Author: Derek
2024 Anime Rankings
Like I did last year, I will include the trailers for the top five. The rest will be grouped into “Loved”, “Liked”, “Meh”. Each category will be alphabetical.
Top 5
Loved
A Sign of Affection
Ai Yori Aoshi
Alya Sometimes Hides Her Feelings in Russian
Banished From the Hero’s Party
Bocchi the Rock!
Bottom-Tier Character Tomozoki
Chiling Out In my 30’s After Being Fired From The Demon King’s Army
Chillin’ In Another World With My Level 2 Super Cheat Powers
A Couple of Cuckoos
Days With My Stepsister
Fruits Basket
Hanndyman Saito In Another World
Higehiro
I’m Giving The Disgraced Noble Lady I Rescued a Crash Course in Naughtiness
I’m the Villainess So I’m Taming the Final Boss
I’ve Somehow Gotten Stronger When I Improved My Farm-Related Skills
Love After World Domination
My Love Story
One-Punch Man
The Apothecary Diaries
The Devil Is A Part Timer
The Ice Guy and His Cool Female Colleague
The Magical Girl and the Evil Lieutenant Used to be Archenemies
Tomo-Chan Is a Girl
Liked
Azumanga Daioh
Don’t Toy With Me Miss Nagatoro
Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End
Full Metal Panic
Highschool of the dead
KanColle
Love Hina
Macross Frontier
My Hero Academia
Recovery of an MMO Junkie
Space Battleship Yamato 2199
The Asterisk War
Meh
Arpeggio of Blue Steel
Campfire Cooking In Another World With My Absurd Skill
Hokkaido Girls Are Super Adorable
I Got A Cheat Skill In Another World
The Foolish Angel Dances With the Devil
Ward Manor Happenings
Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah, and all other celebratory greetings!
New Hardware Happening – The big news is that I’m now blogging from the new Battlestation (which is the name I’ve used for my laptops for the past two decades). My old laptop kept crashing, and Best Buy had the Alienware m18 on sale. It is significantly larger than my previous laptop, and I dislike the fact that I can’t charge via USB-C. Still, playing Civ on this beast is going to be fun – particularly when Civ 7 drops.
I hate having to go through and do all the setup. Logging into accounts, finding old license keys, downloading applications. I will use this as an opportunity to streamline some older processes.
I’ve also had to reorganize my desk a bit since the new laptop is bigger than my old one.
There will most likely be more reorganization as we go through “The Great Upstairs Shift” when we decompress The Wife’s office, turn the upstairs living room into a craft/hobby room for both of us, and a bunch of furniture trading between rooms.
If all goes according to plan, I will have an aircraft carrier in my office for all my veritechs / transformers / etc.
Party Happenings – The Wife and I went to the Christmas party hosted by a former colleague of hers. She got to meet with some old colleagues and her current boss. Plus we met some new acquaintances. The Wife always comments on how I can hold a conversation with folks even though I’m a raging introvert. Which is true. The problem is I’m an outgoing introvert – which translates into once Derek starts talking on subjects he knows well, he doesn’t really shut up. I’m really working on info-dumping during conversations and making sure I’m not dominating a conversation.
Keeping Warm Happenings – The Brother found this little fireplace. I find it very relaxing.
If I Don’t Have To Go Through Another Season Like That
There are few things more terrifying than watching the stalking turtle known as a tropical move ponderously towards you. The terror is only intensified when your trusted weatherperson informs you that said storm is probably the most powerful storm seen in these parts in at least a century and at the top end of what the atmosphere can produce.
This was a storm season that stressed my storm preps. I found several gaps, and I’m in the process of filling those. Some will be fast, some slow. The Ward family was very lucky – particularly compared to what others along the coast and in Appalachia suffered.
Anyways, this nifty infographic has been circulating the interwebs.
Ward Manor Happenings
Now I Know What It Feels Like When A Jackhammer Is Used Indoors – Remodeling the bathroom didn’t go quite as planned. Part of it was some “interesting” choices made by the builder during construction. I don’t know all the details, except it required the contractor and his partner using a jackhammer. I’ve also found having two people working in your house from morning to night is not conducive to the restfulness of Ward Manor. Saying nothing of what it does to my routines. And I’m a creature of my routines. Still, the new bathroom looks pretty damn awesome, and MIL is very happy.
Old Florida Christmas – The Wife and I enjoyed the annual Old Florida Christmas event at Manatee Historic Village. There didn’t seem to be the same amount of vendors there, but we did find a few things there. Besides, it’s a special place for us. A couple of the buildings suffered enough damage from Milton that we couldn’t go in. One of which was the church we got married.
I Am Stupid and Opened My Mouth – My counterparts across the country were commiserating we have not had an in-person meetup in a while. I was stupid enough to joke that they should come to Florida to escape the cold. Guess who suddenly found himself in charge of organizing and facilitating said meeting? Ah well, at least I have friends who can help me since I know nothing about the official process.
OneDrive Shenanigans – I use a rather large Excel workbook to keep track of songs I’ve used for Metal Tuesdays as well as the anime I’ve recommended. I keep it on OneDrive for autosave purposes. Somehow, Excel on my iPad managed to replace all of the data with a blank workbook. Needless to say, I was a bit miffed. Actually, there were curses and oaths to gods above and below. I have over 500 songs on the “backlog” to use and probably 20 or so anime series. Reconstructing that would be a huge PITA. Checking the version history in Excel on both the iPad and my laptop were no-go’s. Feck. Then, The Brother helpfully suggested to check the version history on the web version of Office. Well, damn if that didn’t work.
And no, I don’t really want to hear about the shortcomings of OneDrive. I know it’s shortcomings. I’ve also dealt with files being eaten by a hard drive, Dropbox, Scrivener, and a bunch of other programs. Shit happens, and it’s happened a lot less with OneDrive.
December Anime Recommendations
Apple Music Wrap-Up 2024 – aka Dangers of Having A Shared Account
I pulled my Apple Music numbers for 2024, since it’s that time of year for wrap-ups. Except, something didn’t look right. When I looked at my top 15 artists, everything looked kind of what I expected – with the glaring exception of Taylor Swift standing atop the list like a juggernaut in terms of minutes played.
I am not a Taylor Swift fan. I’m sure I’ve heard her music, by osmosis if no other reason. But I’ve never intentionally searched out her music. So how? Oh, yeah. The Wife listens to music sometimes when she works. And she uses the Apple Music linked to the Echoes. Taylor Swift was not the only surprise. Let’s just say there were some unexpected albums that showed up. Ah well.
Anywhoo, on to my stats.
