Tag: Metapost

2026 Goals for Panorama of the Mountains

~ Liam ~ 2 Comments

Happy New Year! I feel a bit liberated now that I’ve completed my 2025 goal of watching a movie for every day of the year.  So now I can set some goals for 2026 that will probably have me pulling my hair out by the end of April.

  • My first big goal for the year is to move Panorama of the Mountains to a self-hosted platform.  This is something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time but have been anxious about whether it’s possible to migrate nearly 20 years of posts and finding a simple platform for blogging (without all the CMS bells and whistles) that can be managed by a technological novice like myself.  I’m looking into WordPress.org, Ghost, and Joomla but I am open to suggestions.
  • Movies – I’m planning two movie projects this year:
    • 100 Years of Movie Musicals – 2027 marks the anniversary of the first movie musical (and first talkie) – The Jazz Singer – so for the next two years I’m going to watch one movie musical every week in chronological order.  I did consider trying to watch one musical from each year 1927 to the present but some years are just better than others for musicals.  Still, I’m hoping to get a good balance of Hollywood spectaculars and indie musicals, Broadway/West End adaptations and original movie musicals, and a variety of musical styles and national origins.
    • Anniversary Year – This project will be to simply watch movies that are celebrating a special birthday this year.  Each month I will watch 3-5 movies from a particular year: 1916/1926 (January), 1936 (February), 1946 (March), 1951-75th Anniversary (April), 1956 (May), 1966 (June), 1976 (July), 1986 (August), 1996 (September), 2001-25th Anniversary (October), 2006 (November), 2016 (December).
    • As I often do, I will try to watch some Boston movies for Patriots Day in April, horror movies in October for Halloween, noir movies in Noir-vember, and holiday movies in December.
  • Music – I’m rethinking how I go about writing about music on this blog.  I’ve been trying to keep up with new releases and then writing about songs and albums but it feels forced and repetitious of what more professional music writers are doing.  I don’t like giving negative reviews to music because it’s often not that the music is bad but it’s just not to my test.  So my goal for this year is to continue to listen to a lot of music – new music, new-to-me music, and especially local music from the Greater Boston area.  And when I find something I really love, I will write not so much of a review but a “Hey, check out this great music!” post.  I’m hoping with this approach that I can use my small platform to give a little attention to some artists who need it instead of just regurgitating the same songs and albums being promoted by bigger platforms.
  • Star Trek – My project to watch every Star Trek tv show and movie was warping along for the past couple of years but has recently run out of dilithium.  The big snag is that I’ve been watching everything on Paramount + but as that company has aligned itself with the fascist regime I can no longer use it in good conscience.  So here’s my plan going forward.
    • I finished watching Star Trek: Voyager (months ago!) but have been procrastinating posting my summary of the final season, but I hope to have that up soon.
    • I will watch the 2002 movie Star Trek: Nemesis (on DVD) and the two seasons of Star Trek: Prodigy (on Netflix) at some point in 2026.
    • I could also get all four seasons of Star Trek: Enterprise and the three J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek-reboot movies on DVD, but I honestly have no enthusiasm for watching them, so I’m going to put them on indefinite hiatus.
    • I also have little interest in the upcoming Star Trek: Starfleet Academy or even future seasons of Strange New Worlds (after a mediocre third season) so there’s no great loss in canceling Paramount +.
  • Other than that I will continue to write about Books, Theater, Birds, and my other interests as I have been!

Here’s hoping for a joyful and satisfying 2026 for all!

New Pages for Movies & Performing Arts Reviews

~ Liam ~ Leave a comment

I’ve created some new pages to help readers (and myself) old reviews I’ve posted.

First, I have a new set of Movie Reviews pages.  I had a page for a long time but it became unwieldy so I split it over five pages, arranged alphabetically.  This list also includes links to some reviews on Letterboxd that I never published on WordPress.

Movie Review pages: A-C | D-H | I-M | N-Sn | So-Z

Second, since I’ve been able to attend more performing arts productions in recent years I’ve created a brand new Performing Arts Reviews page.  The main pages is a list of theatrical performances – dramas, comedies, musicals, operas, light operas, ballet, pageants, and masques, et al – that I’ve seen in the current year.  I also created a list of performances from past years going back to my childhood on a separate page.

Performing Arts Reviews (current year) | Performing Arts Reviews (past years)

I hope you find these fun and helpful, and if you read any of my old reviews, leave me a comment with your thoughts.

 

Blogging From A to Z Challenge 2025 Theme Reveal #AtoZChallenge

~ Liam ~ Leave a comment

I haven’t participated in the Blogging From A to Z Challenge for the past few years, and had no intention on participating this year.  Then I realized that I’m already posting on a theme every day with my 365 Movies in 365 Days posts.  So why not arrange 26 movies from A to Z, slap some Blogging A to Z images on it and participate with absolutely no extra effort?

If you’re not following my blog, the last couple of years I started on January 1st by watching 90 movies in the first 90 days with each movie lasting 90 minutes or less.  This year I wanted to see if I could do 365 movies in 365 days, but now the time limit is 36.5 minutes.  So, in short, I’m watching a year’s worth of movie shorts.

If you’re interested in seeing the movies I’ve watched so far, check out the 365 Movies in 365 Days tag.  Otherwise, sit back and relax as I watch 26 more short films from A-to-Z.

Previous A to Z Challenges

Goals for 2025

~ Liam ~ 1 Comment

Call them resolutions if you like, but here are some things I’d like to accomplish in the new year.

Birding

  • Continue to read and learn about birding, explore new hotspots, and make a list of 100 birds for 2025.

Books

  • I’ve decided I want to read all of Shakespeare’s plays in chronological order, which is something more difficult than I realized as there’s no agreed upon chronology.  I’ve decided to follow this list on Wikipedia and read one play per month, which means I should be finished sometime in 2028.
  • Otherwise my goals are simply to continue my Around the World for a Good Book project and chip away at my reading list.

Blog

  • I hope to finally migrate this blog and host it myself, something I’ve been meaning to figure out for years.

Movies and TV

  • I kicked off the last couple of years by watching 90 movies in 90 days (all of which were 90 minutes or fewer).  This year I’m upping my game to watch 365 movies in 365 days (all of which will be 36.5 minutes or shorter).  I’ve made a long list of potential short films but am open to suggestions.
  • Since we’re a quarter of the way into the century, I’m also going to try to watch 3-4 movies for every year from 2000 to 2024 each weekend from January to June.
  • I can complete my Star Trek project by finishing up Deep Space Nine and Voyager, watching Enterprise and Prodigy, and seeing the last two Next Generation films and all of the J.J. Abrams reboot movies.

Singing

  • I want to sing with the Revels Singers and/or another choral group this year and improve my singing skills
  • I will also audition for Midwinter Revels.
  • And maybe I will take voice training lessons

Volunteer/Activism

  • There are a lot of political and social justice organizations I’m looking into participating more fully this year.

Blog-A-Versary: Old Enough to Vote Edition

~ Liam ~ Leave a comment

On December 4, 2006, I decided to try this newfangled blogging thing.  5,278 posts later, I’m still here writing things using this dated technology that hardly anyone cares for anymore.  And it doesn’t look like I will be stopping any time soon.

I don’t have any words of wisdom or reflections to share, just wanted to take the moment to celebrate the occasion.

Here’s a photo of me from December 2006 to mark the occasion.

.

Previously:

50 for the Fifties

~ Liam ~ 2 Comments

I turned 50 about 7 weeks ago, but never got around to posting my list of 50 things I want to do during my fifties.  So instead of listing my New Year’s Resolutions today, I’m going to list my goals for the next ten years!  Some of these items are vague and pretty easy, but cut me some slack, there are 50 of them!  There are also some items copied from my 40 for the Forties list either because I didn’t complete them or I want to do them again.

1 ) Attend a ballet performance (not the Nutcracker) – City Ballet on April 4, 2026
2 ) Attend a game at the 2026 FIFA World Cup – Totally priced out
3 ) Attend a WNBA game Saw the Connecticut Sun play in Boston in Summer 2024
4 ) Attend games at least 5 MLB ballparks I’ve never been to before. 1. Seattle in Aug. 2025
5 ) Attend theater performances more regularly (~6/year) Attended 8 shows in 2024! Been ushering and attending shows routinely since 2025.
6 ) Audition (and hopefully perform) for the Revels again Auditioned in 2024 and 2025 but did not perform
7 ) Celebrate quadricentennial of Boston
8 ) Complete my Around the World for a Good Book project
9 ) Complete my Worldwide Film Challenge project
10 ) Complete watching & reviewing all of Star Trek Watched everything but Enterprise and the Abrams movies when I canceled Paramount + for political reasons.
11 ) Complete watching and reviewing Cahiers du Cinéma Greatest Films of All Time
12 ) Complete watching and reviewing The Sight & Sound Greatest Films of All Time 2012 & 2022 lists
13 ) Continue to learn more about bird watching Saw 82 different species of bird in 2024 and 130 in 2025
14 ) Continue to learn photography
15 ) Continue to take swim classes and become a stronger swimmer Completed the highest level of swim class at the Y in 2024 and learned all 4 strokes and how to do flip turns.
16 ) Create one new tour for Boston By Foot Working on a tour of Eliot Burying Ground
17 ) Do my part to prevent a fascist takeover of the United States in 2024 (or any other year) Failed but not giving up.
18 ) Donate blood 6 times (the maximum) per year
19 ) Find a local choral group to sing with
20 ) Find a new therapist
21 ) Get blinds for our LR No longer relevant since we moved
22 ) Go for a walk/hike in a natural space regularly (~1/month)
23 ) Make a new friend
24 ) Migrate my blog to WordPress.org
25 ) Participate in protests and other forms of activism
26 ) Perform karaoke Finally on July 10, 2025
27 ) Re-certify for CPR
28 ) Renovate our bathroom No longer relevant since we moved
29 ) Renovate our kitchen No longer relevant since we moved
30 ) Resume using my bicycle for commuting in warm-weather months
31 ) Ride in an open-cockpit biplane and/or a hot air balloon
32 ) Routinely contact elected leaders about important issues
33 ) Sample legal cannabis
34 ) See the reenactment on Lexington Green on Patriots Day
35 ) Take a martial arts class
36 ) Take a storytelling class and perform a story to a live audience
37 ) Take an improv class
38 ) Travel to at least 5 states I’ve never been to before
39 ) Update resume
40 ) Visit 5 National Parks for the first time Aug 2025 – Mount Rainier NP & Crater Lake NP.
41 ) Visit Iceland
42 ) Visit ten places in Boston I’ve never been before
43 ) Visit ten places in New England I’ve never been before
44 ) Visit ten places in New York City I’ve never been before
45 ) Visit the Star Trek Original Series Set Tour in Ticonderoga, NY
46 ) Volunteer for a social justice cause
47 ) Watch and attend games Boston’s women’s hockey team in the PWHL Went to my first Boston Fleet game in December 2024
48 ) Watch and attend games Boston’s women’s soccer team in the NWSL Attended inaugural game on March 14, 2026
49 ) Witness my children graduate from high school and college!
50 ) Write in my journal at least 1/week

New Year’s Blogging

~ Liam ~ 3 Comments

  • Book Reviews – I’ve been able to post one book review a week and that seems like a good pace to keep
  • Movie Reviews –  The past three years I’ve been working on a lot of movie projects, averaging about 5 movies per week! So I’m going to scale it back a bit. But, I still have a couple of projects:
    • 90 Movies in 90 Days – I’m going to kick off the year watching and reviewing a movie every day for the first three months of 2023.  All the movies will be 90 minutes or less, naturally.
    • 50 Movies, 50 Years – I will be turning 50-years-old this year, so I’m going to watch one movie for each year from 1973 to 2022.  The only requirement is that is a movie I haven’t reviewed before.  Recommendations welcome!
  • Music Reviews – I did pretty well at writing a review for a new Album of the Week each week in 2022, but I don’t think I had time to do justice to them (or even listen to them again, in some cases).  So I’m going to nix Album of the Week this year.
    • Song of the Week – I will continue posting one song per week for 2023.
    • Album of the Month – I’ll still post reviews of 1 to 3 albums per month from February to November, with special highlight posts of albums I missed in June and December.
    • 50 Albums, 50 Years – Just like my movie project, I will review one album per year from 1973 to 2022 that I haven’t previously reviewed.  Recommendations appreciated!
  • Creative Writing – Something I’ve been wanting to do on this blog is to experiment more with fiction writing.  I know there are a lot of Flash Fiction challenges around so I’m going to try to start with some of those.

Some other projects for 2023 will include the Blogging A-to-Z Challenge in April, a major Music Discovery, and an ongoing TV series review.  So hopefully it will be a good year of blogging!

Sweet Sixteen

~ Liam ~ 1 Comment

Panorama of the Mountains was born on December 4, 2006, which means I’ve been blogging for 16 years!  Crazily enough, that is close to a third of my life!  How did that happen?  Aren’t blogs and the internet still new things?

Welp, I guess I’ll see if I can make it to 17. If you feel moved to write something you like about my blog, please let me know in the comments.

Previously:

TV Draft

~ Liam ~ 2 Comments

The past month I’ve been participating in a TV Draft.  It sounds complicated but it’s basically just a bunch of bloggers taking turns writing up a description of their favorite TV series.  Take a look at the complete list and see a wide variety of great shows!

I wrote about four different shows as part of this project:

Thanks to Max at the PowerPop blog for hosting the TV Draft and for Lisa at Tao Talk for inviting me to participate.

Midway through the A-to-Z! #atozchallenge

~ Liam ~ 5 Comments

In my 7th year of the Blogging A-to-Z Challenge, I think I’ve finally figured out how to do this right. This is the first time I had all my A-to-Z posts written and scheduled before April 1st!  I also have been doing better to hop to the blogs of other A-to-Z participants to leave comments.  I made a goal of visiting 5 new blogs every day, so as of today I’ve commented at least once on 75 different blogs.

But enough about me!  Here are some A-to-Z blogs I’m reading and enjoying that you should check out.

My Favorite A-to-Z Blogs Thus Far:

My Blogging A-to-Z Posts So Far:

Previous A to Z Challenges