The Blog to Nowhere

Happy New Year! Or, I suppose as we shall call it now, Happy Who Year!

So, any episode that's over an hour doesn't have opening credits? I like having the opening credits. I don't care if it pauses the story. You need the iconic theme music to kick everything off. But anyway... So, the first New Year's special. Was it any good?

( Spoilers for Doctor Who, "Resolution" )

Well, that's it for Doctor Who for 2019. 2020 can't come soon enough.

Happy New Year!

- Finished 61 books this year. That's down from last year, but I was unemployed for a big chunk of 2016 so that's probably why. I had wanted to read something exciting for my last book of the year, but I didn't find anything in time so I ended up reading another book in the knitting themed cozy mystery series. I really should give up this series, but it's like candy. You know it's not good and you should put it down, but you just can't help yourself. And the thing that bugs me - on top of the plain and repetitive writing and the dull characters and the boring murder mysteries - is that the author doesn't know a thing about knitting. Yes, the knitting isn't important to the story and it's just the hook for the series, but if you're going to feature something so prominently in your book, you can at least do some better research. The knitting store in the series is real for heaven's sake! There are actual knitters that the author knows. Okay, so maybe it only bothers me, since I actually knit, but you have to assume that a good chunk of the reading audience are also knitters. If the author describes something wrong, you know all of the knitters will pick up on it.

(Like, who decreases stitches every round on a hat? Rapid decreases like that would give you a very pointy crown. And you don't wind yarn into a ball until you're ready to use it! Winding yarn into a ball stretches it out. That's why everything comes in skeins.)

But I digress... I read a few stand out books this year. I finished off the Jackaby series; that's the series with the main character who is the love child between Benedict Cumberbatch's Sherlock and Matt Smith's Eleventh Doctor. I don't get why the author ended the series after four books. He has enough ideas to keep going for many books, but on the other hand, it's nice to see a YA series with a definitive end. I also discovered the Galactic Commons series by Becky Chambers. A lovely sci fi series with great world building but small, intimate stories and interesting characters. I also started a YA Sherlock Holmes series called Charlotte Holmes. Charlotte is a direct descendant of Sherlock Holmes and her best friend Jamie Watson is also descended from John Watson. Basically, it's a modern day Sherlock Holmes series, but with a teenaged girl and boy. My only gripe is how the author chose to have Jamie in love with Charlotte. Ugh. You really don't need that.

Thanks to my library, I also read a ton of graphic novels. Ever since DC launched its Rebirth line, I've been reading some of those, like Wonder Woman, The Flash, and Supergirl. The app that I'm reading everything through also got some Marvel comics, so I may have to check those out at some point.

- Officially completed 8 knitting projects along with a handful of other smaller projects. My god, it was so slow at work before the Christmas break that I knitted a good chunk of the Christmas sweaters while at work. Good thing my manager doesn't care what we do to occupy our time during lulls. I'm trying to start proper sock knitting. I finished one adult sized sock with worsted weight and it turned out all right; I just need to finish the second sock. After that, I may be ready to start with sock weight yarn. I also keep meaning to knit a shawl for myself, but other stuff keeps getting in the way. Oh well. I'll get there eventually.

- Started a new full time job in May. After 8 months of doing temp work, it was nice to have benefits and sick days again. The work isn't anything exciting and the pay could be better, but it's better than being unemployed again.

- On the geeky side of things, I had a great vacation in Cardiff and got to visit the Doctor Who Experience one last time before it shut down. I even got to meet Peter Capaldi at the comic book expo. It's the small things in life that make me happy. :-D

What's to come in 2018: I don't know really. I re-booked that British Isles cruise that I had to cancel last year. My mom is turning a significant age this year and she'll get to celebrate her birthday while on the cruise, so that should be fun. The cruise will visit parts of the Ireland where they film Game of Thrones. I don't watch the show at all but it might be fun to hit up some of the filming locations just because I'm a giant nerd and I like things like that. Aside from that, I don't have any plans. I guess I'll wing it like I always do.

Well, that was different. As weird as it was, I was happy to see Sherlock and John again, even if it was only for one episode.

( Spoilers for Sherlock, "The Abominable Bride" )

So does filming for season four start soon? I guess it all depends on when Benedict Cumberbatch is done filming Doctor Strange. It'd be nice if the episodes actually aired this year, like the fall or something, but I doubt we'd be that lucky.

Just wanted to do one last post for the year:

- Finished 60 books this year, up from 54 last year. 60! A new record for me. I can thank the commute into work for upping my total over the past two months. The last book, which I finished this morning, was Inspector Singh Investigates: A Most Peculiar Malaysian Mystery. A detective novel, obviously, and courtesy of my book club. It was all right. It's set in Malaysia and it has an Islamic police detective, so it's a bit different, but the writing style really put me off. The author was really fond of having the "he said" bit in front of the dialogue rather than at the end, so you would have these really long sentences describing how the person is talking before the person actually talked. As a writer, it really distracted me. And the detective doesn't do a whole lot of detecting, either. I also got back into the Outlander series; I'm officially caught up! So now I have to wait for the next book like everyone else. I only read the books because they involve time travel and the historical setting is somewhat interesting, but all of the romance bits are kind of tedious and my god, the characters keep getting into trouble. Yes, I know there wouldn't be much of a plot if everyone was happy, but all of these ridiculous obstacles and problems come up out of nowhere. And the author has added more characters than is required. It's like she's trying to pad the plot so her books end up being these huge bricks. As for any new book series, I didn't really pick up any. There is one, I guess you would call them The Shambling Guides, that sort of caught my interest but it's not like I really love them. The writing isn't exactly the greatest and the action is staged a bit stiffly, but I like the world the author has created. It's one of those "the supernatural is real but the humans don't know it" kind of worlds, but the main character is works as a writer for guide books for the supernatural community, so you get cute little excerpts from the book she's writing in each novel. So if there are more novels in the future, I'll read them, but I won't be eagerly awaiting them.

- While I can thank my new morning commute for the extended reading time, I also read some of these books on my phone, which allowed me to read at work when things were slow or when I was covering reception. I still love reading an actual book, but having ebooks on your phone is pretty handy. No huge tome to carry around and you can store as many books as you want. I'm going to use this to my advantage when I go on my cruise in May; I can carry about some of the tour books and all I need is a skinny piece of plastic and metal.

- Highlight of the year? Hmm... I suppose it was meeting Matt Smith and Karen Gillan at the comic book expo and having Matt tell me that he loved my Old!Amy armour cosplay. :-) Had a grand old time at the comic book expo this year, as always. Can't wait to see the cosplay gang in April.

- Can't think of much else that happened that's worth noting. Marked five years of official employment with my company. Whether I'll be employed in the new year? We'll see... (Stupid falling oil prices). Saw a co-worker finally quit the company after a couple of years of complaining. Can't say I'm sorry to see them go. They were nice enough, but they got on my nerves more often then not.

- Things to look forward to in 2015: a cruise around the Mediterranean in late May. I'll be visiting Italy and Croatia for the most part, so I'll get to see Rome and Venice and Dubrovnik. I can actually visit where they film King's Landing for Game of Thrones and the bits of Croatia that stood in for Venice and rural France in season five of Doctor Who. Okay, there are other things to see, too, but those are the things that will excite me. The local comic book expo will be entering their tenth year of operation, so that will be exciting, too. I hope they pull out all of the stops. And a Sherlock special at some point during the year! I saw the picture of Benedict and Martin dressed up in Victorian duds, so I hope the special is somehow set in the past.

Oh, and Agent Carter starts on Tuesday. Can't wait to see Peggy back in action. :-)

Hope everyone had a good year and here's to 2015.

Well, it's New Year's Eve. Another year gone. I won't go on about the things I've accomplished mainly because I didn't do much, but there are two things worth mentioning:

1) 1500 km challenge. So my company put out a challenge at the beginning of the year to all the employees in the city. Walk 1500 km in one year. That equalled over 2,000,000 steps. At the current count, I'm a little over 5,000,000, so it's safe to say that I doubled the required amount. I doubt I'll win anything in the end, but I guess winning an outdated iPad wasn't the whole point of the challenge. It's about being active, even if the only exercise I managed was taking walks on the weekends.

So, during the entire year I went through: a) 1 pair of running shoes b) 2 pedometer batteries c) 1 pedometer.

2) I read 57 books this year, one less than less year. I got distracted by video games during the year, so that's a really good number. Actually, I think I might have read 59 books. I read all of the short stories that make up The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes online while at work, but since I didn't actually read an actual book, I don't think it really counts. But anyway... The last book I read for the year was Frozen Heat, the fourth novel in the Nikki Heat series, a poorly disguised take on the characters in Castle. Well, it's a tie-in to Castle, so I don't expect any less. It's not the greatest mystery series in the world, but it has a cute picture of Nathan Fillion on the back so it's nice to support the show a bit.

I picked up a couple of new book series this year, but I think the one I liked the most was the Maisie Dobbs series. It's a mystery series set in 1920s-1930s London with a strong female detective. Maisie's a bit of a Mary Sue in that she's really good at everything she does, but I love the setting. I'm surprised it's not a TV series or something in the UK. It has the strength to carry a miniseries at least. I also read a crappy YA, supernatural series. I don't get why these things get published. I really don't.

That's it really. I'm still employed, so that's always good. Bring on 2013. Two words: Doctor Who.

I don't know what to say. I waited all day to watch the second part of "The End of Time" and the resolution was...

( Spoilers for The End of Time Part Two )

The trailer for next season hit the internet pretty quickly and I ended up watching it before watching this episode. It's so weird, seeing new footage of this Doctor we know nothing about. I just watched "Planet of the Spiders" yesterday and the first two episodes of "Robot" today, and it's that same disconnect. It's the Doctor, but not the Doctor. The man you're used to is no longer there but you know it's the same man. Will you like him? Hate him?

( Spoilers for the Coming Soon trailer )

Sigh. I'll miss Ten. To borrow a phrase, he was my Doctor. While he wasn't the first Doctor I was introduced to, he was the first Doctor I grew attached to. He'll live on in my DVDs. :-D