- Media Diet: January 2023
- Media Diet: February 2023
- Media Diet: March 2023
- Media Diet: June 2025
- Media Diet: April 2023
Books
Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson – A decent, light fantasy story set in an interesting world. I haven’t read Sanderson since Mistborn (and haven’t gotten to where he took over Wheel of Time yet) but my assessment of him as a someone in the model of Stephen King (prolific, reliable, mild) holds up.
Movies
Morbius – Wasted opportunity.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie – Exceeded my high expectations.
Games
Dyson Sphere Program (continued) – I’ve keep chipping away at this, going far beyond I have in the past and chipping away at achievements. The end game isn’t terribly strong, but in the game’s defense, they haven’t finished it yet. I’d love to see them close the loop with technology and development and bring it around to where you’re working towards some kind of infinite loop or singularity.
Television
Slow Horses, Season 1 – I generally favor single-threaded stories that focus on craft, details, and execution rather than checking every box, and this show was very much that. Despite being slightly awkward and somewhat slow for a spy “thriller”, I enjoyed it.
Mayor of Kingstown, Season 2 – The first season was kind of a mess, but hinted at a clearer “now that we got that settled (with copious violence of course, because Taylor Sheridan)” second season. Instead, it just got messier. This is a world that is both implausibly violent and implausibly ordered, and draws a connection between those two things that feels more like fascist fantasy than storytelling. I bailed after a few episodes.
The Mandalorian, Season 3 – A disappointing but fortunately conclusive end to arcs started in prior seasons. The charm and adventure of the earlier episodic stories was forgotten in service to a grand arc that it was hard to really care about.
Sports
Red Sox – Expectations are low this year for the Red Sox for a number of reasons, so it was fun to watch them outperform for most of April.
Boston Bruins (playoffs) – I’m not a hockey fan, but my son is interested in playing, so I figured I’ll get interested in watching. To my untrained eye, the heavily-favorited and record-breaking Bruins just didn’t look like a better team than the bottom-seeded Florida Panthers that they ended up losing to, but I at least got a sense of hockey’s unique flavor of drama and tension.
In Progress
Crossroads of Twilight by Robert Jordan – Grind. Grind. Grind