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March 2023 Retrospective

Last month I wrote

Well the Nasdaq, Dow Jones, S&P 500, and TSX just posted decent losses across February so perhaps we've finally crested the peak.

Seems like the markets took that personally. Stocks are up. Banks are failing. Interest rates continue to rise. Obviously the good times are just going to keep on rolling, eh?

The Good

Read more books in the the Slough House series

In my experience it is very rare for a book series to continually improve. Most overstay their welcome and become rote and boring long before they should have concluded. But somehow Mick Herron's Slough House series keeps getting better and better with every book I read. This month I made it through both the fourth and fifth books (Spook Street and London Rules) and I am about a third of the way through Joe Country.

At the time of writing this retrospective there have only been eight Slough House books published so it is possible that I may make it through the entire series in the first four months of 2023. That feels like the absolute highest praise I can give.

Finished my diorama for Little Canada's model making 101 workshop

I promised that I would post some pictures of my diorama and here they are!

https://www.instagram.com/p/CpYma0HuptX
https://www.instagram.com/p/Cp1Pb2VuPR7

Visited Niagara Falls

There is no doubt that Niagara Falls is a massive tourist trap. But there still are some really cool things to see and after spending a long weekend there I think I have the perfect three day itinerary:

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

This itinerary doesn't include the Maid of the Mist boat tour because we visited in the winter. Highly recommend you take some sort of boat tour if you visit when they are open. There is also the Zipline to the Falls if you're that kind of risk taker.

The Bad

Punctured two different tires on two separate occasions

I don't know which god I pissed off this month but I somehow managed to puncture my front right tire by running over some sort of screw on the 401. Then exactly seven days later I punctured my front left tire by hitting a massive pothole pulling out of a restaurant's parking lot.

After the second flat I took the hint and swapped from my winter tires to my summers. Future Reid will sort out this problem next October.

Honourable Mentions

Beat Like a Dragon: Ishin!

After 45 hours I finally beat Like a Dragon: Ishin! and essentially everything I wrote last month just became more true. The combat was boring at its best and frustrating at its worst. Anyone reading this should just select the "Wild Dancer" style and spin to win. But thankfully the story and side quests were amazing throughout. I am very happy I played this game and even though I cannot recommend it to most people I still think it is a solid entry to the Like a Dragon (Yakuza) series.

Resident Evil 4 Remake

I was going to write about how much the Resident Evil 4 Remake disappointed me but Yahtzee from Zero Punctuation will undoubtedly do it in a much more entertaining manner

Basically it is a bland third-person shooter that is easily beaten by many other games in this modern age, but is being giving 10/10s simply based on the "Resident Evil 4" name. Oh, and your knife suddenly has durability which means it will break in the first 10 minutes and then you won't want to spend money to fix it for the entire game.

Peak Design's Everyday Sling 10L

I don't think I've ever written about the bags that I use but I wanted to call out the Everyday Sling 10L from Peak Design. It was a perfect fit for our trip to Niagara Falls. Easy to carry around all-day but big enough to bring everything that we needed.

Review March Goals

April Goals

#MonthlyRetrospective