📚 Apocalypse Girl Dreaming by Jennifer Brozek

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27/2023 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️

A collection of short fiction, with a mix of urban fantasy, “weird west” (supernatural western), and science fiction. I’ve enjoyed Brozek’s work as an editor in the past, and picked this up from her at Norwescon to sample her work as an author. I enjoyed these, especially as several were interconnected—generally not directly, but through being set in one or another of the worlds she’s created in her longer works. Short stories are often a fun way to dip into a world, and having a few to sample from a few different worlds was a nice way to get a feel for them beyond what a single story can do. That said, my favorite was a stand-alone story set in Seattle, playing with the “Pigs on Parade” statues that went up around the city in the early 2000s.

Me holding Apocalypse Girl Dreaming

Year 50 Day 19

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Me standing in front of a wooden fence, next to a metal birdbath and several freshly updated planters and flowerpots.

Day 19: A nice morning working in the backyard (which for me, primarily consists of following my wife’s instructions), refreshing the planters and flowerpots, cleaning off the outdoor furniture, and generally getting it prepped for summer.

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📚 Unspoken Truth by Margaret Wander Bonnano

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26/2023 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️

A Saavik-centric story, mostly set after the events of Star Trek IV, but with flashbacks to her youth. The first half of the book is mostly planetary exploration with a dash of mystery surrounding Saavik’s past; the latter half takes that mystery and becomes a somewhat odd spy story, with various disguised motivations. I found the latter half far less engaging than the first, but overall, I liked diving more into Saavik’s character and fleshing out some of the wider consequences of the Star Trek II/III/IV trilogy. Also, though not a comedic adventure, one brief mention of a character “stepping over a Thermian’s tentacles” in a bar did make me laugh out loud.

Me holding Unspoken Truth

🎥 Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

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Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023): ⭐️⭐️⭐️

This was good, lighthearted, fun. I’ve never been a D&D player (though I did enjoy reading through the monster manuals when I was a kid, and I’ve been around it enough through friends to have a reasonably good generalist familiarity), so I’m sure there were any number of references and creatures that long-time players would have noticed that I didn’t. I just got to sit back and enjoy the adventure. I really want the portal staff (just as I’ve long wanted an Aperture Science Portal gun), and the pudgy dragon was particularly great.

🎥 Scream VI

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Scream VI (2023): ⭐️⭐️⭐️

This series continues to entertain. The move to NYC helps refresh things a bit, and the constant parade of background horror movie characters (and multiple Ghostfaces) thanks to the Halloween weekend setting was consistently amusing. I think the shrine was a bit of a stretch—even buying the handwave-y explanation given, it’s not like all that stuff came from a lot of different places and so wouldn’t be easily missed when it disappeared—but admittedly, it did make for a fun set piece for the final showdown. All in all, another enjoyable entry to a series (sorry, franchise) that started strong and even in its weaker moments is still pretty consistently entertaining.

Year 50 Day 18

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Me standing in a grocery store, wearing a grey cap, black t-shirt, black KN95 mask, and dark sunglasses.

Day 18: Forgot to swap sunglasses for normal glasses before heading into the store, and thus inadvertently fulfilled my personal “creepy old white guy in the grocery store” quota for the indefinite future.

Year 50 Day 16

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Me standing outside wearing a grey cap and black short-sleeve button-up shirt with a floral pattern on the right half. Behind me is the college campus.

Day 16: Gave two presentations today for Global Accessibility Awareness Day. The first was on basic document accessibility concepts and techniques; the second was on how to caption videos using the college’s tools. Both went well, and I have some good ideas and tips on how to improve them for future presentations.

Year 50 Day 15

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Me, visible from the shoulders up, not wearing a shirt, leaning against a pillow in bed, with a bemused expression on my face.

Day 15: Realized after getting into bed that I hadn’t done my daily photo yet (it’s likely this may not be the last time this happens over the course of the coming year). My wife is now mocking me for posting nudie pictures online.