The primary way my board game playing expanded this year was due to conventions like GenCon and OrcaCon; generally I aim to play games before purchasing them and conventions are a great way to do that. On the whole I had fewer logged plays than 2023. I think 2025 needs to be a year of reestablishing a game playing community. But for now, here are the board games that I played in 2024 that I have something to say about.
MoreFollowing up on the pattern set by my 2023 end of year wrap up, here are the movies that I watched in 2024 that warranted commentary.
MoreWhile 2024 was a challenging year for me overall, there were some good shows to watch (either new or new to me). Continuing on from my 2023 coverage of television, below you’ll find the shows I watched in 2024 that I want to highlight.
MoreI received a lot of positive feedback to my 2023 end of year wrap up on games and other media. While 2024 wasn’t as prolific for me, there were still many solid games. Here are some of the key video game experiences I had in 2024.
MoreIf I’m being honest, the majority of the reason I’m making this post is so I have an excuse to gush about Hadestown. But once I started thinking about it, 2023 was a real return to form for me for seeing musicals, theater shows, and concerts. So let’s talk about what I managed to experience this year.
MoreI don’t read books quickly. I have a hard time creating large blocks of time for reading, primarily because I have many competing hobbies and media types. The main hack to increase my “reading” has been audio books, as I can fit them alongside a walk or commute. It still means my progress is broken up into ~30 minute increments, so it’s slow going (If you’re looking at a 300+ page 10 hour novel… that’s 20 daily trips to get through, or like 4 weeks). Also there are many times when I can’t focus enough for that (I’ve learned that during my commute home my brain is too crowded to handle an audiobook). But I still make progress.
MoreIn 2023 apparently all the pent up energy needed to come out and it was time to go to the theater. It looks like I saw ten movies in the theater which is… a lot for me, and certainly coming out of the past few years. Partially I was ready to get out, but also there were just some great movies to go see. I got very tired of that AMC movie quotes intro. Please stop.
MoreThis is a list of shows that I watched in 2023 that warranted commentary.
MoreThe year 2023 was a return to big events. I attended GenCon and PAX Unplugged (as well as returning to PAX West), all as a normal attendee not trying to exhibit or pitch prototypes. As such I had time to try new games and play with friends at conventions. The following are games I played this year that warranted mentioning.
MoreHere in 2023, my video game playing has been heavily influenced by two things. The first is playing with my ten-year-old daughter, choosing games that are content-appropriate and within her interests. The second is having an engaged group of friends that are interested in playing games together or apart, but then discussing them afterwards. These both have kept my playing dynamic and social in a way that really has worked for me. The following is a list of video games I played in 2023 (potentially released earlier) that warranted a mention.
MoreWe often bemoan the encroaching invasiveness of the modern digital age. Services like Facebook and Google are pretty notorious for collecting all kinds of data on us. The amount of information that they know about a single person can be a bit creepy. There’s a fair amount of faith required to trust that they will respect our privacy, and it’s clear that some are better at this than others. But there are times when I really appreciate my digital footprint. I like being able to explore my memory with the aid of some automatic stenographer in the cloud. It’s with this help that with a quick run through of Xbox and BoardGameGeek that I can tell you exactly what I played in 2012.
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