A Wednesday (2008)
[#21 in The 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2026]
"What Do You Mean You Haven't Seen...?" 2026 #2
Sunday, 26 April 2026
Non-Fiction
The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder by David Grann
Chapters 23–26
Epilogue [the end]
This being a non-fiction / journalistic / historiographic work, there's also an extensive amount of notes and bibliography at the end. Some of it looked quite interesting, but other bits are dry citations, and my Kindle said it was over an hour of reading time — it wasn't that interesting.
Chapters 23–26
Epilogue [the end]
This being a non-fiction / journalistic / historiographic work, there's also an extensive amount of notes and bibliography at the end. Some of it looked quite interesting, but other bits are dry citations, and my Kindle said it was over an hour of reading time — it wasn't that interesting.
Audiobook
Doctor Who: The Code of Flesh
written by Andrew Lane, read by Dan Starkey
I've been meaning to continue these audio-exclusive 8th Doctor adventures ever since I listened to the first two-and-a-half years ago. Yes, I know that's ridiculous; but hey, I got here eventually. Hopefully I won't leave it so long before the next one (there are four in this sequence, so far) because they're quite good.
written by Andrew Lane, read by Dan Starkey
I've been meaning to continue these audio-exclusive 8th Doctor adventures ever since I listened to the first two-and-a-half years ago. Yes, I know that's ridiculous; but hey, I got here eventually. Hopefully I won't leave it so long before the next one (there are four in this sequence, so far) because they're quite good.
Saturday, 25 April 2026
Collection Count
Collection Count tracks my DVD/Blu-ray collection via a number of statistics every week.
Nothing new this week — the one title I was expecting got pushed back. Doesn't really matter — I don't get round to watching stuff anyway, do I?
But to stop this being wholly pointless, it's that time of the month: the running time update.
Number of titles in collection: 3,685 [no change]
Of which DVDs: 965 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 2,720 [no change]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 523 [no change]
Number of discs in collection: 8,842 [no change]
Number of films: 4,737 [no change]
Number of additional cuts: 489 [no change]
Number of TV episodes: 10,134 [no change]
Number of short films: 1,293 [no change]
Total running time of collection (approx.):
617 days, 7 hours, and 25 minutes.
(Up 23 hours and 9 minutes from last month.)
See you next week, faithful reader.
Nothing new this week — the one title I was expecting got pushed back. Doesn't really matter — I don't get round to watching stuff anyway, do I?
But to stop this being wholly pointless, it's that time of the month: the running time update.
Number of titles in collection: 3,685 [no change]
Of which DVDs: 965 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 2,720 [no change]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 523 [no change]
Number of discs in collection: 8,842 [no change]
Number of films: 4,737 [no change]
Number of additional cuts: 489 [no change]
Number of TV episodes: 10,134 [no change]
Number of short films: 1,293 [no change]
Total running time of collection (approx.):
617 days, 7 hours, and 25 minutes.
(Up 23 hours and 9 minutes from last month.)
See you next week, faithful reader.
Friday, 24 April 2026
Video Games
Bubumbu
Having finished the first two Monument Valleys, it's on to some of the other puzzle games in my backlog. This is a very short one (about half-an-hour), but it's got cute art and the puzzle mechanics are fun. It's high quality so worth even the short playtime, but it would be even better if there was even more of it. Nonetheless, I didn't get all the secrets on my playthrough (navigating around the maps is a bit tricky, and once you complete the main objectives you're locked out of the bonus ones without a replay), but as it's so short I'm tempted to go back through and find them all.
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Anniversary Edition
Having finished the first two Monument Valleys, it's on to some of the other puzzle games in my backlog. This is a very short one (about half-an-hour), but it's got cute art and the puzzle mechanics are fun. It's high quality so worth even the short playtime, but it would be even better if there was even more of it. Nonetheless, I didn't get all the secrets on my playthrough (navigating around the maps is a bit tricky, and once you complete the main objectives you're locked out of the bonus ones without a replay), but as it's so short I'm tempted to go back through and find them all.
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Anniversary Edition
Thursday, 23 April 2026
Video Games
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Anniversary Edition
I didn't reach a particularly significant milestone today or anything (I've played 208½ hours; didn't visit any new towns, or complete any major quests; etc). But, for various reasons, I decided to log the third in my occasional and slightly random series of "how are things going?" screenshots (the first was at 73 hours, the second at 151 hours).
Despite being only 57½ hours on from 151 hours, my Quests Completed has more than doubled in that time. I guess I went through a period of focusing on quests more, before tailing off again. I'm intending to get back on that soon. Somewhat interestingly, though, my Side Quests Completed has gone from 4, to 8, to 12 — if you didn't know better, it would look like that was the stat dictating these updates.
One additional thing I thought to do this round is create a graph to show my progress over time, because that's the kind of thing I think is fun. I've picked a few select stats to include, and it looks like this:
Skyrim tracks loads of other stats for you — locations discovered, people killed, spells learned, ingredients harvested, locks picked, and about 90 more (including, somewhat infamously, "bunnies slaughtered") — but, sadly, I haven't been screenshotting them all along, and the game itself doesn't offer any history or graphs or anything (more's the pity). It feels a bit late in the day to begin tracking it all... but I took screenshots of everything this time, just in case I want to. And if I ever do a second run,* you bet I'll be screenshotting from the start!
* There are plenty of "forever players", who start the game over and over again, trying all sorts of different things, for thousands of hours overall. It's one of the reasons the game has endured for so long. But I can't imagine that'll be me — I've got literally hundreds of other games I want to play, including multiple other hundreds-of-hours-long RPGs, so I'm not likely to do Skyrim over again when I've got those other adventures to experience. Doesn't mean I won't come back to it one day though, especially as there's definitely stuff I won't do in this playthrough (you can only join one side in the Civil War, for example; and I'm pretty sure at least one quest is already bugged to unplayability for this run; and, to be honest, I've got so much left to do, there's still a chance I'll want a change before I finish it all).
I didn't reach a particularly significant milestone today or anything (I've played 208½ hours; didn't visit any new towns, or complete any major quests; etc). But, for various reasons, I decided to log the third in my occasional and slightly random series of "how are things going?" screenshots (the first was at 73 hours, the second at 151 hours).
Despite being only 57½ hours on from 151 hours, my Quests Completed has more than doubled in that time. I guess I went through a period of focusing on quests more, before tailing off again. I'm intending to get back on that soon. Somewhat interestingly, though, my Side Quests Completed has gone from 4, to 8, to 12 — if you didn't know better, it would look like that was the stat dictating these updates.
One additional thing I thought to do this round is create a graph to show my progress over time, because that's the kind of thing I think is fun. I've picked a few select stats to include, and it looks like this:
Skyrim tracks loads of other stats for you — locations discovered, people killed, spells learned, ingredients harvested, locks picked, and about 90 more (including, somewhat infamously, "bunnies slaughtered") — but, sadly, I haven't been screenshotting them all along, and the game itself doesn't offer any history or graphs or anything (more's the pity). It feels a bit late in the day to begin tracking it all... but I took screenshots of everything this time, just in case I want to. And if I ever do a second run,* you bet I'll be screenshotting from the start!
* There are plenty of "forever players", who start the game over and over again, trying all sorts of different things, for thousands of hours overall. It's one of the reasons the game has endured for so long. But I can't imagine that'll be me — I've got literally hundreds of other games I want to play, including multiple other hundreds-of-hours-long RPGs, so I'm not likely to do Skyrim over again when I've got those other adventures to experience. Doesn't mean I won't come back to it one day though, especially as there's definitely stuff I won't do in this playthrough (you can only join one side in the Civil War, for example; and I'm pretty sure at least one quest is already bugged to unplayability for this run; and, to be honest, I've got so much left to do, there's still a chance I'll want a change before I finish it all).
Wednesday, 22 April 2026
Video Games
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Anniversary Edition
Last time I said I should definitely concentrate on quests more than crafting going forward. So today, I... spent an hour-and-a-half mostly building my third house, and moving materials around to do said building, and other such tasks (and one very minor quest along the way). Oops. But hey, at least this is the last house, so once it's built I won't feel the need to do it again (because I won't be able to) — hurrah! Although, all my houses (eight owned, ten not — yet) still need a lot of decorating...
Monument Valley II
The Lost Forest
Whereas Monument Valley I's expansion was like a whole extra game, more-or-less doubling its length, the sequel's is just a single level.
There's now a third game, but as it only came to PC less than a year ago (following a period of Netflix mobile exclusivity), it's still a bit overpriced for my liking (assuming it's of a comparable complexity and length to the first two). I'll get it someday.
Last time I said I should definitely concentrate on quests more than crafting going forward. So today, I... spent an hour-and-a-half mostly building my third house, and moving materials around to do said building, and other such tasks (and one very minor quest along the way). Oops. But hey, at least this is the last house, so once it's built I won't feel the need to do it again (because I won't be able to) — hurrah! Although, all my houses (eight owned, ten not — yet) still need a lot of decorating...
Monument Valley II
The Lost Forest
Whereas Monument Valley I's expansion was like a whole extra game, more-or-less doubling its length, the sequel's is just a single level.
There's now a third game, but as it only came to PC less than a year ago (following a period of Netflix mobile exclusivity), it's still a bit overpriced for my liking (assuming it's of a comparable complexity and length to the first two). I'll get it someday.
Tuesday, 21 April 2026
TV
Critical Role
4x12 The Giant's Belt [2nd hour]
[Watch it (again) on YouTube, or for subscribers on Beacon or Twitch.]
4x12 The Giant's Belt [2nd hour]
[Watch it (again) on YouTube, or for subscribers on Beacon or Twitch.]
Video Games
Monument Valley II
Finished the main game. It's probably better than the first game's original levels, because it's a bit longer and has more variety; but that was greatly improved by its expansion, so it's much for muchness overall. That's not a criticism — these are both fun puzzle games.
Finished the main game. It's probably better than the first game's original levels, because it's a bit longer and has more variety; but that was greatly improved by its expansion, so it's much for muchness overall. That's not a criticism — these are both fun puzzle games.
Monday, 20 April 2026
TV
Critical Role
4x12 The Giant's Belt [1st hour]
Dear God, I am so far behind — this episode is from January. It was a lot easier to watch tonnes of CR when I also hadn't got back into gaming and reading and was just ditching film watching for it. Ah well, I persevere, because whenever I do make time for it, I still enjoy it.
[Watch it (again) on YouTube, or for subscribers on Beacon or Twitch.]
4x12 The Giant's Belt [1st hour]
Dear God, I am so far behind — this episode is from January. It was a lot easier to watch tonnes of CR when I also hadn't got back into gaming and reading and was just ditching film watching for it. Ah well, I persevere, because whenever I do make time for it, I still enjoy it.
[Watch it (again) on YouTube, or for subscribers on Beacon or Twitch.]
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)