Category: Me

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Computer Games Film Games Me TV

Q1 2016 in review

Today I am 12,000 days old. The 90 days of this year so far have been ok.

Exercise

I ran 140 miles.

My pace isn’t great; my best run was probably a 7 miler where I averaged 8:30 miles. On the Bath half I crumbled over the last few miles and ended up average 9:45 miles. I’ve got the Warwick half on Sunday, it’ll be the first half that I’ve run by myself so I’ll see how it goes.

Oddly, I feel like I’ve been exercising less. I think I’ve been running for longer distances less frequently.

Days out

Warwick Castle. Charlecote. Oxford. I met a very little lamb, some giant rabbits and a turkey near York. Haven’t had many new experiences, though I’ve been generally keeping myself busy. Could do with some new adventures; I’m thinking it might be fun to round up all my little people and take them to the zoo for my birthday.

Home

Something made Milly very anxious a couple of months ago and she licked her legs bare but the fur seems to be growing back now.

The garden is looking pretty decent, certainly ready for some planting.

I’ve neglected the stack of boxes Mum and Dad dropped off containing the contents of my bedroom at home (I’m almost certain it’s mostly stationary).

Input

I’ve been pretty good at only watching things I want to watch (I can’t remember the last time I just put the TV on and flicked channels). I hit a bit of a wall on the reading front, Station Eleven was very clever but I found it tough to get through.

I currently have a surfeit of comics, games and films. I need to reduce spending and increase consumption.

Favourite things

  • Board with Life. The show, the podcast, the bits, the news, all of it. So funny, and charming. I’ve been spoiled in that I got to marathon through several years worth of content and now I’m waiting week on week but it’s worth it.
  • Films – Deadpool, Song of the Sea. The Hateful Eight was very good but Deadpool and Song of the Sea are some way ahead of the field for me.
  • Computer game – Tharsis – admittedly it’s the only game I’ve played, but it’s such a compelling puzzle; well worth £11.
  • Book – Magician’s Land. I was convinced I’d read more books this year but I can only really remember Magician’s Land.
  • Comics – Saga continues to impress. I was looking forward to Planet Hulk but in the end it wasn’t really my cup of tea.
  • Board games – Raiders of the North Sea is utterly brilliant. Marvel Legendary is still the game I play the most thanks to the solo rules.
  • TV – Narcos, Daredevil (I haven’t finished it yet but I love it so far), I’ve also really enjoyed Lucifer.

Goals

For the next few months I think:

  • Run a sub-50 10k
  • Play at least one session of D&D
  • Book a short break
  • Get one of my game ideas to a playable prototype
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Food Games Me

What you should do in 2016

Follow these people on Twitter: @saladinahmed, @andrewducker, @tcarmody, @joannechocolat, @beatonna, @paullicino

Buy better quality meat and less of it. It’s better for you, the environment, the animals, and it’ll taste better.

Grow something.

Hand write a letter to someone. (Bonus: you can talk about “keeping up with your correspondence”.)

Make your bed every morning.

Play more games. Good, modern board games. If you’re not sure where to start try Tabletop or Rahdo, or check out SU&SD. (Or just pick up Ticket to Ride or King of Tokyo and take it from there.)

Moan less and laugh more.

Look up nearby tourist attractions. There’s almost certainly an obscure museum, park, or gallery on your doorstep you’ve always ignored or never knew about. Visit it.

Give things away

Drive a little slower. The time saved by speeding on your commute to work is negligible but it’s costing you money and stressing you out.

Buy a book from an independent bookstore.

Pay for something you get for free. You almost certainly use Wikipedia, pay the $3 when they ask, if you read a webcomic or follow a YouTube channel back the creater on Patreon.

And, most important of all: be kind. If we’re not kind to each other then we’re all fucked.

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Books Comics Computer Games Film Games Me

The Year in Review

Films. My favourite film I’ve watched this year might be Nausicaa. My favourites of this year’s releases… probably Fury Road and The Force Awakens (I also loved how like Nausicaa Rey’s intro scene was).

TV. Jessica Jones and Daredevil probably the picks of the year. I continue to enjoy Arrow and The Flash. Non-superhero… Umm… I still have Jonathan Strange and Wolf Hall recorded but unwatched. Ooh! Rick and Morty. Loved Rick and Morty and seriously lamenting:

– Lack of region 2 DVD
– The wait for a third series

GoT was disappointing this year, still good TV but little progression and certainly weaker than previous series with the exception of the best zombie sequence we’ve had in years.

Games. I bought too many and played too few. Of my whole collection I’ve now racked up plays for ~20-25 games now but that’s less than half.

My favourite game of the year might be Above and Below, just the right mix of eurogaming and storytelling, and easy enough for my family to pick it up on the first play. I wish I’d played Pandemic Legacy but I lack a regular enough gaming group to play the series. And I wish I’d enjoyed Codenames more, again, I think with the right group this would be a blast but on our family holiday it just didn’t really take.

(Talking of games I’ve only really played one computer game this year but I think most games would struggle to beat Fallout 4 this year)

Decisions. Joining Spa Striders is shaping up to be one of the better ones, I’m getting fitter and while I’m yet to really make friends (repeated introductions by the same people are getting a little embarrassing) I’m hoping that’ll get easier when the evenings get lighter and more pub runs are on the cards.

Worst decision? Not sure. Could’ve saved a bunch of money by not buying a host of games I haven’t played! Equally I could’ve saved even more money by not going on any dates but while nothing’s really panned out on that front yet it’s all been useful. Not sure yet. Anyway, this is supposed to be about favourite things!

Books. Really enjoying The Mistborn series thus far, Old Man’s War was really rather good, The Night Circus was nice but doesn’t quite make the top of the list. Certainly happier with how much I’ve read this year and just bagged a rake of bargains in Amazon’s 12 days of Kindle so hopefully that’ll continue on. Not sure I have a standout comic this year though I’m still catching up on a lot of what I’ve picked up.

That’ll do for now I think. More thoughts may follow between now and New Years.

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Me

Adventures in Online Dating, Pt 3

(Part 1, Part 2)

Starting to think I should change the title to “Observations” rather than “Adventures”. Or start actually writing about my adventures like: “The Girl Who Definitely Thought She Was Going To End Up In A Murder Basement” and “The Nazi Dentist Affair“…

Observations first:

More wedding photos than I was expecting on Tinder (as in *their* wedding). I guess it was a day they looked really nice but still quite weird (and presumably a little while ago at least). There’s also a related group that use exclusively shots of them with (who I can only assume) is their former partner. Again, a bit weird.

Group shots! So many people with only group shots. In most cases it’s a solvable exercise but in some there are at least two of the same individual in every shot… My guess is that if your first pic is a group shot and the viewer likes at least one girl in it they have to view more to work out which one you are which means they get to see more about you? Makes sense. Also a special shout out to the girl whose description read, “To save confusion later: I’m the brown one”.

Talking of descriptions, there aren’t many. I guess I’m used to Match where even when you can’t see much about a person you can still see a bit. I suppose the idea is if you think someone’s attractive then swipe right and if they feel the same you can chat and work out if you actually like each other. I do like knowing a bit about a person in advance though, if you smoke, go clubbing 4 nights a week, hate cats and are football mad you’re probably not the girl for me.

Quite funny seeing people you know on there, especially when their photo looks so unlike them it takes you a while to work out who this person with whom you share so many friends could possibly be! (Also funny to see the profile of someone you share an office with and had no idea they were interested in any of the things they mention – I’m a rubbish colleague.)

Was a bit thrown but one profile that just read Cancer. I thought, “Fuck, that’s pretty heavy, but I guess anyone getting into a relationship with you should know.” Several minutes later I realised it was her star sign.

Also, apparently having a picture of you with an eagle as your main profile pic isn’t as cool as I think it is. Lizzy talked me out of this on Match, Helen’s done the same on Tinder. Bloody girls, what do they know.

* Definitely not as bad as it sounds, out of habit I lock my car doors when I’m driving, when I dropped her off (after a slightly awkward but not terrible evening) the door didn’t open she had a moment of panic that I was about to drive off with her and feed her to my cats or something. We joked about it, briefly, then she got out of the car as quickly as possible.

** Fourth date was going well, then things escalated quickly. Started off with a fairly out of the blue “We don’t remember Nelson Mandela for the terrorist he was,” which leapt fairly swiftly on to “The Final Solution wasn’t really the Nazi’s fault,” and finished with a dash of, “I know not *all* Syrians are terrorists”…

Categories
Me

Must try harder

The Summer is always the busiest time at work. Let’s see if we can’t do a little more now we’re coming in to the Autumn.

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Me Music

Talking of music

Glastonbury!

It was good.

I saw…

Mad Dog McCrea (including a man waving his prosthetic leg during My Son John), Billy Bragg, Marcus Brigstocke, James Bay, Everything Everything, Alabama Shakes, Duke Special, Cara Dillon, Run the Jewels, The Proclaimers, Christy Moore, Florence, The Unthanks, Frank Turner, Nizlopi, Moulettes, Roni Size Reprazent, Enter Shikari, The Mothership Returns, Molotov Jukebox, Slaves, Rival Sons, Jack Garrett, Cassetteboy, Ferocious Dog, Curtis Eller’s American Circus, Lionel Richie, Alt-J, Paul Weller, Jamie T, The Who, and a bunch more no doubt.