What I Watched - TV

Is anyone else exhausted by the amount of TV there is to consume right now? I know a million think pieces about Peak TV have already been written, but it remains true: there's too much good stuff to keep up. I've largely abandoned the idea of following along with anything as it airs, and instead am hoping to just catch it when it hits Netflix. But even Netflix has too much content! I could only watch Netflix Originals for the next year and I still wouldn't catch up. Maybe I should just stop trying altogether... In the meantime, though, some highlights of what I did manage to watch this year!

Luke Cage
Not surprisingly, Luke Cage was fantastic. Gorgeous, poignant, and still pretty fun, with great fight scenes and incredible music. In fact, the music was a highlight of this series, with outstanding performances that really added to the narrative. It's definitely worth watching!

Westworld
I was a little slow to get going on Westworld, but I am glad I finally got around to it. Dense, tightly plotted, and with a lot of lore packed in, it's definitely a series that would benefit from a rewatch. I wonder how much I might catch on a second viewing? And the environment and characters are interesting enough that I'm actually tempted to give it a try... I enjoyed Westworld and its twists and turns a lot!

Lovesick (Scrotal Recall) 
I think I first heard of Lovesick (formerly Scrotal Recall, rebranded for obvious reasons) ages ago, possibly on PCHH, and made a note to try and find it and then promptly forgot about it. Then it turned up on Netflix and I thought I should give it a go, so dumped it on my list and then forgot about it again. I finally got to it this summer, though, and it surprised me with how great it was. The first six episodes are poignant, hilarious, and filled with great music. One episode opens with a sequence of one character explaining the entirety of Point Blank to another... just trust me, it's great. I haven't finished the second season yet, and it isn't quite as perfect, but those first six episodes are just fantastic.

Stranger Things
I'm not sure it's worth writing about Stranger Things too much, since everyone who might like it has probably already seen it, but just to add my two cents: Stranger Things is great. Nostalgic while still being original, tense and thrilling, and just a lot of fun. I had a blast with it.

Galavant
I'll never stop being sad about the end of this perfect, ridiculous show. A sitcom musical? Set in a fantasy-ish medieval time? With Magnitude AND Vinnie Jones? Every thing you can say about this show makes it sound more ridiculous, but it's really, really great. The cast is incredible, the songs are awesome, and it's just really funny.

Bojack Horseman
The third season of Bojack was somehow the best, even though I would have said you couldn't keep going up with this series. It's a little more disjointed than other seasons, with more characters off in their own plots, but giving all this extra time to each character meant each storyline was a little stronger and more interesting. And the underwater episode, done with only a handful of words? Remarkable.

You're the Worst
Pajiba won't shut up about this show, and then finally PCHH did an entire segment about it, and that was enough to push me to seek it out. While I haven't finished the second season, and I haven't seen any of the third, yet, what I have seen is strong enough for me to push it on everyone I know. It's great. Darkly hilarious, it lives up to its name - the two main characters are terrible people, perfectly matched to each other, and constantly struggling, and their stories are excellent. It's smart and touching, and probably my favourite show this year.

The Best Things I Ate in 2016

Not surprisingly, I also ate out a lot this year - though I wound up cutting back considerably in the fall, out of busyness and to save a little money. I'll only post about newer to me restaurants here - while I may have eaten at some of these places before, it's only this year that I've come to appreciate them sufficiently!

Peckinpah
I decided I wanted barbecue for my birthday this year, and I got it! Everything I ate at Peckinpah was delicious. They have fried pickles, my personal obsession, and hush puppies, which I'd never had before but were great. And the meat platter? Yes, please! I'm already thinking about going back again this year.

Chill Winston's
Another birthday destination - though this time because there was a wait at Peckinpah - but also another favourite. It's my favourite bar in the city - some really excellent mixed drinks! - but their food is great too. They have a Ploughman's Platter with meat, cheese, pickles and bread that is just delicious, and the mustard included is incredible. Their desserts are good too!

Ouisi Bistro
This tiny, tucked-away Cajun place with an adorable patio out back is one of my best finds this year - though all credit goes to my friend Megan, who brought me here back in April. They have a mussel and fries special on Wednesdays, along with a double sidecar, and it's pretty much a perfect meal and experience.

Pocha Korea
I made it here a few times this year, each time got to try something new, and was always happy with the dishes I wound up with. Their bibimbap was great, and the best part of Korean food is always the delicious pickles served before the meal - and Pocha Korea delivered!

Fishworks
An excellent seafood place right on Lonsdale, everything we ate here was great - but especially the oysters. They were perfect, so light and fresh, and I can't stop thinking about them.

The Salmon House
We went there for an office dinner a few weeks ago, and while I'm not sure I could afford to eat there on my own, it was pretty great to experience. From the appetizers to the dessert, every dish was fantastic - including a duck leg confit that I can't stop thinking about. Their brunch is pretty reasonable, so I'm thinking of making plans to go back in the New Year.

Lucille's Smokehouse BBQ (Las Vegas) 
Lucille's is my favourite BBQ place in Las Vegas, and I should probably stop thinking about it since I'll only get hungry and angry I can't make it there any time soon. Their pulled pork and ribs are incredible, but the best part is the apple butter served with the biscuits - it's so cinnamon-y and salty and great, it's all I can think of now!

Miscellaneous 2016 Faves

I am going to try and write about some of the (excellent!) TV that came out in 2016, but before I do that I'm trying to finish Westworld, so that post might be a day or two away. Instead, this post is about the few things that don't quite fit into any other category.

Music
I don't listen to enough music, or enough new music, to really have a strong opinion or much to say about most of it. There are the obvious contenders, like Lemonade or the Hamilton cast album, but those have been novels worth of writing about those, by writers much more qualified and talented than me. Blackstar, too, was a great album that came out so early in 2016 I kind of keep forgetting that it was this year. And I never even really listened to Radiohead's newest, or Blonde, or A Tribe Called Quest's...

Basically, all of this to say 1. I'm kind of bad at music and 2. The only album I know was released in 2016 and that I listened to a lot was Phantogram's Three. And I loved that, so that's good! The single, "You Don't Get Me High Anymore", didn't stick out at first, but really grew on me and now makes me smile every time, and the album is front-loaded with strong beats just different enough to make it feel fresh and new. I even went to see them in concert at the Commodore and had a great time!

Websites
Joy the Baker posts a Sunday round up each week that I generally adore. There are a few articles, a few recipes, and a few miscellaneous links, and I always find something to entertain myself with for a bit.

Thrillist picked up Off the Menu after its multi-website tour and continues to host some pretty funny, bizarre kitchen and restaurant stories. It's a little hit and miss these days - seems like contributions must be drying up? - but when it's good, it's great.

Pajiba is my favourite pop culture website, and they're my go to for reviews and opinions on new media I want to find out more about. Plus, they have the rarest of all things - a comments section that's actually functional and entertaining, not just a cesspool!

Purchases
In a whirlwind of relief-buying, I bought myself a bullet journal the weekend after I wrote the CFE, and like so many hipsters before me, I freaking love it. I'm not great at keeping it perfectly up to date, but filling in different trackers and squares is so satisfying, and of course I love lists of all kinds. The original journal, with its point-graph pages, are great.

My kitchen has weird drawer-pulls, with an inch of metal sticking out of either end of the handle, to the end result that I broke two pairs of headphones within a year of moving in here. In the summer, I finally caved and bought a pair of wireless headphones, and I don't want to say they've changed my life, but they absolutely have improved it. I can put my phone on to charge and still listen to podcasts! I don't get tangled in wire when I'm getting things in and out of my kitchen cabinets! They're comfortable and slightly noise cancelling, so it's even easier to listen to all kinds of stuff. They're great.

After many years without a TV at all, and then the last year with a non-HD 32" TV with weird brightness settings, I celebrated finishing the CFE with a new 55" HDR 4K and it was 100% worth it. It's gorgeous, I can actually see what's happening, and even read text on the screen! I had forgotten that was a thing that was possible. It wasn't cheap, but I'm so so happy with it.

I let my exercise plan slide a bit while I spent all my time studying, so when I was done I wanted to get back to training more regularly. To do so, I picked up the Zombies, Run! 5K app, which has a built in training plan and a narrative about a little town making its way through the zombie apocalypse. The plan is easy to follow and definitely helped me run better and faster, and the story is interesting enough to keep me engaged. If increasing your running distance is your New Year's Resolution you might want to give it a try!

What I Watched - Film

Seeing as something had to give, it's not entirely surprising I didn't manage to watch a lot of movies this year. I actually only saw four in theatres, which is pretty disappointing! I definitely need to make more of an effort on this front next year. One advantage to having seen so few movies is that I really enjoyed everything I made an effort to see, though, all four movies I did see were great!

Zootopia
It took some convincing to get me out to see Zootopia, but I am glad I did. It was a fun movie, visually compelling and well-written. The universe is interesting and well-thought out, and the characters are great! I had a fun time with Zootopia.

Deadpool
I didn't have high expectations for Deadpool, but figured I'd see it so I knew what everybody else was talking about. I was actually surprised by how much I enjoyed it! It was hilarious, and way better than I expected it to be. Ryan Reynolds does such a great job as Deadpool, and the supporting cast shines - Negasonic Teenage Warhead is perfect! I liked it a lot!

Captain America: Civil War
This is one of the movies I was most excited about this year, and it held up! It's not a perfect film, but I enjoyed it, and I absolutely love Black Panther's introduction in this release. Not to mention Spiderman - I had no interest in the new Spiderman reboot until I saw his part in Civil War. The climactic group battle was a lot of fun, and the writing was snappy enough to make it pretty funny. If I had any complaints, it would be that for a Captain America movie, there wasn't a whole lot of Cap in it, but I'm not even sure I want to complain about that!

Ghostbusters
The only other movie I was super excited for, and it was probably even better. It might even be my favourite of the new movies I watched this year. It was hilarious, well done, and just a lot of fun. The cameos were great and not too distracting, and all four of the main ladies did a great job with the piece. I completely adored this one!

Other Movies I Watched This Year

Spy
I really like a lot of Melissa McCarthy's work, and Linda on Pop Culture Happy Hour has mentioned Spy as a good time more than once, so I finally made time to watch it this summer. It was great! Really funny, surprisingly foul-mouthed, and just a lot of fun, it was the perfect movie to unwind with.

Chef
I probably shouldn't be allowed to watch food movies, they just make me want to quit my job and open a restaurant/food truck/bakery. Chef did exactly that. It was beautiful, every dish they showed made my mouth water, and it was a fun little story that I'm glad I watached.

Inside Out
Is it becoming clear that I don't prioritize a lot of movies every year? I finally got to Inside Out this summer, and still haven't seen any number of other great (Pixar) movies. Inside Out was fun enough to make me feel like I should seek out more of them, though! The voice acting was excellent, and the film itself is gorgeous. I also love that Riley loved hockey - a cute little detail! I had fun with Inside Out, and I should really get to move Pixar stuff!

The Best Things I Cooked This Year

Cooking is one of my favourite hobbies to begin with, and when I’m deep in the books it’s one of the only indulgences I can justify – I can live without another episode of TV, but I am going to have to eat, right? I tried a lot of new recipes this year, and some of them turned out spectacularly!

Savoury Things

Roasted Broccoli Hero

This is from Alton Brown’s new cookbook, Everyday Cook, which as a sidebar is really good and you should definitely check out. When I read the description, I was skeptical that roasted broccoli would be robust enough to carry an entire sandwich, but I decided to try it anyway, and I am so incredibly glad I did. This is one of the best things I’ve made all year, and I’m so obsessed with it I’ve made it five times in the last month or so. I made it for dinner on Christmas Eve, too. God, I’m hungry just thinking about it.

Salad Rolls

I tried a few variations on salad rolls this year (including a pad thai one!), and came to the conclusion that they’re endlessly flexible and not as hard as they seem. It took me a few tries to master working with the rice paper, but now that I know how to handle it they come together in a snap. And let’s be real, the most important part of salad rolls is really the peanut sauce anyway.

Polenta Cakes

Did everybody else already know about polenta? Am I the last to find out? Why didn’t anybody tell me? I tried polenta for the first time this summer and was floored by how delicious it was. It was easy to prepare and it held up well for leftovers, so it’s basically my new favourite thing. Polenta with everything!

Vegetarian Bean Chili

Chili without meat in it? I know, I know, but hear me out: it was freakin’ fantastic. Without meat to carry the chili, the flavour is much stronger and just better, and the partially blended chickpeas actually gave it a really pleasant texture. It’s a little hard to source all of the chilies up in the frozen wilds of Canada (I made it while I was in Vegas, with better access to chili peppers), and I accidentally made my batch terrifyingly spicy, but it was a great meal that I wound up eating for almost a week straight. Try it, you might like it!

Sweet Things

Nutella Stuffed Browned Butter Blondies

These are a bit of production, with steps like browning the butter and piping Nutella and freezing it to “stuff” the brownies with, but it pays off! They’re complex, with lots of different flavours, and very, very tasty. Not a brownie to make on a whim, but still worth the effort!  

Brown Cow Popsicles

I’ve had a few popsicles on my “to-try” lists for a while, and with the ridiculous heat this summer I finally made the time to get to it. This one is very simple but very good. I cheated and used store-bought brownies which meant that the whole thing took about twenty minutes to assemble, and then much longer as I waited anxiously for the damn things to freeze. They were an easy, cool treat on the hottest days though, so the wait was worth it!

Chocapocalypse Cookies

Another Alton Brown recipe, these cookies were completely fantastic. I honestly don’t understand how they don’t crumble into pieces, given that they’re basically made of chocolate and nothing else, but I don’t really care as they’re a way to convey four different kinds of chocolate and cocoa nibs into my mouth in one convenient bite.

Confetti Cookies

This is a really quick, simple cookie recipe that’s made even better by the addition of colourful, tasty sprinkles! It’s my new go-to cookie, can be whipped up in minutes (even with the short refrigeration sometimes needed), and the sprinkles make them stand out amongst beige & brown baked goods of all stripes. The main problem with this cookie is that they’re so bright and irresistible, it’s hard to stop from eating the whole batch!

Kouign amann

These took an entire day to make (longer, actually, since it needed to be refrigerated overnight) and I stayed up entirely too late making them, but as a project, it was really satisfying. Kneading the dough, punching it down, rolling it out, flipping it, and doing it all over again – it was a meditative process that brought me into the moment. And the end result was very tasty. At the time, I thought I would never go through the process again, but I find myself thinking about the afternoon I spent working with the dough with a touch of nostalgia. If I do it again, I might not make my own puff pastry, but then again, maybe I will.

What I Played in 2016

I played a lot of video games in 2016! I managed to make it to my goal of finishing 12 games (and counting!) and I did make my way through a few worth talking about. 

Baldur’s Gate

Yes, I know this game originally came out in 1998. I actually played it back then, too! I thought I had finished it when I was a kid, but the further into the Enhanced Edition I got, the more obvious it became that I never got much past the first few chapters. That made the experience of finally completing it even more fun, and I’m glad I finally got around to it. It is an older game, even with the Enhanced Edition, so the combat is outdated and the graphics aren’t much to look at, but the story is still strong and the experience overall was a lot of fun. I’m looking forward to getting into Baldur’s Gate II, too!

The Witcher

I have this weird condition where, whenever at all possible or plausible, I really, really want to experience all of the pieces of a trilogy, even when it’s not at all advisable. (The condition may be called, being human.) Resultantly, I decided I wanted to take a stab at the original Witcher so that I could fully experience its world before diving into the much-lauded third instalment. And I did! It was not really worth it. The Witcher is janky, ugly, cringingly misogynistic, and the story is convoluted, nonsensical, and not entirely satisfying. It did have a few neat ideas – I actually really liked its combat, with the clicking combos that required some timing – but overall I have to recommend you skip it. That being said, I have already started the Witcher 2, and it’s much better – smoother, prettier, and at least Triss is wearing clothes – so I’m excited to polish it off and finally move on to 3. By the time I get to it, they’ll probably be releasing the fourth instalment.

Portal 2
Another game I should have finished a long, long time ago, but my copy has some weird glitch where I'd routinely get booted back to Chapter 3 after getting most of the way through Chapter 7 or 8. On the bright side, this did mean I got to enjoy the line "How are you holding up? Because I'm a potato." many times, which did brighten the experience. Still, I finally made it to the end game, laughed a lot, and am glad that I got to finish it! 

To The Moon

A short and sweet little game about memories, grief, and what kinds of experiences stay with us, To The Moon is more of a visual novel than a game – aside from a few simple puzzles and a lot of clicking, there’s no actual gameplay to be had. Still, it was a fun story, and the ending made me curious about the next game.

XCOM

Another case of “I want to play the sequel, so I’ll start at the beginning” – though in this case from the rebooted start. Much as I might like to play the originals, I have no intention of going all the way back to those old beasts. XCOM was probably my favourite game this year, and I had a lot of fun playing it. I love a good RTS, and the resource management angle is even more robust and more fun than in most games I’ve played before.   My only real complaint about XCOM is simply that it was too short. I’ve been eyeing XCOM 2 for months already, waiting for a price drop, and it hasn’t quite 

come down to where I’m hoping, so I guess I get to live with the excitement a little longer!

Transistor

By the same studio who made Bastion, Supergiant Games, Transistor is vibrant, beautiful, and compelling. Its combat mechanic is unique and fascinating, and the environment, music and atmosphere are fantastic. Everything about the game design is unusual and interesting, and I had a good time with it. It’s a pretty short game, and on sale for less than $5 right now, so you should give it a try if you’d like! I’m excited to see what they put out next.

Until Dawn
Until Dawn is the game that finally lets you make all the decisions in a horror movie, and see how you'd stack up. Decisions carry through, but not always, and the setting is tense and creepy enough that I got a few good scares in. I had a blast playing it - with a group of people so we could decide together - and while mechanically it isn't super challenging, the story is exciting and scary enough to keep me interested. I still want to do another playthrough or two to see more of the endings!

Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright

Fire Emblem is always a blast, and Birthright was a lot of fun. Hard, as expected, and the story was a little hand-wavy, but building a base, levelling my squad, and marrying off all my characters scratched all my Fire Emblem itches. I still have Conquest to play through, but Permadeath makes every encounter a challenge, so that’s going to be slow going for a while!

Uncharted 4

Gorgeous, well-constructed, and a lot of fun, Uncharted 4 was the perfect game to unwind with. The new/improved stealth mechanics tweaked the way I played just enough to make it feel all-new, and the incredible animations and environments were wonderful to look at. And while I’m a little sad Nate’s story is over, I can’t wait for the planned stand-alone DLC with Chloe. 

Other Games I Finished This Year

Gone Home
Uncharted

Uncharted 2

Uncharted 3

Best Reads of 2016

Though I read a lot this year – way more than I was expecting given that I spent nine months of the year studying – it seems that I didn’t end up reading a tonne of books that I really, really liked. Only five books made it onto my Favourites shelf this year, and only a few more got five-star status. Goodreads says that my average rating this year was 3.4 stars, which sounds about right – mostly threes and fours, with a few really bad ones and twos to drag the average down slightly. The handful of books that did make it into my favourites, and my memory, deserve to be talked about here! Caveat: the year isn't over yet, and I'll probably finish four or five more books in the next week or so, but for now, this is what I'm working with. 

Favourites

The View from the Cheap Seats, Neil Gaiman

I’ve read a lot of Gaiman and I always like his fiction, but it wasn’t until I made my way through this anthology, collecting essentially every essay he has written in his career, that I realized how much I enjoy his non-fiction. From introductions to the works of others to an essay written as a young reporter about wandering around London for 24 hours, his non-fiction voice is like reading a letter from a friend. I had originally planned to read one essay at a time, then work on a fiction piece for a while, but I enjoyed the writing so much I often read several in a row. If you enjoy Gaiman’s fiction or just clever writing mostly focused on pop culture, you should give it a read!

The Obelisk Gate, NK Jemisin

This was honestly probably the best book I read this year. I read The Fifth Season, book one in the series, last year, and really enjoyed it, but felt it was a little too heavy on the world-building – so naturally I wanted to see if it paid off. It absolutely did. Jemisin’s world is robust and fascinating, with enough hints to puzzle out incredible lore but an action-packed story keeping me from taking the time to really sit and explore the ideas she’s presented. I’m already dying to read the third book in the series, and can’t wait for it to come out. In the meantime, I should probably re-read both to see what I might have missed. I can’t recommend it enough, and while TFS wasn’t quite as good, it’s well worth it to bring you into this world.

Exit, Pursued by a Bear, EK Johnston

A compact, tightly-written novel about a cheerleader who is sexually assaulted while at cheer camp, Exit was gripping and tense. Hermione is a compelling protagonist and watching the way she deals with the situations she’s been put in kept me roaring through the book. I read it in a day, since I couldn’t handle waiting for resolution.

The Rest of Us Just Live Here, Patrick Ness

I’d heard a lot about this book before picking it up, but still wasn’t expecting much, let alone to be blown away like I was. A YA novel about the “normal” kids during the events of a fantasy-skewed YA novel, it’s a great coming-of-age story that manages to blend the surreal elements of this world with some of the more surreal experiences of teenagerdom. It was really evocative of those experiences, and after reading it I felt pleasantly melancholic, reminiscing about my own teenage years and high school experiences.

salt., Nayyirah Waheed

 Am I a person who reads poetry now? I might be a person who reads poetry now. I’m not sure what to make of it, but as introductions go, salt. is a great place to start. Beautiful, poignant, and thought-provoking, I would often put the reader down and just sit with Waheed’s remarkable words, rolling them around in my mind, seeing the beauty and pain of her world. I wanted to devour her poems, and I forced myself to wait, space them out, savour them, but I still keep revisiting and thinking through them again and again. If you have any interest in poetry at all, or interest in becoming interested (it’s an ongoing project for me!) you should absolutely check it out. Her other collection, Nejma, is also worth checking out.

Miscellaneous Five-Stars:

Notorious RBG: the Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Irin Carmon & Shana Knizhnik

When Breath Becomes Air, Paul Kalanithi

Year of Yes: How to Dance It Out, Stand In the Sun, and Be Your Own Person, Shonda Rhimes

Nimona, Noelle Stevenson

Paper Girls, Brian K. Vaughn, Cliff Chiang, & Matthew Wilson

A Little Life, Hanya Yanagihara