I’m a couple days late with this one, but what are you going to do? I was never really shooting for a rigid schedule when I started with this week notes format. Glad I took it easy over the weekend instead.

New glasses

I got a new pair of glasses along with a new prescription this last week. It was definitely time since the old pair was about five years old and starting to show some wear.

The new frames have really grown on me, and I’m surprised at how much clearer the new prescription is since the old glasses never really felt blurry to me. They took a couple days to get used to though. I was fighting off headaches over the weekend which is part of why I was taking things easy. At this point though I feel well adjusted and out of the “oh no I hope they didn’t get this horribly wrong” phase.

Reading

I’m still reading through Caliban’s War but I’ve managed to fall slightly behind the rest of the group.

Something I’m beginning to appreciate with this book is that I’m starting to really root for one of the characters that I initially disliked. It’s really satisfying when that kind of 180 for a character is well executed.

Games

I’ve got a couple games that I’m pretty early on in, so I should be set for the next little while.

Hollow Knight

A couple friends are also playing through this right now so I decided to join in. I’m way behind where they are, but it’s still fun sharing progress with each other.

Metro: Last Light Redux

I’ve been playing through the Metro franchise and am on the second game right now. This one so far seems a bit more action-oriented, where the first had a slightly more survival horror feel. That’s not a complaint, just something interesting I’ve noticed.

Red Dead Redemption 2

I’ve had this one on my radar since I finished Cyberpunk 2077 towards the beginning of this year, but I held off until recently. Sometimes you need a little breather between massive open world games, you know?

I can already say this is easily the most visually detailed game I’ve played, and I’m enjoying the story so far.

Music

Spotify released their yearly Wrapped summary, so I’ve gotten some insight into my music listening over the past year. Here are my top artists for 2024.

1. Andrew Prahlow
2. Sleep Token
3. Jam2Go
4. Spiritbox
5. Rolo Tomassi

I’m a bit surprised, but also not. Andrew Prahlow is the composer for the amazing Outer Wilds soundtrack which I’ve had on consistently nearly the whole year, so no surprises there.

I would have expected Spiritbox to be higher up on the list, but I think that’s a matter of them not having as much music released as some of these other artists. So while I may have listened to them more often, I might not have spent as much time with them.

Programming

I’ve been taking part in this year’s Advent of Code and it’s been enjoyable. I still can’t bring myself to use something other than Python — it’s just extremely well suited for the types of problems Advent of Code gives you and I’m really efficient with it.

I’m a couple days behind now (are you noticing a theme yet?), but I’m still planning on making some progress. I feel like this year has been easier for me than past years, which is really reassuring. It’s great to have a sort of benchmark for the progress and growth that’s not very visible day to day.

— JP