by Christian Nonnenbroich

Aaaaaaaaand we're back. Sorry for being a bit later than usual, I wanted to prepare this last night, but then a BGG-downtime stopped me from doing that. Anyway huh. I haven't done one of these "Is this something?"-posts since January 3. Weird. So let's turn this into one of those posts. "Turn this into?" you ask. Well, you'll see.

So what's going on? Well, a lot of good things. Last Friday, the first instance of the newly instantiated "Spieletreff Sprendlingen" took place, which I initiated some time late last year, because the only other game night here where we live now apparently consists of ten older women playing Rummy for two hours every second Tuesday. Their words, not mine. Well, also mine. But theirs first. So I got in contact with people from the municipal administration, and they were like "That's actually a great idea and we're completely behind it". And then I set the date for the first meetup and advertised it a bit, and responses were vague and noncommittal... But then when the evening arrived, we were actually ten people, which isn't half bad for a first-time event in a small town like ours. We also played Gravwell: 2nd Edition, and that's always a lot of fun, right? Also tonight is another game night that I plan to attend. I'm probably gonna bring Sudds & Malone along, because that arrived over the weekend, and while I still don't fully "grasp" why this is about mice solving crimes (maybe that's a topic about an upcoming "meditation on theme"), it looks really neat. Or maybe I'll finally get Space Lion: Divide and Conquer to the table. I tried that solo a couple of days ago, to get a feel for what's going on in it, and it seems... interesting. We'll see.

What else? Things are going well on the treadmill. Despite being back in action in terms of my day-job, I've managed to get up early each day and walk for three quarters of an hour before doing so, which does me good, I'd say. Of course, I've been watching some stuff while doing that. Mostly movies for now, because I decided to keep doing that "Watch five movies per month"-thing I had been doing late last year, and since I don't have to watch specific things to do some kind of ranked list at the moment, I've decided to make a dent in the stack of DVDs I bought for next to nothing... a decade or more ago. And the results have been devastating thus far. Spoilers for the next "Here's all the movies I watched"-roundup in early February, but... yeah, all of them sucked. One might have been one of the worst movies I have ever seen. I don't want to say what it is at this point in time, but it's "Visitor Q" by Takashi Miike. Wait. Did I do that wrong? Anyway, things are better at the TV-front. Fabian will probably be delighted to hear that I have postponed season four of "Riverdale" in favor of season three of "Babylon 5". I've watched the first three episodes of that over the course of the last two days, and... there's still a lot of time-killing going on, and some of the episodes suffer from the restrictive timeframe this has been put into, but... it's still fun. Still waiting for it to get really good. I also plan on starting to watch the second season of "Fallout" very soon. I'll probably start a week from now, that way, I should be able to watch an episode a day, and be just in time for the premiere of the final episode in early February. That might collide to some degree with "Wonder Man", the latest MCU-show, but... I'll manage somehow.

I've also read some good stuff lately. "Red Rabbit" by Alex Grecian was utterly fantastic. A rare 5/5-read. The followup (which doesn't really feel like a sequel, but rather like another story centered around some of the characters) "Rose Of Jericho"... wasn't as good. Still, quite enjoyable. Way better than what I'm currently reading, "Saurian", by Michael Cole, a quasi-sci-fi-horror-B-movie in book format, which is really fucking bad. I wanted to say "the worst thing I've read in a while", but I just remembered that there were two 1/5-books in my last roundup, and it's not THAT bad. But yeah, I'm happy when I'm finished with it... probably today or tomorrow. Because then I'm gonna dive into the wild world of ARCs. In case you don't know what that is, it's an abbreviation for "Advanced Reading Copies". Basically everybody with some kind of outreach can go to Netgalley and tell them "Hey, I would like to apply for books that aren't out yet, read them, and then talk about them", and then publishers can go "That sounds reasonable", and so I thought to myself "That sounds like something I could do, because I'm already doing it anyway", and I've registered an account, and already got two books from that source that I'm gonna dive into right after finishing "Saurian". Will they be the last ones I procure that way? Who's to say? Maybe my too-honest reviews will make publishers think twice about giving stuff like that to me for free? Maybe not. Time will tell.

So... speaking of time, what is the main topic of today's post? Well... this:

Yeah. It's my birthday. Again. Turning 39 today. So... one more year before "middle age" starts? Although some folks say that it rather starts at 45 and lasts until 60. So... I don't know, I feel... the way I feel, I'd say. In hindsight, 40 probably won't feel like such a magical barrier. I mean... E. has already crossed it, and she seems fine with it. Still, I think I'm gonna try to enjoy the last year before that happens, starting today, with the aforementioned game night this evening.

So... that's already everything I wanted to get off my chest today. Tomorrow: we continue with our "2025, Year In Review"-post-series, and this time, we're gonna check out TV shows released that year. Which is why I haven't tagged this post as belonging to that category. Smart, right? see you then!

A new episode has been added to the database: Empire Of Rust 153 - Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbor’s Spark

A new episode has been added to the database: ADAPTING PUBLISHED TTRPG SETTINGS - How to Pretend You Planned This the Whole Time

A new episode has been added to the database: Eidolon ADULT #8: How Bizarre

A new episode has been added to the database: [PREVIEW] Design Session #70: The Hero, Part 2

A new episode has been added to the database: Episode 200 - Part 1: Three Ladies and A Sir

A new episode has been added to the database: 009 A Star Beyond the Stars | Star Trek Adventures

A new episode has been added to the database: Talkin' About Stuff

A new episode has been added to the database: Maple Valley Chronicles S1E9: A Cordial Request for Reconciliation

A new episode has been added to the database: Guilt of the Grave World | X003: Myles Has 9 Lives

A new episode has been added to the database: [Runequest] "Six Seasons in Sartar" (Session Seven)

by Steve

On January 19th we meet to greet [user=Kwakkie][/user]

Happy Birthday Wouter!