This list is some of the best of stuff I experienced in 2021.
I started watched this Bob Dylan inspired docu-mocku-dramatized-metary back in high school when I first got into his music (of which I am a huge fan of, see last year's album pick). I never finished this movie then, and I recall finding it hard to understand. In summary, this movie characterizes six different parts of Bob Dylan through six different characters. It is hard to follow because of this, but I thought it was great and engaging. I haven't been able to parse the Richard Gere story, as other critics have noted, but I enjoy the style it was set in, and so will give it a pass.
Honorable mentions are Knives Out, Coraline, and Kiki's Delivery Service.
This is an excellent book about the life of Richard Feynman, a physicist who worked at Los Alamos during the war. There is minimal mention of physics, though, the book is about intellectual curiosities and his "curious character," as the book mentioned. I related to a lot of his stories, such as his criticism of the education system in Brazil at the time, and how it is like what I saw in my education.
Honorable mentions are A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, Saga, and What are People For?.
I love bluegrass music, but John Hartford's bluegrass music is my favorite type. I had four of his albums: Aereo-Plain, Morning Bugle, Nobody Knows What You Do, and Mark Twang on repeat for much of the year. These songs are so catchy, delightful, joyous, American, melancholy, and childish that they have been on my mind like few albums before.
Honorable mentions are Will the Circle be Unbroken, Hot Rats, and A Night at the Opera.
Half Life: Alyx is a Half Life game, but in virtual reality. It is such an excellent experience. The writing and gameplay are fantastic, and it is such fun. The infamous Jeff chapter is one of the most compelling sequences I've ever seen in a game. This game makes a compelling case that VR games are the best way to experience an immersive story, and I look forward to more games like this for VR in the future.
Honorable mentions are Dwarf Fortress, Caves of Qud, and Forewarned.
This series is wonderful. It reminds me a lot of Ghibli movies.
I didn't watch a ton of television shows, or at least new shows, and so I'm omitting honorable mentions. I enjoyed introducing my partner to Taskmaster.
This is a series where a man buys land in Nevada, and tries to make it self-sustaining, loosely limiting himself to things that would be possible on Mars. I found myself enthralled with Cody's videos when I first discovered them. I'd recommend this series to anyone who is in science: Cody is living the mad scientist dream.
My RSS reader has 157 blogs at the moment, though some may be hiding under other categories, and so this category had a lot of competition. I most enjoyed seeing frequent posts by Ran Prier. Often his posts are about "weird collapse."
I enjoyed this game a lot, in which a player tries to give clues like Mysterium. I find it much more enjoyable than Mysterium or other games within this genre.
Other games I enjoyed were Calico and Star Realms.
Mon Dec 27 best-of 👍 (1)
A selection of the best things I experienced in 2020. By my counts, I have watched ~30 movies, wathed (at least some) of 15 shows, read 28 books, and have subscribed to 332 RSS feeds.
I can't belive it took me so long to see the Matrix. This year I also enjoyed The Addam's Family, Johnny Mnemonic, and Spirited Away.
I read this classic after getting it for Christmas, and I really loved it. Unlike many others, my favorite parts of Walden are where he describes the mundane interactions with everything. Almanac reminded me a lot of this of course, and also the excellent essays of Wendell Berry. I also recommend Siddartha, All the Pretty Horses, and Does it Matter?.
I consider this classic Dylan, and like most of his original work it is excellent. It also is strange, famously featuring a 17-minute song about the Kennedy assassination. I was less of a fan of his trilogy of standards, and I have been savoring all new Dylan since I became a fan back in 2012. His series Theme Time Radio is also recommended, where the hosts a radio show. I also recommend all of Simon and Garfunkel's discography, and as always more Stan Rogers.
This recipe was so good and fun. It creates a spicy and sweet cake using very few ingredients. I also would recommend this recipe for green gazpacho.
TT-RSS is ideal for how I want to use RSS feeds. It is not especially exciting in of itself. This year, I also made good use of wiki.js and I have become very proficient with vim.
Another late entry I received as a gift from my girlfriend, this game is a short and easy game. I like this kind of game a lot. My main criticism is sometimes the symbols are hard to read, but this does not greatly detract from things.
This game has such good world-building and story telling without any dialogue. The gameplay is good too. It offers the best cyberpunk experience there is in a game. Other games I enjoyed include the video game interpretation of Walden, The Talos Principle, Spelunky 2, and Hollow Knight.
This show is really fun, and most of the seasons are available for free on their YouTube channel. If you haven't heard of it, Taskmaster is an excellent, hilarious British game show where comedians do stuff. I would certainly recommend it. I also enjoyed The Queen's Gambit and Dr. Who (Matt Smith).
Austin's blog is really excellent. Every week there are multiple posts on it that I am really interested in. They have inspired me to concrete action in a way that most weblogs do not.
This is exactly the type of podcast I enjoy: funny people talking about interesting things. I have been binging episodes. I find this podcast a great way to relax, the topics are almost never something stressful. Some other podcasts I enjoy are Car Talk and Stuff You Should Know.
There has been a theme of cyberpunk related stuff this year, and for anyone looking for an engaging cyberpunk graphic novel, I would recommend this one. I also started Saga, but I have not caught up completely yet.
Tue Jan 05 best-of 👍 (14)
A selection of the best things I experienced in 2019
I didn't watch many movies during 2019. I enjoy Spike Lee and Adam Driver is always excellent. Honorable mentions go to Interstellar and Street Fighter the movie.
and Street Fighter the movie.An unknown book by a farmer who does things contrary to big agribusiness. I appriciate how clear he is about his life. Honorable mention to How to Cook Your Life: From the Zen Kitchen to Enlightenment.
I have been loving all of Stan Roger's discography, this album has a good selection. My favorite songs are Barrett's Privateers, The Idiot, the Mary Ellen Carter, and White Squal. This year I also enjoyed The Heart of Saturday Night, Fiddler On the Roof, John Prine's September 79.
This recipe is so good. It's perfectly delicious. I have it memorized at this point. I'd also like to shout out The Perfect Loaf for a great sourdough recipe.
While non libre, this has given me the comfort to switch to entirely linux on my desktop computer. Now, steam games automatically are configured, usually requiring no setup. Most all of my games work great, and I am not limited in my choices. I have also been using cherrytree, which is excellent.
A really fun game that is in the same category as the classic Codenames. I also enjoyed We're Doomed, though did not play very much.
The Mario platforming series is my favorite video games series. Mario Maker is the peak of the franchise (and at times the trough).
A newsletter about technology, discussing how it has changed our society. I look forward to each new issue.
Another great website about technology. I love their articles about wind usage especially.
Sun Feb 09 blog best-of 👍 (0)