As usual, ordered by first visit and asterisks indicate multiple separate visits.

Seattle, WA*
Cambridge, MA*
Minneapolis, MN*
Bloomington, MN
SeaTac, WA
Arlington, VA*
Bridgewater, VA

Airports: SEA, BOS, MSP, DCA - all origin/destination; I had no connecting flights last year.

The biggest 1970s disaster movies correspond directly to the four classical elements.

• Airport (1970): air
• The Poseidon Adventure (1972): water
• The Towering Inferno (1974): fire
• Earthquake (1974): earth

Perhaps Irwin Allen was actually the reincarnation of Empedocles? (Leaving aside the fact that he only made two of the four.)

Almost a year ago, I posted the 2021 list and closed it with "(2022 so far: Cambridge, MA / Boston, MA / Seattle, WA and BOS, LAX*, SEA.)".

That list from January 4th is the *entire* 2022 list.

Cambridge, MA
Boston, MA (only because my flight was cancelled and the replacement was an early morning flight, so I booked the airport Hilton for convenience)
Seattle, WA

Airports (* = connection only): BOS, LAX*, SEA.
(Almost added SJC as the "original" LAX-SEA part of my rebooking was also cancelled, but it seemed dubious to add yet another connection to what was supposed to be a nonstop and the LAX Sky Club was probably nicer than the lounge at SJC.)

Still managed to requalify for Platinum Medallion based on rollover miles from 2019/2020/2021 and the credit card waiver, but my Diamond years (extended status from a lot of 2019 travel) have come to an end at least for now.

An unsurprisingly short list again.

In order by first visit; * for multiple visits.

Seattle, WA*
Cambridge, MA*
Arlington, VA*
Bridgewater, VA
Washington, DC

Airports (connection-only*): SEA, BOS, DTW*, DCA.

(2022 so far: Cambridge, MA / Boston, MA / Seattle, WA and BOS, LAX*, SEA.)

In folktales and ballads, if someone were to refuse to fulfill (or worse, actively try to counter) the dying request of a wise old woman I'm pretty sure it would not turn out well for them.

Also, despite the name, Poe's character Prince Prospero is not the winner in his story.

(I'm not a literature major, but even I know this stuff....)

Overnights, 2019

In order by first visit; * for multiple visits.

Steilacoom, WA*
Seattle, WA*
Bellevue, WA
Detroit, MI
Cambridge, MA*
Boston, MA*
SeaTac, WA
Southfield, MI
DL142 SEA-AMS* [twice; it's my usual option for Europe trips]
Munich, Germany*
Madison, WI
St. Louis Park, MN
Quincy, MA
Dublin, Ireland
KL682 YVR-AMS [for a little variety]
Arlington, VA
Ottawa, ON
Portland, OR*
Ann Arbor, MI
Minneapolis, MN

Surprises:

• No Bay Area trips for me this year; there were no work trips, and I missed FOGcon.
  
• OTOH, I wound up with three(!) trips to Europe: two work trips to MUC, plus Worldcon in DUB.

Airports (none new-to-me this year, connection-only marked by *): SEA, DTW, BOS, AMS*, MUC, CDG*, SLC*, MSN, LGA*, MSP, DUB, ATL*, YVR*, DCA, YOW, PDX. Lots of repeated airports (again), with multiple trips to/through DTW, BOS, AMS, MUC, LGA, MSP, YVR, and PDX and a whole lot of time at SEA (heh).

There were also two near-repeats: I was able to shorten one originally booked DTW-SLC-SEA routing to the nonstop, and the second MUC trip had been intended to include a side trip to SREcon EMEA in DUB (but the timing didn't work).

These are from yhlee. I'm not sure I can come up with questions for others at the moment, so no promises if you comment.

1. What's your favorite city to visit?

No contest: London. The famous quote about being tired of London meaning you're tired of life is an understatement; even when I've been depressed (and tired of life) I've never tired of London.

The incredible number of museums alone makes the city hard to leave, though I have objections to the collection practices of some of them (*cough*British Museum [of stuff stolen from elsewhere]*cough*). Many are free admission with a suggested donation (which I often exceed), making it practical to dip into a museum if I just want to see one or two items without feeling like I've wasted money.

Add in a transit system I can experience in ways both historical and practical, good food (despite the stereotype of British cuisine), bookshops, parks, plays, and everything else and it's always tough to leave.

2. What is the nicest experience you've ever had at a hotel?

I'm utilitarian about my hotels; I want them to be clean, conveniently located, and not too expensive. I appreciate the occasional upgrades, even when ridiculously overdone; several times I've been upgraded to a 1 or even 2 bedroom suite for a trip where I was staying by myself!

Since I'm not coming up with any particular experience of note, I'll pivot to some of my favorite hotel features: in room mini fridges (increasingly common); in room hot tubs (increasingly rare; the Penguicon hotel removed them in the last renovation, apparently due to one too many overflows); TVs with easy to use inputs (or even better, streaming from your device; I've only seen that at one hotel so far); and sufficient seating (at least two comfy chairs, or one plus a couch).

3. What is your favorite animal that's not a friendly blue shark? :)

Otters! Intelligent, playful, supportive of each other (holding hands while they float together). Not a bad role model.

4. What is your favorite comfort food?

Two categories:
(a) that I can easily make or acquire: pasta, usually spaghetti with meat sauce.
(b) when visiting my parents: sauerbraten and dumplings.

5. Who is your favorite historical figure?

Assuming that "historical" is defined by "did not overlap with my lifetime" (because otherwise I wind up saying Fred Rogers), I'll go with Ignaz Semmelweis. He was right even though he wasn't believed despite the evidence, and it took years for his hypothesis to become accepted wisdom...but in the end his ideas have saved countless lives. (Not, sadly, his own; he died at 47 shortly after being committed to an asylum and beaten.)

I could also make a case for Nikola Tesla (in part because we share a birthday), though unlike Tesla I will never be played by David Bowie in a movie.

I am seriously looking forward to Black Panther and Avengers: Infinity War. I'm cautiously optimistic about Solo.

How about you?

TL;DR: possibly the best open-world action-RPG I have played. If you have a PS4 and like open-world action-RPGs, buy this. If you don't have a PS4 and like open-world action-RPGs, you may want to get one; it's that good. I finished the game and immediately started a New Game+ so that I could re-run the early game dialogue with the full story in mind. (Spoiler post coming later, because I really want to talk about the worldbuilding and story.)

Trailer

The open world design is great

The various zones open up in a natural progression, starting with your tribe's inner lands, then you leave into the wilder hunting lands, and eventually progress into other tribes' areas. The map is huge and varied, with beautiful terrain that ranges from woodlands to snowfields to desert.

It has the Ubisoft-style "climb towers to reveal the map" mechanic that's been around forever (I first encountered it in AC2), but instead of tall buildings or radio towers (which in Far Cry 3 always frustrated me by being platformer puzzles, so in FC4 I got good at landing the minicopter at the top instead of climbing the stupid things) they're giant robo-dino-giraffe things and the tricky part is figuring out how to get to the jumping-off point safely and then timing your jump onto it. Once you're on its back, it's a simple climb.

The visuals are amazing

Even on a PS4 non-Pro. the graphics are absolutely stunning. Mountain vistas, creature design, weather, flowing water, grass blowing in the wind...it's all there, and there's a photo mode so you can tweak a still shot if you want stunning desktop wallpaper....

Combat is good (ranged great, melee meh)

There are a wide range (heh) of ranged weapons; several bows (with specialty arrows for each and tradeoffs between range/rate of fire/damage), two slings (one for bombs and one for elemental damage), a tripwire-launcher (possibly my favorite), and a rope-launcher for tying down enemies so you can bash on them.

There's basically one melee weapon with a "light" and "heavy" attack, though the light attack can do extra damage under the right circumstances (stealth, downed enemy, attack from above, etc) if you have the skills to go with it. Mostly it's "go in, swing, dodge, swing, oh shit oh shit run".

Mission design is really well done

The main missions do have placeholder tasks throughout (find your gear, go here, go there, talk to Bob, exit the gate) but in those cases there was generally useful and interesting background dialogue to build the world/progress the story. The main tasks are a nice mix of combat, puzzle, exploration, etc.

Few of the side missions (usually a short chain) include fetch quests, and they're mostly "bring me the heart of the giant beast over there" rather than "bring me 20 bear asses" (TVTropes warning). (One of the earliest ones is a "bring me some rabbit meat" one, but that's practically a tutorial mission anyway....) Some of the sidequest givers are also really well done minor characters who I wish I could see more of; it's worth going back to cycle through their random responses, in many cases.

In almost all cases, it's possible to tackle any given mission/monster/etc in different ways. Combat types might just rush in; sneaky snakes can hide in tall grass and use stealth takedowns; trapmasters will set bombs and watch the fireworks; snipers will sit back and headshot. Or one might use a mix of those.

The writing and story is absolutely amazing

To the level of "this is getting one of my Hugo nomination slots next year" (as a Best Dramatic Presentation (Long Form)). The dialogue is great. The datapoints scattered throughout the world are great. Characters. Plot. Everything. The latest patch adds a "Story" difficulty to make combat no longer a major issue.

It's at https://ckd.dreamwidth.org (I sense a great lack of surprise).

Since I have a Permanent Account here, this one won't go away completely but I'm seriously considering shifting new posts (what few I make) there since LJ's server move to Russia may be the tipping point for my social circles.

If you're also on DW, please comment here with your DW username and any other info you think would be useful (whether you're likely to crosspost back here, if there's an opt-in post for your filter groups, that sort of thing) and I'll set up the reading/access lists over there appropriately.

Comments screened; I'm using comments instead of a poll because I don't think ljdump grabs poll results and I want the info where I can easily sync it to something I control.