Monty's first (though he's assured us, not his last) Monster Truck show. Morgan (eight months pregnant here!) is not so sure.   Hello all! It is the July to December 2025 edition of my media diet. I ended the year on a banger with two of the best books from the whole year that I read back to back (though you’ll have to scroll to the end to see my best-ofs). Besides that, no real trends. I’d love to read more but two kids under three is really cutting into my pleasure reading

Just as we were getting settled into El Paso and the last boxes of the move from Savannah in September were being unpacked, wouldn't you know it! We went and had another kid!! Introducing Marigold Viola Morris or Goldie for short. Goldie is so perfect, I give her the rare A++. Now on to the more normal (if less adorable) rankings.   Movies:   Paper Moon (B+): the movie itself is probably an A. Maybe even an A+ if Ryan and Tatum had a great relationship off screen and this wa

Welcome back to scheduled programming as the Morris fam became settled in El Paso, Morgan moved into the second trimester of baby 2, and I was able to pick up on more of my regular media habits. Looking at the list, I realize Morgan and I found ourselves watching more miniseries than we have before. Probably because finally had some time to catch up on ones we’ve been meaning to watch (White Lotus) or because new seasons were released of an old favorite (Slow Horses). Also, f

I consumed by far the least amount of media this quarter of 2024 (June-September)In the five years I have been doing some variations of these media diets and not coincidentally, this was also the quarter in which we first moved in five years. After being in Savannah since 2019, the Army finally moved us to a bigger and better place (well, at least bigger). Starting in July, we got a Pod storage container and a Uhaul and did the process of moving ourselves from Georgia to Texa

2024 is half over and in keeping with my 2024 New Years Resolution, I am posting my media diet every quarter. Here is the first quarter of 2024. For the second time in a row I am including Morgan’s rankings for the films we watched together. This quarter began in April with us finally going on the first family trip in a year to Grand Cayman and staying at a wonderful hotel on the beach. This quarter ends in June with me, away from the family yet again for three months, in a

Soooo…as part of my 2024 New Years Resolutions,* one was to share my media diet every quarter, instead of once at the end of the year. That is to hopefully put more work into it and share the more obscure articles I read that I want to recommend. Also! For the first time, I’m including some of Morgan’s rankings when we watched something together. So far in 2024, I’ve gone down two rabbit-hole subjects. The first, which I can recommend to everyone, is the Big Dig Podcast , whi

So this year’s media list looks a bit different than previous years, because this year was different. From April to November I was ̶d̶e̶p̶l̶o̶y̶e̶d̶ rotated to Poland for work. 10 years ago, being in Europe for 8 months and getting to travel the continent would have been a dream come true. Now though, this meant leaving the family and especially Montgomery who was 10-months-old when I left. I had known a year in advance this tour was coming up and all I had really wanted befo

Monty and Morgan doing the Sunday crossword. Monty is quickly learning the vital art of brunching in bed and spending weekends idly reading. Another year means time for my annual list of what I read, listened to, read, and visited over the past year. This list is not as long as previous years for two good reasons: I spent the first part of 2022 in graduate school where I mainly had to read about things related to my scholarly paper. The primary book I read during this time wa

Some Canyon For the fourth year in a row, I’ve kept a list of what I watched, listened to, read, and visited. Mainly what I read instead of watch since I figure people do not want me to rate individual episodes of 90 Day Fiancé or sports podcasts. In previous years, I did it by date or subject. This year I am changing it up again by listing by category to see if that makes it more readable. As always, these posts are long so if you want the TL;DR here are my top five books fr

Finally did make it to Disney in November, only for it to rain buckets on us as we tried to get drinks at the Grand Floridian. It was a weird year bookended by COVID. We started the year with COVID causing our honeymoon to Almafi/Greece being cancelled, and we ended the year with both of us getting COVID and laid up at the house not able to taste/smell anything and completely lethargic. The day we got out of quarantine is the day Morgan’s work released her vaccination schedul

I rewatched a lot of movies this year and went on a reading tear in the second half after moving to Savannah. Oh, and got married too. That was sweet! *** I follow the Michelin system.    * Star is among best of the year.    ** Stars is easily best of the year. *** Stars mean best of the decade/an all-timer.   January *Father of the Bride: Rewatch (A+) Munich (B+) [I read the book this is based on, Vengeance, several years ago and it was slightly better and took about as muc

Don't miss PNW winters but do miss Gig Harbor summers One of my New Year's Resolutions from 2018 was to keep a media diet of every movie, book, TV show, I watched and rate it. Here is the final list. Turns out I started 2018 by watching a lot of stand-up and noir and finished the year by watching a lot of Patrick Swayze movies. In between was a lot of meh stuff like Breach and a completely forgettable Fleetwood Mac Biography. The *** follow the Michelin system.   * Star is a