2 February 2020

All the hobby: January 2020

January

TV I watched
The Durrels Season 1 (and half of season 2) - A British Family move to a Greek Island. As a Brit on a Greek-speaking island, this has a built-in synergy with my life. Pleasant viewing but not stirring or challenging. Intend to keep watching.
Firefly (first handful of episodes) - I like it. It's an interesting version of a western - most western movies tend to have a tense build up to the climax but there's a limit to how much tension you can build in a 40-min run time. Want to keep watching.
Rick and Morty Season 3 - I laughed quite a bit and then didn't really think about it afterwards. As expected. I'll continue watching them as they are released.

Movies I watched
Star Trek Wrath of Khan - Classic battle of wits, I kept comparing it to Star Trek Into Darkness, which rehashes the core plot. I think Wrath of Kahn is more enjoyable.
Star Trek Search for Spock - Less naff than I remember it being. Quite a decent Star Trek movie for 'one of the bad ones'
Star Trek Voyage Home - My joint favourite Star Trek movie, it was as fun as I remembered it being (the other two favourites are First Contact and Galaxy Quest)
Jurassic Park - Better than I remember, this is a solid movie. Will watch again sometime.
Scott Pilgrim vs The World - This was weird. It threw me that part way through the movie what had seemed like representations of our character's imagination turned out to be real? The meta changed oddly. I enjoyed it, I'd like to see it again some time. But not for a while.
Planet of the Apes (1968) - Slow but enjoyable. It was pointed out to me how stupid it is that thousands of years of time has passed but Ape culture so closely resembles human culture - even down to speaking the same language, with no major variations? (Is 52 years long enough ago that I don't need to put a spoiler alert?)
1917 (cinema)  - This was great. I would liken it to Dunkirk, like an atmospheric art-house war movie. Brutally real in a contrast to Hollywood sterility.

Board Games
Arkham Horror the Card Game - Good old Eldritch Horror - Attempt 1 we both died/went insane. Attempt 2 we were barely successful. Then we tried an expansion. Died several times. This got the most play time of all my board games largely because it is co-operative and challenging. My other co-operative games have all-too-obvious-flaws: Hogwarts Battle isn't tough enough and Space Hulk: Death Angel is too dependent on the 40k aesthetic.
Sid Meier's Civilization: The board game - Only my second game ever despite owning it for 3? years. Set-up time and rules explanations are too long. Good fun though. Don't know when I'll get around to playing it again. If ever...
Star Wars X-Wing Miniatures 1st edition- Only played a handful of games but they were good fun. I could play a lot of this. I bought 1st edition ships 'cos it's cheaper and I can have more of them.
7 Wonders Duel - A solid game that lost out in play time to Arkham Horror because it is not co-operative.

Books
Starship Troopers - This was interesting to compare with the movie. The book's propaganda was all lectures from more experienced men to our protagonist. I was liking this version of authoritarian propaganda - until the characters said that they had mathematically proved that their system of governance was the most ethical (or something along those lines). This threw me from the book more than the giant-space-ants or the casual deployment of nuclear arsenals. There was other bad science in the book but as a 1959 sci-fi novel I can forgive some of it (especially when delivered by characters - the character could just be full of bullshit). I really did enjoy this book, it was some great military-sci-fi. But it came across a bit weak when characters can just say "I am right and maths has proved it to be so". It takes a burden from their arguments for their system - which were engaging and interesting otherwise. But also, I reject the notion that mathematics could ever deal with ethical arguments sufficiently enough that they could be said to be proved, especially arguments on the scale of choosing a system of governance and representation.

The fact I have so much to say about this book should recommend it in and of itself.

Video Games
Knights of the Old Republic - about 8hrs. I've played this game before. It's solid, I just ran out of steam on it. I'll probably come back to it in 6 months - a year. Also don't try to go dark side. It is not nuanced at all, you are a baby-eating-puppy-killer-moustache-twirling bully.
Hollow Knight - I played about 2-3hrs until I got stuck at a fight. It was good until then. I'll probably come back to it when I want to play a kinetic fast paced game.
Slay the Spire - ooer on steam it says 44hrs in the last two weeks. This game is great fun, I just wish it was easier to craft the deck I want to craft. That makes it sound like I didn't like it - This would be a large slice of my hobby pie-chart. Because it's really good fun. Winning is great fun. Nearly winning is very good fun. Barely surviving is fun. Transforming all your cards into random stuff is fun. Getting a card on the first few floors and designing your entire deck around it is the best. But you don't always get an interesting enough card, so you often have to settle for just fun.

RPGs as a DM
2 sessions of Majimonsters, re-skinned as Pokemon - this re-skin was quite easy, so easy it must have been intended by the developers. I might make a post about it as there doesn't seem to be any online.
3 sessions of D&D 5e Humblewood campaign - Humblewood continues to be fun. A medium difficulty encounter with steam mephits killed the barbarian. That was a fun comedy of errors.

RPGs as a player
1 session in a D&D 5e one-shot (which we didn't finish in one session, as is tradition) We were all Dwarves. I like Dwarves.

Albums - When I listen to anything in the rock/metal super-genre and like it, I put it on my Spotify list. So far 26 albums have contributed to the list.
Green Day: Dookie - 6 songs got onto the list, which is pretty good. How can I put it other than "I like their sound". Nothing in particular, but the composite whole. Writing this, I should try listening to the album again, I want to develop my opinion on it. That alone say's it's worth developing an opinion on. (The 'on' at the end of that sentence doesn't sound right but it's staying there.)
The Jam: In the City - I like The Jam. I wouldn't go any further than saying I like them. This was as expected. I didn't find any new songs on here that stuck with me.




Is it too meta to include blogging on this list?



No.
Blogs
https://kingbim.blogspot.com/2020/01/star-wars-1977-as-setting-questions.html
https://kingbim.blogspot.com/2020/01/earth-elementals-part-1-dwarves.html
https://kingbim.blogspot.com/2020/02/all-hobby-january-2020.html

Okay, the third link is too meta.

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