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2022 in Video Games and 2022 Video Game of the Year
1. Gwent (1 day, 5:50:44): Around May I found out that CD Projekt Red had changed the rules around the Gwent Journey, so that journeys were no longer time-bound. This meant I no longer felt pressured to play every day in order to progress. Freed from feeling forced to play, I once again caught the…
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Review: Babel, Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution
Babel, Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution by R.F. Kuang My rating: 4 of 5 stars It will be very interesting to compare this book to Seize the Stars when I get to it next year. Both involve the seeming impossibility of pushing for justice against a society…
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2022 in Music (Last.FM and Spotify Listening Trends)
Another year, another look at my music trends for the year. It was another year of music acquisition (supporting the artists, ftw! – I knew Spotify wasn’t paying artists well, but Corey Doctorow’s book, Chokepoint Capitalism really brought home how much they’re screwing over artists), although I think things may slow down in 2023. Here…
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The Pelican Brief is a ridiculous movie
In short succession 2 podcasts I listen to covered the movie adaptation of The Pelican Brief. If you watched it back in the 1990s you probably didn’t realize how bananas the plot of this movie was. It sounds OK in short summary – some evil corporations kill 2 US Supreme Court judges to prevent a…
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End of Year Review: Running 2021 and 2022
Since I didn’t cover running last year, I’m going to cover both years in this post. 2021 If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you know that I caught the running bug during the Red Hat Summit in 2019. My original goal was to do an official race that would allow me to…
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Ted Corbitt 15k 2022
Because of various issues I wrote about before (mostly stemming from the issue with my right sesamoids), I ended up canceling my summer and fall races. The last one I was really looking forward to was the Ted Corbitt 15k, honoring Mr. Corbitt who has a long list of achievements, including being the first African-American…
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Programming Update: October 2022
As October came around, it was time to get ready for Hacktoberfest. I’ve been participating for the past few years and I love the fact that DigitalOcean supports this project which gets more people to contribute to free and open source software. In the past, I’ve often contributed to my Extra Life Donation Tracker. Since…
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Web Browsers: Brave on Linux and Brave in the News
As I did last time, I wanted my web browser post to contain both news stories about browsers that have caught my attention and my thoughts on the newest web browser I’m trying out. Let’s start with the news. As you probably have heard if you’re paying any attention to browsers, one of the selling…
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Review: Every Heart a Doorway
Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire My rating: 5 of 5 stars I got this book for free from Tor.com’s ebook club. I highly recommend it – in exchange for your email address you get access to free books from Tor.com’s catalog; a new one each month. (Currently it’s a Brandon Sanderson book from…
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Review: Jumanji
Jumanji by Chris Van Allsburg My rating: 3 of 5 stars Interestingly enough, I heard an audiobook of this picture book. It was on sale recently at libro.fm and I was curious about how a picture book became one of the first live action/adventure movies I saw as a kid. This book basically reads as…
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Review: Phenomenons: Every Human Creature
Phenomenons: Every Human Creature by Michael Jan Friedman My rating: 4 of 5 stars What if you took Wild Cards and started off from a more modern place than the 1980s. What would you have? Well, for one thing, less gay slurs and stereotypes. For another, starting with a less sleazy, more modern NYC. I…
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Review: A Closed and Common Orbit
A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers My rating: 4 of 5 stars This book is both a follow-on to the previous one that picks up right where it left off and can be enjoyed as a standalone book. That’s quite a magic trick that Becky Chambers plays there, but it works very well.…
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Changing To a Block-Based Theme (Twenty Twenty-Two)
Interestingly enough, I was originally exploring whether to change to the new Bjork theme I’d just heard about. Unfortunately, unlike previous theme changes, it required me to completely redo my homepage while the page was live. It was NOT a good experience. But I did start playing around with the built-in themes. For the past…
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Review: From a Certain Point of View: The Empire Strikes Back
From a Certain Point of View: The Empire Strikes Back by Elizabeth Schaefer My rating: 3 of 5 stars Some of these stories were great! Things felt a bit bogged down at Hoth, though. Too many stories around the Taun-Taun scenes. Overall recommended if you’re a Star Wars fan. Here’s my story-by-story review: Eyes of…
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Thoughts on the 2022 Hugos
The Hugo Awards (Science Fiction and Fantasy award given out at WorldCon; anyone who bought a ticket can nominate and vote) were given out this past weekend. Here is a link to all the awards and winners. I just wanted to share a few of my thoughts, organized by category. Best Novel – I’d read…