We’re on a mission to try something new every week. That’s what this whole diary is about. You know this — you’ve been following along since the beginning of 2021. We’re trying to make it A Good Year.

But this week, life got in the way.

Taylor is working on finding a new job. I had a lot of grading to catch up on. We’re still touring apartments. We’re packing up for Taylor’s (belated) graduation ceremony this week. We’re trying to plan for a summer where nothing is concrete yet.

Don’t forget the usual chores: laundry, cooking, dishes, car washes.

…

1. They have Big and Carrie play out the most predictable storyline imaginable. If there’s one thing they never were, it’s predictable.
2. It’s 2 hours and 25 minutes long. That is way too long.
3. Samantha lives in L.A. It’s called Sex and the City, not Sex and a Couple Cities.
4. Charlotte is the only character with any sense and they make this poor woman poo her pants in Mexico for no reason.
5. Steve would never do anything to hurt Miranda!
6. Speaking of the show’s best male characters — Justice for Aidan! Where is he?
7. Aren’t Stanford and Anthony are supposed to…

This article needs little to no introduction as this is probably not the only one of these you will read leading up to Sunday. I am looking forward to this year’s Oscars because not only was I able to see so many of the nominees, many people did — they were more widely available than ever before as many of them are available to stream.

I excluded categories in which I felt like I had no skin in the game, or where I did not see a majority of the nominees (typically 3 of the 5). …

A few weeks ago, we made a last minute decision to eat out for dinner. I don’t remember what exactly sparked it, but since I’m usually in charge of dinner, it must have been my fault in some way or another.

We drove just a few minutes down the street and visited a restaurant we’ve been to a number of times.

But this week was different.

They were hosting Trivia Night.

We didn’t participate officially, but chatted about the questions in between bites. We were just spectators in what seemed to be a fun night of play.

So naturally, we…

Taylor and I are both big baseball fans. Mine comes from a childhood growing up watching the Cubbies on WGN and the Nationals and Orioles (where we live now!) on MASN; hers comes from a childhood of softball that lasted over a decade.

Needless to say, we’ve missed baseball.

We followed approximately 0% of the 2020 season. It just didn’t feel right to me. …

During a recent (vaccinated!) family gathering to celebrate my cousin’s twelfth birthday, he busted out one of his presents: his VR headset.

I rolled my eyes.

Listen, I grew up with a Game Boy Advance and a VideoNow. And at the time, it was the height of luxury!

How good could this really be?

I was blown away.

Taylor and I took turns trading the headset and controllers back and forth. At first, we played Beat Saber, which was a really great place to start. It’s literally a game where things fly at your face, so it was a great…

Netflix’s latest offering, Concrete Cowboy, which lands on the platform today, chronicles the (surprisingly) true story of the urban horsewrangling culture in North Philadelphia. Based on the book Ghetto Cowboy by G. Neri, many may be interested to not only learn about the black urban cowboy culture still present in the modern day, but also interested in finding more films featuring black cowboys.

About a month ago, the Criterion Channel launched their curation of black westerns, with films ranging from 1960–1997. …

We are now three months into A Good Year, our journey to try one new thing every week in our effort to make 2021 a good year.

How is it going so far?

We’ve tried lots of great food (lots of food — some that we’ve made, some out), we’ve tried some new games, and cheated on our mission just a little.

Take this week: We are enjoying our spring break and not worrying about the real world. To be honest, we haven’t gone out of our way to try something new. …