lavendersparkle

It’s been ages since I did one of these! But I haven’t been reading or watching much that I want to talk about the last couple of months. I read a couple of things that I just don’t have anything to say about, and a ton of fic which I never include in these round ups. And I’ve watched almost nothing – not even mini dramas

But there’s couple of things I did want to talk about and I thought it would be nice to post about the last little bit of 2025 media before I start a new running notes document for the new year.

Crush of Music—This Chinese reality show is the one thing I have been watching recently. Crush of music is a show where songwriters demo original songs and then through a mildly gameifed process are matched with a singer (or two) who then performs the song. It’s the second season of Melody Journey, but I have no idea why the English title is different (the Chinese title is the same) It's a really fun low stress show and features some of my favorite singers! (Liu Yuning and Zhou Shen) I can't really rec the show though because the subtitles are very very bad -- I'm just watching anyway even though I can only understand about half of what people are saying. But it turns out that not understanding the show makes for very slow watching

Off Menu: A Graphic Novel written by Oliver Gerlach drawn by Kelsi Jo Silva—Cute YA graphic novel in D&D-ish world. It’s about a cook called Soup – kind of a coming of age thing with lots of cooking and community. Very Charming!

The Fellowship of The Ring— R has been reading LotR to the kid, they haven’t quite finished but they are close enough to done that we watched the 1st movie. I’ve never been huge into LotR but it was fun to watch – so many classic lines! I did kinda find myself wishing that the characters' names would show up on screen the first time they appear the way they do in the cdrama I watch. NZ remains very beautiful!

ghoti_mhic_uait

This year, I moved from Goodreads to Storygraph, so I've completely ignored the Goodreads Choice Awards. But that's more or less what my list was based on when I first did it, which I think was for 2023?

My aim for the year was to read longer books, and I managed that, with an average page count of 328 (the previous two years my average page count was 319). I read 174 books in total, of which 85 ebooks, 79 print, and 10 audio. 159 fiction, 14 nonfiction. At some point early in the year I realised that I enjoy reading nonfiction so have been trying to read more of that, and that is an increase - in 2024, I read 197 books, of which only 5 were nonfiction (and 8 ebooks - an audiologist at one point told me I should listen to audiobooks 15 minutes a day to train my ear to different accents and I'm still not perfect at that but I think I'm getting better?)

Anyway, you didn't come for the waffle, you came for the books.

( Here be books )

Category differences from last year; no mythology or historical fantasy (because I read less of both), twice as many children's category, new book, haunted house, and the comedy entry from 2023 got added back.

rmc28

I had Kodiaks practice on the evening of 30 December, which meant getting home very late as usual. I did get up and out for the last hot yoga class of my festive pass in the morning of 31 December. From there I did a run into town to pay in a cheque (a cheque!) to N's savings account on the last possible day before it expired. After I got home, I looked at how many tickets remained for the public skate I was booked on, did some subtraction and decided the rink would be too full and I was too tired, so I cancelled the Last Skate Of The Year, and had a nap instead. It was marvellous.

In the evening we had a little family movie night with drinks and snacks:

Chicken Run (which everyone but Nico had seen before)
Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget (which only Nico had seen before) - fun, but omg there were bad parenting choices, and excessive ~suspense~ due to even more bad choices in the final action sequence
Wake Up Dead Man (which Nico was uninterested in, but the other three of us enjoyed)

We managed to finish the last film with about fifteen minutes to go before midnight, so I put on BBC One on iPlayer and we watched some Ronan Keating and then the fireworks from London, and then I left Ronan Keating providing background music while sending and replying to HNY messages on my phone until I decided sleep was a better plan.

This morning I got up and used a free gym pass to get to a weights class, and confirm my opinion that I want to return to a regular gym routine. I met friends M, J & K for pub drinks this afternoon, and spent a bunch of time afterwards sorting out logistics for ice hockey games on Saturday (Kodiaks 1 are away in Chelmsford, Kodiaks 2 are "home" in Peterborough).

Tomorrow I will take Nico to a pantomime in the morning, work a half day in the afternoon, and go to Warbirds practice in the evening.

rmc28

New-to-me books read this year: 128
(Note for this exercise: I count audiobooks separately from paper/ebooks. I like both experiences but they are different experiences and different "books" to me, whereas reading paper or ebook feels interchangeable to me. My default is to read ebook, audiobooks and physical books are tagged as variations from the default.)

( Read more... )

Rereads: 19

( Read more... )

If you want to know more about a specific book I read in 2025, ask me about it. Or pick a random number between 1 and 147 and ask me to talk about that book.

Books acquired in 2025 and not yet read: 19

( Read more... )

[1] Pre-order
[2] Audiobook
[3] Physical book

rmc28

Books on pre-order:

Platform Decay (Murderbot 8) by Martha Wells (5 May 2026)
Radiant Star (Imperial Radch) by Ann Leckie (12 May 2026)

Books acquired in December:

and read:
1. Last Victim of the Monsoon Express (Baby Ganesha) by Vaseem Khan
2. Harmonic Pleasure (Mysterious Arts 6) by Celia Lake
and unread:
1. Park Avenue by Renée Ahdieh
2. Wounded Christmas Wolf by Lauren Esker
3. Gift of the Magpie (Fated Mountain Lodge) by Lauren Esker
4. Claiming the Tower (Council Mysteries 1) by Celia Lake
5. Apt to be Suspicious (Liminal Mysteries 2) by Celia Lake
and previously read:
1. The Green and the Grey by Timothy Zahn
2. Triplet by Timothy Zahn

Books acquired previously and read in December:

Percy Jackson and the Last Olympian by Rick Riordan [May 2016]
The Lost Hero (Heroes of Olympus 1) by Rick Riordan [May 2016]
The Son of Neptune (Heroes of Olympus 2) by Rick Riordan [May 2016]
The Mark of Athena (Heroes of Olympus 3) by Rick Riordan [May 2016]
The House of Hades (Heroes of Olympus 4) by Rick Riordan [May 2016]
The Blood of Olympus (Heroes of Olympus 5) by Rick Riordan [May 2016]

Borrowed books read in December:

The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year by Ally Carter
The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson [3]
Bad Day at the Vulture Club (Baby Ganesha 5) by Vaseem Khan [3]
Inspector Chopra and the Million Dollar Motor Car (Baby Ganesha) by Vaseem Khan [3]
Katabasis by R.F. Kuang
The Demigod Files by Rick Riordan [3]
The Demigod Diaries by Rick Riordan [3]
The Red Pyramid (Kane Chronicles 1) by Rick Riordan [3]
The Throne of Fire (Kane Chronicles 2) by Rick Riordan [3]

I was right about how much I could read this month when I bought books, I was wrong about how easily I was going to get diverted by reading borrowed books instead. I finished up the Inspector Chopra series and intend to move on to the Malabar House series by Vaseem Khan once I've read and returned more of the Rick Riordan backlist.

[1] Pre-order
[2] Audiobook
[3] Physical book
[4] Crowdfunding
[5] Goodbye read
[6] Cambridgeshire Reads/Listens
[7] FaRoFeb / FaRoCation / Bookmas / HRBC
[8] Prime Reading / Kindle Unlimited

forestofglory

Happy New Years Everyone! Here's the last several days of DecRecs recs. I have once again recced all the Decs! The last few days I've been really tried and it was bit of challenge to rec stuff but I did it!. I hope you found something to enjoy in all these recs

Day 26
You know how I watched a bunch of crossdressing girl dramas eariler this year? One of them was Sungkyunkwan Scandal - a classic kdrama about a girl who crossdresses to attend an all male school - I liked it a lot!
Anyways after I watched I went to see if there was any fic on ao3. And there was quite a bit most of it centered around a side m/m ship which i hadn't thought much about while watching the show. But after reading the fic I ship it!

This is all a run up to today's #DecRecs which is a fic for that ship!

dark under the lamp by wakeupnew

https://archiveofourown.org/works/28127289/chapters/68916450

I really liked the characterization and how the it added magic elements to the setting in way that felt very natural . Also it's just a lot of fun! (and I think you could read it without knowing the source material)

Day 27
Today for #DecRecs I want to talk about the cool campaign game R and I have been playing: Earthborne Rangers!
It's a solar punk game where you play rangers whose job is to wander around and help people and nature.
Your characters are represented by a deck of cards each. There are some very fun abilities. My character has a pet ferret, and I can summon a friend! R's character can talk beings on walks to bond with them!

Day 28
Today for #DecRecs I want to talk about rotating teapots.
These are really clever gadgets that work pretty much like a gaiwan but with less wrist action which is great for people like me who have hand problems! They also might be good if you find the whole gaiwan thing a bit intimating!
Here's a picture of one so you can see how it works better

( Read more... )

denise posting in

dw_maintenance

Привет and welcome to our new Russian friends from LiveJournal! We are happy to offer you a new home. We will not require identification for you to post or comment. We also do not cooperate with Russian government requests for any information about your account unless they go through a United States court first. (And it hasn't happened in 16 years!)

Importing your journal from ЖЖ may be slow. There are a lot of you, with many posts and comments, and we have to limit how fast we download your information from ЖЖ so they don't block us. Please be patient! We have been watching and fixing errors, and we will go back to doing that after the holiday is over.

I am very sorry that we can't translate the site into Russian or offer support in Russian. We are a much, much smaller company than LiveJournal is, and my high school Russian classes were a very long time ago :) But at least we aren't owned by Sberbank!

С Новым Годом, and welcome home!

EDIT: Большое спасибо всем за помощь друг другу в комментариях! Я ценю каждого, кто предоставляет нашим новым соседям информацию, понятную им без необходимости искать её в Google. :) И спасибо вам за терпение к моему русскому переводу с помощью Google Translate! Прошло уже много-много лет со школьных времен!

Thank you also to everyone who's been giving our new neighbors a warm welcome. I love you all ❤️

liv

My mother died in March. That feels like basically the only thing that happened this year, but of course it's not. Theoretically you stay in full mourning for a parent for a whole year (which hasn't ended yet); I haven't quite managed that, as done properly it's really quite intense, no social gatherings or live music for example, but it has definitely been the major theme in my life. And helping Dad to figure out what his life will be like as a widow.

I continued to be a student rabbi, making it through to the halfway point of my studies. I took on more and more complex rabbinic work, and got to know the incoming first year students. (We're the grownups now, there is actually only one finalist ahead of my cohort.) My much awaited and also somewhat dreaded trip to Israel got cancelled, due to the decision point coinciding with the particularly scary time when Israel was actively at war with Iran. I did some other short travel, even making it to Germany and Sweden.

Significant events:

Mum went from being officially terminally ill but mostly coping at the beginning of the year, to the drugs not working and being in a lot of pain in January-February, to actively dying. March-April was all the immediate aftermath of her death.
I had a few days with jack in Skegness, which I remember basically nothing about because it was in the middle of the final weeks of Mum's life. I think we stayed in a cute tiny house and did a bit of walking in the countryside. I have more memories of our trip to Norfolk in May.
I spent a very intense and overwhelming week in Germany at an Abrahamic faith retreat.
doseybat and verazea got married on a lightship on the Thames, and my partners had a Jewish blessing of their 20-year-old marriage, both on the same weekend.
I did a completely absurd amount of travelling for the High Holy Days, first day Rosh HaShanah in Southampton, second day in the Isle of Wight accompanied by the intrepid cjwatson, Shabbat Shuva in Stoke, Yom Kippur in Cornwall where I had to respond to the first fatal antisemitic attack in this country in my lifetime, Succot back home in Cambridge, a very flying visit to Sweden for the Shabbat during Succot with ghoti_mhic_uait, and back for Simchat Torah and returning to college.

( other wrap-ups )

Previous versions: [2004] [2005] [2006] [2007] [2008] [2009] [2010] [2011] [2012] [2013] [2014] [2017] [2018] [2019] [2020] [2021] [2022] [2023][2024] Amazingly this is my 19th review of the year; I've been going since 2004 but there were a couple of years in the middle I missed out.

Current Music: Nine Inch Nails (feat Judeline): Who wants to live forever

rmc28

I managed to get out for my yoga classes Saturday and Sunday mornings. Saturday afternoon I spent a lot of time faffing and failing to go to the public skates I'd tentatively pencilled in; eventually I dragged myself out for the last one and unsurprisingly I felt much better for having done so. It was much easier to drag myself there on Sunday, and I had a bonus surprise meeting with a work colleague, and a lovely long chat while we skated.

Then it turned out Charles's usual lift to hockey practice (alternate Sunday evenings) had fallen through, so I said I'd take him. I had the bright idea of asking the coach if there was room for me to hop on too as a one-off addition to the class, and so I got a bonus 2-hour ice hockey practice. Oh, that felt so good.

Yesterday I switched things up and took Nico swimming in the early afternoon, which I found surprisingly tiring, and went to yoga in the evening. I got chatting to a fellow student afterward, and it turns out she also works for the university on the same site as me, and knows some of my colleagues, because Cambridge is Like That. We swapped some class recommendations and may stay in touch.

I'm really glad I picked up the hot yoga pass, it's been fun to do regularly and if nothing else it's ensured I left the house pretty much every day. If money were no object I might consider a more regular membership, but it's pretty expensive when not on a promotional pass. Plus between my hockey commitments and the additional gym sessions I want to add in January, I'm really not sure I have the time. Maybe I'll think about it again after the university season is over.

Tomorrow I'll see out the old year with one last yoga class, and then go to the last public skate of the year at the rink in the early afternoon. I'm vaguely planning a movie night with Tony and the offspring, watch the fireworks broadcast from London, and then probably zonk.

Aside from exercise I've mostly been reading, with a side of listening to hockey podcasts fall in love with Heated Rivalry.

jack

Play online: https://cartesiandaemon.github.io/rusttilegame/programming_release.html

Drag instructions onto the flowchart and press space or click the map to start executing. On later levels click the map while executing to increase the speed.

Since my last post I added some more programmer-y levels up to level 15, cleaned up some of the earlier levels, and improved a bunch of UI things like saving which levels you've unlocked. Most easily played on web, on either desktop or mobile, but you can clone the source and build for windows or linux too. (https://github.com/CartesianDaemon/rusttilegame I should compile a windows binary to download too if that would be useful for anyone.)

If you do play, it would be really helpful to hear how far you got. And if you have time, which levels were easy, which were hard, what was nice or difficult about the UI, etc.

rmc28

Shoresy is a Canadian comedy show about an ice hockey team, currently available to stream on ITVX. It is very crude (swearing, sex & toilet humour) and very funny, and it loves hockey. The episodes are short, around 20 minutes, and the seasons only have six of them, so it's relatively fast watching.

(ITVX insists on checking in with me at the start of each episode that I really want to watch "very strong language and adult humour". This made it great for watching in bed because if I fell asleep, it wouldn't keep playing past the end of the current episode.)

Anyway, despite the aforementioned crudity, it is often weirdly wholesome. There's a lot of little repeated catchphrases, I think maybe the show's own meta-commentary on how much of hockey discussion is cliché-ridden, but like Terry Pratchett wrote, sometimes things become clichés because they are true. Hockey brings people together. Hockey players give back. By the community, for the community. Go till you can't go no more. Episode 3.6 in particular manages to capture how a high-stakes hockey game feels, and is probably my favourite of the entire four seasons.

So anyway, this weird crude funny show got past my usual reluctance to watch TV on my own, and even to rewatch some of my favourite parts. I gather season 5 started showing in Canada on 25 December, but no idea if it too will come to ITVX.

(Trivia point: the executive producer of Heated Rivalry is Jacob Tierney, who also produced Shoresy. I didn't realise this until I'd started watching, but ok, this guy loves ice hockey, just like Rachel Reid does, no wonder he chose to adapt her books.)

rmc28

We had our usual quiet Christmas Day: stockings, family zoom, salmon-elevenses, roast bird dinner with my brother Jonny, a silly film (Shaun the Sheep: Farmageddon). I even managed to drag the children out to the park for an hour or so before dinner, including some table tennis and frisbee.

One of my personal Christmas traditions is watching the Nutcracker, usually in a cinema broadcast, and I just couldn't make that work this winter. So I was really charmed to find a broadcast of the Royal Ballet's production on iPlayer; the advantage of watching it at home is that I can have a quiet chat with my brother alongside without bothering anyone else.

This morning I woke up nice and early and headed out for another of my booked hot yoga sessions, followed by dropping in on my old friend Shaun for a long-overdue catchup. This afternoon has mostly been reading and TV, and the evening will probably continue the same way.

forestofglory

Day 22
Today for #DecRecs I want to talk about Saint Cavish a Chinese food youtube channel run by Christopher St. Cavish
https://www.youtube.com/@saintcavish
I'm always a little careful about media by white dudes about China but I was intrigued by the series of videos where Italian chefs visit "China's Noodle Homeland" -- which turned out to be really good! I've since watched a lot more of the channels videos
The videos are thoughtful, never treating the food as too weird or exotic and do a good job of putting stuff in context both historical and with regard to modern China

Day 23
Today for #DecRecs I want to rec fancy seam finishing for sewing projects! I mentioned in an earlier rec that this year I've been sewing a lot of garments for myself. For all of those I've used either french seams or flat felled seams and they are so nice to look at and so stratifying to make!

Day 24
I had PT this morning and it wore me out so for #DecRecs have a pretty picture

https://www.tumblr.com/hisiheyah/794758124462637056/as-the-leaves-on-the-trees-change-with-the

I guess I can link this to the whole year in review theme of this year's #DecRecs by saying that this year I started a tumblr account -- I still don't understand tumblr culture so I just follow people I know and reblog pretty pictures

Day 25
For today's #DecRecs I want to share some of my favorite songs so far form the Chinese reality show Crush of Music which I'm part way through watching having just finished episode 4

Crush of music is a show where songwriters demo original songs and then through a mildly gameifed process are matched with a singer (or two) who then preforms the song.
It's a really fun low stress show and features some of my favorite singers ! I can't really rec the show though because the subtitles are very very bad -- I'm just watching in anyways even though I can only understand about half of what people are saying
Anyways on to the songs! Here's Liu Yuning having the best time rocking his heart out

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThwZSs1MTqo

Zhou Shen singing with cute children!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBlR8iSsrTc

I am constantly so impressed with Xue Zhiqian's stage designs (also featuring cute children)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h29GaZroe4g

There's two version of this song and I can't decide which one I like better

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fkxr0uqhgHs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pO9kRZ3JsKw

rmc28

Yesterday (Christmas Eve) I worked a half day from home before finishing for the year. I spoke to a few of my family on the phone. I went skating with some of my uni teammates on the last public skate until Saturday, but sadly failed to persuade any of the others to wear a santa hat along with me. I brought a teammate's kit back to my house so I know I have it to take to meet her in Prague next month (did I mention I'm going to hockey camp near Prague in January with the Women's Blues? same coaches & place as I went to last June). I got stocking supplies for the household.

In the early evening Tony, Charles and I gathered for the ritual watching of Die Hard and followed it with Knives Out. I enjoyed both films very much, still. I filled the stockings for everyone before going to bed, and fell asleep over a library book.

I am grateful for my home, my family, my friendships, and all the good things in my life.

rmc28

Turns out one of my uni hockey friends has a long-standing history channel on YouTube, and of course he made a video about ice hockey history. I think I'd have liked it even if I didn't know the creator, enjoy:

Watch on YouTube

rmc28

The hot yoga place has two levels of classes: "hotpod flow" and "nurturing flow". In January I found the nurturing one a bit too relaxing and slow, and I've been doing the free yoga classes through work pretty consistently all year, so I thought sure, I'll be fine in the standard class. I'll have to modify some of the harder positions but I'm used to that.

It was hot in the class. Not sauna hot, but I was definitely finding it harder than I'd expected based on the January classes. I took the teacher at her word about it being fine to take breaks and drink water as needed, but well before the end I just had to stop, sit, and let my heart rate come down. She checked in with me, and I assured her that I know my body and I'm not going to let myself faint, but yes it was harder than I'd expected. I've switched my classes for the next couple of days to the "nurturing flow", so we'll see how that goes.

slightly gross body stuff

My workout clothes were saturated when I finished. I thought I was sweaty after Huskies practice (two hours skating hard, trying to keep up with young men), but this was a new level. Luckily I had a hoodie and skirt to throw over the top for the bike ride home - it's a weirdly mild December week but not so mild I wanted evaporative cooling all the way. Absolutely everything went in the wash when I got home.

I emptied my 950ml water bottle in/just after the practice, and had another couple of litres of water over the course of the evening, this time with my trusty electrolyte tablets, and managed to see off the lurking dehydration headache. I'm going to make sure there's electrolytes in the in-class bottle too from tonight onward.

forestofglory

Here's some more recent DecRecs!

Day 18
Today is one of those days where I really wish I was capable of napping. But since that isn't going to work I'm planning on spending some time curled up on the sofa with an ereader full of fic an hopefully a cat on my lap
So for today's #DecRecs I want to rec one of my favorite fics ever "on a long journey" by twigofwillow
https://archiveofourown.org/works/29819775/chapters/73366473

This is a Lan Sizhui centric post-canon CQL fic and It's really the best!

Things I love about "On a Long Journey":
*It's beautifully written
*The characterization is so perfect!
*The way the story is non-linear and includes. memories, stories and letters (Jiang Cheng's letter is so funny and pitch prefect)
*found family and good feelings while still letting people be complex and messy!

Day 19
For today's #DecRecs I have a really cool boardgame that I first played this year Vantage by Designer Jamey Stegmaier
basically your party crash lands on an alien planet and you are all in different locations, represented by illustrated cards. You can tell the other people about the cards but not show them the cards

It's very fail forward game, so you kinda wander around and interact with the environment and maybe complete some goals. There's lots of cool stuff to do! Once I have taken a child on an adventure, almost gotten eaten by a dragon, and stolen a flying vehicle!

( Read more... )

rmc28

Sunrise at 08:07
Sunset at 15:49

On this shortest day of the year, Nico and I went to Clip-n-Climb first thing, cycling there and back together through a heavily overcast but weirdly mild December day. We did a little Co-op run on the way home, and then I unpacked the hire car before returning it. I decided against buses or scooters and walked the hour or so back home, including a little diversion to collect a yoga towel from Decathlon. If all goes to plan, I will cycle to hot yoga this evening in the dark (and quite probably the rain) for the first of my "festive pass" sessions.

(I mean it about being weirdly mild: both cycling and walking I had to take my hoodie off because I was too hot.)

Technically I started the 21st of December still awake at midnight, and watching the first couple of episodes of Shoresy, a Canadian comedy TV show about ice hockey, on a friend's recommendation. (Same director/executive producer as Heated Rivalry although I didn't realise that until after I'd started watching.) Very crude, very funny.

Ice hockey, climbing, walking outdoors, yoga. Spending time with my offspring, thinking of my friends, and taking care of myself. If this is a turning day of the year, it's a good set of things to mark it.

Strictly we are not yet into the "mellandagarna", the in-between days of Christmas-to-New-Year. I'm still working until lunchtime on Wednesday, but a lot of the usual rhythms of my life and my household are paused now. School's out, hockey practice is out, everything has "holiday opening hours" listed and I'm feeling a bit unmoored. (Being ill most of the last fortnight probably hasn't helped.) My yoga pass is part of my attempt to put a little structure on the downtime.

lavendersparkle

Media Round Up: Loose Ends

25 books for 2025

Start as I mean to go on

2025 reading summary

To-read pile, 2025, December

DecRecs 2025 days 22-26-31, The End!

Привет! LiveJournal imports may be slow

Year in review 2025

Mellandagarna

I added some more programmer-y levels to my puzzle game

Shoresy (seasons 1-4)

Christmas Day and Boxing Day

DecRecs 2025 days 22-25

Merry Christmas

Ice hockey history

In shock news, hot yoga is hot

DecRecs 2025 days 18-21

Solstice

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