Best of 2023

It appears that in 2022 I wasn’t in the mood for writing my usual best-of-the-year post, which is odd because I mostly collect things throughout the year and I quite enjoy writing (and reading) such collections.

Here’s my picks for 2023, using the same categories of the years before; as always, no affiliate links, just stuff I enjoyed.

Best song: Don’t know if you’ve heard of this Taylor Swift gal… Castles Crumbling is a pretty great song, and the fact it also features Hayley Williams is the perfect cherry on top.

Best album: So, there’s this emerging artist that released a good album, Midnights…

Best book: Don Winslow’s Missing - New York was hard to put down.

Best movie: A Most Violent Year came out in 2014, but I only found out about it this year and it was so superior to anything else I’ve watched that it easily takes the award.

Best TV show: This is extremely hard, I’ve seen multiple excellent shows, old and new, and my (not-so) short list includes:

… but I can only pick one.

After All These Years, Do You Not Instinctively… know it’s Veronica Mars? Oh, and the obligatory fuck you Rob Thomas goes here.

Best podcast: This is Love episode 63 - Sampson and Baylor, and keep tissues at hand. Also good: Cautionary Tales - The Hero Who Rode His Segway Off a Cliff

Best article I read: Before AI fatigue kicked in, I did really enjoy Kevin Roose’s A Conversation With Bing’s Chatbot Left Me Deeply Unsettled, but I don’t know if I’d feel the same reading it now for the first time.

Best Mac app: A new entry! Rectangle Pro is by far, and I mean by far, the best window manager I’ve tried. And I tried them all.

Best iOS app: If you met me, you know OmniFocus always makes the list, and with the recent release of version 4, great on all platforms but especially versatile and fast on iOS, it’s an extremely easy pick.

Best videogame: Tears of the Kingdom or Return to Monkey Island? Just getting one game that’s so good would make a year shine. But in the end, Guybrush will always have my loyalty, even if the ending really made me sad.

Best video: Tough choice: humans make incredible things, really. But I think this Dog Mountain video is the best thing I’ve watched in a long time.

Thanks for reading, I hope you’ve found something interesting here!

Wish you a very happy 2024! 🥂