grassmonk.net

Books to Read

• The Lord of the Rings
• The Chronicles of Narnia books 4 – 7 (The Silver Chair, The Horse and His Boy, The Magician’s Nephew, The Last Battle)
• The “Speaker” Trilogy (Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, Children of the Mind)
• Raising Steam
• The First Formic War Trilogy (Earth Unaware, Earth Afire, Earth Awakens)

TV Seasons to Watch

This is the year when I am determined to finally watch (most of) the DVDs and Blu-rays that have sat on my shelf unwatched for years that I didn’t get to last year.  Some, like The Flintstones, I’ve had for about five years.  In the case of DuckTales, I bought volume 2 eight years ago and still haven’t watched it.  It’s even longer for Fraggle Rock (though I think I actually did watch some of it way back when I bought the sets).  Alternatively, The Flintstones still may end up on eBay.

Haven’t seen before:

• DuckTales (volumes 2 – 3)
• The Flintstones (seasons 1 – 6)
• Fraggle Rock (seasons 1 – 4)
• Iron Man: Armored Adventures (seasons 1 – 2)
• The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show (season 1)

Have seen before:

• Alias (seasons 1 – 5)
• Dexter (season 8)
• Heroes (season 1)
• Friends (seasons 1 – 10)
• Life (seasons 1 – 2)
• Pinky and the Brain (volumes 1 – 3)
• Star Trek: The Next Generation (seasons 1 – 7)
• Star Wars: Clone Wars (seasons 1 – 2)

Currently airing/will air this year:

• The Big Bang Theory (the rest of season 8)
• Brooklyn Nine-Nine (the rest of season 2)
• Castle (the rest of season 7)
• Homeland (season 5)
• Major Crimes (the rest of season 3, season 4)
• Marvel’s Agent Carter (season 1)
• Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (the rest of season 2)
• The Mentalist (season 7)

Movies to Watch

This year I am shrinking my “BDs/DVDs I [try to] watch at least once a year” list and adding a new one: “BDs/DVDs I [try to] watch at least once every other year.” Most of the movies on the latter list I watched last year, so it’s pretty short for now.

From last year:

• Big Hero 6
• Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
• Dumb and Dumber To
• The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

From previous years, already seen or not:

• 007: Casino Royale
• 007: Quantum of Solace
• 007: Skyfall
• Captain America: The Winter Soldier
• Guardians of the Galaxy
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2
• The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
• The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
• The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
• Home Alone
• The Hunger Games
• The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
• Iron Man 3
• Mission: Impossible
• Mission: Impossible 3
• Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol
• 101 Dalmatians
• Shrek
• Shrek 2
• Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
• Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones
• Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
• Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
• Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
• Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
• Superman/Batman: Apocalypse
• Thor: The Dark World

New this year:

• Ant-Man
• The Avengers: Age of Ultron
• Batman vs. Robin
• 007: Spectre
• The Good Dinosaur
• Fantastic Four
• The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2
• Inside Out
• Jurassic World
• Justice League: Gods and Monsters
• Justice League: Throne of Atlantis
• Mission: Impossible 5
• Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens

BDs/DVDs I [try to] watch at least once a year:

• The Avengers
• Batman Begins
• The Dark Knight
• The Dark Knight Rises
• The Bourne Identity
• The Bourne Supremacy
• The Bourne Ultimatum
• Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog
• Firefly
• Serenity
• (500) Days of Summer
• The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
• The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
• The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
• The Matrix
• The Matrix Reloaded
• The Matrix Revolutions
• Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
• Spider-Man
• Spider-Man 2
• Spider-Man 3
• Superman Returns
• The Truman Show

BDs/DVDs I [try to] watch at least once every other year:

• Elf
• The Fifth Element
• Home Alone 2: Lost in New York
• The Muppet Christmas Carol

BDs/DVDs I haven’t watched since 2011 or before:

• All-Star Superman
• Back to the Future
• Back to the Future Part II
• Back to the Future Part III
• Batman Forever
• Batman: Gotham Knight
• Batman: Under the Red Hood
• Batman: Year One
• Bewitched
• Big Trouble
• A Bug’s Life
• The Cable Guy
• Cars
• Cars 2
• Despicable Me
• DuckTales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp
• Dumbo
• Fantasia
• Fantasia 2000
• The Goonies
• Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
• Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
• Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
• Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
• I, Robot
• Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths
• Justice League: The New Frontier
• Megamind
• Mr. and Mrs. Smith
• Mystery Men
• The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything
• Ratatouille
• Shrek the Third
• Shrek Forever After
• So I Married an Axe Murderer
• Star Trek: Generations
• Star Trek: First Contact
• Star Trek: Insurrection
• Star Trek: Nemesis
• Superman: Doomsday
• Superman/Batman: Public Enemies
• Tangled
• The Transporter
• Up
• Wall-E
• The Waterboy
• Wayne’s World
• Wonder Woman

Video Games to Play

Our family has had some great Zelda interest lately.  Mario Kart 8 got downloadable content including Link as a playable character and a Zelda-based track.  Along with Hyrule Warriors, we got Zelda Monopoly and a map of Hyrule puzzle for Christmas.  I also played The Wind Waker last year and Twilight Princess last month.  I have three Zelda shirts that I wear pretty frequently.  Ocarina of Time and Skyward Sword, at least, are up for replay this year, along with maybe a few others like A Link to the Past or The Minish Cap if I get a hankering.  I also hope that the Wii U Zelda game will be released this year.

First-time plays:

• Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze
• Hyrule Warriors
• LEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham
• The LEGO Movie Video Game

Replays:

• The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
• The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

Other

• More poetism commentaries
• Maybe a secret-for-now series of blog posts

Sometimes it feels like I did more stuff outside of my goals list than inside.  It also feels like I might copy and paste text from other blog entries as a introduction, almost verbatim, again, so as not to have to come up with something new, fresh, hip, vapid, incredible.  Here is a reckoning of part of that, with some commentary as I deem deemable.  This list does not include movies from my 2014 favorites list.

TV

Hadn’t seen before:

• DuckTales (volume 1)
• Go On (season 1/the complete series)
• The Guild (season 6)
• Toy Story of Terror!

I’ve liked Matthew Perry since he was on Friends (I think he and Matt LeBlanc could have had their own show without the other cast members).  He sure has had bad luck with his subsequent TV series, though.  Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, Mr. Sunshine, and Go On only lasted one season each, and I thought each were great.  I found Go On to be really funny and touching at times.  Also, it’s great that Friends is now on Netflix streaming.

The Guild is a fantastically fun web series and I was glad to finally be able to watch season 6 on Netflix, along with rewatching the earlier seasons.

Had seen before:

• A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving
• Dexter (seasons 1-7)
• It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown
• The Guild (seasons 1-5)
• The Spectacular Spider-Man (seasons 1-2)

I had seen all of Dexter before, but my wife hadn’t, so we watched it together.  I think it’s a pretty great show, though it gets weaker for me somewhere in season 6 or 7, and I’m not really a fan of the ending.

Movies

Hadn’t seen before:

• Clerks
• Dinosaur
• Fun and Fancy Free
• The Little Memaid II: Return to the Sea
• The Monuments Men
• Neighbors
• Night Watch
• Princess Mononoke
• 21 Jump Street
• Your Highness

Had seen before:

• The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad
• Aladdin
• Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues
• Animaniacs: Wakko’s Wish
• The Batman vs. Dracula
• Crazy, Stupid, Love.
• Easy A
• Frozen
• Hercules
• Home Alone
• How the Grinch Stole Christmas
• The Incredible Hulk
• The Incredibles
• Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie
• The Jungle Book
• Kiki’s Delivery Service
• Love Actually
• Mary Poppins
• Phineas and Ferb: Across the 2nd Dimension
• Salt
• Superman vs. The Elite
• Tarzan
• Thor
• Thor: The Dark World
• The Transformers: The Movie
• The Truman Show
• Zoolander

Video Games

First-time plays:

• DuckTales: Remastered
• Mario Kart 8
• Pikmin 2
• Pikmin 3

Replays:

• The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

I got Pikmin 3 for free as a promotion when I bought Mario Kart 8.  I had never played a Pikmin title before, and I didn’t know what to expect at all.  It was amazingly fun, especially after I figured out that there is not actually a time limit for completing the story mode (except if one runs out of supplies).  It has fun supplementary modes too: mission (single or co-op play) and battle.  My children loved it also, so much so that I ended up buying Pikmin 2 on eBay and buying Pikmin plushes for them as birthday and Christmas gifts.

I played the original DuckTales game on my NES as a kid, and got the remastered version as part of a Wii U eShop sale at the very end of 2013.  It was pretty fun, and neat that they got most of the original TV show cast to do new voice work.

Twilight Princess remains one of my favorite Zelda titles, and I think I’ll probably end up replaying at least Ocarina of Time and Skyward Sword in the not-too-distant future.  Here’s hoping also that the new Wii U Zelda game is released in 2015.

How did I fare with my goals for 2014?  Read on, dear reader.  Read on.

Books to Read

I finished The Hobbit with my kids, and read Elantris, The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, and 3 out of 7 of The Chronicles of Narnia.

Elantris and The Last Chronicles were first-time reads.  I enjoyed Elantris once it really got going, but it seemed to take a while to get there.  After reading it, along with Brandon Sanderson’s contributions to The Wheel of Time, I look forward to reading more of his work sometime in the future.  The Last Chronicles were somewhat of a disappointment, but did have some good moments.  The original Chronicles of Thomas Covenant remain my favorite of the books, and the ones I expect to read again in the future.

The rest of the list will get bumped to 2015, with The Lord of the Rings taking top priority, since it has been on the list since 2011.

TV Seasons to Watch

Haven’t seen before:

I got through more of these than I thought I would, especially after beginning a few old cartoons and wondering if I could make it through the whole set/series.  There are some good things that came out of the ’80s, but there are probably more that have not aged too well.  I watched The Adventures of the Gummi Bears, Chip ‘n’ Dale Rescue Rangers, The Super Hero Squad Show, TaleSpin, and The Transformers.  The remaining 3 entries will be on my 2015 list (unless I decide to put The Flintstones on eBay, which I have debated doing several times this year).

Have seen before, but haven’t yet watched my BDs/DVDs:

Watched them both.

Have seen before:

8/12.  I missed Heroes, Pinky and the Brain, Star Trek: The Next Generation, and Star Wars: Clone Wars.  They’ll be pushed to 2015, and maybe joined by some others.

Currently airing/will air this year:

Watched them all, with the exception of Major Crimes season 3.  I’ve seen the first half and will watch the second half in 2015.

Movies to Watch

From last year [2013]:

Watched them all.

From previous years, already seen or not:

Watched them all.

New this year [2014]:

11/13, missing Dumb and Dumber To and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.

BDs/DVDs I [try to] watch at least once a year:

Watched them all.

Unwatched BDs/DVDs:

Watched them both.

BDs/DVDs I haven’t watched since 2010 or before:

39/44, 15% better than last year’s 48/65.  The ones I missed were the Star Trek: The Next Generation movies, which I expect to watch in 2015 after watching the TNG TV series, and DuckTales the Movie, which I’ll watch in 2015 after finishing my DuckTales TV sets.  They’ll be joined by others, becoming since 2011 or before.

Video Games to Play

5/5.

Other

We’ll call this 2.5 out of 3.  I got my web site code and WordPress theme into git repositories, as well as a Thunderbird extension.  I finally did nine more poetism commentaries (only about 30 to go).  I also resisted Facebook, which I think we can all agree is the most important.