Below you will find pages that utilize the taxonomy term “3”
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 are the albums I purchased in 2023:
- The Protomen - Presents: A Night of Queen
- Encantó soundtrack
- Moderator - The World Within
- Kognitif - Soul Food
- MxPx - Horns, Plans within Plans, Let’s Rock, Left Coast Punk EP, The Rennaisance EP
- Packy Lundholm - Track Sabbath Vol 1
- Lana Del Rey - Blue Banisters
- Catbite - Nice One
- Macroblank - entire discography - 14 albums
- Vicente Garcia - Lomas de Cayenas
- Girl Ultra - Nuevos Aires
- The Shape of Ska Punk to Come
- Me Like Bees - Songs from The Realm
- Kill Lincoln - Can’t Complain
- Jokabi - Chilltendo Deluxe
- Turning Red Soundtrack
- We Are the Union - Ordinary Life
- Chillhop Music - Essentials Spring 2022, Essentials Summer 2022, Essentials Fall 2022
- Anberlin - Silverline
New Music I got as a gift:
Many Book Reviews
Babylon’s Ashes by James S.A. Corey
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This book is probably the most direct sequel so far in The Expanse. It pretty much picks up right where the last one left off (not counting the interstitial novella). One thing JSAC use for great effect in this book (and I think more than any of the previous ones) is to use the POV-ness of the chapters to jump back and forth in time. So chapter X ends and then chapter X+1 actually rewinds things a bit and provides a new perspective on what happened in chapter X. It mostly worked well.
Many Books Reviews
The Future is Japanese: Science Fiction Futures and Brand New Fantasies from and about Japan by Masumi Washington
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Another anthology. As usual, I’ve included my status updates with some spelling fixes. Overall it was a very uneven collection in terms of what I enjoyed. The stories all seemed to run hot or cold for me with nothing lukewarm.
Many Reviews
The Ultimate History of Video Games: From Pong to Pokemon - The Story Behind the Craze That Touched Our Lives and Changed the World by Steven L. Kent
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is a very comprehensive look at the history of video games going way, way back. I’m familiar with a lot of the main points from having read lots of industry histories. Where this one excels is in going to the smallest of details and talks about a lot of the personalities and more obscure companies involved. So even if you already know a lot about video games history, if you’re interested, you’ll end up learning things you most likely didn’t know. Most importantly it is stuffed with first-hand quotes from interviews and other published material.