November in Review

Books Acquired:
None.

Books Read:
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms by George R.R. Martin
In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson
The Magician’s Nephew by C.S. Lewis
A House of Pomegranates by Oscar Wilde
Without Feathers by Woody Allen

A couple of the books I picked up to read this month were to finish up the 2015 TBR Pile Challenge, which I was lagging behind on a bit. I’m currently in the middle of Stephen Fry in America, which will finish that off. I’ve decided to only go for nine of my classic picks for the Back to the Classics Challenge this year, so I’ll be finishing that up pretty quickly as well.

Nothing too exciting this month. I was sick for a good chunk of it, but we did get out to see Billy Connolly’s latest stand up tour. He was hilarious as always. With the Parkinson’s disease, he can’t really jump around on stage the way he used to in his act, so his delivery is less aggressive. It must be odd having to completely change your delivery style after doing it for so long, but it’s clearly working because he was still great. I think every Scottish person in town was there. Very few Canadian accents in the crowd that night.

Movies watched:
The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) – My girlfriend hadn’t watched this before and we had recently gone through the haunted house at Disney Land, which is entirely based around this movie now, so we thought we’d watch it. A fun story, Oogie Boogie is still creepy, but I found the music a little dull this time around.

Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014) – I’m not sure why we watched this, as I expected it to be horrible, but there ended up being parts of this that I really loved. It’s self-aware of its cheese, and there’s a tone shift in the middle that is kind of genius. The movie overall averages out to be just decent, but there’s definitely some high points.

TV watched:
BoJack Horseman: Season 1 (2014) – The start of this season is a decent comedy, but then it starts getting darker and much more interesting. Already started the second season – great show.

Master of None: Season 1 (2015) – I wasn’t really into this for the first couple of episodes. Everyone was so wooden that it missed the mark for me. By the end of the season, though, I really started loving this. I feel like everyone settled into their roles, and it actually really does feel like an old Woody Allen movie, in the best possible way. Very hopeful that it continues on for another season.

Games played:
Call of Duty: Black Ops III (2015) (PC) – I haven’t really played one of these for quite a while, and apparently this was a good year to jump back in. I’ve been having a great, if slightly frustrating, time playing online. I tried out the single player campaign, but the writing was hilariously bad, so I don’t think I have much interest in continuing with that.

Fallout 4 (2015) (PC) – After looking forward to this for years, it’s been a bit of a disappointment to be honest. I haven’t given up yet, but it’s just shallow and lazy compared to the previous games so far.

What have you been reading/watching/playing this month?