Best of 2025

My dad would've turned 69 yesterday. For the last twelve of his lost birthdays, I often wandered the city, listened to music, and found myself either at his cemetery or a favorite restaurant of his. This year, I did a fair amount of wandering and watched Marty Supreme (which was decent), then went back home and made dinner for visiting family. It was a day not terribly unlike the 361 days before it, but it still felt special.

As the year winds down, I wanted to catalog my personal favorite media and moments of the year. The best movies and music, sure, but also the best meals, trips, days, and other things that happened — to me, to everyone — in 2025. I usually put more thought into the preamble here for posts like this, but I've carried these moments and experiences around me for the bulk of the year and wanted to externalize how I felt about them in this moment and decidedly not in the edits a day later.

Best Album of 2025

Dijon's Baby was the record I listened to more than anything else this year, and probably my favorite record if I had to narrow it down to one. Yet I had Cloakroom's Last Leg of the Human Table, Hotline TNT's Raspberry Moon, and Horsegirl's Phonetics On and On on repeat as well, and will likely continue to listen to them well into the next year. Ganavya's Nilam and Annahstasia's Tehter were equally perfect and beautiful records that I should spend more time playing around the house.

Best Song of 2025

"Circle All the Dots" by Sharp Pins is the song I had stuck in my head for the better part of the year. It's a twenty-year-old's homage to Guided By Voices, sure, but it's up with greats like "Game of Pricks" and "I Am a Scientist" in terms of all time greatest songs. (For what it's worth, I also kept a log of 198 other amazing songs from this year on Apple Music.)

Best Movie of 2025

For the longest time, Midsommar was my favorite recent horror film — until Weapons easily usurped that honor. That said, Sentimental Value, my favorite film of the year, contained one of the most terrifying scenes I've ever watched, one where the female lead is supposed to take stage at a play and does everything in her power to avoid doing so. All four scary moments in Weapons don't hold a candle to these ten minutes on the screen for a film that, in the end, is one of the sweetest films I've seen in years. I'm glad I purchased the Regal Unlimited pass to see as many films as possible and will be making better use of it in the coming year.

Best Book of 2025

Audition by Katie Kitamura took all of two-plus hours to read but still sticks in my memory nearly a year later — even after finding out the nature of why the writer decided to write it the way she did. The Names by Florence Knapp is a good close second. I read well over 100 books this year, but few of them were memorable — save for the bad ones, of which there were enough to have me reevaluate which books I actually purchase going forward. (Looking at you, The Dream Hotel.)

Best TV Show of 2025

I admittedly spent a lot of 2025 venturing into the archives and watching a whole lot of Cheers and Frasier, as well as keeping Food Network on at all times in the kitchen and thus falling in love with Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives. In terms of new shows or seasons, I really enjoyed the slowness of The Bear, the craziness of The Chair Company, and what I saw of The Pitt.

Best Video Game of 2025

My default answer is Assassin's Creed: Shadows because I played that, Balatro, a bit of Arc Raiders, and not much else this year. I do not think I played more than 90 hours of video games in 2025, and 80 of those hours were for my first-ever Assassin's Creed game.

Best Trip of 2025

I finally went back to San Fransisco after many years and discovered that it's...pretty great, actually? I love the East Bay more than anything else and would find myself living there over, say, the Mission district, but I'm looking forward to heading back in a few months.

Best Meal of 2025

Roast beef at Brennan and Carr. It's an odd restaurant that's not convenient for anyone to get to, but I made the trek on a week off and it was everything I expected. (I also perfected vegan macaroni and cheese with fusilli that reminded me of going to Boston Market as a kid with my dad, but that probably doesn't count here.)

Best Day of 2025

There was a day in June where I helped out as a source for a not-yet-broken story with multiple journalists, took five really interesting meetings around Manhattan, and went to dinner at Clemente Bar with my wife. It was rewarding in the sense that I felt truly confident in my work and where my career was headed while also having the ability to still have an interesting life outside of work — perhaps a first for both simultaneously.

Best Purchase of 2025

A mechanical keyboard and an ergonomic mouse for my two home offices and work desk. I hear the older men in my office complain about Carpal Tunnel Syndrome every day and decided to put a stop to that (also with a wrist rest for my mouse and keyboard).

Best Gift of 2025

EP-133 K.0. II from Teenage Engineering. I just received it from my wife and have the rest of the year to figure it out.

Best Photo I Took All Year

Probably this one:

Starting early next year, I'm fully reviving this email as a twice-weekly newsletter. One day a week, I'll have something more diaristic and personal (perhaps like this). On another day of the week, I'll syndicate my more work-focused newsletter from LinkedIn, Context Drift. It's a tad ambitious to write ~100 newsletters a year, sure, but something I aim to hold myself to for at least the next year. (I'll eventually find a way to bifurcate email lists for both in the future, should you not be interested in learning about things on AI and the like.)

As always, thank you for taking the time to read, and have a great rest of your year.

-Scott