Excessive

The year of 2015 flew by in a blur, barely being able to determine if events happened in 2015, or earlier, it's hard to keep track of what to even write about. While I will attempt to summarize the year, I'm not as good at this as I used to be, so we'll see how it goes.

Movies

There weren't that many movies that came out in 2015 that I managed to see, but there were a couple that stood out as special.

3. Inside Out

Inside Out was a great, fun movie released in June. Bekki and I went to the theatre to see it and had a great time. It lived up to the high expectations set by the fact that it was a pixar animated film. It had a lot of good themes, great humour and fun acting.

2. The Martian

The Martian had a lot of hype surrounding it from the nerd circles (DTNS, Sword & Laser, TMS), which piqued my interest right away. I hadn't heard of it before but it immediately interested me, as it was a science fiction story, starring Matt Damon, what else do you need? The movie turned out to be great (I think Bekki may have enjoyed it even more than me) and this was another one we broke down and went to the theatre in early October to see it in it's (surprisingly wonderful) 3D.

1. Star Wars: The Force Awakens

While this is a more recent film (December 18th), this movie was so unbelievably good that it wins first place as my favorite movie of 2015.

Bekki and I went to see Star Wars: The Force Awakens twice in under a week. Once, in the VIP cinemas, and then a second time on the IMAX Ultra AVX.

To prepare for this viewing, Bekki and I watched all six of the Star Wars movies (something I hadn't done since the early 2000's, and something Bekki had never done... she'd never seen a single Star Wars movie). We listened to all of Tom Merritt's Pretend I'm dumb about Star Wars podcast, and got very excited to see the movie.

We both loves it, loved the characters, and the fight scenes, and the score, and the story. It was just great, and I'd go back and see it a third time if I could. It's caused me to purchase a bunch of Star Wars books to continue absorbing the universe, it's got me interested in documentaries, excited about the future movies, and this is coming from someone who enjoy the original trilogy, but never considered myself to be a big Star Wars fan.

The best movie of the year, and one of the best in a long time.

Honourable Mentions: There were a few movies I enjoyed besides those three, including Ant-man, Jurassic World and Ex-Machina. I'm sure there's more but thinking is hard!

Television

TV takes up a large portion of my recreational time. At least one hour a day, seven days a week is spent watching TV with Bekki, and we have a rotating roster of shows we watch. It's difficult to think back to what shows actually came out in 2015, but I'm sure I'll think of a few.

3. Saturday Night Live

Saturday Night Live continues to be one of my favorite shows. While it may not be the greatest it's ever been, it remains a source of comfort and familiarity that I look forward to each and every week.

2. The Flash

While this show has terrible acting, far fetched stories (even for a comic book story) and eye-roll dialogue, there is something very comforting in watching this show. Bekki and I laugh at our inside jokes (I'm Barry Allen) and it's a nice show to watch. It remains one of the shows I look forward to watching each week.

1. Jessica Jones

Much like Daredevil a year earlier, Jessica Jones kicked a huge amount of ass and blew away my expectations. I wasn't entirely sure what I expect from it, as I wasn't very familiar with Jessica Jones comic books, but with how they treated Daredevil, I had a pretty good feeling it'd be a good show. It was even better than I expected, and we watched the whole season as fast as we could.

Honourable Mentions: We watched the shit out of Making a Murderer, watch Arrow every week even though we pretty much hate it at this point. We watch Brooklyn Nine Nine every Monday, started watching Mr. Robot, Battlestar Galactica, Portlandia and others.

Music

Music will forever be a part of my life, so it's always worth mentioning what I remember listening to the most this last year.

3. BPM

It may be cheating to pick a radio station as my third place, but it kind of represents a style of music that kind of blends all together into a specific mood and feeling. Great songs are frequent when listening to BPM, and it's worth putting up with a few stinkers to enjoy the radio.

2. Oh Wonder: Self Titled

I found Oh Wonder by accident while listening to a random playlist on iTunes. It was a sort of low-key, electronic, poppy but with feeling duo that just sang great, emotion filled songs. I really enjoyed it right away, and love listening to it while falling asleep, in the car on the way to work, or even just at work while working.

1. Dance Gavin Dance: Instant Gratification

This album is great, and I was excited the first day it came out, having loved the previous release. It's full of passion, screams, great lyrics, clever songs, it's full of life, and energy and I love it. I most often listen to it while programming at work and transporting myself into a difference place.

Books

As always, I continued to amass a collection of books throughout the year, and while I won't list a top 3 because god knows I wouldn't be able to figure out if any were published in 2015, it's worth mentioning my continued passion for reading. Whether it be Amy Poehler's book at the end of last year, an endless array of Neil Gaiman works (American Gods, Coraline, Odd and The Frost Giant, Neverwhere, Stardust... I think these were all read this year), I discovered countless other great novels. Kendra Kandlestar is a fun, easy read. The WondLa books were a huge, impressive surprise that I fell in love with right away. I just love books, and I will never stop reading.

Work

I continue to grow as a programmer and feel like I'm becoming a better and better coder, continuing to move forward and generate better code. There are days of stress and pressure, but also days of feeling confident and worthwhile. I've never been happier in a job, and that's an important thing to keep in mind at all times. Regardless of stressful days, or frustrations, it's very important to remember that I'm sitting there, programming for a living; something that I use to do in my spare time after work. That's pretty amazing.

What Else?

After about eight years, I went to the Doctor. Yep, after being scared away by my perception of attitude or some such, there were so many issues I was having that I just couldn't deal with it on my own. Out of all my issues, my migraines, my sore joints, my insomnia, my depression, it was actually my anxiety that caused me to one day, at work, just pick up the phone and call the doctor's office (which I hadn't called in eight years) and ask to make an appointment.

It's been an interesting and challenging process, and I have no idea if I'm any better off, but I feel a lot better because I know I am trying. I'm on medication for migraines, anxiety and depression, and nasal spray to help me fall asleep earlier. I'm trying, and that's pretty important.

Also, after a few years, I went to the dentist. It's funny because I had decided to go because my teeth hurt, and my gums felt swollen, and I always had a bad taste in my mouth, but it wasn't until after I had made that initial terrifying call that things went really wrong.

After I had made my appointment for a cleaning and checkup, my tooth broke off completely, while eating beef jerky. And then after that, during a work trip to a conference in Toronto, I got a toothache which lead to an emergency appointment, which then lead to having it and one of my wisdom teeth surgically removed! Oh man... talk about worst nightmares. At least now I feel like I'm in a pretty good place dentally. I'm still not used to not having a molar in the back, and it kind of makes it so I can't eat on that side, but I just try not to think about it.

Worth mentioning is the work we've put in on our home over the last year. There is not a wall on the entire upstairs of our house that hasn't been completely redone. We've made the first steps on creating our library, we've got lots of plants, new tables, lamps, a working fireplace, better doors, weather stripping and soon a new roof. I am proud of our house, and it's exciting to keep working on it and making it better.

I guess that about wraps up last year. As I say every year, I'll try to write more. I swear. It'll happen! Just watch!

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