Looks like time has chewed away another year from my life.

I had the typical “there were plenty of highs and lows” type of year. I find that at this age (late thirties), both the highs and lows are more profound. For example, people in my age cohort not only have children, but have children that are growing up into actual people. On the flip side, people around me are worn down by time or outright erased from existence with increasing vigour. I suppose those lows can make me appreciate the highs even more, in a way that could only be abstractly understood in earlier years.

More specific to 2018, I’ve continued to be lucky and privileged enough that the world’s political turmoil has continued to avoid devastating my life directly. I do what I can to fight the creeping spread of anti-human powers, but aside from a plummeting retirement fund, I’m fine. For now.

Anyway. For anyone still paying attention, here’s my yearly wrap-up of the stuff I enjoyed this year.

Music

As usual, this is just an uncurated list of the albums I listened to most, courtesy of Last.FM.

20. Slaves – Beautiful Death
19. Dear Rouge – Phases
18. Franz Ferdinand – Always Ascending
17. Sofi Tukker – Treehouse
16. Lucero – Among the Ghosts
15. Bebe Rexha – Expectations
14. The Glitch Mob – See Without Eyes
13. The Wombats – Beautiful People Will Ruin Your Life
12. Teenage Wrist – Chrome Neon Jesus
11. Moby – Everything Was Beautiful, and Nothing Hurt
10. Let’s Eat Grandma – I’m All Ears
9. Rhye – Blood
8. CHVRCHES – Love is Dead
7. Bahamas – Earthtones
6. A Perfect Circle – Eat the Elephant
5. K.Flay – Every Where is Some Where (this came out in 2017, but I only discovered it in 2018, when it seemed to really take off)
4. Thirty Seconds to Mars – America
3. Years & Years – Palo Santo
2. Ghost – Prequelle
1. Janelle Monáe – Dirty Computer

TV

These are the shows I liked the most.

• Black Mirror
• Channel Zero
• Daredevil
• Dark
• Disenchantment
• The End of the Fucking World
• Explained
• Evil Genius
• The Good Place
• The Haunting of Hill House
• Iron Fist
• Kim’s Convenience
• The Last Man on Earth
• Maniac
• Ozark
• Riverdale
• Trailer Park Boys

Movies

I spent most of my limited entertainment time on TV this year, so I missed a lot of the big movies. But here are the ones I did see and like. Connect with me on Letterboxd for more.

• Annihilation
• Apostle
• Bird Box
• Black Panther
• Cam
• Deadpool 2
• The Endless
• Hereditary
• Hold the Dark
• Infinity War
• The Killing of a Sacred Deer
• Mandy
• A Quiet Place
• Rampage
• The Ritual
• Solo: A Star Wars Story
• Super Dark Times
• Terrifier

Games

A new category! I don’t get to play video games as much as I’d like, but here’s what I played this year. Connect with me on Xbox Live for more.

• Forza Horizon 4
• Mad Max (an older game, but I just got to it this year, and it’s totally underrated)
• No Man’s Sky
• Overwatch
• Red Dead Redemption 2 (I’m totally blown away by the amount of stuff in this game. I’ve played for a few dozen hours and still haven’t even finished the main story)
• Sea of Thieves
• State of Decay 2
• Subnautica
• Super Mario Odyssey 
• Biggest disappointment award: Fallout 76. What an awful launch and an awful game. Hopefully it gets better with updates, but I’d rather be holding my breath to protect against actual radioactive clouds.
• WTF award: Fortnite. I get why people play it—it’s a fun little tech demo of a game. But I don’t get why people keep playing it. It’s aggressively shallow, and if kids are growing up thinking this is what a game should be, I’m worried they’ll miss out on all the deep, satisfying, artistic games that we’ve been working toward for the past few decades.

Books

I read really slow, so it’s rare for me to read a book in the same year it came out. Here are my favourites that I read in 2018, but didn’t necessarily come out in 2018. Connect with me on Goodreads for more.

• Algorithms to Live By – Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths
• The Atrocities – Jeremy Shipp
• Bird Box – Josh Malerman
• Dead Dog on Morningside – cal chayce
• The Drive-In – Joe Lansdale
• Every Time We Meet at the Dairy Queen, Your Whole Fucking Face Explodes – Carlton Mellick III
• We Have Always Lived in the Castle – Shirley Jackson

It’s over! See you next year, hopefully.