January 2022 in photos

Defined star ratings for photos

1 star - out of focus or beyond repair

2 star - bad, but don’t delete it

3 star - a photo you want to keep

4 star - a pretty good photo

5 star - the photo causes an involuntary emotional reaction

2021 Mixtape

I hope you like it. I made it for you.

Good Movies, December 2021-January 2022

• Somewhere in the Night, 1946 - ★★★. “I was once a great thief and a magnificent scoundrel.”

  Good lines in this one, but just okay line readings.

• Black Widow, 1954 - ★★★. Am I to assume that Van Heflin, of all people, doesn’t own a hat rack

• The Music Lovers, 1971 - ★★★★. Everyone in this film gave it their all, which is a metric ton more than any sane person ever would.

• Better Off Dead…, 1985 - ★★★. You can buy every piece of tat from Christmas Vacation but there’s no Jenny Meyer cookbook?

• The Apartment, 1960 - ★★★★★. Next Christmas we’re all gonna party like this

• The Matrix Resurrections, 2021 - ★★★ (contains spoilers). Lana Watchowski: there, I made this one super clear. Nobody could possibly watch this movie and misread the lessons. Me: therapists and gardeners are the baddies now.

• The Boston Strangler, 1968 - ★★★★. They make movies like this all the time now. Some of them are great, but most seem to just exist for the true-crime obsessive. This movie is doing a bit more work than a typical whodunnit: experimenting with split screen narrative tricks, and horny world building as the cops chew through suspects.

• Stormy Weather, 1943 - ★★★. Starting the year with a light musical.

• Don’t Look Up, 2021 - ★★. What if Armageddon was written by the VEEP crew

• Prisoners, 2013 - ★★★★. Watched on Sunday January 2, 2022.

• Terror in a Texas Town, 1958 - ★★★★. A movie absolutely begging for an Oscar-bait remake starring Brad Pitt as the bad guy who’s always eating stuff.

• People Will Talk, 1951 - ★★★. One thing they got very right is when a bunch of professors hang out they become nine very quickly.

• Falling Down, 1993 - ★★★★ (contains spoilers). “I’m the bad guy? When did that happen?” Like, immediately, friend. Right off the bat.

• Some Came Running, 1958 - ★★★★★. I want to hang out in every room and spend a great deal of time with every character.

• The Stranger by the Shore, 2020 - ★★★★. A 60 minute movie? I thought that was illegal.

• Kaleidoscope, 1966 - ★★★. I bet Brad Pitt loves this movie.

• The Mob, 1951 - ★★★. Mink-dyed hamster coat.

Link Blog, January 2021

• Play therapy prescribes video games to combat anxiety | Rock Paper Shotgun

  Daramus also links gaming activity to her specific treatment goals. She gives the example of playing Animal Crossing and reflecting with clients on how befriending villagers honed their social skills, or waiting to hook a rare fish built their distress tolerance. While spending hours upon days waiting for that final drop is indeed distressing, there are even benefits when it pushes to the point of frustration.

• The Year of Head Empty

  As we confronted the Delta variant — and were then introduced Omicron — some of the early 2020 panic reemerged. Today it seems we’re back at square one. Like the past year didn’t happen.

• Will My Money Anxiety Ever Go Away?

  To escape poverty, they say it takes as long as 20 years with nothing going wrong. So naturally it was everything in the world going wrong that gave me a chance.

• Shaquille O’Neal’s Workout and Diet He’s Using to Get Fit at 50

  This, along with protecting his endurance and vitality, is what Shaq was trying to prevent when he went to visit a doctor for the first time in his life about two years ago. When he says this, I ask him to repeat it to make sure I heard him correctly. Shaq had never been to a doctor before? Ever?

• Every Sport Could Use A John Madden | Defector

  So here’s one last thing to miss about John Madden: that he started with the excitement of what the game was, and explained every moment in a way that suggested he thought that those moments were not just valuable, but meaningful in their own right.

• Wordle Is a Love Story - The New York Times

• Simon Collison | Leaving Spotify for Apple: a music obsessive’s observations

  Occasional introductory notes about essential albums; something I loved about Rdio and is completely missing from Spotify.

• 40 for 40 - Chris Coyier

  Little is more powerful than writing. Look, it’s working! You’re getting to know me, and that’s a powerful thing.

• Reality is Very Weird and You Need to be Prepared for That — SLIME MOLD TIME MOLD

  This is really good, and we think it’s reason to be optimistic. We might be closer than we think to cures for depression, hypertension, and yes, even obesity.

December 2021 in photos

You Chose Poorly S02E08 - WiiU

Mikey and Sawyer detail the history of the Wii, the WiiU, and the Switch, and why one just quite isn’t like the others.

Links:

• Keychron C2 Wired Mechanical Keyboard
• iPad mini Review: Small Wonder - MacStories
• How Star trek inspired an Innovation
• List of Wii U games ported to the Nintendo Switch system
• Wii MotionPlus
• Wii U system software
• Nintendo Comes To The Rescue After 95-Year-Old Grandmother’s Game Boy Breaks
• K Sawyer Paul’s WiiU Collection
• Nintendo Console Sales Data
• Best Wii U Games - Nintendo Life
• Fast Software, the Best Software — by Craig Mod
• The Weird and Wonderful History of Animal Crossing | Fandom
• Patient Gamers - For gamers behind the times
• Monster Hunter Stories+ on the App Store
• FINAL FANTASY VII for Nintendo Switch
• The Animal Crossing: New Horizons guilt trip - Polygon
• Fear and self-loathing in Animal Crossing: New Horizons - The Verge
• 10PCS NTAG215 Compatible with Amiibo and TagMo NFC Color Card PVC ISO Card NFC - Amazon.ca
• Nintendo Switch Parental Controls

The Best of Youtube, 2021

Youtube is a bad place, but every now and then a good video appears. Because I can’t seem to stop going there, I can at least make it easier for you (and future me) to see what was worth it. Here are my favourite videos of this year.

• brian david gilbert’s weird and wonderful lockdown content, out of context
• I bought a Zune in 2020.
• Why WarioWare Works
• Nihilism & Howl’s Moving Castle
• What’s new?
• We Are Working Too Hard
• Playtime
• The Tranquility of Traversal
• HOW TO EDIT LIKE A PRO (Q&A)
• ACTION BUTTON REVIEWS Cyberpunk 2077

Link Blog, 2021

My favourite articles of the year:

• Exercise Doesn’t Have To Suck

  Do you remember the high of ditching? It really wakes you up! I remember being existentially sleepy in a geometry class, eyelids heavy enough to weigh down a bounce house, almost too tired to keep my commitment to ditch and meet in the parking lot, but then as soon as I did, I suddenly had enough energy to power the school generator.

• Street Fighter 3: An oral history - Polygon

  . There’s competitive games like that, where the match is essentially a confrontation of theoretical knowledge that each player has built up. But Street Fighter 3 is a game that, by design, doesn’t have a fixed answer to those questions. There is no “best” tactic; you can spend your whole life trying to find the perfect theoretical approach to a situation in SF3, but it will never be quite right.

• A Personal Digital Reset

  About once a year, I do a little digital reset to help make my online life a little more pleasant. I’m not advocating that anybody do the same as me, but I hope that sharing some of what I do might help inspire you to manage the technology in your life in a way that reduces stress or distractions, and makes your time in front of the screen more fun.

• A More Accessible Web. Some of the web technologies that The… | by The NYT Open Team | NYT Open

  Implementing web accessibility standards is not always hard. There are numerous ways designers and developers can incorporate accessibility principles in their web applications by using basic CSS and HTML.

• Age of distractions or how to calmly enjoy what you are doing in 2021

  So I stop and think. When was the last moment that took longer than 10 seconds, where I didn’t have an urge to check an app on my phone, see if I got new email, or impulsively do something else?

• Why “Gentle Writing Advice,” Exactly? — Chuck Wendig: Terribleminds

  Too much of our advice presents for us a map, a magic incantation, an instruction manual, but those inevitably fail under rigorous testing. The map is to a forgotten world, the incantation was unique to the wizard who first spoke it, and the instruction manual is in Swedish.

• Why Am I Sp Bad At Typign?

  The act of typing — either fluid touch typing or making mistakes — is a miracle of our brains.

• Feeling Blah During the Pandemic? It’s Called Languishing - The New York Times

• Every Blogging Option Sucks - Marius Masalar

  Perfect is the enemy of good, and I know all too well that fussing over platforms distracts from doing the work of writing, but now and then it’s nice to reassure myself that I’m building this thing on sturdy foundations.

• How the Personal Computer Broke the Human Body

  Blurred vision, blurring eyes, and eyestrain were reported by 70 percent to 90 percent of the sample, and some of the strong disparities between the clerical workers and the control subjects—such as with changes in color perception or stiff or sore wrists—were clear indicators of the impact of the soft repetitive strain of computer terminal use.

• Commuting is psychological torture - by Luke O’Neil

• Nobody Cares What You Have to Say—That’s a Good Thing |

  Whether you’re pitching editors or querying agents, trying to get your work published can feel an awful lot like calling out into the void and hearing nothing back except the mocking echo of your own voice, crowing that your idea or your writing or you, yourself, are worthless. It often feels disheartening, like nobody cares what you have to say. But it can also be incredibly freeing.

• You’re Still Exhausted - by Anne Helen Petersen

  So the first step is recognizing that you, too, need rest. Don’t just want it, don’t just fantasize about it, don’t just talk about it and then deny it, but need it, require it, in order to keep going. The second step is advocating for the structures that make it possible — on a personal, professional, and societal level — so that others can ask and receive rest too.

• How To Deflect Compliments - The Chatner

  “I don’t even use the compliments I already have at home!”

• How To Not Suck At Writing | Defector

• A Chemical Hunger — Part X: What to Do About It

  Our suggestions are very prosaic: Be nice to yourself. Eat mostly what you want. Trust your instincts.

• How to Stop Caring What Other People Think of You - The Atlantic

• Trying to Get Famous Might Make You Miserable - The Atlantic

• “Should I Just Give Up on My Writing?”

  There are so many new ways to count and measure and monitor your success these days, too, and you can see the detrimental effects it has on writers’ understanding of themselves and their work. The more you worry about how the world sees you, how your words land, whether or not you matter, the more neurotic and self-obsessed your writing gets.

• The Unofficial Rules of Posting

  No matter what you post, or how you word it, or how many asterisks and caveats you attach to it, you will suffer the worst-faith readings you have ever experienced.

My favourite wrestling matches of 2021

The shortlist

• Tetsuya Naito vs Kota Ibushi, January 4 2021, Wrestle Kingdom 15 - ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
• Sasha Banks vs Bianca Bel Air, April 10 2021, WrestleMania 37 - ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
• Utami Hayashishita vs. Syuri, June 12 2021, Stardom Tokyo Dream Cinderella Special Edition - ★ ★ ★ ★
• The Lucha Brothers vs The Young Bucks, September 5 2021, AEW All Out 2021 - ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
• Bryan Danielson vs. Kenny Omega, September 22 2021, AEW Dynamite #103 - ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

The longlist

• Shingo Takagi vs Jeff Cobb, January 5 2021, Wrestle kingdom 15 - ★ ★ ★ ★
• Raquel Gonzalez vs Rhea Ripley, January 6 2021, NXT #437 - New Year’s Evil - ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
• 2021 Women’s Royal Rumble Match - Bianca Belair, Alexa Bliss, Alicia Fox, Bayley, Billie Kay, Carmella, Charlotte Flair, Dakota Kai, Dana Brooke, Ember Moon, Jillian Hall, Lacey Evans, Lana, Liv Morgan, Mandy Rose, Mickie James, Naomi, Natalya, Nia Jax, Nikki Cross, Peyton Royce, Rhea Ripley, Ruby Riott, Santana Garrett, Shayna Baszler, Shotzi Blackheart, Tamina, Toni Storm, Torrie Wilson, Victoria, January 31 2021, WWE Royal Rumble 2021 - ★ ★ ★ ★
• Finn Balor vs Pete Dunne, February 14 2021, TakeOver: Vengeance Day - ★ ★ ★ ★
• Io Shirai vs Mercedes Martinez vs Toni Storm, February 14 2021, TakeOver: Vengeance Day - ★ ★ ★ ★
• Ryo Mizunami vs Maki Ito, February 15 2021, AEW Women’s World Championship Eliminator Tournament - ★ ★ ★ ★
• Riho vs Serena Deeb, February 17 2021, AEW Dynamite 73 - ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
• Io Shirai vs Zoey Stark, February 24 2021, NXT 444 - ★ ★ ★ ★
• Ryo Mizunami vs Nyla Rose, March 3 2021, AEW Dynamite 75 - The Crossroads - ★ ★ ★ ★
• Darby Allin & Sting vs Team Taz, March 7 2021, AEW Revolution - ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
• Miro vs Darby Allin, May 12 2021, AEW Dynamite #85 - ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
• Kenny Omega vs Orange Cassidy vs PAC, May 30 2021, AEW Double or Nothing 2021 - ★ ★ ★ ★
• Io Shirai & Zoey Stark vs Dakota Kai & Raquel Gonzalez vs Ember Moon & Shotzi Blackheart, June 29 2021, NXT #461 - ★ ★ ★ ★
• The Elite vs Adam Page & The Dark Order, July 28 2021, AEW  Dynamite #96 - ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
• Christian Cage vs Kenny Omega, August 13 2021, AEW Rampage #1 - ★ ★ ★ ★
• Giulia & Syuri vs. Momo Watanabe & Saya Kamitani, September 5 2021, NJPW Wrestle Grand Slam in MetLife Dome - ★ ★ ★ ★
• CM Punk vs Darby Allin, September 5 2021, AEW All Out 2021 - ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
• Yujiro Takahashi vs Kota Ibushi, September 18 2021, NJPW G1 Climax 31 - ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
• KENTA vs Yujiro Takahashi, September 23 2021, NJPW G1 Climax 31 - ★ ★ ★ ★
• Shingo Takagi vs Zack Sabre Jr., September 23 2021, NJPW G1 Climax 31 - ★ ★ ★ ★
• Becky Lynch vs Bianca Belair, September 26 2021, WWE Extreme Rules 2021 - ★ ★ ★ ★
• Shingo Takagi vs Kota Ibushi, October 3 2021, NJPW G1 Climax 31 - ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
• Zack Sabre Jr. vs KENTA, October 9 2021, NJPW G1 Climax 31 - ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
• Bryan Danielson vs. Minoru Suzuki, October 15 2021, AEW Rampage #10 - ★ ★ ★ ★
• Hiroshi Tanahashi vs Taichi, October 20 2021, NJPW G1 Climax 31 - ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
• Kazuchika Okada vs Jeff Cobb, October 20 2021, NJPW G1 Climax 31 - ★ ★ ★ ★
• Katsuyori Shibata vs Zack Sabre Jr., October 21 2021, NJPW G1 Climax 31 - ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
• Kazuchika Okada vs Kota Ibushi, October 21 2021, NJPW G1 Climax 31 - ★ ★ ★ ★
• Hikaru Shida vs Serena Deeb, October 27 2021, AEW Dynamite #108 - ★ ★ ★ ★
• Bryan Danielson vs Eddie Kingston, October 29 2021, AEW Rampage #12 - ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
• Kenny Omega vs. Adam Page, November 13 2021, AEW Full Gear 2021 - ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
• Adam Page vs Bryan Danielson, December 15 2021, AEW Dynamite #115 - ★ ★ ★ ★ ★