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About This Author
I am SoCalScribe. This is my InkSpot.
Blogocentric Formulations
Logocentric (adj). Regarding words and language as a fundamental expression of an external reality (especially applied as a negative term to traditional Western thought by postmodernist critics).

Sometimes I just write whatever I feel like. Other times I respond to prompts, many taken from the following places:

         *Penw* "The Soundtrackers Group" Open in new Window.
         *Penw* "Blogging Circle of Friends " Open in new Window.
         *Penw* "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" Open in new Window.
         *Penw* "JAFBG" Open in new Window.
         *Penw* "Take up Your Cross" Open in new Window.


Thanks for stopping by! *Smile*

December 31, 2024 at 7:01pm
December 31, 2024 at 7:01pm
#1081771

To qualify for my Watch List every month, the following has to be something that I've watched that's new to me. It doesn't necessarily have to be a current show, but it can't be reruns or rewatches of something I've already seen. So if I'm including it in this list, it means this month is the first time I've watched it. I'll put "DNF" (Did Not Finish) next to anything that I stopped watching and have no immediate plans to finish.


Movies

         *Bullet* 101 Dalmatians II: Patch's London Adventure
         *Bullet* Challengers
         *Bullet* Moana 2
         *Bullet* Sonic the Hedgehog 3
         *Bullet* Spellbound

There wasn't a lot that was great in the feature film department this month. Moana 2 and Sonic the Hedgehog 3 were both serviceable sequels, but not as good as their predecessors, and 101 Dalmations II was yet another of the early-2000s sequel cash-ins that Disney did and my kids seem to love, so I end up watching them too. None of them have been particularly impressive. And speaking of not-that-impressive, Spellbound was one of the animated features I worked on during my brief time at Skydance, and - along with Luck - these two were supposed to be the resurgence of John Lasseter as an animation genius after being ousted from Disney and Pixar. Luck was pretty good, but I remember everyone at the company at the time was like, "That one's okay, but Spellbound is going to be John's opus." So I was a little surprised to have liked Luck considerably better than Spellbound. It just felt so... generic.

Challengers, on the other hand, while a far from perfect movie, was a really interesting watch. I'm not sure I totally buy into Luca Guadagnino as a "visionary" filmmaker, but he definitely has a clear and specific point of view and I can appreciate that about his movies. I love tennis too, so being set in that world kept my interest, especially when approaching it from a perspective of what a day-to-day journeyman tennis player experiences, as opposed to the celebrities at the top of the game. I actually thought the acting of the two guys (Mike Faist and Josh O'Connor) were weak points of the movie even as others have praised them; but the directing, Zendaya's performance, and the storytelling was excellent.


Television

         *Bullet* A Man on the Inside (Season 1)
         *Bullet* Arcane (Season 1)
         *Bullet* Black Doves (Season 1)
         *Bullet* Formula 1: Drive to Survive (Season 2)
         *Bullet* Formula 1: Drive to Survive (Season 3)
         *Bullet* Formula 1: Drive to Survive (Season 4)
         *Bullet* Law & Order (Season 24)
         *Bullet* The Rookie (Season 6)
         *Bullet* Shrinking (Season 2)

This was a really good month for television. A Man on the Inside saw showrunner Mike Shur and Ted Danson re-team for another show, this one about a retiree who goes undercover in a retirement community to help a private investigator with a theft she's been hired to solve, and it's delightful. I'm really looking forward to what I hope will be a second season. Black Doves was an interesting espionage thriller starring Keira Knightley that got better as it went, and the second season of Shrinking on Apple TV+ really delivered on a lot of the setup and groundwork that was established in the first season. The emotional character arcs might be as good as Ted Lasso, depending on how the third season goes.

The runaway top pick for television this month, though, was Formula 1: Drive to Survive, which I'm officially hooked on. Season 4 was the most dramatic so far (it covered the 2021 season where Lewis Hamilton lost his bid for a record-setting eighth Driver's Championship to Max Verstappen, who has dominated the Driver's Championship ever since. That year the Driver's Championship was hotly contested all year long and came down to the very last race, which ended up being quite controversial with some of the calls that were made. I'll definitely be caught up on Season 5 and Season 6 before the presumed release of Season 7 ahead of the new Formula 1 season starts in March of 2025. I highly recommend it for anyone who enjoys sports docuseries; this one is exceptionally well-produced.


TOP PICK:
Formula 1: Drive to Survive (Season 4)
December 31, 2024 at 2:47pm
December 31, 2024 at 2:47pm
#1081763
It's the end of 2024, which means it's time to review all the reading and listening I've done over the past calendar year. Here's how this past year broke down in terms of titles and numbers:


*Star* = favorite
*ThumbsUp* = also really enjoyed


Books (click to expand full list) ▼

This year, I continued my scaled-down goal of "only" planning to read 50 books and, honestly, I really enjoyed the freedom; maybe even more than last year. Having the eight years of reading 100+ books was a really tough challenge that I enjoyed trying to meet, but it often had me focusing on quantity rather than quality. With the scaled-down goal, it's really allowed me to read whatever I want, without having to worry about falling off my pace. I have the time and space to read more comics and read longer and more complex books without feeling like I'm getting behind if I don't crank out two books a week. I'm almost certainly going to continue with the same reading goal again for 2025.


Podcasts (click to expand full list) ▼

I listened to more podcasts this year than the previous few years, but I attribute a lot of that to the fact that it was an election year, and I listen to a lot of news and political podcasts. I think I finally hit my limit though, because after the election I'm kind of sick of all of them. *Laugh* I still plan on listening to several of them next year because I like to keep up to date on what's happening, but I didn't pick very many of them as my top podcasts of the year as a result. I found myself appreciating the podcasts about little-known issues ("The Economics of Everyday Things" and new entry "Explain It To Me") and movie-watching/commentary podcasts. Part of me feels like this next year might see a change in some of the stuff I listen to regularly, which I like to mix up every couple of years. *Bigsmile*


Comics (click to expand full list) ▼

This is where my reading really took off this year, in large part because Marvel started sending me monthly galley boxes of all their comics to be published the following month. I'm a couple months behind at the moment, but it's a really cool way to see what the company is working on, and to keep apprised of what's going on in the comics world. While Marvel has struggled a bit lately (for years, its main efforts were to basically capitalize on the films), they're starting to really push into new areas with "event" series like Bloodhunt and Venom War which, while not always successful, are the things I think it needs to do to eventually discover those comic runs which will become iconic in a few years.


Scripts (click to expand full list) ▼

I only read fifteen scripts this year, a little less than last year. Like 2023, I still haven't quite gotten my mojo back when it comes to screenwriting, so it makes sense that I haven't been reading a lot of screenplays lately. And also like 2024, I'd like to change that in 2025, but I'm also hesitant to be too prescriptive about what I'm trying to read. If scripts pop up that I want to read, I'll read them. *Smile*



TOTALS: 55 books, 1100 podcasts, 240 comics, 15 scripts

According to Goodreads, my book reading resulted in the following stats:

         Total Pages Read: 17,971 (+1,143 change from 2023)
         Average Pages Per Book: 326 (-10 change from 2023)
         Shortest Book: 30 (-48 change from 2023)
         Longest Book: 845 (-307 change from 2023)


That's it for my 2024 reading... time to see what 2025 has in store! *Bigsmile*
December 31, 2024 at 1:46am
December 31, 2024 at 1:46am
#1081746

Blog City image large



Day 2427 Prompt ▼

I enjoy playing card games (everything from traditional games like Blackjack and Poker, to party games like Go Fish and War and Crazy Eights. I even like some collectible card games that aren't played with a standard deck (Magic: The Gathering, Pokémon, etc.), although I don't typically play for money outside a friendly low-stakes game playing Thirty-One for quarters during a family get-together.

The one thing I don't like about card games are the competitiveness that some players exhibit, or the arguments about skill versus luck. To me, playing cards is a trivial entertainment; it's a game to be played to pass the time. I know that some people see card games as very serious business, or even a way to make a living, but that's just not how or why I play cards.

And let's not forget my favorite type of card games... party games like Cards Against Humanity, Apples to Apples, What Do You Meme?, etc. Those are easily my favorites these days, where the purpose is just to have a good time and laugh your butt of with your friends while you play a ridiculous game with ridiculous rules and hilarious if not borderline offensive cards to play for shock value. *Laugh*



Day 2429 Prompt ▼

I'm constantly challenging and reexamining my worldview. I think that one of the hallmarks of an intelligent, thoughtful person should be the ability to think critically about themselves and their positions and admit when something needs to be adjusted or even outright changed. That said, I think I have a tendency to refine my worldview rather than change it wholesale.

For example, most people tend to be more liberal when they're younger, and become more conservative as they get older. This tends to happen as people establish lives that they've invested in; as you get older, you earn more money and tend to want more conservative fiscal policy to allow you to keep more of your money. As you get older, you tend to view your formative years with more nostalgia, and are more likely to become more socially conservative if you disagree with the direction society is trending toward.

I actually find myself more liberal (progressive would probably be a better term, since the main focus of my worldview is making progress on issues that leads to meaningful improvement in peoples' lives) than I was when I was younger. I attribute a lot of this to the fact that I moved from an affluent small town where I grew up, to a major metropolitan city when I went to college and started working. I also started traveling and seeing other cities, other countries, etc. which showed me very clearly that not everyone had the same upbringing I did. I was very privileged to grow up in a place where food, housing, money, security, etc. were all things that were taken for granted rather than hard to come by. But different people have different upbringings, and that affects their options and their choices about where life takes them.

The part of my worldview that I think I've probably changed the most in recent years is my default assumption that "the system" is inherently good and worth preserving. I still think that success is more likely to come from reforming the system itself rather than burning things to the ground and starting from scratch (in most cases), but I've really started to realize the systemic problems that exist in society, particularly where it relates to opportunity, equality, and justice. I used to assume everyone was treated the same and had the same opportunity to rise up and live out the American Dream, and I've realized just how hard that is for some people to do given the hand they were dealt at birth, growing up, etc. And I'm much more sympathetic toward arguments and policies that are aimed at leveling the playing field, taking care of those who the system has failed, etc.



Day 2430 Prompt ▼

I'm honestly not really sure what the first part of this prompt means, so I'm going to deviate a little bit and talk about certain activities and interests that have played an important role in my life, as well as activities and interests that I'm looking forward to exploring in 2025.

Activities and interests that have played a key role in my life up until this point have been media and learning.

Media (and I include so many things under that umbrella: movies, music, books, video games, etc.) has unquestioningly had a bigger influence on my life than anything else. I went into the entertainment business because I fell in love with telling stories in different ways. I connect some of my strongest emotions and relate the way I understand the world around me through specific songs and books and movies. I think art in nearly all its forms is one of the most incredible things humans have developed, and our imaginations are what make us unique. It's a rare day that I'm not consuming some form - if not multiple forms - of media to satiate my varied interests.

Which brings me to the next piece of it, which is learning. I love learning new things, and I constantly strive to add to the information that I have in my brain. In a lot of cases it's just random facts and trivia that I stumble across and find interesting enough to retain, but I also have a tendency to get really into a particular topic which will then consume a ton of my bandwidth until I feel like I've sufficiently exhausted it. This has been the case for topics as "serious" as religion/philosophy, the film/television business I've chosen as my profession, writing, etc. to topics as fun or trivial as building a computer from scratch, learning how to play tennis so I can enjoy watching the sport more, etc.

When it comes to activities and interests in 2025, there are two that I'm looking forward to and they both fall into each category in a way.

In 2024, I got back into Dungeons & Dragons in a major way. I found a group that was in need of a Dungeon Master (the person who runs the game for a group of players), so I started playing with them and re-teaching myself how to play the game. It's also my first experience with a regular group in a long time (my previous group was a monthly game at best, and that fell off over five years ago), so planning for a weekly session has motivated me to not just re-learn the rules, but to strive to improve myself as a DM by reading a lot of books and watching a lot of YouTube videos on the topic of how to be more effective at telling a collaborative story. This past year was a bit of a learning curve, not just in terms of getting up to speed on how to play the game again but also in terms of getting to know a new group of players (and these ones have been playing together for years, many of whom have known each other since they were kids), and I'm excited to enter 2025 having hit my stride with the campaign I've built, and seeing where it goes from there.

The second thing that I'm excited about exploring in 2025 is my newfound interest in Formula One racing. I started watching Formula One: Drive to Survive on Netflix this year, and got absolutely hooked. I've been reading extensively about the sport above and beyond what's in the show, and I'm awed by all of the work that goes into professional racing. Knowing that I'll be caught up on the past several years of history heading into the 2025 Formula One season, I'm really looking forward to following along and seeing what happens now that I'm better educated on the sport. I'm hoping to maybe even make it out to Las Vegas for the race that takes place there in November! Either way, with my interest in tennis sort of waning in recent years after more than a decade of being really into it, I'm excited to have found a new sport that I'm interested in learning about and following.


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