Night of Fallen Gods

I don’t like New Year’s Resolutions.

Years and years ago, I saw CGP Grey’s video about Themes of the Year, and it’s kind of stuck with me since. This isn’t to say I am good at setting and sticking to a Theme from my year, I do try every year to various levels of success. (Wish this year’s Hobonichi Diary better luck than last year’s)

Wait, why am I talking about New Year’s Resolutions in a post about Reviews in October..?

I’m getting there!

I have been thinking lately about living life and consuming media a lot more critically. Thinking more deeply about why I like what I like and why I like it. And in general just having more of a reason to experience more things.

And you know, after writing a book and then getting bogged down in editing for months and months on end, I need a more regular way to stretch my writing muscles more in between drafting sessions.

So I am going to start reviewing things.

What kinds of things? All Kinds!

Books, Movies, Places, Experiences, everything is on the table.

Which brings me to the actual point of this entire post.

I don’t like out of 10 or star reviews, so I am going to implementing my own rating system. Welcome to my Thumbs Up System!

The base system is as follows:

• Thumbs Up: I liked it! Whatever it is, it was good to fantastic.
• Shrug: It was fine. Not good, not bad, just kinda of meh. Or it’s something I recognize is probably good to someone, just not me.
• Thumbs Down: This is where we hit Bad territory. Something in this rating range is something I very much didn’t like, is actively poorly put together, or just generally not worth the time.

These are where most reviews will live. If you need an equivalent in a more common scale, Thumbs Up is 5 stars, Shrugs are 3, and Thumbs Down is a 1. Realistically speaking most will probably still be Thumbs Up’s, because I am a pretty easy mark for a lot of things.

But!

There are two more categories that may be rarely deployed for particularly noteworthy experiences:

• Two Thumbs Up: Actively life changing, amazing experiences. Quite possibly a new pillar of my personality
• Two Thumbs Down: This is not only Bad, it probably shouldn’t exist. I am actively angry about whatever this is, and am registering with the relevant authorities as a Certified Hater of the Thing.

And yeah I guess that’s it! This is going to be one of the tools I am going to try and utilize to be a more critical person, and to hopefully experience more things in 2027 than I did in 2026 (especially some specific things I’ll talk about around the actual New Year).

I think I’ll give this system and starting this project a Thumbs Up.