Let's do a 2024

Some things I like and some things I don't

You could be forgiven if you forgot about this blog. Apparently, there are at least a billion¹ of them now. I’m sure a good chunk of them will be running the content mill to produce some words about this past year or the next one. Thus, I am compelled - nay, demanded - to bring my content to the bevy of paragraphs offered up to the buffet for you. And I will do this in list form because that 💩 sells.

Some things I liked

In 2023 (and maybe will continue?)

1. Starfield (somehow 🤷‍♂️)

   1. The mix of exploring (albeit limited) and combat just scratches that itch in my brain.

2. AI as a creative jump-start

   1. Get some ideas, get a rough draft to iterate and make your own

   2. Speed up mundane tasks

3. Developing games

   1. Light Racer

   2. Frontier

4. “Feel Good” Songs²

   1. Lil Boo Thang by Paul Russell

   2. Shake It Off by Taylor Swift

   3. What’s Up? by 4 Non Blondes³

5. Quality Animated Films

   1. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem

   2. Spider-man: Across the Spiderverse

6. The Spurs

   1. Victor is pretty great, with the promise of more

   2. Probably another lottery pick on the way

   3. Lots of future draft picks are incoming

7. Started work on a fourth novel, Our Terrible Gods

Some things I didn’t like

1. Starfield (yeah)

   1. There’s something empty about the experience at times.

   2. Planets inevitably feel hollow or copy-pasted

2. AI ‘bros’

   1. A lot of content I see all over social media acting like AI is this get rich quick, unlock hustle and grind, replace artists with prompts shtick is just grating on my very last nerve.

   2. Uncreative people faking creativity and replacing craft with shortcuts.

3. Not finishing game development

   1. There are a lot of reasons WHY this is happening, but a lot of it comes down to not having enough time and motivation (seeing the trend yet?)

4. The Spurs (sigh)

   1. The Spurs confound me. They start with great ball movement and get double-digit leads, then squander them.

   2. Their offense turns to sludge at random.

   3. They have a 7’4” talent who they can’t lob the ball to for —- reasons?

5. Not finishing my third novel

   1. I wanted to finish What Hasn’t Been, but I just couldn’t find the time and motivation to do it this past year. 2024 is my year.

   2. You can read four chapters of it here.

6. This one TikTok comment I made that’s gotten 38,000 likes on it.

   1. It’s ruined my notifications.

   2. It was a dumb comment.

   3. My content gets 500-600 views at most.

A thing I meh’d this year

1. Rebel Moon

I wanted to like this. I mean really. As someone who wrote a lot of Star Wars fan fiction as a youth, I felt compelled to offer support to Zach Snyder’s attempt. But… It’s just not for me. I will probably watch the follow-up chapter coming out in April (because I’m a completionist⁴), but I was disappointed. A Seven Samurai with little character development and sputtering stop-and-start slow motion just took me out of what was really good action. Snyder’s ‘auteur’ style of grandiosity, poorly written stories with glitzy visuals, was just okay with his Justice League cut,⁵ but this feels like a continuation of that film in style. It didn’t earn its this-is-high-stakes-epic tone.

1. Okay - so more like 600 million.

2. Don’t read too much into this. I have no idea if these songs are ‘feel good’ or just make me feel good, ya’know?

3. My daughter Ruth calls this the Ninja Turtles song

4. Of other peoples’ content.

5. Anything was better than what Whedon did with it…