sometimes i wish confidence would grow on trees
Happy New Year! I'm very tired right now, but I wanted to do my yearly roundup of media consumed while I'm waiting for access to the new Doctor Who special.
First of all, because Goodreads makes such a nice page for it, my year in books! I apparently read 30,878 pages across 192 books, although they also say I read 208 out of 150 books (my reading challenge; I won by 139%). Not totally sure where the discrepancy is -- audiobooks, maybe? That would make sense because last year Goodreads claimed my shortest book was a reasonably-long audiobook at 1 page and this year they're saying the shortest one was Doctor Who: The First Doctor: In-Between Times, a 6-page long comic that came with the Doctor Who comics Humble Bundle. The longest book was City of Dreams: The 400-Year Epic History of Immigrant New York at 768 pages; it was really interesting and enjoyable and honestly about 200 pages too long. Most popular book read was Room, which was also read by 680,398 other people; the highest-rated on the site was The Great Comet: The Journey of a New Musical to Broadway with a 4.74 star average; the least popular was Doctor Who: The Eleventh Doctor #2.1 apparently read by no one else.
Over on last.fm, I scrobbled 2,592 tracks in 2018, an average of 7 per day. I listened to 211 distinct artists; the top 10 were The Pogues (1,034), Taylor Swift (389), Declan Bennett (110), Flogging Molly (108), Dropkick Murphys (84), Shane MacGowan And The Popes (55), Ramones (53), Idina Menzel (50), Glen Hansard (42), and The Frames (35). I'm amused by how far ahead of everyone else The Pogues continue to be. I listened to 160 different albums; the top 10 were a fan-compiled album of the surprise songs from Taylor Swift's reputation tour (112), Declan Bennett's Unsolicited Material: LA (79), Carols For A Cure Vol. 20 (57), Idina Menzel's idina: live (50), the OBCR of Frozen (44), Shane MacGowan's Live Rarities (41), the OBCR of The Band's Visit (36), a tie between the NBCR of Once On This Island and a Shane MacGowan & The Popes bootleg (32), and then tenth place is a three-way tie between bootlegs of Ramones, Taylor Swift, and Pogues concerts (30). Aside from Unsolicited Material that's mostly a list of really long recordings rather than albums I listened to repeatedly, which is interesting. Finally, I listened to 1,092 distinct tracks, the most-listened to being The Pogues' Repeal of the Licensing Laws (39) and the rest of the top ten also being the Pogues; you have to get down to 20th place to find a non-Pogues song, with Taylor Swift's ...Ready For It? at 18 plays (tying with another couple of Pogues songs). I am surprised by this as it's my second-least-favorite from that album.
In 2018 I gave up keeping track of all of my TV and movie consumption. I did see a few movies in theaters this year: Black Panther, Avengers: Infinity War, Aquaman, and Mary Poppins Returns; it may be obvious that I'm now living with Marvel fans. Loved Mary Poppins Returns, by the way, highly recommended. On the smaller screen, the one movie that really stands out is also the most recent; Niki and I binged Black Mirror: Bandersnatch this weekend and it's so well put together. The Netflix ending is the best. In terms of TV, Doctor Who came back for the Thirteenth Doctor's first season and overall I loved it, am waiting impatiently to be able to watch the New Year's special (very glad I'm not working today). Once Upon A Time ended this year, which it took me a moment to remember because stuff that happened in the first half of 2018 seems like it happened twenty years ago; it was a shaky ride but I'm honestly glad I stuck it out to the end even if certain things about the journey still annoy me. Derry Girls was my favorite new find of the year and I can't wait for it to come back. I continue to watch too much TV.
In terms of my personal life, there were some accomplishments in 2018. I have now officially held a job for longer than a year, and if you're appalled I went this long without doing that I'd like to remind everyone that for most of my adult life I've done seasonal work. I got my first driver's license, and if you're appalled I went this long without doing that you're not the only ones. I have health insurance for the first time since I turned 21 and can actually go to a doctor when I'm sick or even just to talk about the fact that I get way too many headaches. I got to fly home for Christmas and see family, including both siblings at the same time for a nice change. But mostly this year has been work and sleep and alternately trying to keep up with the horrifying news and trying to ignore the horrifying news for my own sanity.
We've made it to 2019. We'll see what this one brings us.
First of all, because Goodreads makes such a nice page for it, my year in books! I apparently read 30,878 pages across 192 books, although they also say I read 208 out of 150 books (my reading challenge; I won by 139%). Not totally sure where the discrepancy is -- audiobooks, maybe? That would make sense because last year Goodreads claimed my shortest book was a reasonably-long audiobook at 1 page and this year they're saying the shortest one was Doctor Who: The First Doctor: In-Between Times, a 6-page long comic that came with the Doctor Who comics Humble Bundle. The longest book was City of Dreams: The 400-Year Epic History of Immigrant New York at 768 pages; it was really interesting and enjoyable and honestly about 200 pages too long. Most popular book read was Room, which was also read by 680,398 other people; the highest-rated on the site was The Great Comet: The Journey of a New Musical to Broadway with a 4.74 star average; the least popular was Doctor Who: The Eleventh Doctor #2.1 apparently read by no one else.
Over on last.fm, I scrobbled 2,592 tracks in 2018, an average of 7 per day. I listened to 211 distinct artists; the top 10 were The Pogues (1,034), Taylor Swift (389), Declan Bennett (110), Flogging Molly (108), Dropkick Murphys (84), Shane MacGowan And The Popes (55), Ramones (53), Idina Menzel (50), Glen Hansard (42), and The Frames (35). I'm amused by how far ahead of everyone else The Pogues continue to be. I listened to 160 different albums; the top 10 were a fan-compiled album of the surprise songs from Taylor Swift's reputation tour (112), Declan Bennett's Unsolicited Material: LA (79), Carols For A Cure Vol. 20 (57), Idina Menzel's idina: live (50), the OBCR of Frozen (44), Shane MacGowan's Live Rarities (41), the OBCR of The Band's Visit (36), a tie between the NBCR of Once On This Island and a Shane MacGowan & The Popes bootleg (32), and then tenth place is a three-way tie between bootlegs of Ramones, Taylor Swift, and Pogues concerts (30). Aside from Unsolicited Material that's mostly a list of really long recordings rather than albums I listened to repeatedly, which is interesting. Finally, I listened to 1,092 distinct tracks, the most-listened to being The Pogues' Repeal of the Licensing Laws (39) and the rest of the top ten also being the Pogues; you have to get down to 20th place to find a non-Pogues song, with Taylor Swift's ...Ready For It? at 18 plays (tying with another couple of Pogues songs). I am surprised by this as it's my second-least-favorite from that album.
In 2018 I gave up keeping track of all of my TV and movie consumption. I did see a few movies in theaters this year: Black Panther, Avengers: Infinity War, Aquaman, and Mary Poppins Returns; it may be obvious that I'm now living with Marvel fans. Loved Mary Poppins Returns, by the way, highly recommended. On the smaller screen, the one movie that really stands out is also the most recent; Niki and I binged Black Mirror: Bandersnatch this weekend and it's so well put together. The Netflix ending is the best. In terms of TV, Doctor Who came back for the Thirteenth Doctor's first season and overall I loved it, am waiting impatiently to be able to watch the New Year's special (very glad I'm not working today). Once Upon A Time ended this year, which it took me a moment to remember because stuff that happened in the first half of 2018 seems like it happened twenty years ago; it was a shaky ride but I'm honestly glad I stuck it out to the end even if certain things about the journey still annoy me. Derry Girls was my favorite new find of the year and I can't wait for it to come back. I continue to watch too much TV.
In terms of my personal life, there were some accomplishments in 2018. I have now officially held a job for longer than a year, and if you're appalled I went this long without doing that I'd like to remind everyone that for most of my adult life I've done seasonal work. I got my first driver's license, and if you're appalled I went this long without doing that you're not the only ones. I have health insurance for the first time since I turned 21 and can actually go to a doctor when I'm sick or even just to talk about the fact that I get way too many headaches. I got to fly home for Christmas and see family, including both siblings at the same time for a nice change. But mostly this year has been work and sleep and alternately trying to keep up with the horrifying news and trying to ignore the horrifying news for my own sanity.
We've made it to 2019. We'll see what this one brings us.