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.
Another uneventful year, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

- Finished 61 books, same as last year. The last book I read for 2018 was Record of a Spaceborn Few by Becky Chambers, which is part of her Galactic Commons series. Man, I love these books. This series has quaint, simple stories with much smaller stakes and the world building is amazing. It's right on par with the world building in The Expanse novels; well thought out with plenty of details. What else did I read... Finished the first trilogy in the Red Rising series. The fact that it's the first trilogy annoyed me to no end. The third book finished in a good place. There was no need to keep the story going. But nope, got to keep churning out books to make the bottom line. Sufficed to say, I will not check out the rest of the series. Started an... interesting comic book series called Sex Criminals. Main premise is that a guy and girl can stop time when they have sex, so naturally, they decide to rob banks. It's definitely not a comic that can be read on public transit. But it is written by Matt Fraction, who did that awesome run on the Hawkeye (Hawkguy) comics, so the writing it pretty snappy and the art is done by a Canadian, so you can't go wrong there. Not many other books stand out. Didn't really read any stinkers, so that's nice.

Annoyingly, my library stopped service with the hoopla app, which is how I read most of my comics. Hoopla was an awesome resource for old and current comics; the selection was pretty vast. My library still carries graphic novels, but the selection is a little limited. Thankfully, I guess, the only comic that I stayed up to date with on hoopla is on a year long hiatus, so right now I don't have to worry about that.

- Completed 9 knitting projects for the year, plus a handful of mini Christmas sweater ornaments. One highlight was knitting a Wesley Crusher doll and gifting it to Wesley Crusher himself, Wil Wheaton. It's only the second time that I've gifted something to a celebrity and he genuinely seemed to enjoy it. Hurray for knitting skills! I'm still trying to knit a shawl for myself and I do want to start knitting proper socks. I think I will be knitting baby socks with actual sock yarn for a friend's baby shower, so that's a start. Oh, and a sweater that can actually be worn by a human being and not be hung on a Christmas tree.

- Not much else to highlight. Did a nice cruise around the British Isles this summer, with the last port of call in Amsterdam. Amsterdam is a lot like Venice with all of the canals, but with more pot and sex shops. It's also very easy to get horribly turned around. I had to do a lot of backtracking while trying to find a popular yarn store. Got another cruise booked for late May with ports in Norway, so I expect there will be a lot of "pining for the fjords" jokes. :-)

Well, that's it from me. I hope everyone had a somewhat enjoyable 2018.
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.
- Not much to comment on this year. Personally, there were highs and lows and while the year wasn't great, it could have been worse. Landing the temp job in October was nice. I've really clicked with my co-workers. We're all such big geeks.

- I officially finished 9 knitting projects. By officially, I mean it's a project on my Raverly page. There were a bunch of small items I made for a friend so she could sell them on her website. I probably could have finished more projects, but I got super unmotivated towards the end of the year. As for what's coming next year, I have plans to knit a Newt Scamander scarf for a friend's cosplay. This should be a fun one. He's assembling a pretty bad ass Newt cosplay so I hope the scarf is up to his standards once it's done.

- I also read 69 books this year. Up a whopping 10 books from last year. It helps that I had a lot of free time this year. Looking back on my list, I seemed to have finished a lot of book series. I completed the Russell Quant mystery series, the I Am Number Four series, and the Temeraire series. I'm sad to see Temeraire end, but at the heart of the narrative is a war, so that can't stretch on forever. I'm still holding out for a TV miniseries from Peter Jackson. Russell Quant was a fun and zippy mystery series set in Saskatoon, so that was entertaining reading. Thank god the I Am Number Four series is done. It was kind of a fun read, but the writing and the characters really bugged me. I know, I could have stopped reading at any time, but after you've invested yourself into a few books, you kind of feel this obligation to reach the end.

I didn't start too many new series this year. For some reason, I've kept reading this really dull knitting themed cozy mystery series. The characters are so one note and the action is so forced and the author repeats herself a lot when she's describing things, and on top of that, I don't think she knows how to knit. So why do I keep reading? I guess it's nice to have some fluff to fall back on after you've finished a particularly heavy book. There are also some YA series that I started, but none of them are really worth mentioning.

The last book I read this year was The Well of Lost Plots, book three of the Thursday Next series. These books are so damn imaginative. Thursday spends all of her time in the Book World in this one and Jasper Fforde puts a wonderful spin on how books are created and assembled. It's strange that no one has expressed interest in making the Thursday Next series a TV show or something. Or maybe it would be hard to pull off due to the various rights involved with using well known book characters.

- Things to look forward to in the new year: I don't know, actually. I haven't made any firm plans. It'd be nice to get back to Cardiff before the Doctor Who Experience shuts down.

TV show wise we have Sherlock season four and Doctor Who season ten and The Expanse season two. Sherlock starts tomorrow, The Expanse February 1, and Doctor Who probably some time in April. Ooh, I do believe iZombie is back in March. Yay! Something to look forward to each month.

On the video game front, Mass Effect Andromeda and Red Dead Redemption 2 are coming! Can't wait to revisit these worlds.

- Well, that's that. So long and good riddance, 2016.
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.
One last post for the year:

- Finished 59 books this year, one short from last year. Going downtown to visit with my sister and my niece really helped. The best book series I picked up this year was The Expanse series. It's a space opera at its finest. I need to get cracking on book three, but I have so many other books to read from my book club. Second best series I picked up this year was the Thursday Next series. I love the alternative 1985 England that Thursday lives in. Third best series I picked up this year was the Russell Quant series. Russell is a gay P.I. who works in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan and he has such breezy and geeky attitude that's fun to read.

Last book I finished this year was Maddie Hatter and the Deadly Diamond. It's written by a local author; one of the book club ladies picked it up at the literary con that's held here every August. It has a fun steampunk setting and a plucky journalist as the main character. The weird thing about the book, though, is that it reads like the second book in a series. There's all this backstory and references to past events, but as far as I can tell, this is the first book. Maybe the author didn't want to do an origin story. There are some witty character names, too. Colonel Muster, Professor Plumb, nods to Clue of course; Windsor "Windy" Jones, professor as Indiana University; a take on Indiana "Indy" Jones; and Hercule Hornblower, a Belgian detective who uses his "little grey cells" to solve crimes but mostly falls asleep; Hercule Poirot, if Poirot was narcoleptic.

- Completed 13 knitting projects. I say that's pretty good, considering I only picked up knitting at the beginning of the year. Best project, hands down, has to be my Fourth Doctor scarf. It wasn't the most complicated project (that honour goes to the Mass Effect scarf I knitted for my sister), but I ended up with something that is so iconic. Plus, thanks to that project, I'm getting paid to knit two more. :-)

My sister keeps bugging me to learn sock knitting, but I don't know when I would get around to that. I want to learn how to read charts and do more colour work first. I also want to knit Amy's scarf and fingerless gloves combo from "The Pandorica Opens". Why do I want to keep knitting scarves? You'd think I would be sick of them by now.

- Got laid off this year, but let's not dwell on that.

- Had a fun vacation cruising around the Mediterranean. Venice was the best port; so much history and culture there. Pompeii was the best excursion, but visiting Trogir is a close second, if only because it was a filming location on Doctor Who.

- The comic book expo was crazy busy and fun this year. Meeting Ming-Na and Hayley Atwell was the best part of the weekend. I don't see the expo getting a lot of big name guests next year. The Canadian dollar is super crappy right now. Though, who knows. The expo team has pulled off huge last minute surprises before so I wouldn't put it past them to do it again.

Things to look forward to next year:
- Cruise around the British Isles in May with Amsterdam and Paris thrown in. Sadly, the cruise is no longer stopping in Wales, which makes me very sad. The port would have been in Northern Wales, presenting me with an opportunity to visit Portmeirion, the filming location of The Prisoner. I may need to head back to Wales in 2017.
- 50th anniversary Star Trek convention in Las Vegas in August. I attended this con a few years ago and the company that runs it really knows their stuff, so this one should be a blast. I expect Paramount and CBS to do a ton of stuff for the anniversary next year. And man, Star Trek Beyond better not suck. This is their last chance to get it right.
- Plus other miscellanea, like superhero movies and TV shows.

As usual, nothing extremely exciting, but there's nothing wrong with that.
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.
Actually, not much to report, but it's like that every year. ;-)

- Finished reading 54 books this year. That's down from last year, but meh, that's all right. The last book I finished was Broken Time Blues. It's a collection of short stories all set during the Depression but with a fantasy or sci fi twist. It was kind of bizarre. There were some good stories, though, like the one where Picasso is a magician and he creates Frankenstein-eqsue monsters from dead bodies and dying soldiers. Honestly. Against my better judgement I also read Pride, Prejudice, and Zombies. I don't see what all the hype was about. It's just Pride and Prejudice, but with zombies slapped on. Yes, it's ridiculous, but it's still the same basic plot. I also read the first two books in a series about a demon slayer that just made me sad. It wants to be Buffy, but it fails horribly. The main character is so annoying and the romance with her tall and brooding love interest is so boring. I plan to start Illium, by Dan Simmons, in the new year. It's an absolute brick of a book, but thankfully I will have some time to kill while on vacation.

- Wrote 10 fanfics this year. Thank you [livejournal.com profile] who_at_50 and [livejournal.com profile] dw_50ficathon for hosting such wonderful ficathons. Actually, that number might be 11, I wrote a drabble for a flash fiction comment-a-thon over at [livejournal.com profile] who_at_50 but I never posted it here, so I'm not sure if that counts.

- Had a great time in London for Doctor Who's 50th anniversary. It was just fun overall celebrating a huge milestone. Here's to the next 50 years.

- Met some great Whoivans at the comic book expo this year. I plan to meet up with them again in April. Here's hoping the expo gets more awesome guests like this year. However, nothing can top meeting Nathan Fillion (he complimented my Kaylee costume twice!). My life is complete now having met him. ;-) Actually, if they somehow got Joss Whedon to show up, then my life would be complete, but I really don't see that happening. But more Firefly guests, please. Four more actors and I'll have a complete set of autographs.

- I suppose I also learned how to sew this year. I'm not ready to make anything super elaborate, but I can spool the thing and kind of sew in straight lines. I just need more practice. Need to make more things from scratch, but obviously small things.

In non New Year's related stuff, Sherlock is back tomorrow!!! But back to work on Thursday. :-( It's going to be dead, though. Plenty of people will still be on vacation.
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.
[Error: unknown template qotd]It's not really my resolution, it's my company's resolution, but I plan to walk 1500 kilometers (or 932 miles if you prefer) in a year.

When I say it's my company's resolution, I should explain. They're holding a contest to see who can walk 1500 kilometers in year to celebrate 1500 years of something or other. All that's really important is a) they're giving out free pedometers b) there are prizes. Yes, nothing motivates like free things and prizes! ;-)

Or the company is telling us that we're all fat and need to get some exercise.

I walk to work every day, if the weather's right, so I think I already have a head start on most people. I'm not thinking I'll win anything, but it will be cool to see how many kilometers I walk in a year.
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
Happy New Year everybody! Hope 2007 wasn't sucky.

Whoo, I actually managed to get out and do something. The wild party animal that I am, I went to a friend's place and played some Wii, Wario Ware: Smooth Moves (weird game), and then some Cranium, which is totally geared towards Canadians (Globe and Mail and Barenaked Ladies were just some of the answers). A friend of the friend brought some booze in test tubes because he was too lazy to bring the bottles so I had some Jack Daniels, from a test tube, for the first time. Gross is all I have to say. As is sparkling wine. Bleh. Then when wandered around out in the cold with a video camera, Blair Witch style. Honest, we weren't drunk.

Here's to 2008. :-D
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