Music

Another year has come and gone. Here are a few of my favorite things in 2018.

Restaurant

Pizzeria Limone. I’m usually the only male there and they have the worst background music ever, but their Caprese Pizza is really amazing. Here’s my TripAdvisor review.

Breakfast Cereal

Chocolate Cruesli is still the clear winner and will be for the foreseeable future.

Some concerts I enjoyed in 2018 were Brandi Carlile, I’m With Her, The Milk Carton Kids, Gregory Alan Isakov, Josh Ritter, Good Old War (twice), and Gabe Dixon.

For my favorite song of 2018, I’m going to go with Tremble by Oh Jeremiah.

Older stuff that was in frequent rotation in 2018 includes:

John Mayer – more popular than I usually go for, but he’s really an amazing songwriter. As he ages he gets more Bob Dylan to me. Try Walt Grace’s Submarine Test, January 1967, which is just great storytelling.
Guster – I missed out on them when they were medium big in the 90s. They have a lot of great songs. Try Careful or Ramona.
Ben Rector – another good songwriter. Favorite from his latest album is Extraordinary Magic.
Randy Newman – another late discovery for me. Favorite tune might be Birmingham.
Jump, Little Children – Winston-Salem band. Love Mexico and several other songs. They did an independent release last year that’s pretty good.
Regina Spektor – way out of my usual style, but she speaks to my inner emo. It’s all I listen to on long flights. Her voice takes a little getting used to. I love Firewood and Obsolete.

Book

I had to check Goodreads to remind myself what I read. It took me most of the year to read Albert Camus’ The Stranger in the original French (L’Étranger), which I’ve been meaning to do ever since I discovered The Cure.

The book that impacted me the most was The Book Thief by Markus Zuzak. I listened to the audiobook after visiting the Documentation Center and Nazi Party Rally Grounds in Nuremberg and before returning to the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam. I’m about halfway through The Diary of Anne Frank, which is (of course) excellent.

Another great read was The Road by Cormac McCarthy. That story has bounced around in my head for months afterwards.

All the books that got 5 stars from me in 2018 were:

Title	Author
An Introduction to the Book of Abraham	John Laurence Gee
L’Étranger	Albert Camus
Triggers: Creating Behavior That Lasts‚ Becoming the Person You Want to Be	Marshall Goldsmith
The Most Dangerous Game	Richard Connell
The Book Thief	Markus Zusak
The Road	Cormac McCarthy
Passage by Faith: Exploring the Inspirational Art of James C. Christensen	James C. Christensen
Ender’s Shadow (The Shadow Series, #1)	Orson Scott Card
Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain	John J. Ratey
Mastery	Robert Greene
Dune	Frank Herbert
The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism	Timothy J. Keller
Ready Player One	Ernest Cline
Understanding Temple Symbols Through Scripture, History, and Art	Jack M. Lyon
Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder	Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Why Bob Dylan Matters	Richard F. Thomas
Boys Adrift: The Five Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men	Leonard Sax
Make Peace with Your Mind: How Mindfulness and Compassion Can Free You from Your Inner Critic	Mark Coleman

Website

2018 was the year I fully abandoned Facebook and Instagram. I had to fill the void with something, so I turned to Reddit. I like it for its ability to keep you up to date on memes and cat videos without all the human drama and overvalued opinions of Facebook. If you live in Utah you need to set up an account and pick some subreddits that interest you so you can see beyond the default top posts of your state, which are almost exclusively anti-Mormon rants.

Place

I saw some fun places in 2018. It was my first time in Germany, Austria, and the Czech Republic. I guess the highlight was the Vienna Cemetery.

Photos

The Empire State Building

Lovers at the Grand Canyon

Library in Prague

Vines in Yvoire

Bridge – Hyde Park, London

Yellowstone Falls

Bryce Canyon

Tourist in Prague

Brooklyn bridge

Horseshoe Point

Don’t call me beefeater

Nice view in Amsterdam

Kehlsteinhaus

Hikers at Bryce Canyon

Sunrise in SLC

Grizzly bear near Steamboat Point, Yellowstone

App

Yousician is good fun. I’m learning to play the bass. Screen Time says I spend the most time on Fallout Shelter (after taking a break for a couple of years), DomiNations, and Netflix.

Documentary

The one I’ve thought about the most is Dealt. I watched it on a flight when I was taking a break from Chinese movies and I can’t stop thinking about it. Life is unfair and that’s part of its beauty.

British Panel Show

2018 is the year I discovered Would I Lie To You where British celebrities try to speak convincingly of a personal story that may or may not be true. I think I’m caught up on all seasons. My favorite participants are James Acaster, Bob Mortimer, Greg Davies, and the longtime team captains David Mitchell and Lee Mack. It’s hard to say what my favorite clip is, but try this:

Comedian

My all-time favorites are Nate Bargatze, Jim Gaffigan, and Brian Regan. Dry Bar Comedy has some great clips on YouTube, although they can be hit or miss. Try Heath Harmison’s story about his arch-nemesis Meredith: