Tuesday, 24 February 2026

Fiction

Swords in the Mist by Fritz Leiber
II. Lean Times in Lankhmar

I’ve enjoyed all the Lankhmar stories, to one degree or another (I’ve not read a bad one yet, but some are, of course, better than others), but I think this may be the greatest of all. So far, at least.

Video Games

Bael's Rock: A Text Adventure
3. The Firefly Cave

Monday, 23 February 2026

Video Games

Bael's Rock: A Text Adventure
1. The Ghosts of the Desert
2. The Trial of Hope


Picked this up during Steam's recent typing-related sale and decided to play it on my Steam Deck. Playing a typing game on the Steam Deck may sound a little ridiculous... and it is. But I kinda wanted to see if it would work, and... technically it does, but typing using the onscreen keyboard is a little slow. As you only need to do simple commands ("examine door", that kind of thing) it's ok, although you can't see the text entry box while you're writing, so that's a pain. But as the game has no Mac version, the Deck remains my best way to play this. Which is daft, but there you go.


The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Anniversary Edition

Started this up today without a real goal in mind; thought I might just read all those notes that were dumped in my inventory by the Anniversary Edition and start the quests. Well, in the end I played for an hour... and actually did stuff! Started some of those quests. Progressed a few. Even finished some — gasp!

Tabletop Games

Daggerheart:
Dragon Heist in the City of Splendors
&
Curse of Strahd

Sunday, 22 February 2026

Saturday, 21 February 2026

TV

How I Met Your Mother
1x15 Game Night [2nd watch]

Poker Face
2x04 The Taste of Human Blood

Richard Osman's House of Games
9x64 Week 13: Thursday
9x65 Week 13: Friday
[Watch various episodes (again) on iPlayer.]

The Rookie
7x06 The Gala

Video Games

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Anniversary Edition

Played for over 3 hours today. Still feel like I only got 'a few things' done. I crossed the 170-hour mark, too. Kinda hilarious to think I once balked at the idea it would take me at least 27 hours to complete this.

Collection Count

Collection Count tracks my DVD/Blu-ray collection via a number of statistics every week.

Two new 4K releases this week: Arrow's edition of Excalibur, which replaces the HMV-exclusive Blu-ray, and Predator: Badlands. I feel like I've had a lot less stuff on preorder this year than usual, but there's still a regular trickle dropping in.

Number of titles in collection: 3,667 [up 1]
Of which DVDs: 974 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 2,693 [up 1]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 508 [up 2]

Number of discs in collection: 8,806 [up 3]
Number of films: 4,706 [up 1]
Number of additional cuts: 484 [up 1]
Number of TV episodes: 10,163 [no change]
Number of short films: 1,282 [no change]

See you next week, faithful reader.

Friday, 20 February 2026

TV

How I Met Your Mother
1x14 Zip, Zip, Zip [2nd watch]

Richard Osman's House of Games
9x61 Week 13: Monday
9x62 Week 13: Tuesday
9x63 Week 13: Wednesday
[Watch various episodes (again) on iPlayer.]

The Rookie
7x05 Til Death

Video Games

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Anniversary Edition

So, turns out I haven't actually been playing the Anniversary Edition since Monday due to some quirk of how it installs, but (after wasting a bunch of time fiddling today) I now am. First thing I did was buy a backpack — 75 extra carry weight, y'all! Second thing was bump into a courier who gave me a veritable pile of notes to kick off quest. Fun times!

Wednesday, 18 February 2026

TV

How I Met Your Mother
1x12 The Wedding [2nd watch]

Richard Osman's House of Games
9x57 Week 12: Tuesday
9x58 Week 12: Wednesday
[Watch various episodes (again) on iPlayer.]

The Rookie
7x04 Darkness Falling

Fiction

Swords in the Mist by Fritz Leiber
I. The Cloud of Hate

Plunging on into the third volume of collected Lankhmar / Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser / Swords stories. As I wrote when I started the second, I didn't expect to just keep reading them like this, but I'm really enjoying them. I guess it probably also helps that I've ended up spacing them out so much that it doesn't feel intensive.

Video Games

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Anniversary Edition