1. I Fight Dragons (179 plays) - Over this quarter I have continued to really enjoy the B Side to The Near Future and listened to them a lot after work. Scarlett likes quite a few of those songs as well.

2. Anberlin (74 plays) - For the concert last year I put all their albums on my phone. So when I listen to my music already on the phone, Anberlin comes up a lot.

A mixture of a growing Ebook library, tracking my goals in Goodreads, and Calibre’s ability to generate a catalog have made me decide to start tracking things quarterly in the book dimension as well. I’ll start off with a simple set of stats and we’ll see what comes to me as time goes by. (Ebook will include both books and Magazines such as SF&F anthologies)

Total Ebooks: 363

The Witcher (15 hours)

Assassin’s Creed was the first game series Vinnie of Giant Bomb convinced me to try by talking about it endlessly on the Bombcast. The Witcher is the second. (This is why I miss his voice on that podcast so much) It has turned out to be a lot more fun than I thought it would. It’s based on the Bioware engine of the time, so it plays a lot like Mass Effect 1. The story is good so far and full of nice little jokes. You can watch my progress (I’ve been recording it for Extra Life) on this Youtube playlist.

Encouraging the Heart: A Leader’s Guide to Rewarding and Recognizing Others by James M. Kouzes

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I received this book as part of a manager training seminar I attended. It’s not my first management improvement book and it’s not my first touchy feel-y self-improvement book. My dad had me read Dyer, Chopra, Tony Robbins, Maxwell Maltz, and Stephen Covey. But this is the first time I’ve read a touchy feel-y management improvement book since finish my first assignment as a manager.

The Anatomy of Super Mario Vol. 1 by Jeremy Parish

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book is a matter class on Mario. I thought I knew all there was to know about Mario. Not only have I read a lot of the histories, but I was there. Mario was my first game; the ur experience. Every game, from real platformers to games with platforming life Uncharted, is judged in my mind against Mario. It is not a mere history lesson for me.

Gamers at Work: Stories Behind the Games People Play by Morgan Ramsay

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

On the negative side, I didn’t realize beforehand this was written by a venture capitalist guy from the point of view of running companies. That made it less fun than if it’d been about the amazing and revolutionary games these companies made. However, it still ended up being pretty interesting in two main ways for me. First, seeing how much money was needed to start up changed through the decades. Second, seeing that there is no one right way to run a company. Some were family-friendly and others were time-sucks. But all of them made innovative games and were successful. One other takeaway is that some companies lasted a long time and others were closer to one-hit wonders before they either closed or were bought.

As a parent you are constantly wondering if you’re doing the right thing - are you being too nice or too mean? Is this a time to give in or stand your ground? But recently I heard a great story of something Scarlett did while I was at work. When Danielle’s birthday came around, Scarlett took her toys and wrapped them up in her blanket. She gave it to Danielle and said, “It’s your present! Open it! Open it!” That just made me beam.

Reinventing Project Management: The Diamond Approach To Successful Growth And Innovation by Aaron J. Shenhar

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I’ve been involved in projects from all levels: developer, Project Manager, Manager of PM, and customer of project (technically this is everyone everywhere, but I’m talking about at work). This book has really changed the way I view Project Management. On the next project I start (or inherit), I want to make sure I try out the diamond principles mentioned here. Even if they aren’t a panacea, they appear to change the way everyone involved thinks about the project. Often perspective changes like this can have huge knock-on effects in large companies. Results that previously seemed random now make sense when viewed in this framework.

Gamers by Thomas K. Carpenter

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

For some reason, I’ve found myself reading a lot of YA fiction over the last couple years. On the negative side, it appears that Dystopias are the genre du jour. Nothing wrong with them, and I think something about them speaks to teens. When I was a teen, that was my favorite genre - 1984, A Brave New World, and many others. But I think there can definitely end up being a bit of fatigue from reading books where the conflict is with the evil government rather than internal or with other peers.

Irregular Creatures by Chuck Wendig

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was my first Chuck Wendig book. If I’m thinking of the right author, all I knew about him before going into this is that he apparently likes to use a lot of profanity in his books. This one had more than most, but not an obscene amount.

If I had to describe this book in just one sentence it’d be: Irregular Creatures is like a bunch of Twilight Zone episodes if Twilight Zone was rated R. That said, most of the stories were probably closer to PG-13. I’d watch a one-season HBO TV adaptation of this book.