knifegirlAlly
Saturday, February 27, 2021
CRKT Ripple 2 Thoughts
Saturday, February 20, 2021
State of knifegirlAlly
Hi everyone! I know it's been quite a while since I posted on here. That seems to be the common cycle these past couple of years. I get really into posting and then go silent for months or a year at a time. I've been spending more time recently looking into what I've missed in the community. I figured I'd put out an update and let you all know what to expect going forward.
Starting with YouTube, I ended up setting all my videos to private back at the beginning of this year. I hadn't posted in a while anyways, and it's honestly something I don't want up at this moment. I originally started uploading videos when I was a freshman in high school in 2012. A lot has changed since then, and I don't have the same interest in being on YouTube anymore. I don't watch any EDC videos these days and don't have much to add in terms of content. I'm not buying any new gear either, so my EDC stays pretty consistent. I decided not to permanently delete everything, since I did that once and regretted it. Who knows, maybe I'll make them public again in the future. I apologize to anyone that enjoyed the videos.
For the blog, I'm still planning to post occasionally as I have free time. With everything going on with the pandemic, I want some sort of creative outlet and this is the perfect place for that. I've always wanted to finish writing about all of the gear I own, so I'm still interested in working on. I'm getting into backpacking which I may start posting about too. There may be other random posts, as I've always felt I've had more flexibility with what I can post on here.
I'm still undecided on whether I'll get back into posting on Instagram. I find the platform really annoying, since they littered it with ads and took away chronological posting. It's way too hard to keep up with the accounts I care about. Again, it's one of those things where I don't feel like I have much to add since my carry stays the same.
I'll keep it brief for now, but stick around for more posts in the future, though no promises on any sort of frequency. Thanks for keeping up with me all these years! It's crazy to think I've been doing this for so long and am now out in the real world. Unfortunately, it's not the the post-college life I expected though. I appreciate the support and have enjoyed getting to know all of you. Please let me know if there's anything you'd like to see me post about. It's not as easy to have the community aspect on here, but the comments do work and my email is always open.
Saturday, January 25, 2020
Recommended EDC Gear of 2019
Like I said at the beginning, I didn't buy much new gear this year and was content with carrying what I've got in my collection. Back when I was in school, I didn't have a ton of knife usage, yet I would always be reaching for a flashlight and small multitool. The Victorinox Classic and Lumintop Tool AA are my go-to options that haven't left my EDC pouch in quite some time. They definitely got the most use out of all my gear in 2019. If you don't own a Classic, you absolutely need to get one! It has far surpassed my favorite knife, the Spyderco Ladybug, in terms of usage, because of the extra tools like scissors, a screwdriver, and tweezers. The Lumintop Tool AA is a great flashlight with over 500 lumens on high. I love the purple body and green tailcap combo!
I did have the opportunity to try a bunch of new gear at the beginning of the year thanks to some generous viewers and the passaround group I'm in. Of all that loaner gear, one knife stood out to me the most, which was the Bestech Reticulan. It was easily the best knife I tried in 2019 and is still one I need to add to my own collection.
I didn't have a single complaint about the Reticulan. It has such a unique design, is the perfect size for me, flips incredibly well, and comes in a few different colors. I love what Bestech is doing in the smaller size range, since not many companies consistently put out smaller options. It'll probably be one of the first gear purchases I make this year once I downsize my collection.
That wraps it up for my recommended EDC gear of 2019. I'm looking forward to seeing what stands out in 2020. Thanks for looking!
Wednesday, January 22, 2020
Reading Goals For 2020
My first goal is to read 150 books. I've read over 200 books the past few years when reading was practically all I did in my free time. That obviously didn't leave me with much time for other hobbies, so this year I'm cutting my goal down to 150. That seems a lot more manageable with me working full-time now. Hopefully that leaves me with some extra flexibility to get back into playing video games, hiking, photography, etc.
My second goal is to try to be more balanced with what I'm reading. I want to make sure I'm not just reading from the same type of authors. I enjoy hearing about other people's perspectives and always end up learning things I hadn't considered before. The author's gender is one aspect of this goal, though I'd also like to try to read a more even amount of fiction/nonfiction and books based outside the US.
My last goal has been a goal of mine for a few years which is to read all of the physical books I own. I desperately wanted to accomplish this before I moved out of my college apartment, just so I wouldn't have as much to move out. Unfortunately, that never happened. I've still got about 40 or 50 books of mine that I need to read. I also want to try to read all of the books on my Kindle. I've hoarded a bunch over the years that I've never gotten around to actually reading. I'm the type of person that keeps checking out more books at the library, even though I've already got a healthy stack to go through. This is probably the goal I'd like to achieve the most out of the bunch.
That's about it for this post. I wanted to keep it short and sweet, since it primarily serves as a way for me to speak these into action. Hopefully I can knock these out of the park before December 31 hits. Thanks for looking!
Saturday, January 18, 2020
Spyderco Para3 LW Thoughts
Saturday, January 11, 2020
What I Watched: 2019
My absolute favorite show that I saw this year was Atypical season 3. It follows the lives of a family where the son is on the autism spectrum and is going about his life as normally as possible. The parents have a lot of their own drama, and the sister is hilarious. I binged this over the course of a day and hope a fourth season happens. I never rewatch shows, but honestly I may end up rewatching the whole series this year. It's that good. There's a few other Netflix originals I enjoyed, like One Day At a Time season 3, The Punisher season 2, You season 1, Dead to Me season 1, Mindhunter season 2, and When They See Us. I'm also a sucker for true crime/cop shows and liked Brooklyn Nine-Nine season 3 and The People v. OJ Simpson season 1. Brooklyn Nine-Nine is one of my favorite comedies and is still a series I need to get caught up with. I own the first three seasons on DVD and want to get the rest soon to complete my collection. One Day At a Time is another hilarious family drama that unfortunately got canceled. Dead to Me was probably my second favorite of the year, which is a dark comedy that focuses on a widow trying to figure out who killed her husband in a hit and run. If you like comedies and crime-related shows, you can't go wrong with any of these.
As far as movies go, the one that pleasantly surprised me the most was Game Night. A group of adults attempt to have a murder mystery party that ends up taking a turn for the worse. There were lots of twists and turns and funny moments throughout. Knock Down The House is a documentary on Netflix that focuses on a group of women that ran for the House in the last election. It was a really neat look into politics and leaves me hopeful for the future. A few things I saw on Netflix were Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile and Let It Snow. The first one has Zac Efron perfectly playing Ted Bundy, and the second one is just a cheesy, feel-good Christmas movie that I ended up watching with my family. Spider-Man is my favorite superhero, and I was very impressed with Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. It was cool to see an animation style that was different than what animated movies are typically like. I also saw a few movies that were adapted from books, like Crazy Rich Asians, A Simple Favor, and The Hate U Give. All were well-done and entertaining to watch. Finally, I watched Halloween from 2018 and thought it was a great reboot of an already classic film.
That about wraps it up for some of the things I watched in 2019. Now that I'm finally done with school, I hope to catch up on some TV shows that I haven't gotten around to watching yet. Thanks for looking!
Saturday, January 4, 2020
What I Read: 2019
Since reading is my main hobby, I set a goal of 200 books and ended up reading 249, with 77 of those being graphic novels and the rest being novels. Graphic novels don't take that long for me to read, which does inflate my overall count some. I read most of my books on my phone through the Libby app and had a breakdown of 50 physical books, 197 eBooks, and 2 audiobooks. 173 of the books I read were fiction, while 76 were nonfiction. The last stat I track is the author's gender, with 147 books written by males and 101 written by females (1 extra one was written by a team from a news website). This isn't as evenly balanced as I'd like and is one thing I want to focus on improving in 2020. Across all of the books, I ended up reading 65,848 pages.
For this post, I wanted to talk about 10 of my favorite books I read in 2019. These all ended up getting 4 or 5 star reviews from me. My average rating this year was about 2.5 stars, so these 10 are all standouts that impressed me in some shape or form.
There were three books that I rated 5 stars this past year: Whiskey in a Teacup by Reese Witherspoon, American Predator by Maureen Callahan, and The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid. Whiskey in a Teacup is a lifestyle book that has an aesthetically pleasing mixture of recipes and home decor ideas, along with tidbits about Reese's life. I didn't expect to like it as much I did, but it was such a well-done book. American Predator is a true-crime novel that had me completely entranced. Maureen Callahan has a great writing style that's easy to read with a good flow. It uncovers the crimes of one of the "most meticulous" serial killers of this century. I had never heard about him before and think Callahan provided enough details without going overboard. I love true crime as you may know, and it's one of the best ones I've read in a while. Lastly, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo was another one I didn't expect to like as much as did. It's mostly focuses on the drama/romance of a fictional actress that wants a reporter to write a tell-all book about her life. Like Maureen Callahan, Taylor Jenkins Reid writes in such a way that makes you want to keep on reading. I liked the main character, Evelyn Hugo, more and more as I learned about her life.
Moving onto some of the 4 star books, the only graphic novel to make the cut was Nimona by Noelle Stevenson. It's a fantasy story that had fantastic art and an interesting plot. One other good true-crime novel I read was I'll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara. This book focuses on the Golden State Killer, who was actually caught in the past couple of years. McNamara unfortunately passed away before the book was published, so it didn't read as fluidly in parts since other people had to get it finalized. Still, I enjoyed it and liked learning about her investigation process. I've wanted to read more of Stephen King's works and was very impressed by Misery and 11/22/63. Misery is a weird book but had me rooting for the main character by the end of it. 11/22/63 is a neat time travel story about a teacher going back to stop the assassination of JFK. It was long, like most of Stephen King's books are, yet it felt warranted due to how crazy the plot became. Another book I read with a presidential theme was Fear by Bob Woodward. No matter what side of the political spectrum you're on, it's such a fascinating look into the past few years of Trump's presidency. It was well-written and had me engaged throughout, which I can't say about some of the other political non-fiction books I read. The final two books for this post are The Vanishing Stair by Maureen Johnson and Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid. The Vanishing Stair is a sequel in a YA mystery series about a death and some odd happenings at a boarding school. A lot of YA can be badly written with cheesy dialogue, yet that wasn't the case for this one. I'm interested to see where the series goes and think the newest one comes out in a few weeks. Lastly, ending it off on another Taylor Jenkins Reid book, Daisy Jones & The Six. This follows a fictional band and their rise/eventual breakup. It tells their story through each of the band members and other people's perspectives. I didn't think I'd like that at first, but it was interesting to see how some of them had conflicting views on certain events. Taylor Jenkins Reid is a phenomenal writer and one that I'd like to read more of this year.
Those were just a few of the memorable books I read this past year. I should have another post up in the next few weeks about my 2020 reading goals if that interests you. I read a lot of great and not so great books this year. It's always fun to look back at these and see what sparked my interest at the time. I definitely recommend checking out any of these if you're looking for some new reads! Thanks for looking!