January in Review
Books Acquired:
N/A
Books Read:
The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt
Paper Girls, Vol. 3 by Brian K. Vaughan, Cliff Chiang
Educated by Tara Westover
All Our Wrong Todays by Elan Mastai
Not a lot happened this month. I was sick for a recent chunk of it, and Lee-Ann was away for most of the month with training, so I have a wee bit of the cabin fever. It’s been a great start of the year as far as media is concerned, though. Everything I read this year has been great. Both Educated and The Sisters Brothers would have been high on my top-ten list last year, and Wandersong and Frost Punk would have also made the video game lists.
Here’s the only photo I uploaded this month. Enjoy some dog teeth:
Movies watched:
Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018) – We finally got around to watching this and really enjoyed it. There were definitely some nonsensical parts to the plot, and I found the way they handled Emilia Clarke’s character to be frustrating, but overall this was fun.
FYRE: The Greatest Party That Never Happened (2019) – Yes, everyone was talking about this, and we broke down and watched it. Quite a good documentary. A sad look at the sort of sociopathic behaviour some business types can somehow get with, although thankfully this one blew up in his face. I was very happy to see that Maryann Rolle, the caterer who lost her life savings amidst all this, made over $200,000 on a GoFundMe project recently.
TV watched:
Great Interior Design Challenge: Season 2 (2014) – More aspirational television for when we have a new place to decorate, where we will hang a picture on the wall and talk about how we’ll decorate someday until we move again.
Katherine Ryan: In Trouble (2017) – Ryan was never my favourite on the panel shows, but I feel like I finally got her while watching The Fix. This was a really solid stand-up special.
Trevor Noah: Afraid of the Dark (2017) – I think Trevor Noah is great, and this was fun, but it was a bit of a mixed bag. Some hilarious bits and some that felt a bit tired.
Patton Oswalt: Annihilation (2017) – This was interesting in that it was Oswalt’s first stand-up gig since his wife unexpectedly passed away. Heartfelt, funny, and quite special.
Games played:
Wandersong (PC)(2018) – I loved this! As was probably evident in my gushing review.
Frostpunk (PC)(2018) – I played through the main campaign and the first extra scenario. I left it there, but I could see myself going back at a later date to play another scenario or two. Stressful yet satisfying game.
Battlefield V (PS4)(2018) – A friend of mine bought a PS4 recently and picked this as the first multiplayer game we would play. It wouldn’t have been my first choice, but it’s actually quite fun. Buggy in parts and the single-player content is oddly put together, but the large scale multiplayer matches are really interesting.
Command and Conquer: Rivals (Android)(2018) – Mobile strategy game reminiscent of Clash Royale in how it’s structured, but the battles play out different. Not sure how long I’ll keep it up, but it’s been fun so far.
Holedown (Android)(2018) – I kept hearing about this at the end of the year, so I decided to pick it up. This is just the sort of game I enjoy playing on my phone for five minutes here and there. It’s sort of a reverse breakout game. I’ve progressed through the whole game now and all that’s left to unlock is higher scores, so I’ll probably stop here.
Come say hello:
What have you been reading/watching/playing this month?
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4 Comments
Ruthiella
Those are some clean teeth! My dogs cannot compare and my vet is always bugging me about it but cleaning is SO EXPENSIVE.
Nice list of books. I liked Educated and The Sisters Brothers too.
I tried All Our Wrong Todays last year and DNF-ed it. It was a little too dude-bro lite personally for me in its premise of the narrator liking a woman and then effing up the space time continuum because he can’t manage rejection. But the initial concept, that this is the “wrong” present, was pretty cool and the reason I picked it up in the first place.
Rob
She had just gotten her teeth cleaned actually! Otherwise her teeth do start to turn quite yellow. We’ve got the expensive dental cleaning a few years back, but this time we did an anesthesia free cleaning from someone who just comes to your house. I guess vets recommend against that, because their cleaning is used to find diseases and problems that could cause serious issues, whereas that won’t happen with the anesthesia free one. The plan was to use this as a supplement to the vet cleaning, as it’s $1000 vs $100, but I don’t know. Still on the fence. They look great though, and her breath is better!
I liked All Our Wrong Todays but I feel exactly the same way. I haaated the ‘everything for this woman I barely know’ angle he took.
Lashaan Balasingam @ Bookidote
Do you plan on checking out the movie adaptation for The Sisters Brothers? 😀 It has a nice cast and I think it promises a good time. 😮 Also nice that you got to try BF V. It is indeed surprisingly fun, but it still feels like BF 1 from last year with different maps and more women…
Rob
I do! Great cast and looks like it could be quite good. The book itself feels a bit like a Coen brothers’ script, so it feels like it would adapt quite well.
BFV is a lot of fun. I haven’t found the single player content to be very interested, but the multiplayer is a blast.