Consumed in 2016 Part II

23rd of January to 24th of February
 
Watched:
I didn't really watch a lot of movies in the past few weeks, because I started a re-watch of "Sons of Anarchy". Moreover, I finished the second season of "Penny Dreadful" which I didn't like as much as the first one, but it still looks gorgeous. I also re-watched "The Shining" and "John Wick". The first one is - in my opinion - overrated and just a bad movie, the second one is one of my favourite action movies.
"Cold Prey": A Norwegian slasher movie. I really like slashers - I like most formulaic genres since I really admire the craft of obeying to rules and conventions while still being entertaining - and this was a good one. The characters were so likeable that I was really sorry to see them die, so it wasn't as much fun as other slashers. However, the music for the end credits was "All My Friends Are Dead" by Turbonegro, so it must be an awesome movie!
"Gasland": A documentary that made me really angry about these people who just take whatever they want and destroy it.
"The Hateful Eight": It was a huge disappointment. Usually, I love Tarantino, especially "Jackie Brown" and "Reservoir Dogs", but this was just too long, boring and unneccessary violent. (Based on my watchlist, you might realize that I don't have any problem with violent films per se, but this was  unpleasant and unentertaining.)

Read:
"Mistborn" by Brandon Sanderson: The first part of a trilogy. I have almost finished the second volume, but I won't write about it until I read the last book as well.

Again, no games.

Consumed in 2016 Part I

From now on, I will try to keep a list of things I read, watched, listened to or played. I have the strong hope that this will help me to keep track of how much I actually consume, because I often get the nagging fear that I miss too much, while I am at the same time pretty sure that I devour a huge amount of movies, books, TV shows and other media products. Moreover, I always want to compile a "Favourite.."-list at the end of the year, only to realize that I can't remember enough things to put on a list with ten or more items and still have enough titles left to keep some out. And what is the point of making a list when you simply put everything on it?

Anyway, here we go:

1st to 22nd of January 2016

Read:
James Anderson: "The Affair of the Mutilated Mink" (An entertaining, very traditional Whodunnit. Fun)
Kim Newman: "The Secrets of Drearcliff Grange School" (I love Kim Newman. If I were queen, he would be my poet laureate. The book is wonderful, I hope he writes more about the adventures of the Moth Club.)  

Watched:
"Lovely Molly" (A movie that puzzled but neither frightened nor disturbed me. While looking for some discussions of the plot on the internet, I found the awesome "Dark Discussions"-podcast.)
"We're Still Here" (A good ghost story with some interesting ideas for a LARP-plot.)
"The Gallows" (Just terrible, I regret I paid for it because I worry that this might encourage them to make a sequal.)
"Horns" (Big disappointment.)
"Unknown User" (Exciting idea, very solid and sometimes actually scary.)
"Tales of Halloween" (So much fun!!!)
"Exists" (Bigfoot hunts teenagers who accidentally hit him with their car. Encourages me to drive much more carefully.)  
"Bone Tomahawk" (I really loved the first hour which was a straight Western. During the last thirty minutes I had a whisky to help stomaching the violence, but even that I liked.)

I didn't play any video games because somehow they do not really interest me at the moment, but as you can see I watched a lot of movies, which were almost exclusively horror movies. No TV shows either, only a couple of episodes of "The Mentalist", but there isn't anything interesting for me on Netflix at the moment. 

February is a stupid month

I didn't post anything last week because February is a very busy month at work. We had the "Open School-Day" yesterday, which ment that I had to be there until three in the afternoon. Later this month, there will be parent-teacher-day. Moreover, I have to write many reports about individual students who are in danger of failing if their grades don't get better, and of course I have to meet their parents to talk about these reports. This doesn't sound like much, but all these things I have to do on top of my normal workload, which includes grading 30 tests from advanced students, each test with about 800 to 1200 words. Thus, I think I am entitled to a bit of moaning.
On the plus side, I finished knitting a pair of socks, baked a cake with nuts and nutella and watched the 8th season of Doctor Who, which I liked much more than season 6 and 7. So, not all is bad and things will hopefully get better soon.

January in Retrospect

January has been a rather good month. Although I have been ill for a few days, I did several things I really liked and had planned for a long time. First, I finally went to the Mauritius Mediathek in Wiesbaden. I am trying not to buy new stuff (including books) until March, so it's great to get reading material there. And it's just a ten-minute walk from my home, so there is no excuse not to go there.
Moreover, we have started a new Cthulhu-campaign, as I have already written. At the moment, we are only three participants, but I hope that we will be joined by a new player in summer.
Another great thing was planning our next LARP. It will take place in the 1930s and all the characters will be police officers. It's so much fun, I actually enjoy organizing LARPs much more than being a player.
My boyfriend and me spend some time playing Little Big Planet on the PlayStation and had a great time jumping -and falling- around.
Foodwise I stopped buying cake during the week and baked a cake on the weekend instead. I love cake and now I spend the whole week trying to decide which one I will make for the weekend. We also went to Harput, a great Turkish restaurant, twice and I had delicious meatballs at the Hafeneck in Mainz.
I went to a march against the Pegida-group (I won't call them a "movement"...) which helped a bit against my frustration about these people.
I did not craft much since I spent too much time playing FarCry 4, but I have the feeling that my binge-playing phase is in decline, as you can see by me writing a post here instead of sitting in front of the TV liberating the people of Kyrat.
I went to a nearby cafe a lot (though I didn't eat cake, only buns, which don't count) because I can read there much more concentrated than at home. I had to read Medea.Stimmen by Christa Wolf for school and it's one of the most fascinating books I have read in a long time. I glad it's on the reading list for the Abitur, otherwise I guess I wouldn't have picked it up.
All in all, this was a good start, let's hope the rest of 2015 will continue like this!

Distractions

I didn't post anything last week because I was very busy. I went to an Anti-Pegida march on Monday, on Tuesday we had our monthly get-together with friends and on Friday I finally started playing RPGs again. Hurray! We have begun playing a very long campaign ("Die Bestie", a "Call of Cthulhu" campaign) and I hope that we will be able to finish it. A few years ago I played the "Masks of Nyalathotep" campaign and I'm still proud of it.
The rest of the time I spent in fron of the TV, playing FarCry 4. I am not a gamer, but once or twice a year I find a game I really enjoy and then I tend to binge-play. So now I am tired, the kitchen is a mess and I guess I should go to bed early today instead of trying to liberate another area of Kyrat...

Tentacles and Politics

Last year I painted some mugs with porcelain paint. Unfortunately, the paint didn't last at all even though I followed the instruction on the pens to the letter.
On Friday, I decided to give it a new try and scrubbed the old paint from my mug. After painting it again, I put the mug into the oven for 50 minutes at 170 degrees. (On the pen it says "30 minutes at 160 degrees...) Now the paint seems to be more durable, but the brown paint got cracks and does not look very even. All in all, I like the result and the cracked paint in the letters fits the "topic" of my mug, but next time I'll use a different brand.

 Next, I used my button maker to produce a political statement. I think it's awful that "Social Justice Warrior" has become a pejorative word, or that people seem to think that it is a great way to insult somebody by saying that he or she fights for social justice. In my opinion, social justice is something everybody should strive for and to say that somebody is stupid because he or she believes that we all should try to abolish injustice is just cynical and disgusting. In German, the term "Gutmensch" is now used as an insult, and I don't like that, but at least the "Gut" in "Gutmensch" is open for interpretation and can refer to different kinds of "gut". "Social justice", however, has a very specific meaning.
But I'll gladly call myself a "Social Justice Warrior",  and I don't want the term "social justice" to become spoiled. Language belongs to those who speak it and therefore we can influence its development. So I will proudly wear my new button!

Things I made

I used the last few days of the holidays to make some things.
First, a small bag for my dice:

Next, I finished a small patchwork placemat. The top was finished this summer, but I never really got to finishing the quilting and I was a bit afraid of the bindings because all the patchwork placemats I made so far looked really untidy around the corners. So I finally took the time to look up a tutorial online, made the bias tape myself and finished the front side with hand stitches. I think it looks great:

And this is the finished object: (My camera struggles with the colours, in reality it's less blue and more like a greenish teal.)

I also made 8 jars of orange and lemon marmelade and sewed a pair of black leggings, but I don't really think you need pictures of that...