Enjoyment Roundup 4

Things aren’t great right now. But these things are!

I’d love to hear what sorts of media or hobbies are keeping the horrors at bay for you these days. Feel free to shoot me a message with your recent favorites.

• Gideon the Ninth by Tasmyn Muir

  I really didn’t know much about this series going in aside from a recommendation from Ethan Marcotte and art from Annalise Jensen. But I’ve been cooling on my Brando Sando streak and needed to read something different.

  And oh what a difference! The book cover’s reductive blurb of “lesbian necromancers in space” — while not technically wrong — doesn’t do it justice by a long shot. It’s a ghost story. It’s a murder mystery. It’s a revenge plot. It’s some of the finest damn worldbuilding I’ve ever read.

  Also blessings upon Tasmyn Muir for bestowing upon us such beatific parlance as “a lahar of hot bone gunge.”

  Honorable mention: Things Become Other Things by Craig Mod

• KPop Demon Hunters

  I debated mentioning this one, just because I’m not sure there’s anyone left who hasn’t seen KPop Demon Hunters. Recently confirmed as the most watched Netflix original film in the platform’s history, this flick is a top-to-bottom delight.

  It’s got everything: World-class animation! The earworm-iest songs! Jokes! Demons! Hunters! The power of friendship!

  Stop reading this and go watch it.*

• Herdling

  There’s been no shortage of great games coming out recently — but one that’s really captured my attention is Herdling from Okomotive and publishing powerhouse Panic (also makers of great Mac software).

  

  You play as a hoodied youth tasked with shepherding a flock of curious, curly-horned creatures out of a decrepit city and up into stunning alpine vistas — avoiding dangers and decorating your companions along the way.

  It isn’t all fuzzy pals and chill vibes (there are a few challenging, quasi-stealthy bits), but if you have a few hours to kill I can’t recommend this one enough. The woodwind-heavy soundtrack by Joel Schoch alone is worth it IMO!

  Honorable mention: all of Playdate Season 2. Check out my playlist of livestreams!

• NEVER ENOUGH by Turnstile

  I don’t think anyone could ever mistake me for a “punk guy” (unless you count being kind). But damn if this album didn’t lure me in with its synthy tones, and made me stick around ‘til the end.

  Honorable mention: I almost put down KPDM for this one as well, because it’s definitely been the most often on repeat since watching it.

• Duo60 by LAZYDESIGNERS

  When I first got into the mechanical keyboard hobby, I didn’t much care for ones with a 60% layout (think your usual keyboard — but without a function row, arrows, or nav cluster). But after my boss Dave shared the good news of setting up mod taps for arrow keys, I’ve fallen in love.

  

  The latest to grace the collection is LAZYDESIGNERS’ Duo60, which I built on stream last week. It also turned out to be the perfect match for biip’s Extended 2048 keycaps, which had been languishing in a storage cupboard in my office for far too long.

  If custom keyboards are something that’s interested you at all and you’re in West Michigan, I’ll be hosting a small event showing off boards at my coworking space in October. More details to come!