Every year it gets worse. I first started to feel it at Uni. There were more books to read than there was time to read them.

But it's gotten worse every year since. More books get added to the pile, and fewer get completed. At times it feels like an uphill battle.

Since I started working it's become a much bigger problem. Whereas before, my budget ( Read more... )

So now that the obligatory best-ofs are out of the way, what did 2012 mean to me?

Overall, I'd say it was a great year. Probably the best I can remember.

A large part of that was due to having the chance to travel and see some of the world. People who've known me for years may laugh at that, because I have always been somewhat cynical about travel ( Read more... )

A lot of my reading this year was comic books. This was the first full year I've spent following comics for some time, and it was great to discover how many good writers there are out there.

Anyway, the books I particularly enjoyed and found well written this year were:

DC

Batwoman

Animal Man

Batman

Aquaman

JLA

Swamp Thing

Red Hood & the Outlaws

( Read more... )

(including a couple from late 2011)

The albums I really enjoyed this year were:

Wild Flag… Wild Flag (2011)

Yuck… Yuck (2011)

Hushabye Mountain… Stacey Kent (2011)

Let's Go Eat the Factory… Guided by Voices

The Lion's Roar… First Aid Kit

Old Ideas… Leonard Cohen

Tramp… Sharon Van Etten

The Stars Are Indifferent to Astronomy… Nada Surf

Renditions ( Read more... )

I felt like I got nothing read in 2012, but looking back I read quite a bit, at least by my standards (slow reader). And I got three quarters of the way through War and Peace, which took a substantial chunk out of my reading time.

I found my reading drifted more toward non-fiction this year. I don't know if this is a sign of getting old :-)

Anyway ( Read more... )

This is becoming one of those blogs where every new blog post starts with "It's been a long time since I posted here".

I must admit that some days I miss the old Livejournal days. It seemed like there was a lot more conversation and back-and-forth on lj, in part because the blogging platform made it easier to do that. Most other platforms are not ( Read more... )

I just discovered the last time I blogged here was in August.

Part of the reason for that was that I have been, as many of you know, a-travelling. More about that in another post, some time.

While we were still connected overseas, I spent a lot less time online, and it was just what I needed in terms of getting some headspace. While I love the ( Read more... )

So today the newspapers report that Charlotte Dawson is in hospital following some very aggressive attacks on twitter toward her. I assume this means that she made some kind of suicide attempt or self-harm. I don't have any particular knowledge of Dawson or feelings toward her one way or the other, beyond sympathy that she reached such a bad place ( Read more... )

(Beware, ranting follows)

Lookit, I don't care how much I agree with your essential argument, or otherwise. You can be saying my exact mindscape in eloquent phraseology to the tune of my favourite album. I don't give a shit whether I agree with you or not. I am happy to listen all day and all night to people who I disagree with. Just be interesting ( Read more... )

I was very grateful to be able to make Natcon this year, after not being sure I would be able to. I hate missing Natcon, for the simple reason that two years between catching up with a lot of good friends is far too long. But luckily I was able to go along.

I'm not going to go into detail about what I attended or who I dined with. I'm not going to ( Read more... )