What was watched in 2024

I didn’t watch many movies last year, and fell asleep a lot while watching Netflix, but I did still make it through quite a bit.

Barbie – I got around to seeing the Barbie movie last year and enjoyed it. The plot was fairly average, but fun, and I liked seeing all the different Barbies as characters.

Mean Girls (2024) – I was curious about it, so I picked up the Mean Girls movie musical based on the musical based on the movie based on a book. It wasn’t bad, but for me, the 2004 movie is just so good at capturing high school in the mid-2000s that the musical didn’t really add anything. There are also some parts that only make sense pre-cell phones and internet everywhere that they tried to adapt but again, the (first) movie already did it so well.

The Big Year – Owen Wilson, Jack Black, and Steve Martin spend a year competing to see the most birds within twelve months. This might have edged Barbie out as my favorite movie of the year. Though it’s not a mockumentary, it has the same feel. And who wouldn’t love a movie about birdwatching? (A lot of people; the reviews were at best mediocre.)

La Casa de Papel (Money Heist) (season 1-2) – This was the original heist arc that got broken up into two seasons for Netflix. I watched it in the original Spanish with English subtitles. It was more action and thrills than my usual fare, but I enjoyed it.

This is Us – Overall, I really liked the show and the variety of topics it dealt with. The last season felt a little rushed trying to wrap everything up, but I think the last couple seasons were thrown off a bit thanks to Covid.

Star Trek: Lower Decks (season 3) – Definitely a show that I’ve liked more as it’s gone on. It doesn’t take itself too seriously but still feels like Star Trek at its core.

The Good Place – I have to admit I didn’t like this show as much as most people did. There’s nothing wrong with it – the plot is good, it has its funny moments, and the characters are likeable – it just didn’t come together for me.

Star Trek: Discovery (season 1-2) – First off, it visually looks great. Unfortunately, it does feel like it misses the mark a bit, especially in the first season. It does best when it’s less of the Michael Burnham show and more about Discovery and its crew, so it does get better for me in the second season.

The Mandalorian (season 1) – Amidst a barrage of sequels, prequels, tie-ins, and remakes from Disney, this was something new, and it was really good. Plus, it brought us baby alien/baby Yoda/Grogu.

The Great British Bake Off (season 1-2, 15) – I finally got to see the first two seasons that have never been aired in the US. Hello again, Mel and Sue, and hello moving tent, baker elimination during the final, and random passersby peering in the tent windows. Season 15 had the most wholly likeable group of bakers in a while and no poorly executed national weeks/open flame final challenges/-gate dramas.

Heartland (season 16) – Similarly to Grey’s Anatomy, there was a period where the number of heart attacks, car crashes, exotic illnesses, and general tragedy happening to one group of people made you wonder what curse they’re under, but they’ve pulled it back a bit and I thought this season was better than the couple previous seasons.

Brooklyn 99 (season 1-3) – Funny and another solid offering from Mike Schur (also involved in The Office and Parks and Rec). My one criticism is that Jake Peralta is the exact same character as Shawn Spencer from Psych and J.D. from Scrubs – slightly inconsiderate guy who thinks he’s funnier than he really is and inconveniences people just a little bit wherever he goes.

Over the Garden Wall – A little weird, a little haunting, so I liked it a lot. I did suspect the ending maybe halfway through the series, and also the soundtrack’s really good.

Heartstopper (season 3) – A continuation of the adaptation of the graphic novels. I think they’ve continued to do a good job staying true to the source material.

Grey’s Anatomy (season 20) – Now that they’ve given Meredith a break and returned to more of an ensemble cast with a new class of interns, the show’s actually gotten better than some of the mid-teens seasons that were really scraping the bottom of the barrel for new disasters (Seattle Sharknado, anyone?).

Blown Away (season 4) – The glassblowers are back in North America’s biggest hot shop. The creations were a highlight as always, but this was also the most likeable group as a whole for me.

Overall, I didn’t really dislike anything I watched in 2024. If I had to pick a few favorites, I’d have to go with Lower Decks, The Mandalorian, and Over the Garden Wall for trying to do something a little different.

2024 Reading Roundup

It was another quiet year for reading. I logged 23 books, though a few were rereads that I didn’t record the first time through and there were probably a couple more rereads that I didn’t officially track. I managed to read my yearly nonfiction book, plus 3 graphic novels, 2 horse girl books, and 1 short story collection. Here’s what I liked (and didn’t) from my 2024 reads.

Exhalation: Stories (Ted Chiang) – A collection of science fiction short stories by the author who wrote the story that the movie Arrival is based on. I really liked the author’s writing style and the stories were interesting and thoughtful.

Legends and Lattes (Travis Baldree) – If you’ve heard anything about cozy fantasy in the past few years, you’ve heard about this book in which an orc, tired of the adventuring life, settles down to open the first coffee shop her city has seen. I did enjoy the lower stakes plot and the characters were likeable.

Kill the Farm Boy (Delilah S. Dawson and Kevin Hearne) – This was the only book that I disliked as a whole when I finished it. It’s supposed to be a sort of parody of The Princess Bride that critiques fantasy genre tropes, but it tries too hard, so it doesn’t end up being funny and falls into the stereotypes it’s supposed to be subverting.

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo (Taylor Jenkins Reid) – At 79, Evelyn Hugo’s been married seven times and she’s ready to tell her story. The whole story. I picked up the book because it got positive reviews in internet book circles a few years ago and ended up liking it more than I thought I would.

Ask Again, Yes (Mary Beth Keane) – Another book that made the rounds on the internet. The plot follows two families whose fathers are both officers in the NYPD and how their lives become connected through the years. This was definitely a more serious read than some of the other books on the list, but I thought it was a worthwhile read.

The Invisible Library (Genevieve Cogman) – I discovered this book at my local library going up and down shelves looking for sci-fi/fantasy stickers on book spines. The premise is that librarians at a library that exists outside of time are tasked with protecting/collecting rare works of literature in alternate universes. On one such mission, a librarian and her new apprentice run into events that hint at a darker side of the library. Though some of the worldbuilding was a bit clunky, it was solid enough that I would read more in the series.

Where’d You Go, Bernadette? (Maria Semple) – An epistolatory novel about Bee, a middle schooler investigating where her mother Bernadette has gone after she disappears before a family trip to Antarctica. In general, I’ll give the book a positive review, because the parts satirizing the Seattle charter school parents and tech industry were funny. However, I found the “money will fix everything” attitude and breaking laws with few/no consequences annoying at times.

Lessons in Chemistry (Bonnie Garmus) – No self-respecting scientist I’ve ever met would unironically ask someone to pass the sodium chloride at the dinner table. That said, the struggles of a woman in STEM in the 60s still ring true today. Overall, I did like the book, I just think the main character in particular talks and acts like how someone who’s not a scientist thinks scientists should talk and act, which is not how scientists actually talk and act.

The Fifth Elephant and Night Watch (Terry Pratchett) – Still making my way through the Night Watch books. This time on the Discworld, Sam Vimes must travel to Uberwald, home to various dwarfs, werewolves, and vampires, as an official ambassador of Ankh-Morpock, to negotiate fat imports. Then, in Night Watch, the members of the City Watch remember a day years ago, when the Watch wasn’t what it is now, and Vimes does some time travelling. Pratchett’s as good as ever at blending elements of fantasy and science fiction with police procedurals and social commentary.

Making It So (Patrick Stewart) – I ended up with a copy of Patrick Stewart’s memoir, so I read it to see how Captain Picard came to the Enterprise. It was (surprisingly?) readable, and another book that I enjoyed more than I thought I would. I appreciate that he at least comes across as honest about the not-perfect parts of his life and doesn’t endlessly make excuses.

It Ends With Us (Colleen Hoover) – A romance book that went big thanks to TikTok. I don’t normally read romance, but on occasion I’ll pick up books that everyone was talking about a couple years ago to see if they live up to the hype (usually not, but some aren’t too bad). A mixed review from me for this one – some parts were handled well, others . . . were not.

Pumpkinheads (Rainbow Rowell) – A cute graphic novel about two high school seniors working their last day of their last fall at the pumpkin patch, getting ready for things to change, and not having regrets.

A Feast for Crows (George R. R. Martin) – He had a two-and-a-half-decade head start, but I’m catching up. This is where Martin had the brilliant idea to just . . . not talk about half his characters for an entire book. I’m not as bothered by this choice as some people, but you can’t deny it’s a bit of an odd decision. This is where you also start wondering how everything’s going to come to a nice, tidy conclusion in only 2,000 or so more pages.

Evvie Drake Starts Over (Linda Holmes) – My last book of the year and my last “the internet made me read it” book. It’s a Hallmark movie in written form. Not bad, but nothing I’m going to rave about.

Despite how it may sound, I did enjoy most of what I read in 2024; I just happened to pick up a number of books that were/are widely popular but normally aren’t the first books I’d reach for. Having said that, I borrowed another book from the library that the internet seemed to like. I believe it can be classified as a romance book, so we’ll see how it goes.

Last Last Year in New England [2023]

It was only when I went to write my 2024 recap post that I realized/remembered that I never wrote my 2023 post. I have monthly posts for most of the year, but for the sake of completeness, I wanted to get this post out, since I have one for every year since 2017. [Monthly posts can be found here: March April May June July August September October November December.]

The year began in January, as it does. There was at least one day that snowed enough to need to shovel the driveway. Before the end of the month, I finished what I started during NaNoWriMo 2022, writing the conclusion to the first draft of my novel and bringing it to a total of 74,747 words. I also made it to the end of the Mighty Nein’s adventures in campaign 2 of Critical Role, renewed my driver’s license, and baked Linzer cookies.

In February, I read Crying in H Mart, watched Jane the Virgin and Everything Everywhere All at Once, and baked a wool roll with a strawberry and lime cream cheese filling. I cross stitched a dragon that still needs to be delivered to a friend, raked leaves, shoveled snow, and made a birthday Prinsesstarta from the Great British Bake Off’s The Big Book of Amazing Cakes. My verdict: it’s a lot of work for a good, but not amazing, tasting cake. And the Revolution began their 28th season in MLS with an away win in Charlotte (North Carolina).

The tomato seedlings were started in March. In between job interviews, I solved a jungle puzzle, a Rubik’s cube puzzle, and a puzzle of a horse and a barn. I watched Derry Girls and Galaxy Quest, finished the cross stitching on the dragon (back stitching still to come), and rolled some sushi.

April was tax month. I guess the big news for the month is that I received a job offer, accepted the job offer, and started work. Right before losing all my free time, I went for one last hike up Mount Watatic, which has a fairly high view to effort ratio. I began watching Friday Night Lights and reading The Night Circus, baked a peanut butter cake, and got to watch the Revolution survive their first 2023 Open Cup match.

Clockwise from top left: January - snow, February - the Prinsesstarta (sponge cake layered with pastry cream and blackberry apple jam, covered in whipped cream, covered in marzipan), March - the Rubik's Zigzaw, April - penguin at the MA/NH state line after the descent from Watatic

During May, I settled into work, and performed a TFF process, was introduced to the AKTA, made a lot of buffers, and organized the lab’s collection of tiny plastic parts (mostly for the AKTAs). We tried playing pickleball, the tomatoes made it into the raised bed outside, and I worked on my LEGO Millenium Falcon. At the end of the month, I went into Boston to see some Cornell friends and spend a day wandering the city since it had been awhile.

With a whole 6 weeks of experience, I was left co-in charge of a client run involving multiple chromatography columns, membranes, filters, and concentrations at the start of June. I also bought a new phone to go with the new stalker watch (Garmin Forerunner 45S) that I got last month, made it through A Storm of Swords, baked pecan rolls, saw the Dungeons and Dragons movie, got out for a hike at the town forest, and started in on season 19 of Grey’s Anatomy.

In between rain showers and storms, we managed to hike every weekend in July, mostly visiting nearby trails. I got a milkshake from Shake Shack, finished Daisy Jones & The Six and started The Courtship of Princess Leia, watched the MLS All Stars lose 0-5 to Arsenal, and went blueberry and raspberry picking and made a birthday blueberry lemon pound cake. At work, we prepared for a large scale run by making buffers in barrels and packing our big column.

August 2023 is a month that will live on in infamy at my office because after surviving our large-scale run, doing it again the next week, and starting take three, half the company caught Covid from management. Before that, there were a few hikes when it wasn’t raining, I ate some chocolate hummus, tomato harvest began, and I read more Star Wars books. By this point in the year, the Revolution were embroiled in Bruce Arena drama and beginning their slide down the standings.

Clockwise from top left: May - swan boats at the Boston Public Garden, June - ghost pipe seen while hiking, July - raspberries, August - tomatoes

Thankfully, September was a less eventful month. We went to see an outdoor art exhibit, and to the Big E (New England’s state fair for all six states) for the first time. Free Friday lunch at work was cancelled, then not cancelled, then kind of cancelled indefinitely. I made a quiche to make a dent in the piles of tomatoes coming out of the garden, baked a chocolate cake in the instant pot, and we played 7 Wonders, a favorite of some of my college friends.

At the beginning of October, we went apple picking, and I started fall color watch, eventually getting one of my favorite fall color photos in the middle of the month. We hiked an 8-mile 6-mile loop around a lake and spent a day at World’s End. I saw a Cornell ChemE friend for the first time in years, raked, finished the backstitching on the cross stitch dragon, and had a fall party with coworkers.

I was left unattended at home for most of November. At work, we simultaneously executed another large scale run and design of experiment (DoE) runs. Outside of work, I went to Tower Hill for Gnomevember, made waffles, and celebrated Thanksgiving with all-sides Thanksgiving (mashed potatoes, stuffing, steamed broccoli, and cranberry sauce).

In December, we had one last run for the year for one of our clients, but got into the holiday spirit with our holiday party and Yankee swap. I also baked gingerbread dinosaurs, made cross stitch post-Christmas Christmas gifts, for some reason thought it was a good idea to do a puzzle of a bottle of sriracha, and almost caught up with campaign 3 of Critical Role.

Clockwise from top left: September - The Big E, October - fall colors, November - steampunk gnome, December - gingerbread dinosaurs (and snickerdoodles)

That was 2023. I’m sure I missed some details, which is what happens when you’re writing two years later, but I think I got all of the highlights and lowlights.

I ran out of puzzle puns (for now) [character/IP puzzles]

It’s me, slipping back in before the new year to review some puzzles, in this case a few puzzles with characters from various franchises. The puzzles were completed between June 2022 and October 2023 and range from 300 to 3000 pieces.

First up is a puzzle of the Mandalorian and his baby alien Grogu hanging out in the Razor Crest. I solved this puzzle well before seeing The Mandalorian, but I’ve since seen the first season and enjoyed it. The puzzle is a 1000-piece puzzle from Buffalo Games, maker of jigsaw puzzles and board games since 1986. It was a fairly straightforward assembly, a bit on the dark side but with enough color variation and texture to not require resorting to shape sorting or brute force trial and error. Buffalo Games puzzles are often found at stores like Target and Walmart, and tend to be slightly cheaper than puzzles from dedicated manufacturers such as Ravensburger or White Mountain Puzzles (sub-$20 vs. $20-$25 for 1000-piece puzzles). The quality is good but not amazing, and pieces fit together tightly enough to pick up sections of the puzzle, maybe the whole puzzle if you’re careful. You may get some pieces that feel like false fits, but looking more carefully at the pieces is enough to see if they really go together or not.

 

Mandalorian and Child

Next on the list was Hidden Cows, featuring hidden (and not so hidden) cows in a Sandra Boynton illustration. This was a fun solve, on the easier side thanks to all the colors and clear lines, and it was borrowed from the library. The puzzle comes from Workman Puzzles, started in 2020 as a branch of Workman Publishing Company, which was founded in 1968 but as of 2021 is now part of Hachette Book Group, one of the “big five” publishers.

Hidden Cows

The largest puzzle (by number of pieces) I’ve ever solved is this 3000-piece puzzle of Marvel superheroes. It was another loan from the library, and is produced by Aquarius Puzzles, who seem to specialize in licensed puzzles (they’ve also got a couple Star Trek puzzles and some Lord of the Rings puzzles). Quality is similar to Buffalo Games puzzles, so quite reasonable for the price point. As is fairly typical for these kinds of images, the dark parts with seemingly random lines and body parts dragged a bit, but it wasn’t too bad. In the end, it took 9 or 10 days to finish, compared to 2-3 days for a similar image on a 1000-piece puzzle, so time scaled pretty linearly with number of pieces.

Marvel Cast

And the largest puzzle is followed by the smallest puzzle of this group, a 300-piece puzzle of scenes from The Office. It was a very fast solve on a Saturday morning, pretty average in terms of quality, and fun for fans of the show. From what I can tell, the puzzle is made by the New York-based Cardinal Games, but there doesn’t seem to be much information about this company. Overall, this was an entertaining group of puzzles, and I actually just finished another Star Wars puzzle, but it’ll have to wait until next time.

Scenes from The Office

The Year in New England [2024]

Hello there! Well, 2024 happened. So did 2023. I would still like to go back and write about some of the things that happened, but we’ll see if that ends up getting done. For now, here’s the yearly overview of the things I read, watched, made, and did in 2024.

In January, there was one hike in unseasonably nice weather, snow, and one hike in the snow, within a period of four days. I finished my last post-Christmas Christmas gift for my coworkers (a cross stitch of peppers, pattern provided free by DMC), we played a new-to-us board game (Forbidden Desert), and I baked a matcha Swiss roll and my yearly batch of pecan rolls. After putting it off for some time, I committed to watching the first arc of La Casa de Papel (Money Heist) (in Spanish with English subtitles), and picked up Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree and Ted Chiang’s Exhalation: Stories at the library.

February in New England was cold, dark, and depressing as usual, but eventful because I said farewell to my foot mole. Dermatology wanted it gone, so right after Valentine’s Day podiatry sliced out an inch of my foot, I wasn’t allowed to put weight on that foot for a couple weeks, then I had a very cool Frankenfoot (seven stitches) for a few more weeks after. I also tried a new thumbprint cookie recipe, finished another cross stitch project, read The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, and watched the first season of Star Trek: Discovery. Mixed feelings about Discovery, but mostly positive, I think.

As some semblance of warmth returned in March, we got out for a couple hikes. I filed my taxes slightly early for me, finally made the Wellesley fudge cake I meant to make for my birthday last year, and assembled some knock-off not-LEGO flowers. Knock-off LEGO has come a long way, but still doesn’t quite compare to the real thing. Barbie showed up at the library, so I finally got to watch and enjoy the movie. At work, we turned over 60 L of cell juice from upstream into 10 g of protein in seven days.

For a very late birthday present, I took my mother and a friend to a paint bar in April. Later in the month, after seeing other people post about it, we went tulip picking. There was also eclipse day, and I completed the last cross stitch in a set of three that I’d originally started back in Ann Arbor. Last minute, I decided I did want a garden this year and started the tomato seeds way too late.

Clockwise from top left: January - snow along the reservoir, February - thumbprint cookies, March - trees on a hike, April - tulips

In May, we went to Dam Day at Wachusett, one of two days in the year that people are allowed to walk on the Wachusett Dam. After some delay, a boardwalk trail finally opened nearby, so we went to check it out one weekend. I continued my delayed media consumption with season one of The Mandalorian, which I liked, and Lessons in Chemistry, which I have to give a very mixed review.

Unlike last year, it did not rain almost every weekend all summer, so we got outside every weekend in June. There was a day trip to Quabbin Park, strawberry picking, Art on the Trails at a local park, and a visit to the botanical garden at Tower Hill.

We celebrated the 4th of July by hiking at Wachusett, then continued the summer of activities with blueberry picking, a day at Purgatory Chasm, and a trip to Revere Beach for the annual sandcastle competition. For a birthday, I baked my best-ever sponge cake for a Japanese strawberry shortcake that turned out delicious. On the library front, I continued my slow way through Terry Pratchett’s Discworld with the next night watch book, Night Watch. In the garden, I harvested my first zucchini.

In August, we visited Moore State Park (it frequently comes up in lists of places to visit in central Massachusetts) and spent a day at the beach in Salisbury. In the second half of the month, my at least second favorite brother came to visit. We spent a week at Acadia and hiked a lot, ending up covering over 130,000 steps or a little over 55 miles. The tomatoes from my one volunteer tomato plant that ended up growing this year were coming in in earnest, and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed Patrick Stewart’s memoir Making It So.

Clockwise from top left: May - Dam Day, June - Quabbin Reservoir, July - blueberries, August - Cadillac Mountain

I was allowed sent to attend BPI East in September, my first conference since grad school. It was held at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston, and we got to go to the Museum of Science as our “scientists can have fun too” activity. We went for a first round of apple picking, and I baked a belated birthday key lime pie.

October always brings on the hunt for fall colors. I did some exploration around the reservoir, and we hiked Mount Watatic and a hill a few towns over. As it got cold, we officially pulled up the garden for the year, closing out this year’s harvest list at arugula, baby bok choy, green beans, red peppers, orange lunchbox peppers, habanero peppers, zucchini, cherry tomatoes, and a bunch of other unsuccessful tomatoes. Additionally, I completed my next cross stitch project, an anatomical heart, baked a birthday German chocolate cake, picked apples (again), and went bowling with my company for our fall outing. I watched The Big Year, This is Us, and Over the Garden Wall, all of which I would recommend, but for very different reasons and probably audiences, unless you’re me.

On Halloween, with unseasonably warm temperatures in the forecast, we took an impromptu road trip to Cape Cod, seeing in the first day of November with sunrise on the beach. We saw a bunch of lighthouses, hiked Great Island, and got a nice dose of coarse, rough, irritating sand that gets everywhere. As the days really started to shorten and cool, there was less hiking, but we did make it to Tower Hill for Gnomevember. And also I built a k’nex roller coaster.

Finally, that brings us to December. Earlier in the month, we went to see lights at Tower Hill, and there was one day warm enough for me to take a 7.7 mile walk up the aqueduct. At work, we had our annual Yankee Swap, and we celebrated the company’s 10 year anniversary at Top Golf. Now it’s Christmas Eve, it’s cold out, and there’s snow on the ground. We’ll see what 2025 brings, but for now, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and Happy Holidays to all!

Clockwise from top left: September - Musuem of Science, October - fall colors, December - lights at Tower Hill, November - sunrise on the beach