Twelve (and a bit) months on, time for an update on what’s currently in the rotations and occupying my free time. Last time it was sorted into board games, video games, YouTube, music and everything else. It’s a sign of how much has changed in just one year that the primary one of these categories has fallen off entirely due to lack of interest, and a new challenger has arose to take its place.

Photography – Current photography interests has definitely skewed more strongly towards dawn landscapes as of late, although I feel like assignments and terrible weather (going on a full week since we’ve seen the sun) will be forcing me to shoot a lot more studio portraiture with controlled lighting, which I don’t think I enjoy at all. Otherwise, have had a couple of great bird-focused outings with the OM-1 and 300mm f/4 prime, managed to shoot wallabies, koalas and kangaroos so far in 2025, have gone on decent walks with all of my infrared lenses, and have a new lens to test out for my S9. Happy days are here again, just as soon as the sun returns!

(This block also entirely replaces the board games block from last year, I don’t think we played anything of substance in the past 12 months, although we did get some party use of out Six Nimnt, Skulls, Monikers, and the like.

Videogames – Nine Sols is an amazing game. I didn’t get to it when it first released, but it was on my wish list. Getting back from the most recent Japan trip, it felt like time for something new, and Nine Sols was a masterpiece. Got all the Steam achievements, got the true ending, played it twice back to back (once blind, once with a guide – turns out I’d missed one conversation choice that would have lead to the True Eigong fight naturally anyway). Amazing game.

Elden Ring Nightreign soon, maybe Tunic or Another Crab’s Adventure in the meantime, but nothing has yet grabbed me since the final credits of Nine Sols ran.

YouTube/Streaming – still following the CS2 circuit, but our most recent video sessions have been all about Jet Lag: The Game (on Nebula) and Make Some Noise (on Dropout). Binge watched all of Jet Lag, watching season fourteen weekly as it rolls out, love it.

Music – Music lately has been all Electric Callboy, all the time. Starting with Tekkno and working backwards (a physical copy of Bury Me in Vegas arrived from a Japanese Yahoo auction literally yesterday). I don’t love everything they’ve done, but there’s only 3-4 skips in their entire discography, and their live albums are by far the most listened to forms of these songs.

Related – Samurai Pizza Cats and Ghostboy also in heavy rotation – fans can probably tell what led me to them.

Everything else – Work was insane for a few months at the end of last year, and has been a lot more sedate so far in 2025 – still busy, but not all-consuming. I’ve managed to spend some nights and most weekends working on my Diploma of Photography studies, finishing module 4 of the course and two of the advanced modules (Business, Branding and Social Media for Photographers, and Landscape and Travel Photography). Hoping for an Amazon delivery before 8pm tonight with the last couple of C-stands I need to start shooting my way through my visual diary exercises for module 5. I’m not looking forward to it, but the content areas from module 6 onwards look a LOT more interesting to me, so I’m hopeful things will become even more enjoyable again soon!