half a year away from being a decade old himself--and the other two boys who were near his age in 2010 are graduated or graduating. Maria created her own occupation as an editor which has been both amazing and really helpful in getting on top of things financially.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Some personal highlights: I recorded an album, dabbled in app building, continued to do magic tricks, took up crocheting and amigurumi, and finally became obsessed with board games and met a lot of new friends. I discovered Escape Rooms this decade as well as those pay-by-the-ounce yogurt shops. I met my keyboard hero, Roger Joseph Manning Jr, and saw my first in-real-life Python, John Cleese. I traveled the world by going on multiple trips to UK and Italy along with many other trips within and around this country. I traveled to famous sites such as Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, the Space Needle, the Colosseum, and Stonehenge. </div>
<div>
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<div>
I can't wait to see where the next ten years will take us!</div>
</div>
</div>
Gumbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16164366902768547090noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-87233659039775561.post-51776833357485618112020-01-01T20:03:00.003-06:002020-01-01T20:06:30.266-06:00Greg's Favorites of 2019<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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2019 is over. The 2010s are over. This blog still exists! Wow.<br />
<br />
2019 was a novel year with some significant changes in my personal interests and hobbies. This year by happy accident I discovered the secret world of board gaming, and it just about took over from everything else. Or at least everything else had to move over to make room for this new hobby.<br />
<br />
With Maria's editing job becoming a more significant source of income, we had a bit more discretionary funds this year and so besides board games, this was the year of conventions. I attended several board game conventions (SaltCon, BGG, and more), pop culture conventions (All Con, ArlingCon), magic conventions (Penguin Magic Dallas), Halloween/horror-themed conventions (Oddities Expo, Spooky Spectacle), and more. We went to the State Fair, Sherwood Forest Renaissance Festival, and Screams Halloween park (which I've been wanting to see for years and years and finally had the chance this year.) I got to see a couple magic shows in Vegas (during a work trip,) including David Copperfield which was absolutely amazing! We didn't take any big trips as a family, with Colin working nights with no vacations, so we had to make due with weekend trips and events.<br />
<br />
Let's move on to my favorites.<br />
<h2>
Music</h2>
<div>
There was a bit of an uptick in finding new music this year, thanks to <b>Spotify</b>. My son Spencer had been loaned an account from a girlfriend, but then they broke up. He then had to convince us to sign up for a family account so he could keep all his music and playlists. Streaming music is allowed at my work so I was able to listen a lot there and at home in the mornings. The service is really good at suggesting music that you might like that you would normally never hear, so that lead to some interesting finds this year. Here are some of my favorites:</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li><b>Temples: Hot Motion </b>- This band has been around for a few years, but I only found them this year. Spencer had one of their older songs on his favorites playlist that I heard in the car and it piqued my interest. I looked into them and found a really great modern psychedelic band with bits of BritPop and 60s British Invasion. (See "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkLwWYiYn_E" target="_blank">Shelter Song</a>," the song I heard on Spencer's playlist, for a great lost Beatles song.)</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div>
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<ul>
<li><b>Annexe the Moon </b>- Another modern psychedelic rock band which was randomly suggested by Spotify. They don't appear to have any albums out, just singles and e.p.s. They also have no bio and I can barely find any info out there about them, but what music is available is great so far.</li>
</ul>
<div>
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<br />
<ul>
<li><b>Bryan Scary: Birds</b> - It's been 7 years or so since the last proper Bryan Scary release (Daffy's Elixir.) As you can tell by the title, this album is about birds. Every song about birds. This guy really likes to keep his concept albums on point. However, these songs are really quite beautiful and seem much more relaxed and less frantic than his earlier work.</li>
</ul>
<div>
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<br />
<ul>
<li><b>Trevor Horn Reimagines the 80's</b> - Trevor Horn goes back to the 80s and enlists some guest stars and an orchestra and reinterprets songs that he was involved with and a few others. Some to greater effect than others. I only like about half this album, but there's a few that I really enjoy. I especially like his version of Owner of a Lonely Heart.</li>
</ul>
<div>
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<br />
<ul>
<li><b>White Lies: Tokyo</b> - This one snuck in at the end for me after finding it on someone else's top songs of the year list. I have yet to fully explore this band or even the album it's from, but it stands alone as a great song either way. I'm reminded of some 80s synth rock like Simple Minds or Alphaville mixed with a modern feel of Imagine Dragons ("Radioactive").</li>
</ul>
<div>
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/BwM_mK1HJaA" width="560"></iframe><br />
<br />
A few other musical items I listened to this year:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Darkness - Easter is Cancelled. More Darkness. Not bad, but nothing new or particularly grabbing.</li>
<li>Howard Jones - Transform. An enjoyable new album from Howard Jones. Has some of his best stuff since the 80s.</li>
<li>Jeff Lynne's ELO - From Out of Nowhere. Interesting to hear something new from ELO, but little of it was the ELO that I like.</li>
<li>Blame Candy - <a href="https://youtu.be/DdiPF5z02Zo" target="_blank">Pathetic</a>. A new glam rock band that only has a few songs out and little information that I can find. This song is amazing. Not sure if/when a full album will exist.</li>
<li>Dhani Harrison - <a href="https://youtu.be/_rOY7BgWAd0" target="_blank">Motorways (Erase It)</a>. Spotify put this on a random suggested playlist for me one week. My first thought, "Wow, this sounds just like George Harrison." Then I looked and discovered it was his son. Great psychedelic rock. No idea if this is part of more music or and album. I could only find this one song from this past year.</li>
<li>the bird and the bee - Reinterpreting the Masters 2: A Tribute to Van Halen: I don't know this band, but this is amazing. Soft rock, poppy modern versions of hard rock classics. Here's <a href="https://youtu.be/LFGxr8iTm9Q" target="_blank">Panama</a>.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<h2>
Movies</h2>
I didn't see as many movies this year, partly from board game nights and partly because I changed some focus at work which left less time for casual movies playing in the background. However, I am still subscribing to AMC A-List which gives 3 "free" movies a week. I've only used that full quota once or twice, usually only using 2 tickets once in a while when a couple good movies open on a weekend, or I have to catch up from missing one that opened earlier.<br />
<br />
I watched about 161 movies this year (down from 270 last year. Wow.): 56 movies in the theater (the most ever in a year), 25 newer movies at home (movies released 2018/2019), 39 older movies for the first time (usually older films for my bad movie podcasts), and 41 rewatched movies (many inspired from subscribing to the new Disney+ service.)<br />
<br />
Here are some of my favorite movies of the year:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><b>Avengers: End Game</b>. I saw this twice. I cried, cheered, gasped, and altogether loved this film. It was an amazing culmination of a decade of Marvel films.</li>
<li><b>Us/Ready or Not/Knives Out</b>: I expected with the title "Knives Out" that the latter would share a bit more in common in the horror elements with the two former. However, all three of these films are both great individually and work together with an odd synchronicity in providing similar commentary about the struggle between upper class vs lower class or the haves vs the have-nots. I enjoyed each of these films this year.</li>
<li><b>John Wick Chapter 3: Parabellum</b>. I loved the simplicity of the first movie, and this one continues to add too much complicated detail to the story, but the set pieces and fight scenes are just amazing, making me forgive everything else.</li>
<li><b>Spider-Man: Far From Home.</b> This was a great dessert film after Avengers. It probably won't resonate for long, but I had a lot of fun watching it.</li>
<li><b>Shazam!</b> Loved this take on "Big" as a superhero movie. If only the kid in the film was having as much fun as Chuck.</li>
<li><b>Doctor Sleep</b>. I never liked the Shining. This shares an author and a terrible title, otherwise it's quite different and I was surprised how much I preferred this sequel to the original.</li>
<li><b>Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw.</b> Okay this was dumb. Really dumb. But it knew it was dumb and leaned into it. Somehow the Rock was more of a video game character in this than <b>Jumanji: The Next Level.</b></li>
<li><b>It: Chapter 2</b>. I enjoyed the great casting of the middle-aged version of the first movie's kids. There were some great tense and scary sequences. It didn't hold together very well in the end, but it was good enough to complete the story more or less satisfactorily.</li>
<li><b>Happy Death Day 2U.</b> I need to watch this again since it was at the beginning of the year, but I really liked how this turned from weird slasher horror to Back-to-the-Future 2 sci-fi. It's too bad it still needed to keep the killer aspect from the first movie.</li>
<li><b>Yesterday.</b> I expected more from this though I enjoyed it. I loved the set-up: a struggling musician finds himself in a world where he's the only one who knows Beatles songs and so he records them as his own. It didn't seem to want to explore its own premise as much as it should have. It made me think that if called on to do so, I would step up to recreate Weird Al's discography.</li>
</ul>
<br />
Disappointments and other films of note:<br />
<br />
There were a lot of stinkers this year. After Avengers showed how to cap off a big giant sprawling franchise, <b>Star Wars: Rise of the Skywalker</b> completely blew it (and so did <b>Game of Thrones</b> on TV.) <b>X-Men: Dark Phoenix</b> was a complete dud. <b>MIB International</b> found a way to make the stars of the last Thor movie completely uncharismatic. <b>Godzilla: King of the Monsters</b> seemed more interested in people sitting around in dark control rooms than in the monsters.<br />
<br />
There was a movie that came out this year called <b>Serenity</b> which had nothing to do with the Firefly franchise. This was a movie with Matthew McConaughey and a boat. It's a terrible, terrible movie but it has a jaw-dropping twist. One you can see coming, but it's so ridiculous that you dismiss it because it couldn't possibly be so stupid as to be that twist. Yes. It is that twist. This is a movie that will be forgotten by most, but then secretly passed around and become a cult hit film in the future.<br />
<br />
Looking into 2020: There's a new Bond movie ("No Time to Die.") Another excuse to rewatch the franchise. This is likely Daniel Craig's last time as Bond and I hope it's an improvement over the last one. Wonder Woman is going to 1984, which should be interesting. "A Quiet Place: part 2" is coming. Can it be as interesting as the first? Another new Ghostbusters is coming connecting back to the original. But I guess the one I'm anticipating most with a significant amount of trepidation is "Bill & Ted Face the Music." Comedy sequels seldom work. Comedy sequels set years after the original ("Dumb & Dumber To" "Blues Bros 2000") almost always fail spectacularly. Let's see where this goes.<br />
<h2>
TV</h2>
I both watched more TV than ever before and less in the same year. How is that possible? There were very few series that I faithfully or completely watched this year. Much less than in years past. A few major shows that I've watched for years I completely skipped such as America's Got Talent and, (gasp!) the Simpsons. Yet I watched more YouTube clips from TV shows than before by watching late night talk shows every day on YouTube. Stephen Colbert, Seth Meyers, Jimmy Kimmel, and occasionally James Corden and Jimmy Fallon. Then I'd go over and see what's happening on CNN and MSNBC. I was somehow so fascinated with the craziness of reality that I gave up on TV make believe (or even TV "reality" shows!)<br />
<br />
Regardless, here's a few of the things I watched this year:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><b>Late Night Talk Shows.</b> As I said above, this was what I watched the most of and the most regularly. Particularly the monologues and then any interesting guests.</li>
<li><b>The Mandalorian</b>. I loved this. With every Star Wars movie seemingly worse than the previous, this TV show gave me "A New Hope" for Star Wars on TV. "Baby Yoda" and all the various adventures and characters (IG-11 especially!) made me hang on to Star Wars when I was about to jump off.</li>
<li><b>This Time with Alan Partridge</b>. I think this is the first Alan Partridge project that I actually saw as it was released rather than caught up on later. Very funny show. I liked the concept of Alan co-hosting a daily news and talk show, but I wish there was more behind-the-scenes elements or plot developments across the series.</li>
<li><b>Cobra Kai (S2). </b>I didn't love this as much as the first series, but it had some interesting twists and continues to play with the nostalgia of the original movie(s) while twisting it at the same time.</li>
<li><b>What We Do In the Shadows.</b> A spinoff from the movie I love so much. The series is set in the US rather than New Zealand with a different set of Vampires, but has the same style of humor. I liked "Wellington Paranormal" better last year.</li>
<li><b>Penn & Teller Fool Us. </b>Still my favorite magic-themed show on TV.</li>
<li><b>I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson. </b>A very quick, very random, sketch comedy series on Netflix. So quick I nearly forgot about it until I reviewed my list. I rewatched a couple episodes and remembered that it was indeed funny.</li>
<li><b>Touch of Cloth. </b>A comedy British detective show from 2012-2014. Only three episodes (or TV movies?) done in the Airplane-style of straight-faced absurd comedy. A great treasure find for the year.</li>
</ul>
<div>
A few other TV items of note: There was new <b>Arrested Development</b> this year. I'm pretty sure I watched it. I don't remember it. There was new <b>Black Mirror</b> this year. I'm pretty sure I watched it. I don't remember it. There was new <b>Stranger Things</b> this year. I'm pretty sure I watched it. I don't remember it. (Actually Stranger Things S3 was better than S2, but I think they should have stopped with one season.)</div>
<br />
No idea what to look for in 2020. I'm mostly looking for Marvel shows and other Star Wars stuff on Disney+. I think "Falcon and the Winter Soldier" is coming in the fall.<br />
<br />
<h2>
<b>Podcasts and Online</b></h2>
In the past I included late night shows here and news channels, but I moved them to TV this year for no reason. Here's what else I listened to on my phone or watched on YouTube.<br />
<ul>
<li><b>RedLetterMedia - </b>Half in the Bag, Best of the Worst, movie reviews and more. I'm always excited when something is released on this channel.</li>
<li><b>ScreenJunkies</b> - Honest Trailers and daily movie news show.</li>
<li><b>Movie B.S./Empire/Slashfilmcast - </b>All my regular movie review podcasts that I've been listening to forever.</li>
<li><b>We Hate Movies/How did this Get Made </b>- My favorite bad movie podcasts.</li>
<li><b>James Bonding</b>/<b>Star Trek the Next Conversation/In Voorhees We Trust/Monkey Tennis -</b> My favorite podcasts around specific franchises I listened to this year: Bond, Trek, Friday 13th, and Alan Partridge</li>
<li><b>Board Game Channels or shows: </b>Shut Up & Sit Down, Game the Game, Dice Tower, Rahdo Runs Through it, Game Night, and many others. I watched a lot of playthroughs and instructional videos regarding board games. It just helped to feed my current obsession.</li>
<li>I tried a few board game podcasts as well (Shut Up & Sit Down, Board to Bits, a few others) but I soon found it's a subject that just didn't work for me over audio.</li>
</ul>
<h2>
Games</h2>
<div>
We got a second Switch this year so both Spencer and Jaden could play. Since it's a portable system, sometimes it wouldn't be around when someone wanted to play. Unfortunately, games don't easily share across systems, so we ended up having to repurchase a lot of them. So as convenient as digital downloading is, having a physical copy works much better if you want to have multiple consoles! Just a random word of advice. Most of my gaming this year was on the phone, followed by Switch, and then XBox One. Here are a few of note:</div>
<br />
<ul>
<li><b>Happy Color </b>- I think both Maria and I got hooked on this simple paint-by-number app. Very therapeutic.</li>
<li><b>Batman Arkham Collection - </b> I purchased and replayed the entire Arkham series, save Origins. <b>Arkham Knight </b>was brand new for me, though. I still really enjoy this series. The exploration and movement through the city (from Arkham City and on) make this an all-time classic series for me.</li>
<li><b>Luigi's Mansion 3 - </b>They finally made a full game on a console for Luigi's Mansion. I always loved the original, but it felt more like a tech demo than a full game. The sequel was on the DS, so this is the full game I've been waiting for since the release of the GameCube. It's a lot of fun.</li>
<li><b>Archero</b> - Dungeon/fantasy "shooter" game (using arrows, axes, etc.) game that makes things super difficult and impossible to pass until you grind and grind to improve your character and weapons and hope for random bonuses to help you get to the end of the level only to present you with something even harder. I don't know why I've put so much time into this.</li>
<li><b>Pirates Outlaws/Legendary DXP - </b>Deck builder games for the iphone. The first game made me realize that I really like deck builders. Particularly ones where you don't have to build the deck ahead of time (e.g. Yu-gi-oh, Magic). This lead me to the <b>Legendary</b> deck builder series in both real life and on the phone.</li>
<li><b>Homescapes/Cooking Craze</b> - Two of my bigger time wasters on the phone this year. Matching game and a food management game.</li>
<li><b>Link's Awakening - </b>A full console remake of the GameBoy sequel to A Link to the Past. Because it's a faithful recreation of the original game, there's a lot of older out-dated game mechanics, but I loved the 3D recreation and new artwork in the game.</li>
<li><b>I Love Hue</b> - A simple idea for a game that gets surprisingly complicated fast, where you put blocks in order of color gradient. But those colors get more and more subtle as you progress and it somehow turns into playing by feel rather than by logic.</li>
<li><b>Golf Blitz - </b>I got really hooked on this for a while this year on my phone. It was a very fast and fun competitive golf game until I leveled up enough that it had a hard time finding enough opponents. Then instead of 4 man games it was mostly 1 on 1 which was less fun. Then after losing a bunch of games in a row and rage quitting, I gave up altogether.</li>
<li><b>Apple Arcade - </b>I signed up for a free month's trial at the end of the year. It's a large collection of games that aren't trying to sell me gameplay via advertising. Looking forward to exploring this more.</li>
</ul>
<div>
Looking into 2020, I know most of the family are excited for the new Animal Crossing for Switch. For me, I'm holding onto the small possibility that there's a new Metroid Prime or even Zelda Breath of the Wild 2 coming before the end of the year.</div>
<h2>
Board Games</h2>
So I think I've had board games on my list a time or two in the past, but this year it's a beast.<br />
<br />
At the end of February I went to a work trip to Ogden, Utah. I discovered that the hotel I was in was next to a convention center and that weekend they were holding a board game convention called SaltCon. I managed to finish my work early (Thursday morning) and wasn't scheduled to leave until Saturday, so I bought myself admission and had a blast! There was a giant room of tables with people playing hundreds of games I'd never heard of. There was a great big dealer room with people showing off games and gaming paraphernalia that I spent hours in. The next day I was going to spend with my brother Jeffrey. I called him and asked if he wanted to join me at the convention. So we spent the day playing games together there. I came back to Fort Worth and looked up gaming groups. I found one that played Tuesdays at the Hulen mall where I went for a few months, then I discovered almost in my backyard, "Fort Worth Game Night" (FWGN) that meets just a few miles away and has people who host almost in walking distance from me. I joined up with that group and have gamed weekly and more since May. I've been introduced to hundreds of games I'd never heard of and almost all of my top games of this year are ones I was not aware of last 9 months ago. I've had to rearrange my game collection and get new shelves several times this year as I keep adding new games I didn't know I'd love. I've also made a lot of new friends with the local gaming community, which I'm also excited about.<br />
<br />
I got an app to keep track of my plays and here's what it tells me. I played 465 games this year (probably low since I'm sure I missed a few). Of those 465, 225 were unique. In other words, many of those I played multiple times. So I played 225 different games this year. I played a game in 32 different locations (homes, conventions, hotel rooms, etc.)<br />
<br />
Here are some of my favorites this year:<br />
<ul>
<li><b>Legendary James Bond/Legendary Buffy/Legendary Encounters (Alien)/Legendary Encounters Predator/Legendary Big Trouble in Little China</b>. The Legendary card games mostly all play with the same mechanic of starting with a few cards that allow you to fight and recruit/purchase more cards. You try to fight off a deck of bad guys while adding newer, stronger cards that will help you fight stronger bad guys and finally beat the final boss. I love how they theme these games into the different franchises. Each one has slightly different elements that work within it's own theme. There's still a few I don't have such as X-Files, Firefly, and Marvel.</li>
<li><b>Dice Throne - </b>This is a battle game like a board game version of Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat, where you pick your fighter at the beginning of the game and each one plays slightly different. Then you battle the other player(s) to remove their health while trying to fend them off from doing the same to you. I love the dice mechanisms, the menu board of different battle choices, and how each character works differently. There are currently two "Series" of Dice Throne, both of which I own and are fully compatible with each other. I have also pre-ordered (or "Kick-started") <b>Dice Throne Adventures</b> which turns the game into a cooperative dungeon crawler. I'm super excited about that.</li>
<li><b>Space Base</b> - Another dice-based game where you draft spaceship cards that go on to your board on spaces 1-12 and roll your dice to get whatever rewards match your dice. The bonus is as you send your ships out from your base, they get rewards whenever other players roll their dice. So you are always involved the entire game, even when it's not your turn. Jaden and I played the regular game and a couple expansions that I grabbed and had a blast. <b>The Emergence of Shy Pluto</b> expansion had a particularly fun way of introducing the expanded elements over a series of games.</li>
<li><b>Bang! The Dice Game</b> - I guess I like dice. This is a hidden role game (like Mafia, Werewolf) where you are the Sheriff and Deputies vs Outlaws. You roll dice to shoot other players and heal yourself. No one knows if you are shooting a friend or enemy at first. I'm not initially a fan of hidden role games, but this one is simple enough (unless you add all the expansions like I have) that it can be a lot of fun. Only issue is that it needs a large group to play.</li>
<li><b>Tiny Epic Games - </b>I got <b>Tiny Epic Quest</b> at SaltCon, essentially Legend of Zelda the board game. I eventually got <b>Tiny Epic Zombies, Western, Galaxies, Defenders, Kingdoms, and Mechs. </b>Of those, Galaxies and Zombies are my favorites and both are really great games that I can replay again and again. The rest range from really good to okay. Some I need to play a bit more to really decide how I feel about them. But I love that they are all small, and easily fit in the edges of a game bag or backpack or luggage.</li>
<li><b>Paranormal Detectives </b>- This game is a lot like <b>Mysterium</b> which has been one of my favorite games for several years, this takes the same concept of Clue (finding murder weapon, location, etc.) lead by a ghost player except rather than just communicating via cards, you communicate via a whole range of methods from writing using someone else's hand to pantomime to sculpting string into shapes and more. The mysteries each have a full story rather than being random so it makes it fun as the detectives try to take bits of information and create their own version of the story.</li>
<li><b>Chronicles of Crime - </b>Speaking of mysteries, this unique game is a series of mysteries where you use your phone to scan crime scenes and interrogate witnesses. I've only played a few games, but I really love the unique way this game plays.</li>
<li><b>Unlock!/Exit the Game</b> - These "Escape Room" in a box games add to several that I already had. I'm fascinated with these games and have a large collection as I've made them into a Pokemon game of "gotta catch 'em all."</li>
</ul>
Looking into 2020, there are still thousands of games I've never played, and more being released each year. As mentioned under "Dice Throne" above, I have Kickstarted (became a Kickstarter backer of) "Dice Throne Adventures," as well as several others such as "Dungeon Drop," "Zorro the Dice Game," "Hunted" (Alien-style solo game), and a few others. So those are obvious games I'm looking forward to when they finish production and get released. Otherwise, I'm looking forward to attending more gaming conventions, and more game nights to discover more games or just to play the ones that I already have.<br />
<h2>
Books</h2>
<div>
I didn't do a lot of reading this year. As usual. Here's what I did read:</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li><b>Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - </b>An interesting time travel, butterfly-effect story in the Potter universe. I'm interested in someday seeing how they stage things in this play that seem impossible from the script.</li>
<li><b>Alan Partridge: Nomad </b>- Alan Partridge goes on a long walk. Sometimes very funny. I did something I seldom do and switched to audiobook version half way through. It really needed Alan's voice.</li>
<li><b>Queen Album by Album</b> - a book that steps through all of Queen's discography with some interesting insight, though they always seemed to skip over the songs I love the most.</li>
<li><b>The Great Brain - </b>I read this book to Jaden over a few months at night when I was at home and he wasn't too late for bed time. I think he quite enjoyed it. It was one of my favorite book series as a kid.</li>
</ul>
<div>
Into 2020, Maria got me some type of strange horror book that I'm very curious about for Christmas. I don't even recall the title and don't want to get up and walk 10 feet to look at it. I'll keep it a mystery until I read it this new year. I've also got some puzzle books, "Escape Room in a book" from Christmas and Kickstarter that I'll be trying out this year.</div>
</div>
<h2>
And so...</h2>
<div>
That's it for 2019. I'll be doing another post to wrap up the entire decade soon. So look for that.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Otherwise this year will see Spencer graduating and starting college. Jaden will be moving on from elementary school to a secondary school for 5-6th grades. Colin aims for more than working nights at Home Depot, so hopefully he'll find a way to move on to better things work-wise. I've been moved to a new organization at work just before the Christmas break that could potentially shift me onto new things--though it's too early to say yet. They've also modified our work schedule this upcoming year to 10 hour days with every Friday off. Not sure yet how losing an hour with my family to gain a day for myself will work in the long run. Maria continues to work as an editor and has increased her rates again for the new year which shows how much her writers value her that they all consented to paying more for her services. We have a trip planned this summer to go up through the mountains of Tennessee, a part of the country I've never been to, so I'm looking forward to that. We really want to find a way to get to Disneyworld again, but school and work schedules keep getting in the way. Also, it costs a lot! Maybe we will find a way this year, if not, 2021 then!</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Hope everyone has a great 2020! See you next year.</div>
Gumbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16164366902768547090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-87233659039775561.post-55733369793846798952019-01-01T13:27:00.004-06:002019-01-01T13:28:12.491-06:00Greg's Favorites of 2018<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ojA0iJ9oP00/XCu4py2aqOI/AAAAAAAACDU/hoSSiwpF40Y2NH-ErvGneWJnKepmaEIggCLcBGAs/s1600/2018Collage.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="612" data-original-width="792" height="308" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ojA0iJ9oP00/XCu4py2aqOI/AAAAAAAACDU/hoSSiwpF40Y2NH-ErvGneWJnKepmaEIggCLcBGAs/s400/2018Collage.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
2018 came and went. I'm always surprised this blog is still here when I pull it up a year later.<br />
<br />
2018 was a pretty steady year for the family, with not too many changes. With Maria's editing job helping out, we were able to finally afford to do a few things. She and I went to Seattle for a 20 year wedding anniversary trip; the family flew to Utah for the summer particularly so the older boys could spend time before cousins started leaving on missions; and I got to fly to LA with my brother Jeffrey to see former Jellyfish band member Roger Joseph Manning Jr. in person for a Pledgemusic reward studio tour. I also got to see my first Python member in person, John Cleese, who came through DFW on a Q&A tour and screening of Holy Grail. And I got to see a couple performers I like in Vegas during a work trip, Piff the Magic Dragon and Tape Face (both former America's Got Talent contestants, but also both performers I was aware of before their AGT appearances.) I also started a new position at Lockheed, moving from my support (and all my world travels) of F-35 to full time F-22 engineering work.<br />
<br />
Here are the things I liked in 2018:<br />
<br />
<h2>
Music</h2>
<div>
2018 was a step up over the past few years. I actually found some great music and a few new bands that I really enjoyed.<br />
<ul>
<li>Roger Joseph Manning Jr: Glamping EP - As mentioned above, Roger released this EP through PledgeMusic this year. My brother bought it for me as a birthday gift. And then before the campaign was over we talked each other into buying a personal experience of meeting Roger at a studio and getting a personal tour of each of the songs by looking at every track in the recording and seeing how they were made. Sometimes when you see how the sausage is made you lose your appetite, but other times it makes the sausage even more delicious. The latter was my experience. I enjoy these songs even more knowing what went into making them.<br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Qhk-sUdpLoc" width="480"></iframe></li>
</ul>
</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>Jukebox the Ghost: Off to the Races - I found this about the same time as the Roger Manning album was released, so they are both connected in my head. This band has been around for a while but it wasn't until now that they got my attention. Most of that was through the first two tracks on this album, especially "Jumpstarted" which is a delightful Queen-meets-Ben Folds Five piano-featuring piece. It seems to jump all over the place, but after a few listens the disparate elements start to click together.<br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zhZ2_pAOfh4" width="560"></iframe>
</li>
<br />
<li>Trevor Horn: "Sky Show" - This is just a single song from an otherwise mostly instrumental anime soundtrack "The Reflection." This sounds like a long lost Buggles song and is a wonderful 80s synthpop throw back.<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ibeTLLmjgHM" width="480"></iframe>
</li>
<br />
<li>Beck: Colors - Technically a late 2017 release, I originally dismissed this album after listening to one of the first singles, "Wow," which I found gratingly annoying. But since Roger Manning plays with Beck in his touring group, I watched one of his TV appearances on a talk show and was intrigued by another song from this same album. I finally listened to the full album and fell in love. This is a great synthpop album, very heavily 80s influenced. And there's a great music video for the title track by my favorite director, Edgar Wright. Just skip "Wow."<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WRCA_Fo0rWA" width="480"></iframe></li>
<br />
<li>I Don't Know How But They Found Me: 1981 EP - I followed a random YouTube recommendation and found this song, "Do It All the Time," and this band with the awkward long name. I think the conceit is that they are a lost band from 1981. Whatever the case, the music is fun. They have a few other tracks on YouTube that aren't on the EP that I also enjoy, particularly "Nobody Likes the Opening Band."<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/hXzPxBhhmY8" width="480"></iframe>
</li>
<br />
<li>Muse: Simulation Theory - I enjoyed the new Muse album this year, but it didn't quite hit the way their last few did. This was the one album I was looking forward to from last year and it was good, but not great.</li>
<br />
<li>Marc Martel: Thunderbolt and Lightning - Queen was huge this year with the "Bohemian Rhapsody" biopic and a few other things. This is a Freddie Mercury sound-alike covering Queen songs, but in new and interesting ways. Such as Bohemian Rhapsody with a full orchestra.<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/JvA5DhdAMnA" width="480"></iframe></li>
</ul>
A few other items worth mentioning: Sparks - "Hippopotamus" from late 2017 I finally got around to listening to, and enjoyed. V Sparks - "Moderne Life" was a really great 3/4ths of an album with an amazing Queen-style song, "The Game of Everybody Knows Its You." V Sparks is a great rock/glam band. I bought and listened to the entire V Sparks discography from Bandcamp. The Struts - "Young & Dangerous" - was an album I was very much looking forward to and it was...okay. The band sort of shifted from their rock direction to more shiny pop, and so even though every song is catchy, it's too sugary to last very long.
<br />
<br />
As for 2019, I have no idea what's on the horizon. Not sure if it will be too soon or not, but Roger Manning promised more music soon and was working with Eric Dover and Tim Smith on a new project.<br />
<br />
<h2>
Movies</h2>
</div>
<div>
This year I joined, then quit, MoviePass. I signed up at a weird moment around my birthday in April when it was only 3 movies a month instead of unlimited, but after the three months that I signed up for ended, the entire company seemed to fall apart. So I jumped ship and joined AMC A-List, which allows for up to 3 moves a week. Needless to say, I saw quite a bit more movies in theater this year than I ever have before. However, changes to routine at work and home, I saw less movies overall. I saw 49 movies in theater, up from 30 last year. I saw 48 more new release movies (2017-2018) at home or on planes down from 74 last year. I saw 101 older movies for the first time, down from 164 last year. And I rewatched 68 movies, down from 72 last year. In total I saw 270 movies.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Here are some of my favorite movies of the year:</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li><b>A Quiet Place</b> - This was such a surprise. Watching this in a theater you suddenly become aware of every tiny noise around you. Such a simple concept, but it worked wonderfully.</li>
<li><b>Mission Impossible: Fallout -</b> I originally came out of this movie disappointed. It was a little more serious than the last movies. It didn't have the big heist element that the last few did. But after listening to more than 6 hours of director's interviews and maybe as many hours of podcast discussions, my appreciation of this movie grew much, much higher. Especially understanding how much work went into all of the stunts and set pieces and how Tom Cruise pretty much did everything you see on screen for real.</li>
<li><b>Paddington 2 - </b> One of the first movies of the year, and one of my favorites. It was just delightfully crazy and serenely calm at the same time. </li>
<li><b>Crazy Rich Asians -</b> Just unique, charming, and funny enough to make this one of the more satisfying romantic comedies in years.</li>
<li><b>Game Night</b> - A studio comedy that I actually found funny. It's been a while since that has happened.</li>
<li><b>Avengers: Infinity War - </b>I almost feel like I have to put this on my list, though I really feel like I need to see Avengers:Endgame to have a full opinion of this movie. But it was quite the spectacle.</li>
<li><b>Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse</b> - I *adored* the animation style of this movie and the boundaries it pushed. I was less in love with the overall story. It was fun and crazy, but it still felt like another origin story to me.</li>
<li><b>Deadpool 2 -</b> Silly. Funny. That's was all I needed and it was that.</li>
<li><b>Overlord -</b> Not the first Nazi Zombie movie, but crazy enough to stand on its own. It did everything that The Predator tried to do this year but better.</li>
<li><b>Bumblebee -</b> What? A Transformer movie that was good? I know. I'm still trying to wrap my head around that. I consider all the other Transformers movies to be cinematic travesties, but this one was the best movie I saw released near Christmas.</li>
<li><b>Bad Genius - </b>Asian kids heist movie where they plan to cheat the SATs. </li>
<li><b>Upgrade</b> - A more successful, lower budget version of the "Venom" movie.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div>
Disappointments, movies I hated, and other films of note:</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li><b>Black Panther</b> - It seemed like I was the only one who didn't care for this movie. It was boring, long, and had an uninteresting lead character. It also ripped off an entire scene from James Bond's Skyfall. I would rank it just above the Hulk movie and maybe Iron Man 2 at the bottom of my Marvel movie rankings.</li>
<li><b>Ready Player One</b> - I enjoyed watching it, but it was a huge disappoint for me. It should have worked better with the players involved (Spielberg in particular.) It just veered wildly from kids movie to a teen movie to an adult R-rated horror and back to silly kids movie. Who is this film for? I can't figure it out. How do you go from brazenly bombing a crowded neighborhood with real deaths near the beginning to a full recreation of the Shining in the middle to a slap fight with a villain at the end? It left me scratching my head.</li>
<li><b>Solo: A Star Wars Story</b> - Take a Star Wars movie that no one wanted and fill it with terrible choices all the way through (see: Solo gets his name) and then film it so dark that you can barely tell what's happening in the film. Hit picture? I held off going to this movie until I got to Utah for our family trip to be able to see it with everybody and I could only convince one person of my large family to see it with me. This movie was a failure all around.</li>
<li><b>Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom</b> - Who wants to see dinosaurs go from rampaging in a park on a big island to bumping into walls in a large house? Also, how is selling invaluable, resurrected dinosaurs for a few million each in any way profitable? Surely it cost more than that just to send the party to go rescue the few they could from the island, let alone all the research costs to create them in the first place.</li>
<li><b>The Predator</b> - Wow, this was incoherently bad. See comments above for the movie "Overlord" for a better experience.</li>
<li><b>Venom</b> - Wow, this was incoherently bad. See comments above for the movie "Upgrade" for a better experience.</li>
<li><b>The Crimes of Gindelwald</b> - I audibly sighed 3 or 4 times during this movie. I have never done that in a movie. I was exasperated and bored. What a terrible film, and they are planning at least 3 more of these? Nothing in it makes sense. Why send a guy who only cares about magical animals--and barely any people--on an illegal mission to hunt down a man he knows barely anything about in foreign country he's not allowed to go to? Why would he accept? Why do we care about babies switched at birth we've never met before? Why is Dumbledore even in this movie? Why did they undo the one Muggle's memory sacrifice at the end of the of the last movie, the one heart-tugging element of that film? Why are we supposed to be invested in a relationship where one person drugs the other and takes them against their will to another country to marry them apparently against their will? Why is this movie?</li>
<li><b>Mary Poppins Returns</b> - I give everyone credit for really, really trying. Everyone wanted to make a movie that stood up alongside the original and I applaud their efforts. But they made a movie that ultimately is just a poor copy of the original. The songs were unmemorable--I don't think I could hum a single one as I exited the theater. I couldn't understand what was happening most of the movie or why or what they were singing about. And in the end I felt like I was attending a school musical or recital but without a program so I had no idea how many more musical numbers I had to endure until the finale.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div>
As for 2019, I'm looking forward to Avengers: Endgame to see how everything is resolved (or not.) Disney is going all-in with their live-action remakes with Lion King, Dumbo, and Aladdin. I'm not looking forward to them, I'm just pointing them out. Toy Story 4, It: Chapter 2, and Star Wars: Episode 9 are all movies I'm cautiously looking forward to. Shazam probably has the potential to be the most fun Superhero movie. We'll see.</div>
<h2>
TV</h2>
<div>
It's getting harder to distinguish TV from movies this year with more things on Netflix. Is it a movie? A series? A mini-series? A special? How do you classify it if it's on TV but all comes out at once? I probably watched less shows this year than I ever have in the past and part of that is less interesting stuff on networks and more things on streaming services.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Here are a few shows of note I watched in 2018:</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li><b>Christmas Carol Gone Wrong</b> - Watched this on January 1st and it was still my favorite thing I saw by the end of the year. </li>
<li><b>Cobra Kai -</b> How dare they do a sequel TV series/reboot to this classic movie! And yet they did and it was amazing! I really enjoyed how they honored the original movie by both mirroring and subverting everything about it.</li>
<li><b>Saturday Night Live</b> - I never watch it live, but I always hope I have time Sunday morning to watch it. If not I catch it as soon as I can. The closest to "appointment television" I still have.</li>
<li><b>Last Week Tonight</b> - Probably second after SNL for a show I try to catch quickly after airing.</li>
<li><b>America's/Britain's Got Talent </b>- Both remain my favorite variety competition series</li>
<li><b>Penn & Teller Fool Us - </b>My next favorite variety series. Both this and the above are a great place to see magic on television.</li>
<li><b>Derren Brown: The Push/Sacrifice</b> - Derren Brown continues to come up with amazing fake realities to make people suffer through.</li>
<li><b>Wrecked</b> - The third season of this "Lost"/"Survivor" parody series has the survivors engaged in a Hunger/The Most Dangerous Game scenario.</li>
<li><b>Cunk on Britain </b>- A British faux documentary series that I thought was pretty funny.</li>
<li><b>Wellington Paranormal - </b>A TV spinoff series from "What We Do in the Shadows." A bit like a cross between Cops and X Files, but done with the dry New Zealand humor.</li>
<li><b>Haunting of Hill House - </b>Some really interesting creepy stuff in this Netflix series.</li>
<li><b>MST3K - </b>Didn't completely finish, but continue to enjoy the new season.</li>
<li><b>Black Mirror: Bandersnatch</b> - the last show I watched for the year. Of note because it is played as a "Choose your own adventure" style game on Netflix with multiple paths and endings.</li>
<li><b>The Vietnam War </b>- Not a favorite thing I watched. But noteworthy because of how huge and long and thorough it was. I just need to note it here so I can get some kind of credit for watching it.</li>
<li><b>Arrested Development - </b>Just putting this here to remind myself I watched a new series from this show this year, but I've forgotten it already.</li>
</ul>
<h2>
Podcasts and Online</h2>
</div>
<div>
I spent a lot of time on YouTube this year, which is partly why my movie count was down from last year. I spend a lot of time on weekdays streaming talk show segments from the night before. Here's what I watched and listened to this year:</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li><b>Talkshows:</b> Stephen Colbert's monologue and guests if they are interesting. Seth Meyers "A Closer Look" is often the first thing I watch in the mornings." I'll occasionally watch Jimmy Kimmel and much less often James Cordon and Jimmy Fallon. </li>
<li><b>News channels: </b>I also find myself heading to CNN or MSNBC to see what crazy headlines are happening every other day or so. </li>
<li><b>ScreenJunkies</b> has a daily show that I usually watch, plus Movie Fights, Charting, Honest Trailers, and more. </li>
<li><b>RedLetterMedia's </b>"Half in the Bag," "Wheel of the Worst," "Review," "Best of the Worst" and others also continue to hold my attention.</li>
<li><b>We Hate Movies: </b>I actually subscribed to my first Patreon for these guys this year because I've enjoyed their show.</li>
<li><b>How Did This Get Made: </b>Continue to enjoy</li>
<li><b>Empire, Movie B.S. with Bayer and Snider, Now Playing: </b>All movie-based podcasts I regularly listen to</li>
<li><b>James Bonding, Star Trek: The Next Conversation, Smegheads (Red Dwarf), Monkey Tennis (Alan Partridge): </b>All shows that focus on specific movies or TV series that I listen to.</li>
<li><b>Piff Pod, Magician's Podcast, MagicOrthodoxy</b><b>: </b>Two magic/magician themed podcasts I found this year, and a YouTube magic review channel.</li>
</ul>
<h2>
Video Games</h2>
</div>
<div>
I played a lot this year on my phone, Switch, and XBox One. Here are a few of my favorites:</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li><b>Super Mario Odyssey - </b>What an amazing Mario game. I pretty much completed everything I could on this game.</li>
<li><b>Gardenscapes/Homescapes </b>- A couple similar matching games that I played way too much on my phone this year. Way too much.</li>
<li><b>Nintendo Labo - </b>Jaden and I built both the first, misc. items pack, and the third vehicles pack and really enjoyed them. I love the construction/model-building aspect and the super inventive ways of using the Switch controllers. Even when you understand how the piano works, it still seems like magic.</li>
<li><b>Bloons TD 6</b> - Really enjoyed this new installment of the Bloons series.</li>
<li><b>Overcooked/Overcooked 2 </b>- This was a really fun cooperative cooking game on the Switch. Makes for a great party game. </li>
<li><b>Cooking Craze - </b>After enjoying the Overcooked games, I found this cooking game on the iPhone that has me currently addicted. </li>
<li><b>Dead Cells - </b>An interesting rogue-like Metroidvania game. I've played quite a bit but haven't completed yet on the Switch.</li>
</ul>
<div>
Of note: I finally stopped playing the Simpsons Tapped Out game this year. After playing it for quite a few years. I got to a point where I was just collecting and stashing things and there was too much to be able to organize nicely any more. (Plus I ran out of donuts and the free donuts methods of the past were no longer an option.)</div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h2>
Books</h2>
<div>
I read one book. "I, Alan Partridge." Maria read 567.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h2>
2019</h2>
<div>
So looking ahead to next year. We're hoping for a family trip back to Disney if we can fit it in. It may slip to 2020 depending on school and schedules. I expect most things to continue as normal with jobs and work and schools. I'm looking forward to the move to 2-hour church block and interested to see how that affects me with my current piano accompanying jobs. I got a whole lot of new magic tricks for Christmas. A *whole lot*. I'm performing for the primary kids in a few weeks. I hope to find more opportunities to perform elsewhere in the year and beyond. I continue to crochet here and there. I also still intend to get back to writing music sometime. And I guess that's it. Happy 2019 everyone!</div>
Gumbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16164366902768547090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-87233659039775561.post-32890764374335676862018-01-01T21:58:00.003-06:002018-01-17T07:23:45.275-06:00Greg's Favorites of 2017<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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What an interesting year 2017 was. I've taken over six international trips, 3 to UK (including one at the end of 2016) and 3 to Italy and earned a ton of air miles and made it to Executive Platinum level at American Airlines. I learned to solve a Rubik's Cube. I now have a 2x2, several 3x3s, 4x4, 5x5, and a 9x9--which I just got for Christmas. Maria created her own job of proofing/editing for writers. And the kids all started public school (so Maria could focus her time on her new job.) And most of my entertainment came from reading the news headlines every day to see what Pres. Trump did next. We are all surprised he made it one year as president.<br />
<br />
Anyway, here are the things that I enjoyed watching/playing/listening to in 2017:<br />
<br />
<h2>
Music</h2>
I thought 2016 was terrible for music. Well, this year was worse. I added a whopping <i>two </i>new albums to my iPhone and didn't create any music of my own. So my top ten albums of the year are narrowed down to which of the two I liked more. Granted, I did not spend much time looking for music. I don't have a lot of occasions to listen to music any more and since we subscribed to Sirius XM, most car listening is to channels the play older music.<br />
<ul>
<li>The Struts: Everybody Wants - Technically this came out in 2014 and released in US in 2016. I only found it this year. It's great Glam Rock throwback with touches of Queen. A new album is coming early in 2018.</li>
</ul>
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<br />
<ul>
<li>The Darkness: Pinewood Smile - The only new album from this year that I found. I still like their second album best. This doesn't depart much from their last two albums, which means more stripped down, straight-ahead rock songs. However, this one did provide quite a few ear-worms that wouldn't leave my head.</li>
</ul>
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<br />
There were a few old songs that I found this year that I really enjoyed outside of full albums:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>S.O.L.: "Something For Beginners" - This is Stefan Zauner from Muenchener Freiheit who did a solo English album in the 90s under the name S.O.L. (Some Other Language.) Several of these became Freiheit songs. I'm still looking for the whole album, but I love this song:</li>
</ul>
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<br />
<ul>
<li>Lene Lovich: "New Toy" - Someone on Reddit posted this saying that Lene Lovich was the inspiration for Danny Elfman to change the sound of The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo from weird experimental performance art to a new wave band in the early 80s. Listening to this song, I can definitely hear the similarities. This song was co-written by Thomas Dolby for added coolness.</li>
</ul>
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I have no music predictions for 2018. Muse released a couple tracks last year for an upcoming album, maybe this year?<br />
<h2>
Movies</h2>
I continued to keep track of all the movies I watched this year. I watched a total of 340 movies. I watched 30 movies in the theater. I watched 74 new movies (released in 2016-17) at outside of the theater. I saw 164 new old movies (anything before 2016 that I'd never seen before). And I rewatched another 72 movies that I'd seen before.<br />
<br />
A lot of the movies I watch are usually in conjunction with podcasts I listen to. Especially ones like "How Did This Get Made" and "We Hate Movies" where they choose an old awful movie and pick it apart. So I will usually try to track down the movie to watch it in advance. There are also several other movie podcasts I listen to like Slashfilmcast or Empire Podcast that have lengthy spoiler discussions about new films so I try to get to the theater early to see the film to be able to listen to the discussion afterwards.<br />
<br />
Here are my favorite films I saw this year:<br />
<br />
<b>Get Out - </b>My least favorite theater experience, but my favorite film of the year. A guy came in late and brought his less than 10-year-old son to this film and then pulled out his phone while sitting right next to me. I normally yell at people to put their phone away, but not when they are immediately next to me. His son didn't want to be there and was covering his face the whole time. And then I finally noticed that the guy wasn't playing on his phone--he was asleep and had left it on. Eventually after about five minutes the phone timed out until a few minutes later when the guy adjusted himself and the phone came back on for another five minutes! I had to sit with my hand up next to my eyes to shield the light so I could concentrate on the movie. Despite all that, I really liked the film. I enjoyed the mix of humor and horror and mystery of it all.<br />
<br />
<b>Thor Ragnarok/Wonder Woman - </b>I can't tell which of these I enjoyed more. Wonder Woman surprised me seeing as how awful all the other WB/DC films have been. But this one was actually featured a real hero doing heroic things. It was almost refreshing how basic it was. If only the ending were a little stronger. Thor was just crazy. I'm shocked that with three Marvel films this year (Spiderman/Guardians 2) that this was my favorite of the three. A <i>Thor </i>film. It reminded me of a more self-aware version of the 80s Flash Gordon movie with much more humor.<br />
<br />
<b>Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle/Central Intelligence</b> - I'm surprised the last movie I saw in theaters this year was one of my favorites. It had the perfect construct of being based around an old video game that allowed it to be dumb, stupid, and illogical which added to the charm and fun. Plus I really enjoyed all the main characters including Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart from "Central Intelligence," a movie that came out last year, but I didn't see until this year. There's been a dearth of good comedies recently and these two films are definitely high up there.<br />
<br />
<b>Baby Driver - </b>Edgar Wright's latest film. The only reason I saw it, because nothing about the trailer or story or <i>awful title</i> made me want to see it. I really, really liked it--despite the story. It was all about the style and the mix of music choreographing the action scenes. Otherwise, I'm not a fan of crime dramas, but Edgar Wright found a way to make me like this one.<br />
<br />
<b>It - </b>Just a great horror movie. I re-watched the mini-series and this is definitely an improvement. It'll be interesting to see if they can make the sequel measure up to this one since the weakest part of the mini-series was the adult segments.<br />
<br />
<b>Coco - </b>Best animated film of the year. A return to form for Pixar for now.<br />
<br />
<b>Happy Death Day - </b>Groundhog Day meets Scream. I had a lot of fun with this one. It doesn't hold up to scrutiny, but I enjoyed how they played with the repeating day concept to find a murderer.<br />
<br />
<b>Star Wars: The Last Jedi/Guardians of the Galaxy 2/Spider-Man: Homecoming - </b>These were all good. I enjoyed them.<br />
<br />
A few non-theater movies that I liked: The Big Sick, The Babysitter, and Brigsby Bear.<br />
<br />
Looking ahead to 2018, I'm most looking forward to Spielberg's "Ready Player One" adaptation. I'm just hoping it doesn't turn out like "Ender's Game" where a favorite book of mine is adapted into an OK movie and then completely forgotten about immediately afterwards! Also looking forward to "Avengers: Infinity War," "Incredibles 2," and "Mission Impossible 6,"<br />
<h2>
TV</h2>
The interesting thing about TV this year was I watched almost no network dramas or sitcoms this year. Most of it was cable or Netflix. Here are some of my favorites:<br />
<br />
<b>Black Mirror/Stranger Things 2</b>: These were both at the top of my list last year, and both are Netflix shows. Black Mirror squeaked into my list by Netflix releasing it just a few days ago. Stranger Things 2 wasn't as great as the first season, but still enjoyable.<br />
<br />
<b>Peter Pan Goes Wrong: </b>This special was broadcast at the end of last year in the UK and one of the first things I watched this year. It was hilarious. It's a spin-off of a broadway play call "The Play That Goes Wrong" about a murder mystery play that is riddled with technical issues, bad acting, and errors galore. I expect "Christmas Carol Gone Wrong" that played this year (and watched today so it doesn't count for 2017) may show up on this list again.<br />
<br />
<b>Mystery Science Theater: The Return</b>: Another Netflix series. This revival was almost as good as the original. I still prefer most of the older cast, but many of the episodes here can stand along-side the original series.<br />
<br />
<b>Murder in Successville: </b>A UK series I found this year where a celebrity is paired with a detective in a semi-improvised murder investigation/comedy. I just enjoyed the refreshingly original idea behind the series as well as the comedy.<br />
<br />
<b>The David S. Pumpkins Halloween Special</b>: A random character from an SNL sketch a few years ago by Tom Hanks got its own animated Halloween special. It makes no sense, and that is why I loved it.<br />
<br />
<b>Red Dwarf Series XII: </b>I can't believe it's still running after nearly 30 years, but there were some good episodes this series.<br />
<br />
<b>Wrecked: </b>This is a shipwrecked sitcom/Lost parody. Why is it on the air? I don't know, but after the episode where everyone went crazy because no one could remember the actor who played Rose's boyfriend on Titanic and no one had a phone with a signal to look it up, this show had me hooked.<br />
<br />
Other shows I watched and enjoyed this year: SNL, Last Week Tonight, America/Britain's got Talent, Penn & Teller Fool Us, Angie Tribeca, Rick & Morty, Upstart Crow and the Simpsons.<br />
<h2>
Podcasts and Online</h2>
Here are some of my favorite podcasts/YouTube channels/online shows that I enjoyed this year:<br />
<br />
<b>Movies: </b>We Hate Movies, Red Letter Media (Half In the Bag/Best of the Worst/etc.), Screen Junkies (Movie Fights, News), Movie B.S. with Bayer and Snider, How Did This Get Made, SlashFilmcast<br />
<b>Show/Subject specific: </b>James Bonding, Star Trek: The Next Conversation, Monkey Tennis (Alan Partridge), Loose Cannons (A Cannon Film retrospective)<br />
<h2>
Video Games</h2>
Nintendo released a new console this year (the Switch) making the already dying Wii U obsolete. Luckily Santa brought us a new one at Christmas. So we currently have about five different devices to play games on in our living room: Xbox 360, Xbox One, Wii U, Switch, and Steam on our media PC. So TV possession can often be an issue if one wants to play games. I asked last year if Nintendo's new console could produce any new games, and the answer was YES! Anyway, here's what I liked the most this year.<br />
<br />
<b>Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Wii U) - </b>Nintendo reinvented Zelda this year and made an absolutely amazing game. One that you can get lost in for days without doing anything to progress the story and still feel satisfied and have fun. I think I still prefer Ocarina of Time as my favorite Zelda game, but that has the added nostalgia built in. This is a close second and a nearly perfect game.<br />
<br />
<b>Super Mario Odyssey (Switch) -</b> This one squeaks in at the end of the year since I've only had a week since Christmas to play it. It too has so much to do. Possessing other creatures with your sentient hat adds so much play variety. Nintendo genius.<br />
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<b>Jackbox Party Pack 1-4/Drawful 2/Use Your Words (Steam/Xbox) - </b>The first three Party Pack games were mentioned last year. We continued to play them regularly this year and added Party Pack 4, Drawful 2 and Use Your Words to the collection. Use Your Words is actually from a different company but uses the same concept of using your phone to answer questions in a party setting. We've played this so many times and it gets pulled out almost any time extra guests are in the house.<br />
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<b>Cuphead (Xbox) - </b>I've been waiting for this game since it was shown at E3 in 2014. It's a run-and-gun platformer done in an animated style of a 1930's cartoon. It's super hard, but the animated style makes it worth playing through. I made two crochet figures of the main characters of Cuphead and Mugman for Colin and Spencer as Christmas presents.<br />
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<b>Yooka Laylee (Xbox) </b>- Another game we've been waiting for a while. Many of the original developers from Banjo Kazooie Kickstarted this game a few years ago which we backed. It is a throwback to the N64-era mascot platformers that I really liked. It didn't quite live up to the original Banjo Kazooie, but I liked it better than any of its sequels.<br />
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Other games I enjoyed playing this year: (Xbox) Tomb Raider, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, Alien Isolation, (iOS) Simpsons Tapped Out, Rodeo Stampede, Angry Birds Pop, and Homescapes.<br />
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After wondering if Nintendo could get any good games for Switch last year, the same question goes for this year: Can they do it again? There's still not a great library of games for the Switch, but there are sure a few amazing titles to hold it over while it builds up.<br />
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<b>Board Games </b></h2>
After adding this category last year, we didn't play as much this year. Part of that is my boys being very busy. Another part is Jackbox Games took over our playtime. However, here are a few games we enjoyed this year<b>:</b><br />
<ul>
<li><b>Red Flags</b> - A game by the Superfight people where you make blind dates for people and then sabotage them. Colin lost my game at an activity that he took this to, but we managed to get a replacement.</li>
<li><b>Escape The Room Games</b> - I got several "Escape the Room"-style games in a box and played them a few times over the year. They're fun although you can really only play them once.</li>
<li><b>T.I.M.E. Stories</b> - An interesting concept. Essentially it's a choose your own adventure tabletop game played with decks of cards. Another one that can only be played a limited amount of times, but still an interesting concept.</li>
</ul>
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Books</h2>
My goal was to read a book a month. I started strong but did not end that way. I ended up reading 3 books and two halves, so four altogether?<br />
<ul>
<li><b>Magic 2.0 Series: Off to be a Wizard, Spell or High Water, and an Unwelcome Quest - </b>These three books are based on a premise of people discovering a file on the Internet that contains all the data to life. They start to hack it and essentially gain "magical powers." It invariably causes them trouble and all independently end up in the middle ages in England where being a wizard isn't entirely looked down on. They form a group of wizards and have an interesting time when other would-be wizards start trying to abuse the file for evil purposes. </li>
<li><b>Redshirts - </b>I loved the premise of a group of random officers on a spaceship discovering they are actually cast members in a space show from the 20th century. It started out interesting, but jumped the shark halfway through and I gave up.</li>
<li><b>I, Partridge</b> - Started, but haven't finished yet. I am reading it to keep up with the Alan Partridge podcast "Monkey Tennis."</li>
</ul>
And that's enough for now. Looking forward to the unknown adventure that awaits in 2018. I was worried about still having a job in the middle of 2017 last year. I still have it. But who knows what will happen in 2018. Maria and I are celebrating our 20th anniversary. Colin turns 18. Spencer turns 16 with potential driving in the future. And Jaden will be turning 8 and joining Cub Scouts. Tune in next year and find out what happens...<br />
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<br />Gumbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16164366902768547090noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-87233659039775561.post-91041106613097658342017-01-06T09:31:00.001-06:002018-01-04T14:23:00.208-06:00Greg's Crochet 2016So this year I learned to crochet. Specifically "amigurumi" which is stuffed crochet figures and animals. I thought I'd put together a post detailing all the figures I made this year.<br />
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First, I got a book on Star Wars crochet. I went through the book and made each character one by one:<br />
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After that I bought some online patterns and made a Nintendo bouquet for Maria for Valentine's Day:<br />
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Having felt like I figured things out, I started making some of my own figures rather than using other patterns. I made three figures for my boys for Valentines mostly freehand. One Red Knight from Castle Crashers, One Hatty Hatterson from BattleBlock Theater, and a Mine Turtle from ASDF animated shorts:<br />
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<b>Monty Python</b>: Feeling emboldened, I decided I wanted to start making figures from some of my favorite shows and other mediums that never got the proper figure attention they deserved. So the first was the cast of Monty Python's Flying Circus:<br />
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Above from L to R: Terry Gilliam as Cardinal Fang, from the Spanish Inquisition (with Comfy Pillow), Graham Chapman as Military Captain; Eric Idle as the "Wink, Wink, Nudge, Nudge" guy; Michael Palin as Mr. Gumby; Terry Jones as a Pepperpot (middle-age woman); and John Cleese as Minister for Silly Walks.<br />
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From there I started picking shows and making figures. Here they are in the order I made them: <br />
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<b>Mythbusters:</b> Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman <br />
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<b> The I.T. Crowd:</b> Roy, Moss, and Jen<br />
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<b><b>Red Dwarf: </b></b>Cat (Bottom Left), Lister (Bottom Right), Kryten (Top Left), Rimmer (Top Right).<b> </b><br />
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<b>Hot Rod: </b>Andy Samburg as Hot Rod<br />
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<b>Spinal Tap:</b> Derek Smalls, Nigel Tufnel, David St. Hubbins<br />
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<b>Strange Brew/Mackenzie Bros: </b>Bob & Doug Mackenzie<br />
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<b>Austin Powers: </b>Mini Me, Dr. Evil, Austin Powers<br />
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<b>Family: </b>I also decided as birthday gifts, I would make figures of all my family.<br />
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My sister Sharie and husband Adam:<br />
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My parents Charles and Eileen:<br />
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My brother Jeffrey and his wife Melissa:<br />
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My sister Shauna and her husband Marc:<br />
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Me (Greg) and Maria:<br />
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Maria's parents, Fred and Louise:<br />
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Stacy & Foxy<br />
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<b>Gifts: </b>And here are other various crochet gifts I made for others this year.<br />
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For my friend Nate: Dale Cooper from Twin Peaks<br />
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For my friends Chad & Melodee: Freddy Mercury from the band Queen and Merida from "Brave"<br />
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For a friend of Maria, mini characters of the cast of Friends<br />
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For Maria for Mother's Day and Christmas: Banjo & Kazooie (Banjo came first, Kazooie later for Christmas) (both from a pattern)<br />
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For Jaden at Christmas: Bloons and Monkeys from the Bloons Monkey Tower Defense games<br />
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For Spencer at Christmas: Octopus Scoodie (mostly from a pattern)<br />
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<br />
For Colin at Christmas: Assassins Creed Scoodie and gloves (both from a pattern)<br />
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<br />
And that's it. A year ago I was struggling to figure out how to even start a stitch, and a year later I've got dozens of amigurumi characters scattered around at home and abroad. I hope possibly to start selling figures or at least creating patterns that others can follow and sell those. Until then, it's a fun and relatively cheap new hobby.<br />
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Gumbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16164366902768547090noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-87233659039775561.post-28240909942090722002017-01-01T15:20:00.000-06:002017-01-01T16:09:11.657-06:00Greg's Favorites of 2016<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/GZ_JJO4yMW36iuu_T-C3ncFcOtavIo55lmW9c2sK9yAybuskqqCVgm4bmjnI2ZpFsR81voZ0kl7dZWcOQHZN69PAWTL5BpgvuENYckZWThjQiMJv6ZezK7DVRBTO3MnMOO4ealrblYIxRZPItG2oC23YHg5-d5dO7R3_5nDXDS8ALdxIPQn95vyKig116wtDi6mwHPxcGz4HhZYJ-tTb_hRC_OJAaW8XoI79shqurU6jv4LWWMEsLhZRWW6XJHveYPw7bj0FDFVayqqmucg9MjAyBiSP75DEEEvOLa-UxNOMy4Eq-EDGCBpx3XMIrIMRaZn1CuzpFP_4vE0LeHxN-qstnQLQHds25EI91IuWKMN3x0X3gsvnKzFNjSB1ldRCETthHTa5wwaw4wy15vkw7sXQYPz9OM_tyakvsBZ_w9J03jwY81z1C7Lbo8dQ8FsbBxQXx0Icw56Tabnp3LG8DOZOyhVIFduC4h19vxIyvYUGJ5C5S-8s4jhQbzLPtoUKTSfMS7p-zsnG4sMs8dH6ByG0vNsxtfIvSnsG0HgO7hLtSl-Q7VaPNkU9iY6uODIGPvPI_tPY4wKSo7kH8dWBWsPtYNDG6NNWugViwV3slp-KHxYD9fLOvadt77upptqipPdGmXhpH1AJSHEljnTDakSfqiuUQ5Nm8-ldF4j_pw=w792-h612-no" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="308" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/GZ_JJO4yMW36iuu_T-C3ncFcOtavIo55lmW9c2sK9yAybuskqqCVgm4bmjnI2ZpFsR81voZ0kl7dZWcOQHZN69PAWTL5BpgvuENYckZWThjQiMJv6ZezK7DVRBTO3MnMOO4ealrblYIxRZPItG2oC23YHg5-d5dO7R3_5nDXDS8ALdxIPQn95vyKig116wtDi6mwHPxcGz4HhZYJ-tTb_hRC_OJAaW8XoI79shqurU6jv4LWWMEsLhZRWW6XJHveYPw7bj0FDFVayqqmucg9MjAyBiSP75DEEEvOLa-UxNOMy4Eq-EDGCBpx3XMIrIMRaZn1CuzpFP_4vE0LeHxN-qstnQLQHds25EI91IuWKMN3x0X3gsvnKzFNjSB1ldRCETthHTa5wwaw4wy15vkw7sXQYPz9OM_tyakvsBZ_w9J03jwY81z1C7Lbo8dQ8FsbBxQXx0Icw56Tabnp3LG8DOZOyhVIFduC4h19vxIyvYUGJ5C5S-8s4jhQbzLPtoUKTSfMS7p-zsnG4sMs8dH6ByG0vNsxtfIvSnsG0HgO7hLtSl-Q7VaPNkU9iY6uODIGPvPI_tPY4wKSo7kH8dWBWsPtYNDG6NNWugViwV3slp-KHxYD9fLOvadt77upptqipPdGmXhpH1AJSHEljnTDakSfqiuUQ5Nm8-ldF4j_pw=w792-h612-no" width="400" /></a></div>
Hey. What do you know? Blogspot is still alive. And so am I.<br />
<br />
2016 is done so let's review my favorite things:<br />
<br />
<h2>
Music</h2>
This was a terrible year for music. Probably the worst ever. I'm sure good music is out there, but with my attention turned to other things, I didn't put forth the effort to find the diamonds in the rough that I normally do. So instead, I found a few shiny coins and called it good.<br />
<br />
<b>Greg Whitehead. </b>First, here's my Christmas song for 2016. It's a piano medley of "Gabriel's Message" and "Angels We Have Heard on High":<br />
<br />
"Gabriel's Angels"<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ELYLkXZZu4w" width="480"></iframe><br />
<br />
I didn't get to do much more music-wise in 2016. I've got several songs bouncing around in my head so hopefully some of them will get out for 2017.<br />
<br />
<b>OK Go - Hungry Ghosts</b><br />
Technically this album came out 2 years ago in 2014, but the band is still releasing videos for it. They did two amazing videos this year and it made me rediscover the album and it ended up being my most played album of the year.<br />
<b> </b><br />
<b> </b>"Upside Down & Inside Out"<br />
<b><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/LWGJA9i18Co" width="480"></iframe></b><br />
<br />
"The One Moment"<b> </b><br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Yukon Blonde - On Blonde</b><br />
Technically this album came out in 2015, but I didn't discover them until this year. I was happy to discover one new band this year that I really liked. Or at least had an album I really liked. This has a nice classic rock feel with a bit of glam, new wave, and psychedlica mixed in. Highly recommended.<br />
<br />
<b> </b><br />
<b>Dowling Poole - One Hyde Park</b><br />
This is the second album by this group that came out of Jackdaw4. I like it better than their first album. Dowling still has a tendency to over-complicate things and change the songs too much over the course of their running time. But it's still a great rock album which is getting harder and harder to find these days.<br />
<br />
<b> </b><br />
<b>Justice - Woman</b><br />
This electronic album came out in November and I saved it for my trip to the UK so it could provide the soundtrack to my sight-seeing. I think their last album "Audio Video Disco" is superior, but this makes a really good companion to that one. Lots of great funky synthesizer songs which makes me happy.<br />
<br />
<b> </b><br />
<b>And the rest</b>. That's it for albums I liked this year. There were a few other bands and songs that I listened to but weren't good enough to list individually above. Of note, Joe Hawley, my favorite member of Talley Hall, released a solo album, but it was too weird for me to really get into. My brother introduced me to a band The 1975 which I tried to get into, but despite some great songs, never really hooked me. However, they did release one of my favorite songs of the year, the David Bowie-esque "Love Me":<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/TJ5bZuUlftI" width="480"></iframe><br />
<br />
2017 is wide open. No idea what's in store music-wise. Possibly a new Tears for Fears album. That's about all I know.<br />
<br />
<h2>
Movies</h2>
I normally keep track of all the newer movies I see each year. This year I decided to keep track of all the movies I saw new, old, in the theater and out. I saw 24 movies in the theater (23 actually, one I saw twice in the theaters.) 73 new movies at home (as in came out in the past 2 years). 201 new older and classic movies (as in before 2015). And 90 old old moves (as in older movies I'd already seen before.) Altogether that's about 388 movies. I'm sure there's more. These are just the ones I'd remembered to note after watching. That's about one movie a day plus a few extras on weekends.<br />
<br />
Many of the older movies I watched are typically bad movies that I watch in association with several of the podcasts I listen to including "How Did This Get Made" and "We Hate Movies." So I've crossed a ton of bad movies off my bucket list this year. A few were good movies that I just had never got around to seeing yet. Also, early on this year I saw a documentary on Cannon Films, the studio that made so many terrible action movies in the 80s and I decided to try and watch as many of those as I could, so that's where a significant number of "new old" movies comes from. I only made it through about half. I'm still working on the rest.<br />
<br />
As for theatrical and new 2016 movies, there were a number of good ones, but it was crazy how many that should have been great were either mediocre or completely terrible. More on that later. For now, here are my favorite new movies for 2016:<br />
<br />
<b>Captain America Civil War</b> (vs. Batman v Superman) - I was shocked at how similar this was to the other big Superhero movie this year, "Batman v. Superman: Blah Blah Blah." Both had superheroes turning against each other to the point of fighting, and both had more super-powered people in it than were necessary. But where BvS was depressing, obnoxious, and tone-deaf, this one was fun, exciting, and funny. It also was the only movie I saw twice in the theater this year. The actual Batman/Superman showdown scene was awful, but the airport fight scene in this film was the best scene in any Superhero movie ever.<br />
<br />
<b>Rifftrax MST3K Reunion show</b> - This was actually my favorite
movie-going experience of the year. It was a one-off Fathom event that
included all the old hosts and side-kicks of the original MST3K
(including Mike & Joel all the various mad scientists and puppet
handlers and other writers) and even the new host for the upcoming
revival Jonah Ray. They took turns riffing on various educational
shorts and I laughed for two hours.<br />
<br />
<b>Doctor Strange</b> - I like Benedict Cumbernickle better as a Brit. Here he's doing his best impression of Hugh Laurie in House. However, this film has some of those most amazing visual set pieces of the year. And it solved the problem of the bad guys blowing everything up at the end of the film and causing giant messes with tons of collateral damage.<br />
<br />
<b>10 Cloverfield Lane</b> - This was a nice tight thriller with a crazy twist that somehow ties into the original Cloverfield movie. I used to watch the director of this movie on the Totally Rad Show, so it was fun seeing his first real Hollywood film.<br />
<br />
<b>Don't Breathe - </b>Speaking of thrillers, this is one and it lived up to its name. Some kids break into a house of an old blind man to steal some money and learn that just because he's blind, he's not someone to mess with. There were moments where the entire audience were holding their collective breaths along with the characters in the film and the room was completely silent.<br />
<br />
<b>Arrival</b> - Following the weird new tradition of releasing adult-oriented, Sci Fi drama films at the end of the year (Gravity, The Martian, Interstellar, etc.) "Arrival" presents an interesting tale of trying to learn to communicate with a completely alien species. The ending was too smart for me and went over my head. I had to go home and read a few articles to figure it out. Will it work better if I see it again? Maybe.<br />
<br />
<b>Zootopia</b> - Apparently this is my favorite animated movie of the year. I didn't see "Moana" yet. "Finding Dory" was okay. "Secret Life of Pets" was meh. "Kubo and the Two Strings" should have been great, but it didn't really hold my attention the way it should have. So this wins by default. <br />
<br />
Some other films I liked that were new(ish) that I didn't see in the theaters: "Bridge of Spies," "Pee Wee's Big Holiday," "Sing Street," "Tickled," and "Mascots."<br />
<br />
Movies I thought I would really enjoy and didn't: "Star Wars: Rogue One," "Ghostbusters," "Star Trek Beyond," "Fantastic Beasts and...," "Independence Day Resurgence," and "X-Men Apocalypse."<br />
<br />
Movies that everyone hated, but I actually kind of liked: "Suicide Squad." I can't figure out all the hate. It wasn't great, but I found myself having a good time in spite of all the stupidity.<br />
<br />
One film of note: I've tried move than 7 or 8 times throughout my life to make it through the movie "Dune." This is the year I finally got through it. I'm proud of me. <br />
<br />
Looking to 2017, I'm awaiting Star Wars Episode VIII, Guardians of the Galaxy 2, Spider-Man Homecoming, Lego Batman, The Mummy with Tom Cruise, and Thor: Ragnarok -- because the director did "What We Do In The Shadows" and has an amazing dry sense of humor.<br />
<br />
<h2>
TV</h2>
I watched mostly the same stuff this year as previous years. Not a lot of new shows that the whole family got excited about. Here's what I liked the most:<br />
<br />
<b>-Black Mirror - </b>Netflix debuted the third season/series of this anthology show and I love the techno twilight zone that each episode brings. It's dark, but it almost always has something interesting to say.<br />
<br />
-<b>Stranger Things - </b>Another Netflix show. This series came out of nowhere and was amazing. It grabbed the 80s version of Steven Spielberg, Stephen King, John Carpenter, and Wes Craven and mixed them in a blender to create this sci-fi/fantasy/horror series. I liked it so much I dressed up as the wall for Halloween.<br />
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<span id="goog_847501608"></span><span id="goog_847501609"></span><br />
-<b>American Crime Story: People vs. OJ Simpson</b> - This was amazingly cheesy and over-the-top, and I could never buy Cuba Gooding Jr. as OJ, yet somehow I couldn't stop watching. Even though I lived through the trial, I missed the start while out of the country on my mission, and missed the rest because I was just not interested. So there was a lot I didn't know and so it was educational and entertaining!<br />
<br />
-<b>America's Got Talent/Britain's Got Talent - </b>Still my favorite performance reality show series. I can't even remember who won this year, but I still love watching.<br />
<br />
-<b>Last Week Tonight with John Oliver/SNL -</b>With the election year, I found the exasperation and horror through comedy of these and other similar shows as we got closer to Trump winning each week both entertaining and scary.<br />
<br />
<b>-The Good Place</b> - The one new network show that we found and loved this year. A show about a woman who dies and goes to "The Good Place" rather than the "Bad Place" but it turns out she doesn't belong. Lots of great surreal humor in this life-after-death comedy.<br />
<br />
-<b>Angie Tribeca - </b>The first half-hour slapstick cop show since "Police Squad" in the early 80s. It has all the same anything-goes Zucker-style comedy from "Airplane!" and "Naked Gun." Yet somehow is better than any parody movie from the past 15 years.<br />
<br />
-<b>Red Dwarf - </b>The series came back from the dead with a new set of episodes this year and a second set this year to come.<br />
<br />
I also watched a lot of the shows out there that people were always talking about like Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, and Westworld. I seldom liked any of them and only watch half-heartedly so I can follow the conversation.<br />
<br />
Looking forward to 2017 for new Sherlock (debuting Jan 1st. I won't even remember it by next year!), new Mystery Science Theater 3000, more Black Mirror and Stranger Things possibly, more Wet Hot American Summer, maybe, and possibly a new Star Trek series.<br />
<br />
<h2>
Podcasts and Online</h2>
Here are the regular podcasts and online (i.e. Youtube) shows that I watched and enjoyed this year categorized by theme:<br />
<br />
<b>-Movies: Movie B.S., Movie Fights, Honest Trailers, Mr. Plinket Reviews, Half in the Bag, Slashfilm, Empire, I Was There Too</b><br />
<b>-Bad Movies: How Did This Get Made, We Hate Movies, Best of the Worst, Nostalgia Critic, Loose Cannons</b><br />
<b>-TV Series: Smegheads Red Dwarf Podcast, Monkey Tennis Alan Partridge Podcast, Knocking Dead, Watching Thrones</b><br />
<b>-Misc: No Such Thing As a Fish</b><br />
<br />
<h2>
Video Games</h2>
Normally I just call this section "Games." But this year I'm breaking out a separate section for Video Games and Board Games.<br />
<br />
This year we got an XBox One so we could enter the current generation and play some newer games. I was still going through the catalog of PS3 games I got when we bought the PS3 last year. And of course, I had my phone with me most of the time.<br />
<br />
Here are my favorite that I played this year this year organized by platform:<br />
<br />
<b> XBox One:</b><br />
<b>-Tomb Raider/Rise of the Tomb Raider</b> - XBox One - I had a lot of fun with this new version of Lara Croft. I'm still playing through the first one which I got for Christmas, but spent a lot of time with the sequel that we got with the console in August.<br />
<br />
-Also: Rare Replay, Rocket League and Mirror's Edge Catalyst<br />
<br />
<b>PS3:</b><br />
<b>-Ratchet & Clank 1,2,3, Sly Cooper 3,4, Jak & Daxter 1,2,3, Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. </b>As I mentioned above, I spent a lot of time burning through PS3 games that we'd missed over the past 10 years or so once it became obsolete and thus affordable. Of all those, I probably liked the last Sly Cooper game the best.<br />
<br />
<b>iOS: </b><br />
-<b>Simpsons Tapped Out </b>- iOS - I've been playing this for three years now(?!) and it still keeps giving me stuff to do. They finally quit adding stuff to the main game, but the special events are regular enough there's usually something new going on.<br />
<br />
-<b>Bloons Monkey City</b> - Another town builder game, this one attached to a Tower Defense Bloons game. Two of my boys and I all started building our towns this year. I've upgraded just about all I can in the game, but had a lot of fun getting there.<br />
<br />
-Also: Hungry Shark Evolution/World, Rodeo Stampede, Super Stick-man Golf 3, Bejeweled Stars, Bloons Super Monkey 2, Burrito Bison Launcha Luchador, and The Room 3.<br />
<br />
<b>Wii: </b><br />
<b>-Star Fox Zero, Pikmin 3, and Captain Toad's Treasure Tracker.</b> Star Fox was the only new game this year for the Wii U that we played. Nintendo has pretty much abandoned it and are moving to the "Switch" in 2017.<br />
<b> </b><br />
<b>PC: </b><br />
<br />
<b>-JackBox Party Games. </b>My brother brought these games to my attention over Christmas. They are a series of party games by the people who made "You Don't Know Jack." We set it up on our computer on our TV and then every player logs in with their phone, pad, or laptop and uses a web interface to play along. We were able to Skype with my brother's family in Utah and play with them simultaneously as well. They were amazingly fun. "Drawful," "Fibbage," and "Quiplash" were our favorites.<br />
<b> </b><br />
<b>-Day of the Tentacle Remastered. </b>Love old LucasArts games.<br />
<br />
My boys play much more on the PC than I do. Plus I don't really have my own computer powerful enough to play most newer PC games.<br />
<br />
For 2017, looking to see what Nintendo does with the Switch. They seem to be merging the Wii U with the 3DS and making a completely portable gaming system that can also play on your TV. But the real question is, where are the good games?<br />
<br />
<h2>
Board Games</h2>
This is the first year I'm adding this category. Last year at Christmas time we bought a lot of board games and had a lot of fun playing at the table every night. We continued doing it occasionally this year as well as having some friends over semi-regularly during the first part of the year. Here are my favorites that I played:<br />
<br />
-<b>Mysterium - </b>An interesting cross between Clue and Dixit. One player is a ghost who tries using strange picture cards to lead the other players to discovering the murderer. It's a really unique game structure with a unique communication method. I really love this game.<br />
<br />
-<b>Betrayal at the House on the Hill - </b>an old friend of mine sent me this game and I love it. You play as a group who goes to an old creepy house to explore. Midway through the game one of the players is revealed to be a betrayer and you start a completely new game that changes every time you play. You suddenly find yourself stuck in a house trying to defeat crazy zombies, vampires, demons, cannibals, werewolves or any number of different scenarios. I love that you never know how this game will play out when you sit down.<br />
<br />
-Other games I really enjoyed playing and recommend: <b>Codenames, Concept, Superfight, Munchkin, and Imagine</b>. Also, see Jackbox Party Games in the previous section.<br />
<br />
<h2>
Books</h2>
Well, I kind of let things slip here. I did read a few, but nothing I need to mention here. I'll try to do better next year. But if you need a recommendation, ask Maria. She'll hook you up.<br />
<br />
<h2>
And so...</h2>
That's about it for 2016. I already put most of the things I was looking forward to in 2017 in each of the sections were applicable.<br />
<br />
One of the reasons I watched so much TV & movies this year was that I picked up a new hobby of crochet--specifically amigurumi or crochet figures--which was a great thing to do while watching a show. Or a great excuse to watch a show while working. I may do another post related to that later on.<br />
<br />
I'll be doing some traveling for work early this year as we finish up testing the F35. That'll keep me busy up through the middle of the year. Who knows what I'll be doing at the end of the year though. Hopefully I'll still have a job.<br />
<br />
Either way, I'll be back again in a year to look back at 2017.<br />
<br />
Cheers!<br />
<b> </b>Gumbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16164366902768547090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-87233659039775561.post-55967408576697207282016-01-01T15:52:00.000-06:002017-01-01T13:01:23.548-06:00Greg's Favorites of 2015<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-r_R2p9OtmLo/Vobucd0-7CI/AAAAAAAABqE/7pjxJboJ0d0/s1600/2015stuff.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="307" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-r_R2p9OtmLo/Vobucd0-7CI/AAAAAAAABqE/7pjxJboJ0d0/s400/2015stuff.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Welcome to 2016. Let's once again resurrect this dead format so I can document my favorite things from 2015.<br />
<h2>
Music</h2>
Another weak year for me music-wise. Part of that is my own fault because I found most of my listening time is now dedicated to podcasts rather than music. So without dedicating much time for listening to music, my hunt for new albums and bands has ebbed a bit. That being said, there were a few good things that I found this year.<br />
<br />
I'll start with myself again. I didn't do mush musically this year, though I continue to keep song ideas brewing in the back of my mind. I'm sure more will be coming soon. In the meantime, I did do another Christmas instrumental arrangement this year for "We Three Kings." This one is done in an upbeat, Mannheim Steamroller-style mixed with a swashbuckling-adventure feel.<br />
<br />
<iframe width="480" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/TCKSRkf3OWE" frameborder="0" allowFullScreen=""></iframe>
<br />
<b>Michael Sherwood & Christian Nesmith - Groovy Lemon Pie</b><br />
By far the best album I found this year was this amazing pop-rock album that sounds like Peter Gabriel joined up with XTC and his old Genesis bandmates. It honestly sounds like the spiritual successor to Peter Gabriel's "So." Similar to how Gotye sounded just like Sting a few years ago. I found and brought this album with us on our giant summer trip this year of over 3000 car miles. We listened to it almost exclusively through the amazing scenery of Yellowstone National Park, and it was the perfect soundtrack to that beautiful background. The album is available on Bandcamp where you can listen to the album in its entirety. If you are limited in time, skip the first couple tracks and listen to tracks 3-6. Each of those is amazing and sound like a long lost Genesis album. Track 11 "Two Words" and Track 15 "This Day" sound the most like Peter Gabriel solo.<br />
<br />
<iframe seamless="" src="https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=255060315/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=0687f5/tracklist=false/artwork=small/transparent=true/" style="border: 0; height: 120px; width: 400px;"><a href="http://michaelsherwoodchristiannesmith.bandcamp.com/album/groovy-lemon-pie">Groovy Lemon Pie by Michael Sherwood & Christian Nesmith</a></iframe><br />
<br />
<b>Muse - Drones</b><br />
I really enjoyed the new Muse album this year. I had to edit a couple tracks (particularly Psycho) to make them listenable, but overall I enjoyed the overblown dramatic rock that Muse always brings.<br />
<br />
<b>FFS - FFS</b><br />
This was a collaboration piece between Franz Ferdinand and Sparks. Two bands I would never specifically put together in my head, but somehow the album works as both a new Sparks album and its own thing.<br />
<br />
<b>The December People - A Classic Rock Christmas</b><br />
Thanks to my brother who let me know about this album that came out just in time for Christmas. I really enjoy the mashup of classic Christmas songs with classic rock bands that these guys do. This time they do Eagles, Toto, Van Halen, and Dire Straits, among others. It works in nicely with their previous albums. <br />
<br />
<b>Darkness - Last of Our Kind</b><br />
I enjoyed this new Darkness album, and most of the songs are good, but it never quite dug into me enough to make a long lasting impression. <br />
<b> </b><br />
<b>Hoosiers - The Secret Service</b><br />
See the paragraph above but replace Darkness with Hoosiers.<b> </b><br />
<b> </b><br />
<b>Special Mention: Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of the War of the Worlds (1978)</b><br />
The first track from this album was playing during an episode of Fargo Season 2, and I was vaguely familiar with it, but had never looked into it before. I found it was from this album which is a musical retelling of the War of the Worlds. It's really quite an amazing and fun work which sounds like a cross between ELO and Moody Blues. While there are songs, or occasional singing throughout, I would say it's a good mix of instrumental and singing, with some bits of narration and dramatic acting to carry the story along. Justin Hayward, the lead singer from Moody Blues sings a few times and it fits right in with other Moody Blues songs from the late 70s.<b> </b><br />
<b> </b><br />
A few other albums of note this year that I listened to: A new Toto album (XIV) that had a few good songs, a new Ben Folds album (So There) that was mostly to show off his orchestral stuff that I didn't really care for, and an album from the guy behind the YouTube Bret Domino Trio, Rob J Madin which I supported via IndieGogo, but sadly didn't really get into. And Chateau Marmont, who put out my favorite album a few years ago, put out a new one that was headache-inducingly terrible. I never could listen all the way through.<br />
<br />
<h2>
Movies</h2>
In looking towards 2015, people were expecting a legendary year, and I think they got it. The biggest opening weekend ever happened several times this year, and at this moment three movies from this year are in the top 10 of all time. And of course, Star Wars nearly took over Christmas this year along with everything else it got near. At this moment Star Wars is just 1 million behind Jurassic World which it will obviously pass today, and 7 million behind Titanic which it will also likely pass today, or this weekend for sure. It's still 110 behind Avatar, so it's unsure whether it will overtake that juggernaut. Surprisingly, it was not my favorite of the year. Another weird thing about this year: there was an abundance of spy movies, and who would have guessed they all would have been better than James Bond's SPECTRE. Skyfall was one of the best Bonds, but this new one was just okay. Interestingly, at the beginning of the year the movies I was most looking forward to
were Avengers and Tomorrowland, neither of which were as good as I'd
hoped.<br />
<br />
Also new for this year: several local theaters were refitted with Luxury Recliners and started reserved seating. It is so nice to have room and be able to put your feet up while watching a movie. This trend makes me happy. <br />
<br />
Here's what I watched and liked this year in movies:<br />
<br />
<b>Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation</b><br />
I did not think lightning could strike three times with this movie series, since every movie has been directed by a totally different team. But this was just as enjoyable as the last two from JJ Abrams and Brad Bird. Oddly this had the same story as SPECTRE, but was far superior.<br />
<b> </b><br />
<b>The Martian</b><br />
I had no expectations for this film. I certainly didn't need to see another movie with people rescuing Matt Damon. But on its release there was so much buzz, I had to go see, and found one of the most enjoyable, smart, moving films of the year.<br />
<br />
<b>Mad Max Fury Road</b><br />
Like the Martian, I had no specific interest in this film until it came out and people started throwing hyperbole all over the film. It was definitely an intense ride, and unlike anything else I've seen in a long time. I just wish the last act/ending were a bit more satisfying, but otherwise definitely an amazing film.<br />
<br />
<b> Inside Out</b><br />
Finally Pixar puts out a new film that can rank right alongside their previous great films. What I find most amazing about this film is it introduces a whole new vocabulary to talk to kids about their feelings and trying to understand their behavior. Sadly, my son had to leave twice throughout the film for potty breaks, so I missed a few key moments from the film that I had to wait several months to finally get the whole experience.<br />
<b> </b><br />
<b> Jurassic World, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Star Wars: The Force Awakens</b><br />
These were three biggest movies of the year, all sequels to huge franchises, and I enjoyed all of them. However, each of them was disappointing in some way. Jurassic World and Star Wars were essentially telling their earlier stories all over again. Avengers' issue was that they set up a villain that never really paid off and ended up being like pretty much every other comic book bad guy.<br />
<br />
<b>Ant-Man</b><br />
I really enjoyed Ant-Man, even though it was essentially a retelling of Iron Man. I was really scared when Edgar Wright left the project, but the finished film turned out fun, albeit a bit light.<br />
<b> </b><br />
<b>Kingsmen, Man from UNCLE, Spy, SPECTRE</b><br />
Along with Mission Impossible, there are the other spy movies that I saw this year in order of how I enjoyed them. Kingsmen was just crazy, and UNCLE had a great sense of style and humor. Spy was mostly just silly, but it made more sense than SPECTRE. The opening to SPECTRE was pretty great, but the overall story just didn't make enough sense to carry the action scenes.<br />
<b> </b><br />
<b> The Visit, The Walk, The Martian, The Gift</b><br />
These are four films I saw in a row, completely coincidentally, that were all good, but had completely generic and similar names. All of these movies would be improved with better titles. For example, Eric D Snider suggested changing "The Visit" to "Something's Wrong With Nana and Pop-Pop." I'd go see that movie!<br />
<b> </b><br />
<b>It Follows, Krampus, Crimson Peak</b><br />
These are the best horror movies I saw this year. "It Follows" had the best premise of any horror movie. Krampus was a great throw back to Gremlins-style 80s films. And Crimson Peak had an amazing style. Sadly I didn't feel like any of them managed a satisfactory ending.<b> </b><br />
<br />
<b>Creed</b><br />
Another movie I was not looking forward to, but saw after reviews started coming in. Like several other movies listed above, this was essentially a retelling of the original film (Rocky), but somehow I got caught up in it. The single-take fight in the middle of the film was amazing.<br />
<br />
<b>Hunger Games 4</b><br />
I'm not going to bother looking up the correct title to this movie. It was a nice completion to the series. I enjoyed it better than the last book.<b> </b> <br />
<b> </b><br />
Special mentions:<br />
<br />
This year after the death of Wes Craven, people started talking about his movies. I'd seen the Scream series and first Nightmare on Elm Street, but nothing else. In searching for a guide to some of his movies, I found a podcast called "Now Playing" (more down below) that stepped movie by movie through various movie franchises. So I figured I'd watch the Nightmare on Elm Street series (all 9 films.) When I finished that, I decided to watch the Friday the 13th series (12 movies--one of the which was the Elm Street crossover Freddy vs. Jason.) Finishing that, I figured I'd complete the trifecta and watched the Halloween series (10 films.) And for good measure I watched the Texas Chainsaw films (7), Children of the Corn (9), Blair Witch (2), and Silent Night Deadly Night (6). Needless to say, that turned into a very busy Halloween season.<br />
<br />
Speaking of marathons, I also watched all the Bond films leading up to SPECTRE (26 films, including 2 unofficial films), all the Star Wars movies (7 including Clone Wars movie), the first four Rocky films, and nearly all the Die Hard films (we couldn't get through 5. It's just awful. And looking at the films I've watched in the paragraph above, I've watched some truly bad films this year.)<br />
<br />
One last mention, I watched "Killer Klowns from Outer Space" in full this year. I had seen bits in the past, but this was the first time watching the whole movie, and I think it's one of my new favorite comedy horror films.<br />
<br />
<h2>
TV</h2>
There seems to be a trend toward amazing short series but not so much regular long-lasting shows. There was very little on the regular networks that I watched this year, and almost nothing that I wasn't watching already. Here are my favorite shows I watched this year:<br />
<br />
<b>Wizard Wars/Penn & Teller Fool Us</b><br />
I really enjoy seeing good magic on TV. The pseudo-improvised style of Wizard Wars with the occasional mistake, and the live stage-style presentation on Fool Us shows off impressive magic without camera tricks and without the overblown style that other magicians have used. <b> </b><br />
<b> </b><br />
<b>Face Off</b><br />
I continue to really enjoy seeing the creature creations come to life in this show. Even though I really only watch to see the last 10 minutes of the episode.<br />
<b> </b><br />
<b>Simpsons/Brooklyn 99</b><br />
Yup, I still watch the Simpsons, and Brooklyn 99 is the only live sitcom that we regularly enjoy as a family.<br />
<b> </b><br />
<b>Last Week Tonight</b><br />
After seeing a few segments of this show, I got hooked and watched regularly. John Oliver has a way of taking an issue that you never cared about (like FIFA) and suddenly make you care while being highly entertained at the same time. I just wish this weren't an HBO show, since I don't think the casual adult language improves anything.<br />
<b> </b><br />
<b> The Jinx/Making a Murderer</b><br />
Speaking of getting caught up in issues. Both of these mini-series got me hooked portraying two opposite crime stories. The first, about a rich guy who gets away with everything, and the second about a poor guy who absolutely doesn't. I watched a couple episodes of Making a Murderer just a few days ago and then found I couldn't stop. I was debating hard when I was getting near the end and it was past midnight whether to push through or get some sleep. I think in this case I should have pushed through since I was too agitated to sleep anyway though I tried.<br />
<b> </b><br />
<b>Broadchurch</b><br />
Another murder mystery, but this time a fictional one. This was the second series of the UK show, and though I figured catching the murderer was all that needed to be said in the first series, the second series gave plenty of reasons to justify coming back one more time.<br />
<b> </b><br />
<b>Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt/Wet Hot American Summer</b><br />
These two Netflix comedy shows were two of my favorites for the year. The first has made it impossible to say the word "Unbreakable" or anything that sounds similar ("Unmistakable,"<b> </b>"Unshakable," "Incapable," etc) without breaking into that ear-worm theme song. The other show was great in recapturing that strange off-the-wall style of the original film.<br />
<br />
<b>Ash vs. Evil Dead</b><br />
This series wraps up tonight, I believe, so I haven't finished it, but it's been a strange trip. I loved Army of Darkness, and really liked Evil Dead 2.<b> </b>The pilot, by Sam Raimi, started things off pretty promising, but then it's been hit or miss along the way. Still, it's pretty crazy seeing Ash back on the screen--especially when you compare him to the chubby Bruce Campbell of Burn Notice.<br />
<br />
<b>America's Got Talent/Britain's Got Talent</b><br />
This is still the place to occasionally see something you've never seen before. This year the American finalists included several magicians and a regurgitator.<br />
<br />
<b>Inside No. 9</b><br />
A British dark-humored anthology show. You never know if you're gonna get a farce, a murder mystery, or a pull-at-your-heart-strings drama. It's somewhat hit or miss, but I appreciate the effort and the fact that you never know what you're going to get.<br />
<br />
<b>Muppets</b><br />
As a huge Muppet fan, I would have assumed this would be at the top of my list going into last year. It's what I've been wanting from the Muppets for years. The Office-style pseudo-documentary behind-the-scenes style seemed perfectly matched for putting on the Muppet Show. And it probably was in 2008. In 2015, it didn't work, and I quickly got bored. I'm not even sure what the last episode was that I watched because it didn't hold my attention strongly enough to remember. This makes me sad.<b> </b> <br />
<br />
Special mention:<br />
<br />
With "Friends" streaming on Netflix, we watched the entire series all over again. We'd bought the series on DVD a long time ago, but then sold or gave it away. It was fun re-watching it as a historical piece on the late 90s and seeing which guest stars are now huge or have gone on to other things while many of the Friends themselves have started to disappear.<br />
<br />
I watched a couple other online series including "Other Space" and "Community." I was sadly very disappointed with "Community." With a reduced cast list from the original show, it never seemed to reach the heights of the earlier series. <br />
<br />
<b>Online</b>:<br />
Not counting Netflix, since I included that with the regular shows above, some of the other things that I enjoyed watching online were:<br />
<ul>
<li>RedLetterMedia (Half in the Bag, Best of the Worst, Wheel of the Worst)</li>
<li>Screen Junkies (Honest Trailers, Movie Fights)</li>
<li> Bored Shorts</li>
<li>TomSka (asdf, skits)</li>
</ul>
<h2>
Podcasts</h2>
As I mentioned in the music section, I listen almost exclusively to podcasts these days. My favorites this year were:<br />
<ul>
<li>"Now Playing Podcast" -- as I mentioned in movies, this show goes movie by movie through nearly every franchise out there from horror to comic book to action. If there's a sequel they've either reviewed it or will get to it eventually. I've had a lot of fun with discovering this podcast with around 6 years of back log to catch up on. It's encouraged me to watch and/or re-watch quite a few movies this year to play along.</li>
<li>"Movie Fights" -- This one hasn't been going very long, and when I got into it early this year, I binged through the episodes I missed to catch up. At first I thought the point was establish things like "Who was the best Batman" or "Which Avenger would win in the Hunger Games" with a definitive answer. But once I realized it was purely about the debate, not the answer, then I softened to it and really got into it. We even got a card game called "Superfight" which works similar to this show in pairing up fighters and then debating who would win.</li>
<li>"Movie BS" -- I provided another new theme song for this show, my favorite movie review podcast.</li>
<li>"Empire"/"Slashfilm" -- These are my two other favorite movie news/review podcasts.</li>
<li>"Smegheads"/"James Bonding" -- These two podcasts step through each Red Dwarf show/James Bond movie and review them in a very entertaining way.</li>
</ul>
<h2>
Games</h2>
I played a lot of games this year. As usual. We added a PS3 to our game library, now that the system is last generation and cheap, and we could find lots of games for a good price. My boys have taken to PC gaming and we've got a lot more games through Steam than through consoles this year. Here are the games that I enjoyed the most:<br />
<br />
-<b>Trials Frontier/Simpsons Tapped Out </b>(iOS) - These were my top two last year and I continued to play them throughout this year. I almost got fed up with Trials and deleted it off my phone for a week, only to discover a massive update that fixed all the things I was upset with and added a ton of new content. Both of these are Freemium games, but I do put a few dollars in here and there mainly to express appreciation for the many hours I've spent on them. With Trials, I have regularly been ranked in the top 100 in the world for most of the year.<br />
<br />
-<b>Her Story</b> (iOS) - This was one of the most unique and fascinating games this year. The premise is that you are watching clips of a series of interviews on a police computer for an old crime. You are given no information and can only access the clips by typing in words from the interview transcript -- which you don't have. So you start by typing in words like "crime" or "murder" and see what comes up. Bit by bit, you piece together the story that you learn in a completely random order. It's also unique in that it's mostly video with real people--or, actually, one actor. I strongly recommend finding this. I think it's available on several different platforms.<br />
<br />
<b>Hyrule Warrios </b>(WiiU) - I didn't understand this Zelda-themed game when I first tried it. You are on a big battlefield surrounded by hundreds of monsters and you just jump in and start killing everyone. Slowly I found that mass murdering people was very addicting and could be done while watching a movie or doing other things at the same time.<br />
<br />
<b>Splatoon </b>(WiiU) - This was a really clever and very unique multiplayer game on the Wii. The premise makes no sense, but the gameplay is really fun. You are a person who has ink-based weapons like brushes or paint sprays, and you try to spread your color of ink over the playing field while stopping the other team from spreading their ink. And you can turn into a squid to swim through your color of ink. Weird, but fun.<br />
<br />
<b>Mario Maker </b>(WiiU) - We had a lot of fun designing Mario levels with this game. It's laid out in a very ingenious way, while only giving you a few tools at a time and making you earn more by making levels and trying out the tools you have. There's an amazing library of other levels that people have made and many of them are unbelievable.<br />
<br />
<b>Lego Jurassic Park</b> (XBox 360) - Yup, another Lego game. This one has dinosaurs.<br />
<br />
<b>Geometry Wars 3 (</b>Xbox, iOS) - Geometry Wars 2 was my favorite Xbox 360 game. I never expected a new game in the series, since I'd believed the company that made it went under. So I was shocked a new one was released with new ideas that lived up quite well to its predecessor. The only reason it doesn't overtake it is that there's almost too much to do, which takes away the intense, but simple focus of the previous one that only had a few different types of stages.<br />
<br />
<b>Unfinished Swan </b>(PS3) - This was an older game that was exclusive to the PS3 so I was finally able to play it this year. I'd seen a demo several years ago and was blown away by the concept. You start out with a completely white screen and after hitting random buttons on the controller you discover one of them throws a ball of paint which lands in front of you splashing on the wall or ground. As you throw paint, you can begin to distinguish your environment which you have to traverse by continuing to throw paint balls to find your way around. There are other mechanics that come into play in this short game, but that first part is just amazing as an invisible world suddenly starts to take shape in front of your eyes. <br />
<br />
A few other games that I played this year:<br />
Captain Toad's Treasure Tracker, Rayman Wii U, Pocket Mine 2 (iOS), Shadowmatic (iOS), Talos Principle (PC), Shovel Knight (PC), Batman:Arkham Origins (XBox), The Sly Cooper Collection (PS3), Katamari Forever (PS3), You Must Build a Boat (iOS)<br />
<h2>
Books</h2>
I made a goal to read more this year. I only sort of succeeded, but there were a few things I made it through:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>"As You Wish" - A behind the scenes book of "The Princess Bride" written by Wesley himself, Cary Elwes</li>
<li>"Vortex"/"Catalyst" - Books 2 and 3 of the terribly named "Insignia" series. A series about a world where they put computers into the heads of potential child soldiers in a cross between "Ender's Game" and "Ready Player One."</li>
<li>"Armada" - Speaking of "Ready Player One," this was the new novel from Ernest Cline about an alien invasion on earth that was a cross between "Ender's Game" and "The Last Starfighter." It was a fun read, but not quite the instant classic that his previous book became.</li>
<li>Book of Mormon - I spent a significant amount of time re-reading the Book of Mormon in a short span of time in the middle of the year, starting with 3rd Nephi and wrapping around back to the end of Helaman.</li>
<li>"The Da Vinci Code" - I re-read this book when we found a cheap copy of the illustrated version that contains images of all the paintings and places that were referred to in the book. It was nice to have the reference material right there as you read it.</li>
<li>"The Black Lizard Big Book of Locked-Room Mysteries" - I just got this for Christmas so I'm only a few stories in, but I've enjoyed it so far.</li>
<li>"Goosebumps #1: Welcome To Dead House" - I had an idea to try and read some Goosebump books since there was a Goosebump movie coming out this year. I only made it through this and halfway through the second.</li>
</ul>
<h2>
And so 2016... </h2>
Now that we're done with 2015, here's what I'm looking forward to this next year.<br />
<br />
I'm still looking forward to all the Marvel films. This year is Captain America Civil War and Doctor Strange. I'm looking forward to the next Star Wars movie, Rogue One and the next Star Trek as well. I'm hesitant about Batman V Superman or Suicide Squad. And then there's Ghostbusters. Could be amazing, could be like this year and be too close of a remake to the earlier film. Who knows. There's also a Harry Potter pseudo-prequel Fantastic Beasts... that could be really interesting.<br />
<br />
On TV there's a new Sherlock special airing today. Otherwise, who knows.<br />
<br />
In music, I think the Feeling have new album coming out and I'm willing to give them another shot. Tears for Fears may have a new album if we're lucky. Otherwise, I have nothing much that I'm anticipating for this year. Maybe I'll finally start getting more of my own music down as I work toward my second album. We'll see.<br />
<br />
In games, we may learn about a new Nintendo platform this year, and maybe get a new Zelda game? <br />
<br />
At the moment we have no big plans for 2016. There are a few international trips for work that are coming up between now and early 2017 which I may get to go on. Otherwise, we intend to just keep on as we've been doing.<br />
<br />
See you all in 2017!Gumbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16164366902768547090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-87233659039775561.post-88724783423282661122015-01-02T12:33:00.000-06:002016-01-01T15:52:44.429-06:00Greg's Favorites of 2014<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
It's that time again! Time to blow the cobwebs off this old blog thing and post my favorites of the past year: 2014. Here we go!<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<h2>
Music</h2>
<div>
It's getting harder for me to find music I really like. 2014 was another difficult year. I need a new big brother to show me all the cool bands, but I haven't been able to find one in a while, so it's hit and miss. Here's what I listened to and really liked this year:</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b>Greg Whitehead. </b>Let's start again with me, since I'm my favorite subject. I recorded several songs this year, 2 songs and 2 instrumentals.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
"Goodbye Today" - In the style of 60's vocal sunshine pop (a la "The Association")
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/i5GNgpArghU" width="560"></iframe><br />
<br />
"Apricot Jam" - 70's style instrumental funk jam (a la Air's "La Femme d'Argent")
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/b_XjoAfAeeo" width="560"></iframe><br />
<br />
"The Rain" - Rock/pop inspired by Jellyfish
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/w6LCGtWhEw8" width="560"></iframe><br />
<br />
"Little Drummer Boy" - Christmas arrangement with my brother Jeffrey Whitehead on guitar. Mix of rock, disco, and Beatles psychedelia
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/6E-f1mFMjAM" width="560"></iframe><br />
<br />
<b>Rob Cantor </b> - "Not a Trampoline" - Solo release from a member of one of my favorite bands, Tally Hall, this album was probably my most listened to of the year. It contains all the hallmarks of a great Tally Hall album, including appearances by most of the band in some capacity. Lots of quirkiness, great harmonies, and catchy melodies. "Perfect" became a huge viral hit, but my favorite from the album is "Garden of Eden"--though there are quite a few others I could have picked.<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/gParx165LZU" width="560"></iframe>
<b><br /></b>
<b>Dowling Poole - </b>"Bleak Strategies" - Rising from the ashes of Jackdaw 4, this pairing of Willie Dowling and Jon Poole is the best Jackdaw 4 album since "Bipolar Diversions"<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>"Weird Al" Yankovic</b> - "Mandatory Fun" - Supposedly Al's last studio album, this is just as great as any other Weird Al album. I actually recognized some of the songs he parodied this time and the ones I didn't were still great songs. There was a great week earlier this year when Weird Al released one video a day from his album. That was a great week.<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>St. Vincent</b> - This is the second time I saw an artist on SNL and sought out more of their work. (The first being Gotye a couple years ago.) St. Vincent is very weird and quirky and Maria didn't enjoy it much when I played it, but it reminded me of the cool alternative music from the late 80s and early 90s when alternative meant weird and quirky and not loud and harsh.<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Piano Guys</b> - "Wonders" - Another year, another Piano Guys album. We really enjoyed playing this one in the car this year.<br />
<br />
<b>Nicole Saboune</b> - "Must Exist" - This is the album I started the year off with. She's a Scandinavian artist that I don't really know much about, but her album had a really great early 80s female artist sound akin to Pat Benetar mixed with Joan Jett<br />
<br />
Other albums/artists that I listened to this year (that may or many not have come out this year):<br />
-Polyphonic Spree - "Yes It's True" (2013)<br />
-Neon Neon - "Praxis Makes Perfect" (2013)<br />
-Evil Arrows - Eps 1-3 (Bryan Scary side project)<br />
-The Hoosiers - "News from Nowhere" - I was excited about this album, but it made no impact on me.<br />
-Space - "Attack of the 50ft Mutant Kebab" - This album was a surprise that Space actually put out a new album. But sadly, nothing was anywhere near as good as their 90s albums.<br />
-Eno * Hyde - Brian Eno and Karl Hyde (Underworld) put out an album together. I really liked elements of it, particularly hearing Karl's voice again since I haven't listened to Underworld since they turned Techo. But none of the songs stuck.<br />
-Boston, Ian Anderson (Jethro Tull), Yes - These three classic rock bands put out brand new albums this year, all were listenable, but none were great. I was particularly disappointed in Yes since their previous album became one of my favorite Yes albums ever made.<br />
<br />
I'm unaware of any upcoming music in 2015 to look forward to, so this year will be a complete surprise. Crossing my fingers it will be a good one.<br />
<br />
<h2>
Movies</h2>
<div>
I enjoyed quite a lot of the movies from 2014. I initially thought this would be an off year, since 2015 is preparing to be the GREATEST MOVIE YEAR OF ALL TIME*. (*According to everyone on the Internet.) Here are the ones I liked the best this year:</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b>The Lego Movie/</b><b>Guardians of the Galaxy </b>- I'm lumping these together because they both star Chris Pratt and they were both better than they probably should have been. Both of these were a ton of fun and were completely enjoyable on re-watch.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b>X-Men - Days of Future Past</b> - I haven't been a big fan of X-Men movies, but this entry made me a fan again. There's one scene in particular where time slows down that was the scene of the year for me and took this from a great movie to an amazing movie in just 1 minute. </div>
<div>
<b><br /></b></div>
<div>
<b>Edge of Tomorrow/How To Train Your Dragon 2 </b>- I'm lumping these together because these were both really, really great movies that seemed to have failed theatrically. I can't understand why.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>About Time</b> - I believe this was a 2013 movie, but saw it this year. I really loved the time travel concept and how it played in a very mundane, yet moving way.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>Captain America: Winter Soldier/</b><b>The Hobbit: Battle of 5 Armies/</b><b>Dawn of the Planet of the Apes</b> - These are all lumped together as great sequels that I liked.</div>
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<b>Big Hero 6 </b>- This is the first theatrical movie that Jaden sat through its entirety. (Except for a bathroom break mid-way) We all had fun with it.</div>
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<b>What We Do In The Shadows</b> - A New Zealand mockumentary about vampires. Very dry and very, very funny. Possibly the funniest movie of the year.</div>
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Other movies I liked this year: Muppets Most Wanted, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1, Veronica Mars</div>
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<div>
Next year will be the big one with Star Wars, Avengers, Terminator, Jurassic World, Ant Man, Tomorrowland, 2 Pixar cartoons, and many, many more. Wouldn't it be great if they were all good? </div>
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<br /></div>
<h2>
TV</h2>
<div>
We didn't find much new to watch this year. Our network viewing has been diminishing more and more each year, though there's still a few regular shows that we watch.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
<b>Face Off/Jim Henson's Puppet Challenge/Wizard Wars</b> - I found the first two earlier this year when I was home recovering from surgery. Face Off had 8 or so seasons and this was the first for Puppet Challenge and Wizard Wars. All are essentially the same show, a template used on many, many other reality contests. Face Off is a make-up challenge (which is why I avoided it for so long.) What it really is, though, turning a model into a new creature each week. Puppet Challenge was about creating very, very elaborate puppet creatures each week. And Wizard Wars is about magicians being given specific items and creating a magic routine with them. I ate up all these shows. I love seeing amazing artists and their creativity and the process of realizing their ideas.</div>
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<b>Studio C/SNL/Birthday Boys</b> - I love a great sketch comedy and all three of these had some really good comedy.</div>
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<b>Brooklyn 99</b> - Probably the best current comedy that we actually look forward to watching</div>
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<b>Comedy Bang Bang/Review/Nathan For You</b> - All three of these were great non-traditional comedy shows.</div>
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<b>Community</b> - The last season was pretty good (still waiting for the online follow-up season.) Makes me really miss the old NBC Thursday night comedy block (with the Office and Parks and Rec)</div>
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<b>Sherlock</b> - The year started off immediately with three episodes of Sherlock. I barely remember watching them since it's been so long. But luckily I wrote it down so I would remember by the end of the year!</div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
<b>Inside No. 9</b> - A British comedy anthology series. Each episode is unrelated except for the fact that they take place in a building marked "No. 9." The first two episodes were really good. The rest were hit and miss. But good overall.</div>
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<b>@Midnight/QI/Would I Lie To You </b>- I love a good panel show, particularly with good comedians.</div>
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<div>
<b>America's Got Talent/Britain's Got Talent/Fake Off </b> - I enjoy a good talent contest, and I really enjoy watching the first two each year. The last one is a new one where they seemed to have taken all the really great original performance artists that I enjoy the most from the first two shows and created a new competition for them. It featured groups performing with shadows, puppets, black light, acrobatics, projection screens, and all sorts of creative concepts.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b>Star Trek: The Next Generation</b> - Yes, this is not a 2014 show. But I'm putting it here, because I finally watched every episode from Netflix--including most of the last season that I had never seen. So now I can finally say I have seen the entire series.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>Online</b> - Some of my favorite shows this year were from on-line only outlets. Here's a few:</div>
<div>
-The Nerdist Channel, </div>
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-RedLetterMedia (Half in the Bag, Best of the Worst, Wheel of the Worst), </div>
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-Screen Junkies (Honest Trailers)</div>
<div>
-TomSka (asdf)</div>
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-Static Videos (my nieces/nephew's comedy channel)</div>
<div>
-Brett Domino</div>
<div>
-Claudio O'Doherty - What is England</div>
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<br /></div>
<h2>
Podcasts</h2>
<div>
I found a few new podcasts this year, and phased out a few old ones. My favorites this year:</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
-Movie B.S. with Bayer and Snider - I wrote these guys a new theme song this year. I was very happy they liked it.</div>
<div>
-James Bonding - Reviewing James Bond movies one by one.</div>
<div>
-Empire Podcast - British movie new/review podcast</div>
<div>
-No Such Thing As A Fish - a QI-related podcast. Full of interesting facts.</div>
<div>
-We Have Issues - Short comedy topical podcast</div>
<div>
-Serial - Great start, but sad they didn't end anywhere satisfying. That's what happens when you start a story without knowing if/when it will end.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h2>
Games</h2>
<div>
Most of my games were on my iPhone this year with a few Xbox and other games here and there. This is still a transitional year when games are coming out on the old and new generation consoles. We got a Wii U for Christmas and caught up on a whole lot of games that we'd missed the past two years. But we have no foreseeable plans to get an Xbox One or PS4 yet. The big theme this year is "freemium"--games that are free to play but have lots of incentives or penalties if you don't then give the game more money. I gave in and played a few this year and got hooked on some. Here's what I played and enjoyed the most this year:</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b>-Trials Frontier - </b>(iOS) - A bike racing freemium game. It's fun, but very, very hard. It has a lot of freemium tropes like timers and multiple forms of currency. Yet it's kept me playing. So much so, that of the more than 1.8 million players, I'm currently ranked just under 120. At one point I got up to the 88th ranked player in the world:</div>
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-<b>Simpson's Tapped Out - (</b>iOS) - Another freemium game. I started this last Christmas and have now been playing it for an entire year. I've designed and built an entire Springfield, populated by hundreds of characters and the game keeps pulling me back in. They have regular events with regular rewards that keep the game interesting and keep you playing. This is one of the games that helped me survive my stay in the hospital earlier this year.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>-Rogue Legacy</b> - (Mac) - A platforming game that I purchased on my Mac. Very, very hard, but a lot of fun. You go through a randomly generated castle and take the money and rewards you earn to upgrade a new random character. At first you can only go through a few rooms, but by the end you have a super-upgraded character and can actually survive the castle.</div>
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<br /></div>
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-<b>2048/Threes - </b>(iOS/PC) - A sliding puzzle with a very simple concept of combining numbers to make bigger numbers. It wins the "just one more try" award for the year.</div>
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-<b>Mario Kart 8/NintendoLand/Smash Bros Wii U/Hyrule Warriors/Donkey Kong Freeze/Wii Party/Captain Toad Treasure Tracker/New Super Marios U/Super Mario 3D Wii U - </b>(Wii U) - We got all these since Thanksgiving. Most we haven't been able to spend a lot of time with, but I foresee playing them well into 2015.</div>
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<br /></div>
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-<b>Geometry Wars 3 </b>- (Xbox) - This was a surprise. The second is my all-time favorite Xbox game. I thought the series had died since the creators had gone out of business. But someone else picked it up and put out a worthy successor. Very hard, but very fun.</div>
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<br /></div>
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-<b>Thief</b> - (Xbox) - This was both a great reboot of the series and a terrible one. I played this while I was sick and recovering from surgery. I was upset by the language and surprising nudity that this game contained since my son was anxious to play it as well. It didn't need it and it ruined a pretty good game. The story didn't make much sense either, but it was fun stepping back into the stealthy boots of Garrett the master thief.</div>
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<br /></div>
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-<b>My Muppets Show </b>- (iOS) - Another freemium game where you make Muppets and then add them to a stage or scene. As you add more, they contribute to a song, making the song longer, more complex, and more interesting. The game was regularly updated at the beginning of the year, but seems to be abandoned now. Sad, especially since they had promised another new stage in the summer.</div>
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<br /></div>
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-<b>Zelda: Link Between Worlds </b>- (DS) - This was a great return to the "Link to the Past" style Zelda game. I played it really early in the year, so I only remember playing this because I wrote it down!</div>
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<br /></div>
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-<b>Lego: Marvel Superheroes/The Lego Movie/The Hobbit </b>- (Xbox) - Technically, I didn't play the last one. Maria did. But I played the other two. These are the same Lego formula adventure games that they regularly put out. The Lego Movie was surprisingly short, but the Marvel one was so big, I was never able to complete it, which is rare for a Lego game.</div>
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<h2>
Books</h2>
<div>
I didn't read much this year. So here's what I read, good or bad:</div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
-"Serenity: Leaves on the Wind" - A comic book follow up to the Serenity movie. Had some interesting progress with the characters. </div>
<div>
-"Serenity: Those Left Behind" - This was a comic book that was intended as a gap filler between the Firefly series and the Serenity movie. It explains why Shepherd and Inara were no longer on the ship, what happened to the guys with the Blue Gloves, and how the Operative was set after Serenity.</div>
<div>
-"Allegiant" - The third in the Divergent trilogy. I actually gave up half way through when I learned the Big Reveal and decided it was not worth completing. I read the summary of the rest of the plot from a wikipedia page.</div>
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-"A Billion Jokes: Part 1" - From Peter Serafinowicz, just a quick joke book with only one line on each page. But some were very funny.</div>
<div>
-"Swift Programming Language" - Apple introduced a new language for programming for their devices. I have yet to use it, but I read about it.</div>
<div>
-"Matched" - Another teen post-apocolyptic anti-utopia book. It was interesting enough to finish, but I quickly gave up into the second book.</div>
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<h2>
2015</h2>
<div>
And that's it, I guess. As I mentioned above, 2015 is the BIG one for movies. I'm probably most looking forward to the Avengers. I'm cautiously optimistic about Star Wars and Jurassic World. My wild card bet is on Tomorrowland which is from Brad Bird who has yet to make a less than excellent movie.</div>
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<div>
I'm unaware of any upcoming music. And as for games, Nintendo has a lot promised, but nothing specifically dated. We're all excited for a new console Zelda game, but I highly doubt it will make it out this year. We'll see.</div>
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Happy 2015 everyone!</div>
Gumbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16164366902768547090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-87233659039775561.post-70571845458461859912014-01-05T18:44:00.003-06:002016-01-01T15:52:44.427-06:00Greg's Favorites of 2013<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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It's been a year. We've pretty much abandoned our blog, but I still like to keep a record of my favorite media items of the previous year. 2013 has passed, and overall not an amazing year, but there were a few good things that I saw/heard/read/played this year.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Music</b></span><br />
<br />
2013 was overall a disappointment musically. Few of my musical sources provided much new or novel and few of the artists I regularly listen to put out anything noteworthy. Podcasts have replaced most of the music listening that I usually do but I still love the thrill of finding a new great album. If there's a musical trend that I followed this year, then 2013 was the year of the retro electronica: bands like Chateau Marmont and Daft Punk among others using analog synths and robot vocals from the late 70s early 80s.<br />
<br />
Here's a list of bands and albums that I listened to this year:<br />
<br />
<b>Greg Whitehead</b> - Please excuse my vanity for a moment, but I recorded three songs this year that I'm quite proud of. One new song I wrote earlier in the year, one new version of an older piece that I wrote years ago, and one classic French Christmas Carol done in a Mannheim Steamroller-esque style.<br />
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"Again Tomorrow" <br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/3Tazm3bNE_E" width="560"></iframe>
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"Eric The Song"<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/QF0c3f9kfro" width="420"></iframe>
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"Noel Nouvelet" <br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/nfWf_ACsw1c" width="560"></iframe>
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<b>Chateau Marmont - The Maze</b><br />
This electronic French band put out a couple amazing EPs a few years ago and I've been anxiously awaiting their debut album. It did not disappoint. Their first single, "War Games" is easily my favorite track of the year. The band and album remind me a lot of Air and this is the best sequel to "Moon Safari" that Air never recorded. Sadly, I can't see that this album was ever released in the US though some of the album's singles are available.
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/QQG6do__jHM" width="480"></iframe>
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<b>Justice - Audio, Video, Disco</b><br />
Another French electronic band. This album actually came out in 2011, but I just discovered it this year. Their first album (Called "Cross" or just the cross symbol) was a bit harsher, but this one is excellent and makes a great companion to the other electronic albums on this list.<br />
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<b>Starcadian - Sunset Blood</b><br />
Starcadian makes "Ear Movies" according to his bio. This is a soundtrack to a fake 80s John Carpenter/Steven Spielberg movie with some great 80s era sounding synths and songs that hearken back to Neverending Story, E.T., Thriller, and Big Trouble In Little China.<br />
<br />
<b> </b><br />
<b>Daft Punk - Random Access Memories</b><br />
Electronic band #4. I've never liked Daft Punk but always felt I should. Most of their songs have a great hook, but are too repetitive. This particular album is a bit better because everything is supposedly played live. Though there are a few too many track skippers, the overall album was pretty enjoyable.<b> </b><br />
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<b>Chrome Canyon - Elemental Themes</b><br />
Electronic band #5. This album came out late 2012, but I found it this year after Chateau Marmont did a remix.<br />
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<b> </b><br />
<b>Space March - Mountain King</b><br />
Space March is an australian synthpop band that I found and enjoyed a bit this year. The title track to this album is an amazing synth version of the classic "Hall of the Mountain King" mixed with the quirky sensibilities of Sparks.<b> </b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Duckworth Lewis Method - Sticky Wickets</b><br />
The one non-electronic album on this list. This is Britpop at its most simple and classic. This is the second album by the cricket-themed group and, with the exception of the both overly catchy and yet unlistenable final track, an improvement on the first.<br />
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I was sad to not find any other great Britpop this year. My current favorite group, The Feeling, put out a surprisingly lackluster album without a single good song. I listened to the album many times and can't remember any track.<br />
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<b>The Piano Guys - 1, 2, A Family Christmas</b><br />
As a family we've listened to and watched The Piano Guys quite a bit this year. I particularly enjoyed their Christmas album. Spencer is currently learning a couple complicated John Schmidt pieces on the piano from seeing them played on YouTube.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Movies</span></b><br />
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The biggest trend I found in 2013 movies was that I watched a lot of films that the critics whose opinions I normally agree with hated and I enjoyed. And a few they loved that I didn't care for.<br />
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Here are the films that I liked the most in 2013:<br />
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<b>Gravity - </b>Based on the hype, we made sure to see this on the biggest screen and in 3D. It lived up to the spectacle, although I'm not sure it will live up to future rewatches. <br />
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<b>Captain Philips </b>- A week after Gravity, I saw this and felt like an amazing double feature of edge-of-your-seat thrillers.<br />
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<b>Iron Man 3 - </b>A great follow up to the Avengers and much improved over Iron Man 2. I saw this on a plane trip later in the year and they cut out the whole Air Force One rescue scene.<br />
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<b>The World's End - </b>The one movie I watched twice in the theaters. The first time I was disappointed in this follow up to Shawn of the Dead and Hot Fuzz (which has become one of my all time favorite films.) After reading several reviews that said that the film improved upon re-watch, I went again, and it was true. This film definitely rewards multiple viewings. There are so many foreshadows, callbacks and Easter eggs, it is impossible to take it all in on one viewing.<br />
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<b>Ender's Game - </b>This was my most anticipated film for 2013. In the end it made for a good film, and an excellent companion to the book. Sadly, there wasn't quite enough to make it an excellent stand-alone film. Like many others, I believe that an extra 10-15 minutes of the games in Battle School are needed to make Ender's journey make sense.<br />
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<b>Hunger Games: Catching Fire - </b>I really enjoyed the first book and the first movie. I liked the second book a little less, but the movie actually improved the book. I hated the third book and am interested to see if the next two movies can find a way to improve it or make me appreciate it better.<br />
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<b>The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug - </b>I'm not completely onboard with Jackson that we need to have every single character and encounter in the book realized on screen, but there was a lot to enjoy in this middle chapter, particularly the river barrel sequence and Smaug himself.<br />
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Movies that I enjoyed watching in the theater that many critics seemed to hate:<br />
-Warm Bodies<br />
-Jack the Giant Slayer<br />
-Oz: The Great and Powerful<br />
-Incredible Burt Wonderstone<br />
-Oblivion<br />
-Star Trek Into Darkness<br />
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Other films I saw and enjoyed: <br />
-Now You See Me<br />
-Man of Steel<br />
-World War Z<br />
-Monsters U<br />
-Pacific Rim<br />
-Conjuring<br />
-Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2<br />
-Thor Dark World<br />
-Frozen<br />
-The Secret Life of Walter Mitty<br />
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<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>TV</b></span><br />
<br />
On TV we found a few new shows to enjoy this year, though very few of them were regular network shows. Here's what I watched in 2013:<br />
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<b>Uncle Grandpa - </b>A cartoon we all enjoyed in our house. I liked it so much, it became my Halloween Costume for the year. No adults got it, but plenty of kids did.<br />
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<b>Adventure Time</b> - After discovering this great cartoon last year, the kids and I have been anxious every Monday for the release of the next new episode.<br />
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<b>Studio C - </b>I'm still having trouble reconciling this quite hilarious sketch comedy show and the fact that it's made by BYUTV. We went and sought out the actual Studio C on our trip to Utah this year.<br />
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<b>Arrested Development - </b>I was anxiously awaiting the new season that debuted on Netflix. It was almost too complex a plot to follow all the way through, but it was still really funny.<br />
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<b>Brooklyn 99 - </b>The one new network show that we all enjoy. Andy Samberg is one of my favorites (see: Hot Rod) and the rest of the cast are great.<br />
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<b>Comedy Bang Bang - </b>Returned for a second season this year. A great surreal fake comedy talk show.<br />
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<b>Doctor Who - </b>I finally caught up and am current on modern Doctor Who. I even saw an episode in the theater. Next year brings a new Doctor, and I'm interested to see where it goes.<br />
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<b>Broadchurch/The Escape Artist - </b>Speaking of Doctor Who, former Doctor David Tennant appeared in two British drama mini-series. The first about a murder mystery in a small town that affects everyone, and the second about a lawyer who successfully defends a murderer which ends up coming back to haunt him.<br />
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<b>QI, Would I Lie To You, Was It Something I Said - </b>While we're on British shows, these were the British comedy panel shows that I watched an enjoyed this year.<br />
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<b>IT Crowd Special - </b>I was sad that there wasn't a final season or movie, just an extended episode. One of my favorite sitcoms, I'm glad it at least said goodbye.<br />
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<b>Nathan For You - </b>A comedy series about a "marketing expert" who comes up with some strange new ways to attempt to market businesses. <br />
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<b>NTSF:SD:SVU::Children's Hospital</b> - Wonderfully bizarre and short send-ups of action TV and medical dramas. NTSF is definitely my favorite of the two.<br />
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Since a lot of our viewing options have moved on-line, some of my favorite on-line shows this past year include:<br />
-Nerdist YouTube Channel<br />
-Newest Latest Best (successor to Totally Rad Show)<br />
-Half in the Bag/Best of the Worst (Red Letter Media)<br />
-ASDF cartoons and Tomska's YouTube channel<br />
-StaticVideos (my neices and nephew's YouTube channel)<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Podcasts</span></b><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">I listened to a l</span></span>ot of podcasts this year. Here is a quick list of my favorites:<br />
<br />
-Empire<br />
-Movie B.S.<br />
-Comedy Bang Bang<br />
-Nerdist<br />
-Slashfilm<br />
-James Bonding<br />
-How Did This Get Made<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Books</span></b><br />
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I didn't read much this year, but I did read:<br />
<br />
-Divergent/Insurgent <br />
-Insignia<br />
-S. (Only started reading this since getting it for Christmas, but am very intrigued.)<br />
-Crap Kingdom<br />
-Can You See What I See: Out of This World<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Games</span></b><br />
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I played a lot on my iPhone this year, but not much on the regular consoles. We've just now enterred the next new console generation and so far there has been little reason to join up yet. We'll see if that's still the case at the end of 2014. <br />
<br />
2013 favorite iPhone games:<br />
-Stack React (my first published iPhone Game)<br />
-Tilt to Live 2<br />
-Super Stickman Golf 2 <br />
-The Room: Pocket<br />
-Angry Birds Star Wars II , Angry Birds Friends<br />
-Giant Boulder of Death<br />
-Plants vs Zombies 2<br />
-McPixel (2012)<br />
-Pocket Mine<br />
-Tiny Thief<br />
-Sudoku Quest+<br />
-Say the Same Thing<br />
-Heads Up <br />
-Draw Something 2<br />
-Songpop <br />
-Nimble Quest<br />
-Indiana Stone: The Brave and the Boulder<br />
-Ridiculous Fishing<br />
-84 Logic Games<br />
-My Muppets<br />
-Knightmare Tower<br />
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Consoles/Computer games:<br />
-Runner 2 (XBox arcade)<br />
-Luigi's Mansion 2 (3DS)<br />
-Battleblock Theater (XBox arcade)<br />
-Star Wars Pinball (Xbox & iOS)<br />
-Return To Dark Castle (Mac)<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">2014</span> </b><br />
<br />
Looking forward to 2014, here's what I'm anticipating:<br />
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Music: The Hoosiers. More music than 2013. Not much else that I'm anticipating at the moment. Hopefully I'll make some more music as well.<br />
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Movies: "Edge of Tomorrow" - Tom Cruise does Sci-Fi Groundhog Day. "How to Train Your Dragon 2," "Lego Movie," the Hobbit finale, and "Guardians of the Galaxy."<br />
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TV: New Sherlock! New Doctor. New Community with Dan Harmon. Also interested to see more online competition to traditional TV.<br />
<br />
<br />
Well, that's it for now. See you all in a year if not sooner.Gumbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16164366902768547090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-87233659039775561.post-85579884259969247892013-01-08T17:59:00.002-06:002013-01-08T17:59:55.495-06:002012 Newsletter<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://gwgumby.com/sketchbook/Misc/Whitehead2012Newsletter.pdf" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-h4ZlAMUGKpI/UOx1arCdPAI/AAAAAAAABbw/yJIUe5rhe94/s200/news1.jpg" width="154" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://gwgumby.com/sketchbook/Misc/Whitehead2012Newsletter.pdf" target="_blank">Click here for pdf</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
(It's a little late, but we finally got a newsletter out to sum up our past year. The post below contains the text of the document which you can find <a href="http://gwgumby.com/sketchbook/Misc/Whitehead2012Newsletter.pdf" target="_blank">here</a>.) <br />
<br />
The Whitehead’s newsletter for <s>2011</s> 2012!<br />
<br />
For some people Christmas cards and letters are the first
thing they do for the holidays.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For
others, it’s the last thing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And for still
others, it gets put off and then becomes the Valentine’s newsletter, the spring
newsletter, the mid-year newsletter, and finally the
let’s-just-combine-it-with-next-year’s newsletter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Somehow we never got to 2011 and here it is
2013 already!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is what’s been going
on with our family:<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Jaden</b>, our
youngest, is now firmly in his twos.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He
is the entertainment center for our home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He wants to be a part of every single thing all of us do, which can be
very frustrating for us and him due to obvious age limitations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He loves coloring.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Coloring on paper, books, walls, other people--it doesn’t matter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He loves balls and it
wouldn’t surprise us if we actually finally had a sportsman in our family.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He also loves whatever any of us is currently
holding—iPhone, DS, phone, game controller, remote control—which can lead to
some interesting tug of wars.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is
amazingly cute and so (usually) well-mannered, that we worry about spoiling him when he can ask
for yet another piece of chocolate so politely.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is pretty proficient with his ABCs and his
colors, and he’s a pretty good parrot at the moment which means we need to
watch what he hears.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Will Smith taught
him a few interesting words when we watched Men In Black 3 the other day.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Spencer</b> ended the
year at 10 but will be 11 just a week later.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He’s been working on his Webelos activity badges for Cub Scouts and
earned his Arrow of Light.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He’s looking
forward to joining Boy Scouts this year (while we parents are looking forward
to a break from Cub Scouts for a while).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Spencer continues to love anything that you can ride around on and has
quite a collection of skateboards, rip-sticks, pogo-sticks, and other odd
gadgets that we find at occasional yard sales.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He also has been fascinated with survival kits and his built several of
his own including many that fit in an Altoids tin that can fit in your
pocket.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He also loves origami and has
invented many of his own paper airplanes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He has also essentially taught himself how to play piano this year,
which is quite amazing both how good he is, and that it has come without
formal lessons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He has been learning
Greg’s piano songs and has several of them completely memorized.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He and Greg played a duet at our church for
this year’s Christmas program.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Colin</b> is now 12
and became a Deacon this year at church.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He also has joined the regular Boy Scout troop and has earned all his
ranks up to Star Scout.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He got to go on
a weeklong Scout Camp this summer in Arkansas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We realized this was the first time he and Spencer had ever been apart
for this length of time and this far apart.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Colin enjoys drawing, doodling, and animating.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is becoming quite proficient at flip-book
style animations on a program on his DSi.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He is also really into knives, swords, and guns right now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We got him a BB gun to chase unwanted
raccoons, possums, and foreign cats from our yard which he guards
vigilantly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So please be careful if you
want to sneak into our back yard at night uninvited.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Maria</b> is currently kept busy raising
the kids and being their homeschool teacher.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>She has been serving in the Young Women’s presidency at church for the
past year and a half and loves working with them (and getting to do some GIRLY
things).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She has gotten back into
scrapbooking much more over the past year, including going to a weekend
retreat, and has set up a nice scrapbook station that we had to relocate from
Jaden’s room (formerly our office) to our bedroom. She still enjoys reading,
video games, and shopping (mostly for toys for the kids!), and is hoping to
make some life changes to make the transition to 40 a little less painful next
December.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Greg</b> is still
working at Lockheed Martin for his 11<sup>th</sup> year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Looking ahead, it always seems nebulous
whether he’ll still have a job there the next year, but somehow they keep
paying him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here’s hoping we can make it
through 2013.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Greg currently continues
his trend of church calling collecting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He is the ward organist, Boy Scout Committee Chair, primary teacher (for
Colin then Spencer’s class), and was the 11-year-old Scout assistant leader.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This past year he had the opportunity to
perform magic shows for the Cub Scouts at two pack meetings and then again for
the Cub Scout Day Camp and another show at his Mom’s school in Utah.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He continues to try and be active and added
biking to his routine this year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Greg
had the opportunity to fly out to Utah for a few days for his 20-year class
reunion and was able to catch up with many of his old friends and Utah family.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://gwgumby.com/sketchbook/Misc/Whitehead2012Newsletter.pdf" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vDD-pGinPDg/UOx1anIEnpI/AAAAAAAABb0/O1OIofU1ryM/s200/news2.jpg" width="155" /></a>As a family, we decided we wanted to stay nearby this year
for our vacations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We went to a
time-share presentation to get a free stay at the Wolf Lodge and ended up with
a time-share instead.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’ve had fun
using some of the getaway privileges that have come with it and have visited a
water park near Tyler, Texas a few times as well as stayed overnight at four
different resorts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(We still have yet to
get to the Wolf Lodge.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We stayed for
most of a week in the Texas Hill Country in October visiting Austin and some of
the touristy areas down there where we had a lot of fun.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Since 2012 came and went without an apocalypse, here’s
hoping for a great 2013 for everyone!<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Greg, Maria, Colin, Spencer and Jaden Whitehead</div>
Gumbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16164366902768547090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-87233659039775561.post-6663860477078389932013-01-02T11:19:00.001-06:002016-01-01T15:52:44.424-06:00Greg's Favorites of 2012<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8H--gnP1q2o/UOSX0r2pM3I/AAAAAAAABbg/vc-jNm1HlL4/s1600/2012.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" eea="true" height="266" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8H--gnP1q2o/UOSX0r2pM3I/AAAAAAAABbg/vc-jNm1HlL4/s400/2012.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Well, this my first post since last year's version of this same list. Seems like blogs have lost some steam with Facebook and other things out there, but I like having these posts to look back on. So here is my annual look back at my favorite music, movies, TV, games, and other media from the previous year. They are ordered from most favorite on down. I sort of kept them to around 10 or so, but not strictly.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">All in all, it was a fairly decent year. I didn't have to scrape to find things I liked in most categories like I may have in the past. I think the only slight disappointment this year was in TV. While there were some great shows, there were no new "must watch" shows that emerged in 2012--though there were a lot of great short runs. </span><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 18pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Music<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">For 2012 in music, there were a lot at the start of the year and a lot on the back half-especially at the end of August when I found myself with more albums than I could listen to properly. Then it was just finding a hidden gem or two along the way. While new music is still very important to me, with most of my commuting and exercise time spent listening to podcasts, my music listening time descreased dramatically this year. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">As far as trends, there were a lot of progressive/classic rock comebacks this year and a lot of "supergroups" or members from other bands combining to make new projects.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Here are my favorite albums. I started to add pictures, but then eventually gave up as this new blogger composer seems to just mess everything up. So there's a few, but I gave up after six:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9JeVSiw-d8M/UORpdKgvN6I/AAAAAAAABbQ/5Uj_tHG5xiw/s1600/making-mirrors.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" eea="true" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9JeVSiw-d8M/UORpdKgvN6I/AAAAAAAABbQ/5Uj_tHG5xiw/s1600/making-mirrors.jpg" /></a><b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Gotye - Making Mirrors</span></b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> -Technically this came out in 2011, but the song "Somebody That I Used To Know" really hit it big this year. This was probably the most listened to album by the entire family this year, along with Gotye's previous album "Like Drawing Blood." Gotye now has the sole distinction of being the first and only artist I have ever seen perform on Saturday Night Live that actually convinced me to seek out the rest of his work. He reminds me of a cross between Sting and Peter Gabriel and his album carries a really strong mid-80s vibe of both those artists. Good stuff.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-1P8yUTfjcAo/UORpZO11HxI/AAAAAAAABak/oKYuwwvIM0M/s1600/2nd+law.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" eea="true" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-1P8yUTfjcAo/UORpZO11HxI/AAAAAAAABak/oKYuwwvIM0M/s1600/2nd+law.jpg" /></a><b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Muse - The 2nd Law</span></b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> - I've always been a big fan of Muse's crazier stuff, and this album has more of that than their previous albums, making this my new favorite Muse album. It starts off with what should have been the newest Bond movie theme and keeps going from there through five tracks to the 2012 London Olympics theme. The rest is a little more typical Muse until the end when it gets interesting again.</span></div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kejfvzlNPVg/UORpaLrsTKI/AAAAAAAABas/yVARB1cxAFg/s1600/Darkness_Hot_Cakes_Cover_Art_100x100.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" eea="true" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kejfvzlNPVg/UORpaLrsTKI/AAAAAAAABas/yVARB1cxAFg/s1600/Darkness_Hot_Cakes_Cover_Art_100x100.jpg" /></a><b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Darkness - Hot Cakes/Foxy Shazam - The Church of Rock and Roll </span></b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">- This is sort of a 2 for one. The Foxy Shazam album came out early this year and it seemed like it was essentially a preview for the Darkness album that was coming later in the year. "Hot Cakes" itself was a great return from the Darkness. With the exception of the awful opening track, the rest of the album is really good. Nothing quite as good as the best stuff on their previous albums, but nothing as bad as the worst stuff on those either. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6J8G8dR2bYs/UORpcU8MhuI/AAAAAAAABbI/NTmT-SXcWoI/s1600/madeinbasingstreet.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" eea="true" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6J8G8dR2bYs/UORpcU8MhuI/AAAAAAAABbI/NTmT-SXcWoI/s1600/madeinbasingstreet.jpg" /></a><b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">The Producers - Made In Basing Street (Deluxe Edition) </span></b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">- This was the album I was looking forward to the most this year. It is Trevor Howe (Buggles, Yes) teaming up with some other famous producer friends for a sort of supergroup album. They released the song "Freeway" early which is probably my favorite track of the year and got me really excited for the rest. The rest was good, but not as great as the first track. I was initially disappointed in the rest of the album; however, after finding the extra tracks on the 2nd bonus disc, adding them to the first disc, and then rearranging the track order (the original track listing makes for a slow album) it actually turns into a great album.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-wwK2lVCFUzM/UORpa5-t0qI/AAAAAAAABa0/tDDRyZxVtRs/s1600/fadedpaperfigures4_small.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" eea="true" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-wwK2lVCFUzM/UORpa5-t0qI/AAAAAAAABa0/tDDRyZxVtRs/s1600/fadedpaperfigures4_small.jpg" /></a><b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Faded Paper Figures - The Matter</span></b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> - My high school friend and former Narrow Escape bandmate R. John Williams with his current band released their third and best Faded Paper Figures album. It's still weird hearing a "real" album and recognizing the voice singing and thinking "Hey, I know that guy!" The album gets my seal of approval purely from all cool synth stuff throughout.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-rj21_cjeAfM/UORpbn4HcjI/AAAAAAAABa8/DhnpMiF0sxA/s1600/hawaiipartii.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" eea="true" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-rj21_cjeAfM/UORpbn4HcjI/AAAAAAAABa8/DhnpMiF0sxA/s1600/hawaiipartii.jpg" /></a><b><span style="font-family: 'MS Mincho'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'MS Mincho';">ミラクルミュージカル</span></b><b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> - Hawaii: Part II</span></b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">. Joe Hawley with a few cameos from from other Tally Hall guys made this album. The band name means "Miracle Musical" in Japanese (supposedly). And though it is super difficult to do Google searching for, the album is a lot of fun. Everything one might like from the Joe Hawley songs on the other Tally Hall albums is here. It also reminds me a bit of a Gorillaz album in that it can be a bit experimental and weird in places, but the overall experience is great.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Squackett - A Life Within A Day</span></b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">. Steve Hackett (Genesis) and Chris Squire (Yes) formed their own little supergroup and put together this progressive album that I quite enjoyed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Django Django - s/t </span></b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">- One I've just discovered here at the end of the year on someone else's top of the year list. I'm still in my early listening stage, but I really like the pscyhedelic-style crossed with the Association-esque harmonies.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Stefan Zuner - Zeigefuehl </span></b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">- The lead singer of the German band Freiheit apparently left the band this year and put out his own solo album. It pretty much sounds just like Freiheit, but that's a good thing.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">The Prog Collective - s/t</span></b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> - Another supergroup with members from Yes, Asia, XTC, and many others put out this album that sounds just like a progressive rock album! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Some other albums I listened to this year, some were good, some were bad, and some I just wanted to mention: Jackdaw4 - Dissectacide, Kidsof88 - Modern Love, Ben Folds Five - The Sound of the Love of the Mind (very disappointed this wasn't better), Mika - Origin of Love, Adam Lambert - Trespassing, Scissor Sisters - Magic Hour (almost unlistenable), Gaz Coombes (Supergrass) - Presents Here Come The Bombs, Ian Anderson - Thick as a Brick 2, Ladyhawke - Anxiety, Air - Le Voyage Dans La Lune, Bryan Scary - Daffy's Elixir (was on last year's list, but officially came out this year.)</span> </div>
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Movies</h2>
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Movies in 2012 were about par for the course. Some good. Some bad. A few great starts to some new franchises, and few ends of others. Here's some of my favorites for the year:</div>
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<strong>The Hunger Games - </strong>This was my favorite movie-going experience of the year. My wife was supposed to go with a group of other girlfriends to see this as a girl's night out, but she got sick. Since she prepurchased the ticket, I took it in her place intending to go alone to the screening. When the other women arrived, they accepted me as one of their own and let me invade their girl's night out. The movie itself was really fascinating and a great start to what I fear will be a progressively worse franchise. We'll see.</div>
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<strong>The Avengers - </strong>This was my second favorite movie-going experience of the year because I ended up getting early passes to see this a week before it was officially released--for free! One of two amazing movies by Joss Whedon this year. It had just about everything one could want from the guy who made Buffy.</div>
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<strong>Cabin in the Woods</strong> - The other movie from Joss Whedon. Essentially this is his answer to the question: If you could make only one horror movie, what would you do? Answer: put everything in one movie. Scary, funny, and completely original while being completely derivative.</div>
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<b>The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey - </b>We were very much looking forward to this while wondering how Peter Jackson could turn one book into three movies. Seeing this, I can understand. Also, it's Peter Jackson--he can make anything lengthy. Not sure why critics were so harsh on it; I mean it could have definitely used some editing, but it was still entertaining.</div>
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<b>Dark Knight Rises</b> - Speaking of needing some editing...This was long, with surprisingly little Batman. And there were way too many plotholes. But in the end, I liked how it wrapped up many of the elements from the previous two Batman movies.</div>
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<b>Wreck It Ralph - </b>This was my favorite animated movie of the year. Loved all the video game in-jokes.</div>
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<b>Brave - </b>Beautiful. Story was surprising, but it seemed to be missing a final act.</div>
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<b>The Amazing Spider-Man - </b>I like this new Peter Parker way better than the last. I liked how he actually still looked like the same guy when he was wearing the Spider-man costume. I hated the villain and the promise that we'd learn more about Peter Parker and his family's back story but didn't. I wish I could combine elements from the previous series with this and make a really good movie.</div>
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<b>Skyfall (Bond 23)</b> - I watched every single Bond film leading up to this film. Many for the first time ever. Overall, I'd say it was really good for a Bond film. Parts were absolutely beautiful, and some of the action scenes were amazing. However, I still don't care for Daniel Craig as a Bond. I liked him better in this than his last two, though. I also loved how they pulled together a lot of the history of Bond for this on his 50th anniversary.</div>
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<b>Les Miserables </b>- Maria and I were both crying at the end of this film. It was very powerful. I just wish they did more with the camera than leave it sitting close-up on the actor's faces while they sang. Except for the few musical numbers where they went too overboard ("Lovely Ladies" in particular.)</div>
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<b>Men in Black 3 </b>- Good enough that I've watched it three times and totally makes up for Men In Black 2. However, the inconsistent use of time-travel--particularly at a key scene at the end--drove me crazy!</div>
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TV</h2>
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As I said up top, TV was a bit disappointing this year. First, there were no new "must-watch" shows. We tried a few like "Once Upon a Time" and "Awake" but we lost interest in most. Secondly, the best series of the year was over almost before the year began!</div>
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<b>Sherlock - </b>The second series of the BBC show consisted of three episodes that started on January 1 and was finished two weeks later with a cliff hanger that won't be resolved until maybe 2014. Benedict Cumberbatch is our new favorite actor, and I've liked almost everything Martin Freeman has done since the British Office. Looking forward to Star Trek and the next Hobbit movies to fill the gap.</div>
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<b>Comedy Bang Bang - </b>Derived from the podcast, this surreal comedy talk show was a lot of fun while very random.</div>
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<b>Adventure Time - </b>We finally discovered this series this year even though it's been out for a few years now. Also very surreal and random. Much of what I like about this series is the surprise. The outcomes of the situations the characters find themselves in are almost never what you would ever guess.</div>
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<b>Legend of Korra</b> - This sequel animated series to the "Avatar: The Last Airbender" was the perfect example of how to do a sequel follow up in a fantasy world (take note Star Wars!): Evolve everything, bring in new characters, pay homage to the old--but not slavishly. If they hadn't resolved what was looking to be a fairly serious cliff-hanger at the last moment of the series, it would have been nearly perfect.</div>
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<b>Red Dwarf X</b> - I was shocked that a real old-fashioned Red Dwarf sitcom actually came out this year. After the disappointing last mini-series, this is back to the studio with a live audience and just the core group. I don't think any of the episodes measured up to Red Dwarf's best, but it was still nice to revisit.</div>
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<b>QI - </b>The British panel show is still one of my favorite shows. I have to hunt them down on YouTube to watch.</div>
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<b>Go On/Neighbors </b>- These are the only two new shows of the fall season that I'm watching. Matthew Perry has always been a favorite, but I've never enjoyed anything past Friends. This one is works and is funny, but I'm not sure where they plan on taking it in the long run. "Neighbors" is about a normal family living in a community of aliens. It's very lightweight and often dumb, but it feels like a nice return to simpler sitcoms of the past with silly premises.</div>
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<b>Halloween Wars/Stephen Fry Gadget Man/Heston's Fanstastical Food/United Stats of America/Penn and Teller Tell a Lie/Unchained Reaction - </b>A bunch of quick documentary or reality game based series that I enjoyed. Most were only six episodes long. Just enough to get a nice snack, and to want more later.</div>
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<b>Derren Brown - </b>Always entertaining, the mentalist/illusionist/trickster Derren Brown staged an apocalypse among other things. The premise was a bit better than the execution, but it was still fairly entertaining.</div>
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Other shows I watched: America's Got Talent, Community, Office, 30 Rock, Big Bang Theory, Doctor Who (still catching up, not quite current yet), SNL, Breaking Bad, and The Walking Dead.</div>
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Podcast/Internet</h2>
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This year there seemed to be an explosion of Internet-based shows, while a few big shows came to an end or changed format.</div>
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<b>Movie B.S. with Bayer and Snider - </b>My favorite podcast with Eric D. Snider and Jeff Bayer. I save this one for my running as incentive to go out.</div>
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<b>Totally Rad Show - </b>My favorite geek internet show ended it's run this year. I was very sad.</div>
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<b>Nerdist/Nerdist YouTube Channel - </b>Nerdist always has interesting guests on their podcasts. This year they launched a YouTube channel with daily content from people like Weird Al, Kids in the Hall, Alex Albrecht (from Totally Rad Show), and many others. Some were more entertaining than others, but I really enjoy having a little something every day to watch--especially since work hasn't blocked YouTube!</div>
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<b>Comedy Bang Bang - </b>Already mentioned in TV, the regular podcast can get very silly but still entertaining.</div>
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<b>Empire - </b>British movie podcast. It's been interesting listening to the UK point of view.</div>
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Games</h2>
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I'm cooling a bit on console games. Most of my game playing continues to be on my iPhone, and there's a brand new Nintendo console that just came out and I barely care. The kids and I all got 3DS handhelds for Christmas and it's been fun playing some of those Nintendo games again, but the 3D doesn't work for very long without giving you a headache. Here's a few of my favorite games for the year:</div>
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<b>Angry Birds Star Wars/Angry Birds Space/Bad Piggies (iPhone) - </b>Three spin-offs from Angry Birds this year and all of them were great. Particularly the Star Wars one which managed to twist the formula just enough to fit with the Star Wars theme and still provide something new.</div>
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<b>Lego Batman 2/Lego Harry Potter Years 5-7/Lego Lord of the Rings (Wii/Xbox) - </b>Three Lego games, all stuck to the basic formula, but they continue to be fun.</div>
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<b>Batman Arkham City (Xbox)</b> - I had a blast running around this large open world as Batman, finding all the riddles and beating up bad guys.</div>
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<b>Deus Ex: Human Revolution (Xbox) - </b>Second sequel to one of my all-time favorite games. Better than the first sequel. Sadly I usually had to play with the sound off due to the language. It seems harder and harder to play serious games without them being full of bad language.</div>
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<b>Rayman Origins (Wii/iPhone)</b> - We had this game for quite a while, but I after an iPhone version of the game went really cheap, I dusted off the Wii version we had and found a really fun platformer that I had overlooked.</div>
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<b>Behind the back runners (iPhone) - </b>The new craze this year in the app store are behind the back runners. It started off with "Temple Run." Then more and more showed up that I've played including "Temple Run: Brave," "Pitfall," "Subway Surfers," "Agent Dash," and my personal favorite "One Angry Knight."</div>
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<b style="line-height: normal;">Zombies, Run! (iPhone)</b> - Combines an exercise tool for running with an audio game where you are a runner tasked with finding supplies for an outpost in a zombie apocalypse. Makes running from zombies fun and healthy!</div>
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Other games I really enjoyed this year: Need For Speed: Most Wanted (Xbox), Super Hexagon (iPhone), 10000000 (iPhone), Ticket To Ride (iPhone), Settlers of Catan (iPhone), and Draw Something (iPhone).</div>
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Books</h2>
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I didn't read very much this year, which isn't much of a change. However I did read a couple books that I really enjoyed.</div>
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<strong>Ready Player One </strong>- A story set in the future where the world spends most of its time in an faux online world. It's a really great blend of sci-fi, 80s nostalgia, video games, and a fun treasure hunt. Looking forward to the eventual movie.</div>
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<strong>World War Z</strong> - I read this because of hearing about the upcoming movie. It's essentially an oral history of a future zombie war as an interviewer gets the stories from all sorts of random people and their small stories in a larger event. It's a fairly ingenious format that takes the whole idea of a zombie apocalypse seriously while analyzing what types of things would or could actually happen should it ever occur. Many things I'd never even thought of such as zombies attacking submarines, make this a really interessting read. Unlike "Ready Player One", though, I am not looking forward to the movie as it seems to have nothing to do with the book.</div>
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2013</h2>
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I don't think I've done a look forward before, so I'll try something new this year. Things I'm looking forward to in 2013: </div>
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<strong>Music: </strong>A full album by Chateau Marmont: "The Maze", maybe new stuff from The Feeling, The Hoosiers, Delays, maybe Josh Fix?</div>
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<strong>Movies: </strong>Ender's Game, Star Trek Into Darkness, Pacific Rim, Hunger Games - Catching Fire, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug</div>
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<strong>TV:</strong> Interested to see the return of "Community" after they fired the person who ran it. "Arrested Development" returns to Netflix.</div>
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<strong>Games: </strong>Nothing specific, I'll just have to wait and see. I wish there was something I was looking forward too--especially with the new WiiU, but nothing at the moment. Maybe GDC in March will reveal some titles.</div>
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Gumbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16164366902768547090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-87233659039775561.post-39188377592434580192012-10-24T12:59:00.003-05:002012-10-24T12:59:53.445-05:00Worth the effort (pictures)So I bought a Groupon for the Picture People, and it was due to expire next week. Have I ever mentioned how much I hate getting pictures taken? Making sure that the kids all have current haircuts, coordinating and non-stained clothes, no current sicknesses or gaping wounds . . . and then struggling with a two-year-old who keeps yelling "NO!" and running right out of the studio. Exhausting!
But when I came home with this . . .<br />
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. . . I decided it was worth all the effort. (:
Some more of my favorites:
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CourtneyBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05789187187655243334noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-87233659039775561.post-36103055555105609652012-10-16T16:21:00.000-05:002012-10-16T16:21:20.625-05:00Colin turned 12! (Um, kind of a while ago. Oops.)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Turning 12 is a big deal when you're LDS. It means finally leaving Primary (the "little kids"), getting the priesthood, and getting to be in the young men (the "big kids"). Colin's birthday (at the end of August) was actually spread out over a couple of weeks, because his party (an overnight stay with a couple of friends at a water park) needed to be before school started, and his dad was gone to Utah on his actual birthday, so he had several little celebrations!<br />
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I'm a mean mom. I told Colin he had to learn to tie a tie before he got any birthday presents. That was some major motivation! He practiced every day until he had it down. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The tie is cutting off circulation to the brain! Oh no!</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> </td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> </td></tr>
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Colin's friends gathered before leaving for the water park in Tyler to enjoy some cake and ice cream. </div>
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Awesome Pokemon cupcakes provided by Shannon. Aren't they amazing? </div>
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It was still a couple of weeks before Colin's birthday, but since we were having cake and all, we thought we'd give him a present for the road. Adventure Time!<br />
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Both Karl and Robbie, his friends, gave him cards (Yu-Gi-Oh and Pokemon). Do they know him, or what?<br />
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Here's a photo from the water park. I'm impressed they stood still long enough to have a picture taken!</div>
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Since Greg was going to be out of town on Colin's actual birthday, we went out to eat earlier in the week at a Chinese buffet:</div>
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And gave him most of his birthday presents while Greg was there to watch, over the course of a couple of days. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Headphones - so we don't have to listen to his DS!</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">DSi. Surprisingly, even more than the games, Colin has loved creating animations on it!</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
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Colin's birthday was slightly more difficult this year - he wanted WEAPONS more than anything. He actually added throwing knives to his Amazon wish list. Hmm, throwing knives and a 12-year-old . . . sounds like a great idea to me! (; But luckily for him, his dad is a little nicer about these manly urges to be armed than I am. He got two pellet guns, a cane sword (!), and a survival knife. He also got a water backpack, a folding utensil set that *looks* like a knife, and the DSi pictured above (along with case, games, etc.). I don't know how we're going to top that next year. Maybe hand grenades? <br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Don't mess with this guy! </td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Demonstrating the "sword" part of the cane sword.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Spencer's expression just makes me giggle.</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Colin opening Jaden's present, the folding utensil set</td></tr>
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On Colin's actual birthday, he finally got to open . . . THE SUITCASE. It had been sitting in the living room for almost a week, just torturing him (okay, I was the one torturing him - with hints!). What could be inside?<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hundreds of Yu-Gi-Oh cards! Oh boy!</td></tr>
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I made monkey bread for Colin's birthday breakfast. He let Jaden sit on his lap and blow out the candle. What a sweet big brother!<br />
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Colin all dressed up for church on his first day as a Deacon.<br />
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Colin and Greg on their way to Colin's first priesthood meeting. <br />
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I'm so proud of my not-so-little guy. It's fun to watch him grow up and reach new milestones. He brings laughter every day to our home! We love you, Colin! CourtneyBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05789187187655243334noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-87233659039775561.post-31292253308894264912012-08-07T13:34:00.000-05:002012-08-07T13:34:12.901-05:00Jaden is two!!!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">We had fun celebrating Jaden's birthday this past weekend. He actually turned 2 on Sunday, but we went out as a family Friday to the museum and DQ, and then had a little party for him Saturday at a local splash park with some friends, followed by more presents on his birthday.</span></div>
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Jumping up and down while waiting for the museum to open - so excited!</div>
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Water is fascinating!</div>
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Jaden finally figured out how to use the water gun without help</div>
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Building with Legos</div>
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Jaden really loved throwing things on the spinning disc</div>
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About to get really messy at DQ</div>
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Jaden didn't wait for an invitation to open this present - he jumped
right in! Our friends cleverly wrapped it with tissue paper, which
occupied him with tearing pieces off for many happy minutes.</div>
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Our AWESOME friend Shannon Melgar made these cupcakes. Aren't they amazing?</div>
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Jaden blowing out the candle</div>
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Greg and Spencer cheering for Jaden</div>
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Passing around the cupcakes (our friends the Hulls pictured here)</div>
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After getting his hands messy, Jaden decided to use a more direct approach.</div>
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Colin helping Jaden get a juice box. Look at that face and those hands!</div>
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Our friends the Killebrews enjoying cupcakes</div>
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Jaden was more interested in pushing his friends than swinging himself.</div>
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It's a small splash park, but the kids still seemed to have fun.</div>
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Filling up water guns </div>
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Jaden spent a lot of his time just drinking from the fountain.</div>
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One of the only pictures that actually shows all nine kids together</div>
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The kids figured out that they could use the stretchy flier we handed out to make big splashes. I love Todd's face here!</div>
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One of our party favors</div>
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The morning of Jaden's birthday - here he is checking out his new Power Wheels car.</div>
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Okay, this was pretty funny. Jaden had a big pile of presents to open,
but the first one was a drawing kit with a roll of paper and crayons.
We opened it up, and Jaden drew . . . and drew . . . and drew. We had
the hardest time getting him interested in anything else! His big
brothers were getting bored.</div>
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Basketball! Jaden loves all balls. </div>
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This magnetic farm puzzle was a big hit. He didn't want to move on from this, either.</div>
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Jaden picked up pretty quickly on using these tweezers. He likes to sort things.</div>
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Since I haven't really been blogging lately, here's a quick overview of the things Jaden loves right now. Not pictured: he loves being outside (even when it's HOT), animals, puzzles (he's surprisingly good at them), and computers (it's hard to keep him off ours). <br />
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Reading! Jaden loves books, especially tactile ones. </div>
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Art, baths, and bottles (like shampoo) - combining all three is the BEST!</div>
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Making messes (sigh - the carpet still smells like raspberry lotion. Could be worse.)</div>
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Playing with his brothers</div>
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Painting, and being mischievous (you can see from the look on his face that he KNOWS he's not supposed to paint on himself)</div>
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Building towers with blocks, and playing with his daddy</div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">We have had a fun two years with this sweet boy. He's definitely got a mind of his own (and, being two, doesn't hesitate to show it), but by and large he is happy and a joy to be around. He makes us laugh constantly. We're so happy to have him in our family!</span><br />
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<br />CourtneyBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05789187187655243334noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-87233659039775561.post-80004837446599572502012-06-28T22:59:00.001-05:002012-06-28T23:02:19.190-05:00A sad farewell<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I've been meaning to update my blog for MONTHS . . . and this is not the
post I wanted to have to update it with. My oldest sister Becca lost
her husband of 23 years - Jon Johnson - last week to a massive heart
attack. Here's the obituary written by my niece Barbie:<br />
<br />
Jon Stephan Johnson Sr., 46, passed away June 21st, 2012. He is survived
by his loving wife Rebecca, children John Jr., Christopher, Barbara,
and Wulfgang, and parents Cecil Johnson and Barbara Board. He was as
passionately in love with his wife as the day they were married, and
family was the most important part of his life. He was a talented
musician, and played drums since he was three. Services are open to all
who loved him. Viewing at Davis Chapel Funeral Home Tues. 6-8pm,
graveside service at Jaybird Cemetery Wed. 11am, memorial at LDS Church
in Hurst Wed. 1:30-3pm.<br />
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There were lots of family and friends at the viewing, graveside service, and memorial. Here are just a few glimpses of the different events.<br />
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Sandi (my brother Clark's wife), Wulfie, and Becca. Some brilliant person brought Wulfie a push pop, and it helped a lot in keeping him occupied for the two hours of the viewing.<br />
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Daniel (Barbie's boyfriend), Barbie, Ashley (friend of the family), and Chris saying goodbye to Jon.</div>
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Becca saying goodbye to her best friend. </div>
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Brandon (friend of family) and Chris comforting each other after Brandon gave the eulogy. </div>
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Greg and Jaden at the graveside service. It was HOT, and he wasn't very happy - he went home for a nap after this, which is why Greg and Jaden don't appear in the memorial pictures later.<br />
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Friends and family listening during the graveside service.<br />
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Colin hugging Becca after the graveside service. The boys have been wonderful during all this - always there with a hug when I'm crying. <br />
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This was the first time our family had gotten together in a while, so there were new babies to meet. This is Clark meeting our new niece Esmerelda. </div>
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The display table at the memorial service, with Jon's flute, drumsticks, a drum, penguins (he loved penguins! I will think of him every time I see one for the rest of my life), and pictures of his family he loved so much. </div>
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Some of my brother Fred's kids signing in at the memorial - Stephanie, David, and Jenny.<br />
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Sandi with two nieces - Natalie and Kathy.<br />
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Daniel, Barbie, Becca and Chris while watching the video Barbie prepared. It had photos of Jon, and songs he'd played on the flute. It was truly beautiful.<br />
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Lots of people got up and spoke, with memories of Jon, comfort for the family, and so on. It was very uplifting. Bishop Hamilton (below) presided, and he wrapped it up by saying that what he'd heard made him want to go home and be a better father, husband and person. What a great legacy for Jon to leave.<br />
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We got to visit some more with family after the service. Colin was ecstatic to find he's actually taller than his aunt Maggie. <br />
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I got to hold the new babies - this one is Andrew, my niece Andrea's baby.<br />
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Jon's family: Chris, Wulfie, Daniel, Barbie, Becca, John Jr, Blair</div>
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Fred C, Becca, Fred B, Maggie, Sandi, Clark, Maria, Louise<br />
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Descendents of Fred C: Brandon, Fred C, Freddie, Colin, Kathy, Becca, Spencer, Maggie, Fred B, Esmerelda, Sandi, Stephanie, Clark, Jenny, Natalie, Michael, Louise, David, Barbie, Andrea, Andrew, Maria, Chris, John Jr, and Blair<br />
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It is so sad to say goodbye to a family member, especially one so young (46 seems a lot younger to me than it used to). I'm so thankful for the knowledge that the gospel gives me that this life is not the end, and that we will see Jon again. I'm also thankful for all the family, friends, neighbors and church members that have come forward to support Becca and her family during this difficult time.<br />
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I was inspired by the stories of the love and loyalty shown by Jon to those around him. I'm going to go forward and try to make more of a difference with my own life, so that I can leave a legacy of love and service behind when it is my time to go.<br />
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<br />CourtneyBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05789187187655243334noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-87233659039775561.post-897147301908211272012-03-03T20:16:00.005-06:002012-03-03T20:39:57.397-06:00Circles<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3E4gA-RDDBQ/T1LSIwvQuAI/AAAAAAAAD6U/iSFMN2oQYmo/s1600/0312-DSC09156.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3E4gA-RDDBQ/T1LSIwvQuAI/AAAAAAAAD6U/iSFMN2oQYmo/s320/0312-DSC09156.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5715861925050497026" border="0" /></a><br />Jaden seems to have artistry in his blood. For months now, he has sought out and used (on any available surface) crayons, markers, pencils, pens . . . whatever he can draw with. I've been amazed at his pencil grip, which he's somehow picked up and usually uses correctly. He would rather be given a marker to draw with than a snack. Even so, we were really surprised tonight when he was using the Magnadoodle and started drawing circles and other shapes.<br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-62bakIxc8ic/T1LSIbRFMEI/AAAAAAAAD6A/n4Wtiho4ZNs/s1600/0312-DSC09145.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 264px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-62bakIxc8ic/T1LSIbRFMEI/AAAAAAAAD6A/n4Wtiho4ZNs/s320/0312-DSC09145.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5715861919286767682" border="0" /></a><br />He hasn't completely settled on a hand yet, but these were done with his left hand.<br /><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-VQ--O5z008o/T1LSIgdHNCI/AAAAAAAAD6I/D4noVpoitgY/s1600/0312-DSC09152.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-VQ--O5z008o/T1LSIgdHNCI/AAAAAAAAD6I/D4noVpoitgY/s320/0312-DSC09152.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5715861920679408674" border="0" /></a><br />Here are some older pictures of him drawing - September 2011:<br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-aRZkR37GDlk/T1LVR7WM3GI/AAAAAAAAD64/pOdv0M_D28g/s1600/0911-DSC06816.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 230px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-aRZkR37GDlk/T1LVR7WM3GI/AAAAAAAAD64/pOdv0M_D28g/s320/0911-DSC06816.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5715865381051882594" border="0" /></a><br />November 2011 (he also did the lines on the whiteboard in the background):<br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Lcv68j6CUDE/T1LVRva4upI/AAAAAAAAD6w/IU87U53CL3Q/s1600/1111-DSC07618.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 273px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Lcv68j6CUDE/T1LVRva4upI/AAAAAAAAD6w/IU87U53CL3Q/s320/1111-DSC07618.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5715865377850309266" border="0" /></a><br />December 2011:<br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bwlAnG1t6Zs/T1LVRa03H4I/AAAAAAAAD6k/etamC_7pH5c/s1600/1211-DSC07691.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 299px; height: 320px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bwlAnG1t6Zs/T1LVRa03H4I/AAAAAAAAD6k/etamC_7pH5c/s320/1211-DSC07691.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5715865372322111362" border="0" /></a><br />It will be fun to see how he continues to progress with this passion of his! Now, time to buy more whiteboard markers . . . SOMEONE keeps stealing them and leaving the caps off! (;CourtneyBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05789187187655243334noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-87233659039775561.post-76127978187704327932012-01-12T09:35:00.004-06:002012-01-12T10:03:21.135-06:00Spencer's 10th birthday<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Yjl3FDkKbWs/Tw8BszPTiMI/AAAAAAAAD4o/GmVd5RVEjE4/s1600/0112-DSC08631.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 221px; height: 320px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Yjl3FDkKbWs/Tw8BszPTiMI/AAAAAAAAD4o/GmVd5RVEjE4/s320/0112-DSC08631.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5696773922827241666" border="0" /></a><br />Spencer turned 10 on the 10th - his golden birthday! He had a great time. Over the weekend, we took him out to eat at IHOP and Fuddruckers (since he got a free meal both places), as well as Olive Garden (his favorite) on his actual birthday. Last Friday was Greg's day off, so he took Spencer rock climbing:<br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-HU8RfGclyKo/Tw8Bw_PHehI/AAAAAAAAD5c/Pws5QLxU9dQ/s1600/0112-Spencerclimbing.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 239px; height: 320px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-HU8RfGclyKo/Tw8Bw_PHehI/AAAAAAAAD5c/Pws5QLxU9dQ/s320/0112-Spencerclimbing.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5696773994767153682" border="0" /></a><br />Spencer got lots of cool presents, including origami and a Tony Hawk skateboarding game for the Wii:<br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yng0l-KUL-s/Tw8BsnptifI/AAAAAAAAD4g/ZJMauuepHPQ/s1600/0112-DSC08625.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 289px; height: 320px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yng0l-KUL-s/Tw8BsnptifI/AAAAAAAAD4g/ZJMauuepHPQ/s320/0112-DSC08625.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5696773919716772338" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-51_lvDD5yGY/Tw8BswhHc7I/AAAAAAAAD48/vLkBM-8QdOk/s1600/0112-DSC08654.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 275px; height: 320px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-51_lvDD5yGY/Tw8BswhHc7I/AAAAAAAAD48/vLkBM-8QdOk/s320/0112-DSC08654.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5696773922096640946" border="0" /></a><br />Here he is building a model from the Erector set he got:<br /><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-yPSKLJwG6Mw/Tw8BtqCC_hI/AAAAAAAAD5E/AdtU6_OTvhQ/s1600/0112-DSC08662.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 274px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-yPSKLJwG6Mw/Tw8BtqCC_hI/AAAAAAAAD5E/AdtU6_OTvhQ/s320/0112-DSC08662.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5696773937535581714" border="0" /></a><br />Blowing out the candles on his chocolate mousse cake:<br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pBPdHhZLwh4/Tw8BtyBOevI/AAAAAAAAD5Q/bdGpAYUODXI/s1600/0112-DSC08675.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 227px; height: 320px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pBPdHhZLwh4/Tw8BtyBOevI/AAAAAAAAD5Q/bdGpAYUODXI/s320/0112-DSC08675.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5696773939679623922" border="0" /></a><br />Spencer's favorite things right now:<br />- Skateboarding and other balance-related things<br />- Origami<br />- Logic puzzles<br />- Spies<br />- Lego<br />- video games<br />- reading<br />He wants to be a spy when he grows up if possible, but thinks working at Lockheed Martin like his dad would be interesting, too.<br /><br />Spencer also attended his Webelos den for the first time last night. Our little boy is growing up! We love you, Spencer!CourtneyBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05789187187655243334noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-87233659039775561.post-21031887586510148272012-01-02T17:35:00.001-06:002016-01-01T15:52:44.418-06:00Greg's Favorites of 2011<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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And another year has gone by. Time for no one's favorite annual blog post: Greg's Favorites of 2011!<br />
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I think the interesting theme of this year is the amount of pop culture nostalgia: many old bands and artists reuniting and/or going back to their roots with new albums (Yes, Cars, Peter Murphy, Outfield, and more); movies being remade or properties being brought back (Muppets, Footloose, The Thing, and more); and retro-style gaming becoming more and more normal, and old properties having new incarnations (Zelda, Donkey Kong, several Mario games, etc.).<br />
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Overall, there was nothing absolutely amazing that came out of 2011, but there was quite a lot of really good. Below are the more specific sections. <br />
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<b>Music:</b><br />
I didn't discover a lot of new music this year. Some of my regular sources have not been as good at pointing me to new bands, or maybe there just wasn't as much out there to find. Below are the albums that I listened to the most this year:<b> </b><br />
<ul>
<li><b>Greg Whitehead - </b><a href="http://gregwhitehead.bandcamp.com/" target="_blank"><i>Another Fine Mess</i></a> - Is it egotistical to have listened to my own album the most this year? I am really proud to have finally recorded my own music, and it just happens to be exactly the type of music I like. And, with the slow start to the year musically, it was about all I had.</li>
<li><b>Yes - </b><i>Fly From Here - </i>If you would have told me a year ago that my favorite album of the year would be a new Yes album, I would have said you were crazy. If you would have told me that the new album was made by practically the same line-up as the 1980 Drama album, and sounds like a direct sequel, I would have never believed it. And yet here we are. This is probably now my 3rd favorite Yes album after 90125 and Big Generator. The only thing missing that would make this album better is Trevor Rabin.</li>
<li><b>Tally Hall - </b><i>Good and Evil - </i>I was so happy to finally get a new album from Tally Hall. It seemed like this was never going to come out. On first listen, it was a little slow and different from their first album and it took a while to grow on me, but eventually I came to absolutely love the album. Their first album had some great songs, but also many skippers. All the songs on this are great with maybe one so-so track. This was the soundtrack for our summer vacation driving to Arizona, Utah, and back.</li>
<li><b>Bryan Scary & The Shredding Tears - </b><i>Daffy's Elixir</i> (2012) - This is the best album that didn't actually come out this year. It's coming out this year, but I was part of the Kickstarter funding campaign to record the album and was able to preview the album earlier on this year. I guess this may have to show up again next year on my list when it actually comes out.</li>
<li><b>Skeleton Staff - </b><i>Psychomorphism </i>(2011) & <i>Solipsism </i>(2010) - These came in at the end of the year for me, so technically I haven't listened to them more than many other albums this year, but I've been really enjoying them.</li>
<li><b>The Feeling - </b><i>Together We Were Made</i> - I was quite excited for this album and expected it to be one of my top favorites for the year. They released a deluxe 2-CD edition with a whole second album worth of tracks. Unfortunately, it never quite stuck. I like the album a lot, but I was never compelled to listen to it like their previous albums.</li>
<li><b>Moon Safari</b> - <i>Lover's End </i>(2010) - A prog rock band with amazing harmonies. My brother introduced me to this retro-prog band who have three albums out. Their latest one is the best of the three. They don't do anything new, but they do old really good.</li>
<li><b>Weird Al Yankovic - </b><i>Alpocalypse - </i>A great Weird Al album that is lessened by the fact that I have almost no connection to anything he parodies any more. But the cover more than makes up for that.</li>
</ul>
Some other bands and albums that I listened to and enjoyed this year:<br />
Gruff Rhys - <i>Shampoo Hotel</i>, Peter Murphy - <i>Ninth</i>, Kula Shaker - <i>Pilgrim's Progress</i>, Sonic Executive Sessions - 2010, Sound of Arrows - Voyage Year, The Cars - Move Like This, Alphaville - Catching Rays on Giant (2010), Howard Jones - Revolution of the Heart (2005), Donkeyboy - Stereolife (2010).<br />
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<b>Movies:</b><br />
I saw a little over thirty new releases this year, below are my top 10 favorites this year:<br />
<ul>
<li>Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol</li>
<li>Insidious</li>
<li>Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2</li>
<li>Super 8</li>
<li>The Muppets</li>
<li>Captain America: The First Avenger</li>
<li>Thor</li>
<li>Paranormal Activity 3 </li>
<li>The Help</li>
<li>Unknown </li>
</ul>
I was really disappointed in most of the animated films this year. Especially "Cars 2" and "The Adventures of Tin Tin." I only got to see parts of "Rango" and "Puss in Boots" due to having to take Jaden out during both of them. We watched "Kung Fu Panda 2" at home and it barely held my attention. Which leaves "Rio" as probably my favorite of the year and that was only so-so.<br />
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<b>TV:</b><br />
We got rid of cable this year and switched to streaming, so it was a little more difficult to keep up on all the TV shows we used to watch, but that was sort of the point. We are no longer slaves to the DVR, but we also have to wait an extra day or longer for them to show up on Hulu or other sites. There were very few new shows that we watched or kept watching, so most of these are repeats from the past. Here are some of my favorite shows in 2011:<b> </b><br />
<ul>
<li>Biggest Loser</li>
<li>Community</li>
<li>QI (British panel show)</li>
<li>The Office</li>
<li>Once Upon A Time (interested, but not sure if it will maintain)</li>
<li>America's Got Talent</li>
<li>An Idiot Abroad (UK travel show)</li>
</ul>
Watching but less excited about: <br />
<ul>
<li>30 Rock</li>
<li>Big Bang Theory</li>
<li>Simpsons</li>
<li>Terra Nova (started out promising, but got dumb real quick.)</li>
<li>Parks and Recreation</li>
<li>Person of Interest</li>
</ul>
I also finally broke down and started watching "Doctor Who" on Netflix and am slowly working my way through them to get to the current series.<br />
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<b>Games</b><br />
I played a lot less games on my consoles this year mainly due to competition with my kids who want their turn much more often now!<b> </b>Here are the games I enjoyed/played the most this year:<b> </b><br />
<ul>
<li>Portal 2</li>
<li>Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword</li>
<li>Batman: Arkham Asylum (I got Arkham City for Christmas but haven't played it yet)</li>
<li>Donkey Kong Country Returns </li>
<li>de Blob 2</li>
<li>Lego Pirates of the Caribbean</li>
<li>Fruit Ninja/Fruit Ninja Kinect/Fruit Ninja Puss in Boots </li>
<li>Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet</li>
<li>Angry Birds/Angry Birds Seasons/Angry Birds Rio</li>
<li>Tiny Wings</li>
<li>Jetpack Joyride</li>
<li>Tiny Heroes</li>
<li>Bloons Tower Defense 4</li>
<li>Ticket To Ride/Carcassonne (iPhone versions)</li>
</ul>
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<b>Podcasts</b><br />
I tend to listen much more to podcasts now, especially while exercising and traveling to work, than music. Here are some of the shows I've been enjoying the most this year:<br />
<ul>
<li><b>Movie B.S. with Bayer & Snider</b> - This movie podcast with Eric D. Snider and Jeff Bayer is definitely my favorite and it's one of the few that I can play out loud without worrying about language.</li>
<li><b>The Totally Rad Show</b> - Daily video podcast reviewing movies, games, and all things "rad" that nerds like me enjoy.</li>
<li><b>Slashfilmcast </b>- One of the oldest podcasts on my list which seems strange because I was listening since the first episode.</li>
<li><b>The Nerdist - </b>Comedy interview podcast. Almost always a great nerdy interview guest.</li>
<li><b>Pod F. Tomcast - </b>Paul F. Tompkins is probably one of my new favorite comedians. He's been around quite a while, but I'm just now discovering how funny and amazing he is.</li>
<li><b>Comedy Bang Bang/Comedy Death Ray - </b>Like Nerdist, there's always an interesting comedy guest, but they usually get interrupted by all the strange characters that show up.</li>
<li><b>The Tobolowsky Files - </b>Great storytelling podcast by Steven Tobolowsky.</li>
</ul>
<br />
<b>Books</b> <br />
I don't take the chance to read much, so I'm just going to briefly mention that I read "The Hunger Games" and the two sequels over the summer. The first book was quite good. I really like the world that was created in the stories, and I'm really excited to see the movie they are making this year. The second and third books, however, get progressively terrible, and ultimately the story is disappointing. I wish it had gone in a different direction and I'm curious to see if the movies will stray from the books at all.Gumbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16164366902768547090noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-87233659039775561.post-5747745733633688142012-01-01T12:47:00.000-06:002012-01-01T12:47:09.345-06:00Piano Arrangement: "Coventry Carol/Bring A Torch..."<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Z2DNaqvp8Io" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br />
For our Christmas program last week, I was asked to perform a number. I chose two slightly more obscure numbers, "The Coventry Carol" (also known as "Lully Lullay,") and "Bring A Torch Jeanette Isabella." I started working on the Coventry melody first, but its modal/minor sound needed to go somewhere else after it ends on a major chord, and somehow "Bring a Torch" worked itself in and so I ended up with a medley of the two. The video above is a semi-live recording of the piece that I arranged and played.<br />
<br />
Here's another version on Soundcloud that should allow an mp3 download of the piece:<br />
<object height="81" width="100%"> <param name="movie" value="https://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F31598807"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed allowscriptaccess="always" height="81" src="https://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F31598807" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="100%"></embed> </object> <span><a href="http://soundcloud.com/gwgumby/greg-whitehead-coventry-carol">Greg Whitehead - Coventry Carol/Bring a Torch</a> by <a href="http://soundcloud.com/gwgumby">GWGumby</a></span> <br />
<br />
And finally, by sibling request, here is the sheet music and midi versions:<br />
<a href="http://www.gwgumby.com/sketchbook/Music/Coventry Torch.pdf">Sheet music</a><br />
and<br />
<a href="http://www.gwgumby.com/sketchbook/Music/CoventryTorch.mid">Midi file</a>Gumbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16164366902768547090noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-87233659039775561.post-14878904992100590732011-10-20T09:45:00.002-05:002011-10-20T09:47:28.284-05:00Jaden's new favorite wordI know, I've been few and far between with blog posts (although I'm finally working on our digital vacation album), but I just had to share the video I took this morning of Colin reading to Jaden. It's pretty funny. Enjoy!<br /><br /><iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/VltlLtbiZas" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" width="420"></iframe>CourtneyBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05789187187655243334noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-87233659039775561.post-76511855936365694872011-09-22T11:14:00.007-05:002011-09-24T22:17:51.465-05:00Random Jaden update<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-6OTADakPuAc/TntphziLkpI/AAAAAAAAD4Y/Dhdkt4ktogE/s1600/0911-DSC06853.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 255px; height: 320px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-6OTADakPuAc/TntphziLkpI/AAAAAAAAD4Y/Dhdkt4ktogE/s320/0911-DSC06853.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5655229786583962258" border="0" /></a><br />Now that Jaden's a year old, I'm switching from monthly updates to whenever-I-feel-like-them updates. He's 13 and a half months old right now, and he has been growing and changing SO much!<br /><br />One of his recent developments that I'm especially enjoying is that he likes to put things BACK. Hooray! It will be a little while before I can say "clean up your mess," but it's a step in the right direction! (:<br /><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-FQ9-MAwPvFo/Tntn2n1Kg5I/AAAAAAAAD3Q/8Tm3FIJE7j4/s1600/0911-DSC06879.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 272px; height: 320px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-FQ9-MAwPvFo/Tntn2n1Kg5I/AAAAAAAAD3Q/8Tm3FIJE7j4/s320/0911-DSC06879.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5655227945196356498" border="0" /></a><br />Last week we took Jaden out to get his fourth haircut - though this is the first time an electric razor was used (which he did *not* care for). His hair grows like crazy, so it was time for a "big boy" cut.<br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1WI_lJy-pcU/Tntn24RsXgI/AAAAAAAAD3g/3l_NEccSasw/s1600/0911-DSC06835.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 307px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1WI_lJy-pcU/Tntn24RsXgI/AAAAAAAAD3g/3l_NEccSasw/s320/0911-DSC06835.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5655227949610982914" border="0" /></a><br />Jaden loves to climb anything and everything. He is constantly climbing up the elliptical to get on the fireplace. Recently he managed to climb all the way up our entertainment center in front of our big-screen TV before the boys noticed and got him down. Just today he managed to climb onto the couch, and after jumping for a while, he grabbed a remote and settled down like he was ready to watch some TV!<br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zgT90hVYODI/Tntn2V8EizI/AAAAAAAAD3I/nSluwkznSIQ/s1600/0911-DSC06900.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 249px; height: 320px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zgT90hVYODI/Tntn2V8EizI/AAAAAAAAD3I/nSluwkznSIQ/s320/0911-DSC06900.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5655227940393487154" border="0" /></a><br />He likes to stand on his tippytoes and peek over the edges of tables and counters to see what he can reach and get into. He's gotten into all sorts of creams and lotions, managed to open a bottle of chewable vitamins, has unrolled toilet paper, and especially adores markers. Here he is after an encounter with a black marker that was apparently tasty.<br /><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-H_bfvLSBdk0/TntoAxO5N4I/AAAAAAAAD3o/Eq2GgeSDOOw/s1600/0911-DSC06832.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-H_bfvLSBdk0/TntoAxO5N4I/AAAAAAAAD3o/Eq2GgeSDOOw/s320/0911-DSC06832.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5655228119518885762" border="0" /></a><br />He loves opening cabinets, and frequently goes to sit in our dirty clothes cabinet. It's his own little hidey hole!<br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4wRKReazFLo/TntoBWq6pCI/AAAAAAAAD34/5slRS49CmCk/s1600/0911-DSC06806.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 239px; height: 320px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4wRKReazFLo/TntoBWq6pCI/AAAAAAAAD34/5slRS49CmCk/s320/0911-DSC06806.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5655228129568531490" border="0" /></a><br />Jaden has started to draw a little, though we still have to keep an eye on him since he alternates between drawing and tasting the crayons. (: Here's a picture of a couple of his recent efforts.<br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-XKBoZCEANNc/Tntn2WVwQvI/AAAAAAAAD3A/uEkJuwVg1q4/s1600/0911-DSC06904.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 171px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-XKBoZCEANNc/Tntn2WVwQvI/AAAAAAAAD3A/uEkJuwVg1q4/s320/0911-DSC06904.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5655227940501209842" border="0" /></a><br />He loves the magnadoodle, too!<br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Frn0j8sFhz0/TntoBGM1g8I/AAAAAAAAD3w/0ty1Cdb8Emk/s1600/0911-DSC06816.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 231px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Frn0j8sFhz0/TntoBGM1g8I/AAAAAAAAD3w/0ty1Cdb8Emk/s320/0911-DSC06816.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5655228125147399106" border="0" /></a><br />His vocabulary has been just exploding - he says new words every day. The ones we hear the most often are "thank you," "uh-oh," "mo" (for "more"), "hi," and of course "mama" and "dada." He says "kitty" and "cracker" and "ball" and "bottle" (that one sounds more like "baba"). He folds his arms for most prayers and says "men" at the end. He's starting to do more sign language, though "more" is still his favorite sign. He chatters constantly, and it's fun to start hearing more and more recognizable words amidst the babble.<br /><br />Jaden loves to be in the thick of whatever we're doing - cleaning, exercising, reading, going outside - he wants to be a part of it! Here he is "helping" us sweep the kitchen and load the dishwasher.<br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LQUmP776KEE/TntoBqDV0aI/AAAAAAAAD4I/4TRPkbaqVYg/s1600/0911-DSC06768.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 226px; height: 320px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LQUmP776KEE/TntoBqDV0aI/AAAAAAAAD4I/4TRPkbaqVYg/s320/0911-DSC06768.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5655228134771249570" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-N0l4yMrD81I/TntoE9l7YyI/AAAAAAAAD4Q/TAtaNmgP00c/s1600/0911-DSC06766.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 238px; height: 320px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-N0l4yMrD81I/TntoE9l7YyI/AAAAAAAAD4Q/TAtaNmgP00c/s320/0911-DSC06766.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5655228191556199202" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-14qKmQPog64/TntoBWO8FqI/AAAAAAAAD4A/zp-N7okQeYk/s1600/0911-DSC06798.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 221px; height: 320px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-14qKmQPog64/TntoBWO8FqI/AAAAAAAAD4A/zp-N7okQeYk/s320/0911-DSC06798.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5655228129451185826" border="0" /></a><br />Jaden loves to dance, and anytime music is on with any sort of a beat, he stops what he's doing, and bobs up and down. He even dances to the blender and washing machine sometimes! He's figured out how to turn on the music on my iPhone, and holds it up like he's having a conversation while dancing to the music. He has also started trying to jump, though he hasn't really managed to get his feet off the ground yet. Here are a couple of videos to finish things off:<br /><br /><iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/7iIPvYuOpds" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" width="420"></iframe><br /><br /><iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/cMJzamMPB90" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" width="420"></iframe>CourtneyBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05789187187655243334noreply@blogger.com2