Intro
(feel free to skip to get to the good stuff… I probably would)
I’ve always wanted to do a year-in-review. Documenting your life is extremely important as a human, and creating a list of highlights at the end of every year is akin to taking an experiential snapshot. It’s something you can look at in ten years to revel at how much you’ve changed in some ways… and how little you’ve changed in others. It’s also a great way to easily share some of the things you enjoyed over the past year with friends and family.
My problem has always been the actual documentation part — writing down things. I’ve tried to keep lists, but they usually get buried and forgotten. Luckily for me, however, there has been a wave of ‘life-tracking’ apps that are meant to help a person keep tabs on what they’re experiencing. Apps like Goodreads (books), Swarm (locations), Reporter (general), MyFitnessPal (food/health), Fitbit (health), Untappd (beer), Lettrboxd (movies), Trakt.TV/SeenIt (TV) are meant to help you quickly keep track of the things you love. Even apps like Spotify, whose main purpose is streaming music, have started to offer year-end data to it’s users as a fun bonus. Add to that apps meant for social sharing (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc.), and you already have a chronological list of content that you’ve shared.
That all to say that this is a more robust year than any previous ‘Top Ten Movies of ____’ that I’ve done in the past. I have a lot more data to share this time around. Some will be quantitative, some qualitative. Thats life.
Here we go:
Life
I turned 30, which is weird. On the up side, things feel more established. Coming out of that ‘OH MY GOD WHAT AM I DOING WITH MY LIFE’ fog that is your twenties is nice. Not in the ‘settling down’ way, but in the ‘I’m pretty confident I can handle things a little better than back then’ way. On the downside, I feel old. Body parts get injured by the smallest of offenses. What happened to being six years old, falling twelve feet from a tree, landing on your head, and walking away high-fiving your buds? Now I live in constant fear that if I sneeze wrong I’ll throw out my back for a week.
I moved into a new place, which is cool. This is the first place where I’m living by myself (aside from L.A.), and the introvert in me really loves that.
I averaged 3,732 steps a day. Thats ~645 miles. I could walk to New York City from Cincinnati over the course of the year.
This guy walked the same amount in a month dressed as a Stormtrooper to honor is late wife. He’s way cooler than I.
Work
In September 2015, I hit my 2 year anniversary working at ChoreMonster!
Back in the summer of 2014, whilst ChoreMonster was in L.A. (and apart of the Disney Accelerator), we decided to try something new. We started to develop and produce short animated cartoons featuring monsters from the app. We called them MonsterShorts. In 2015, we released 12 videos, animating a total of 16,680 frames! Check out the video below to see what I make all day, everyday.
Kids, if a teacher ever tells you that you can’t earn a living making monsters dance and fart, send ’em my way.
Movies
This past year, I watched 52 movies…or a movie a week if my math is right (it is). That may sound like a lot, but for someone that LOVES movies, I really wish it was much more. Nevertheless, this year produced some great movies for me, along with some wild disappointments. And hey, before you jump on me for not liking Mad Max as much as EVERYONE else in the entire world, please note: I’m totally the dude that gets his expectations built up when a friend highly recommends something to him. So when everyone I passed on the street tells me how amazing this or that movie was, I’m really hard to please. Anyway, without further ado:
My top 5 of the year:
1) Ex Machina
2) Star Wars: Force Awakens
3) The Hateful Eight
4) Spotlight
5) Inside Out
Honorable Mention:
The Martian
Biggest Surprise (in the good way):
Goosebumps
Biggest Disappointments:
Kingsman: The Secret Service
Mad Max: Fury Road
Jurassic World
Movies I still want/need to see:
Sicario, Ant-Man, The Revenant, The Peanuts Movie, Mockingjay Pt. II, Creed, Shaun The Sheep, Spectre, Joy, Bridge Of Spies, Carol
Data via letterboxd.com
TV Shows
My favorite TV shows I watched in 2015:
Not having cable or a DVR can really affect the TV content you can consume. How that manifests for me is typically relying on Netflix or Amazon Prime to watch programs, which in-turn means I’m often limited to shows on those services. Not a lot of stuff thats currently being released. I’m not convinced that really matters much though; the classics are classics for a reason. There were quite a few shows that I just got to this past year that I’m sorry that took so long to fire up… as well as some much deserved re-watches. Here they are:
1. Psych
2. IT Crowd*
3. Master of None†
4. 30 Rock*
5. Gravity Falls
6. Avatar: The Last Airbender
7. Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt†
8. Rocko’s Modern Life*
9. Bob’s Burgers*
10. New Girl
*Re-watches
†Premiered in 2015
Other shows I watched — Some I plan to finish, some I don’t
An Idiot Abroad, Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations, Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown, Arrested Development*, BoJack Horseman, Chowder, Eastbound & Down, Derek*, F is for Family (in the middle of watching through the series), Marvel’s Jessica Jones (in the middle of watching through the series), Regular Show, Archer*, Seinfeld, Adventure Time, The Venture Bros.*, Tailer Park Boys*, Wet Hot American Summer
*Rewatches
All in all, I watched 852 TV episodes in 2015, equalling ~405 hours or ~15 days. Thats a lot of TV.
Data via Trakt
Books
Never being much of a reader, this year was a victory for me. I’ve always wanted to read more, and I’ve never been shy about buying a book that ends up collecting dust on my shelves, but this year was different. Because of the Goodreads book challenge we did at work, coupled with some great suggestions from friends, I read more than ever in my life this past year. Here are some of my favorites:
Top 3 Fiction
1) Ready Player One
2) The Martian
3) Seconds
Honorable Mention: Saga // I haven’t finished the series yet, so the jury is still out
Top 3 Non-fiction
1) The Advanced Genius Theory
2) Creativity, Inc.
3) Steal Like An Artist
I read 15 books, totaling 3,188 pages. The average length is 213 pages. Most of these were graphic novels. Deal with it.
Data via Goodreads
Music
Ok, so music. I’ve always loved it. Well, at least since I was in 8th grade and realized that Blink-182’s ‘Dammit’ made my foot inexplicably start tapping itself in the front seat of our family’s mini-van. If I like a song or album, I’ll listen to it over and over and over again on repeat. I don’t know why, but it’s the way I react when I really love some bit of music. Here are albums I couldn’t get enough of in 2015:
Favorite Albums released in 2015
1) Currents by Tame Impala
2) To Pimp A Butterfly by Kendrick Lamar
3) I Love You, Honeybear by Father John Misty
4) The Magic Whip by Blur
5) Depression Cherry by Beach House
6) Carrie & Lowell by Sufjan Stevens
Honorable mention:
1989 by Ryan Adams
Data
I listened to 59 THOUSAND minutes of music. Or 980 hours. Or 41 days. Which is 43% more than I did in 2014.
I listened to 867 different artists in 2015. That’s 180 more than 2014.
I listened to 3,518 different tracks in 2015. That’s 617 than 2014.
I listened to Little Wanderer by Death Cab For Cutie 29 times in one day… I’m a creature of habit, but, like, woah.
Edgar Wright’s Top 50 of 2015 playlist on Spotify is perfect. If you don’t know who Edgar Wright is, go watch Shaun of the Dead right now.
Which artists I listened to the most in 2015:
Bloc Party — 1,640 streams
Death Cab For Cutie — 530 steams
Walk The Moon — 465 streams
Tame Impala — 430 streams
Ryan Adams — 384 streams
Which albums I listened to the most in 2015:
Silent Alarm by Bloc Party — 742 streams
Four by Bloc Party — 437 streams
Currents by Tame Impala — 396 streams
Which tracks I listened to the most in 2015:
Flux by Bloc Party — 194 streams
This Modern Love by Bloc Party — 155 streams
Helicopter by Bloc Party — 153 streams
Podcasts
Podcasts are a relatively new thing for me. It wasn’t until I was on a two-week, cross-country roadtrip that my buddy Ben played ‘My Brother, My Brother, and Me’ for the crew that I realized that people talking in a non-standup format could be entertaining. Since then, MBMBAM still has my heart and the #1 spot on the list, but there are a few others that are noteworthy.
Favorite Podcasts
1. My Brother, My Brother, and Me
2. Skwigly Animation Podcast
3. You Look Nice Today
4. The Adventure Zone
5. Roderick On The Line
Beer
Let me be the first to admit I’m not a beer snob. I’m just not as passionate about it as most. I do, however, like a good beer as much as the next guy… and will seek those out as much as possible. Just don’t be surprised to go through my Untappd feed and see me checking in a Pliny The Elder right before I check in a Coors Light.
Favorite Beers
1. Zombie Dust by 3 Floyds Brewing Company —American Pale Ale
2. Rubus Cacao by MadTree Brewing Company — Raspberry Stout
3. Hammerhead IPA by Reaver Beach Brewing Company — IPA
I had 52 beers that I had never tried before, averaging 7% ABV. Most of those were at The Lackman
data by Untappd
Shoutout to Joe L. — not only for telling me about ‘ life-tracking’ and the apps he uses to track, but also for sharing quite a few things that ended up on the list… movies, music, books, & beer. Thanks Joe.
