There’s no real practical reason that the beginning of a new year should be a “fresh start”, but it’s as good a time as any. And so…

It has been a strange few years, to say the least. Ever since the world went to pieces in 2020 with the COVID-19 pandemic, things have not felt at all “normal” — even though for the most part, things these days seem to primarily be operating as they once were.

I still maintain that this isn’t necessarily a good thing, as the threat of COVID most certainly isn’t over, even if its impact is considerably lessened from what it once was. And I feel like society being forced “back to normal” too early likely made the whole recovery process more lengthy and difficult than it perhaps could have been. But, of course, there were plenty of additional considerations.

I feel like a lot of people have been feeling like 2023 will be a “better” year for one reason or another. There’s no tangible evidence to suggest this will actually be the case — I’m pretty sure we’ve all been thinking “surely next year can’t be as bad as this one” for as long as I can remember, even before killer viruses entered the equation — but I suppose it’s an attempt to bring oneself comfort. After all, proceeding forward thinking that things are miserable and awful and only likely to get worse is not really going to help matters.

A new year doesn’t really mean anything. Nothing magical happens at midnight as December 31st ticks over to January 1st. And yet it’s as good a time as any to decide that you want to have a fresh start, make some changes, improve some things about yourself and perhaps escape from things that have been holding you back for one reason or another.

In contrast to some of the previous years on this blog, I’m in a relatively “all right” position life-wise right now, and so I’m not in a position where I feel like I need to make any particularly radical changes in my life in order to be something approaching “happy”. I don’t feel like I need to change jobs — I love my current job — and I don’t want or need to change anything about my living situation, as my wife Andie and I are both in a good place; the excruciating rise in cost of living in the last year occasionally puts a bit of strain on our collective finances, but other than that we can’t complain too much.

All this means that we — well, I, as far as this post is concerned — can focus on the relatively “smaller” things to try and sort out. Chief among these for me is my overall health and wellbeing; I want to do something about my weight, and do something that hopefully lasts, because I’m fucking sick of having this hernia and not being able to have anything done about it because I’m too fat.

Slimming World worked for me a few years back, as past entries will show, but when Andie and I went back after various personal circumstances caused us both to have a fairly drastic “rebound”, we found that it didn’t really work for us. Calorie-counting didn’t really work for us either, and nor did self-directed Weight Watchers (or “WW”, as they now prefer to call themselves). Last time I saw my doctor, though, they did say that they could refer me to a “health coach” to help sort me out, but this was dependent on getting a blood test to ensure that there was nothing major wrong with me.

I’d never had a blood test before, so I was kind of perturbed by the whole experience. I don’t like hospitals at the best of times — my mind has them permanently associated as “the place where people die”, even though the rational part of my brain knows that this is a vastly unfair assessment to our hard-working healthcare workers — and the prospect of having mildly invasive procedures carried out on me was not helping matters.

This only got worse when they had a bit of trouble finding a vein on the inside of my elbow and had to draw from my hand instead, and as the whole process went on a bit longer that was comfortable I found myself having a cold sweat and feeling nauseated. Thankfully I didn’t throw up over the nurse who was working on me, but my condition did cause enough concern for her to get me a glass of water and give me a moment to recover after she was all finished. Thankfully, the results of the blood test showed nothing of concern, so hopefully I won’t have to deal with that again for a while.

Anyway, getting advice and/or referral from my doctor on what to do next was dependent on those blood test results, so now the holiday period is over I need to go back to them and figure out what to do next. I’m certain it will be a difficult process, but it’s something that needs to be done, as not only is my hernia continually bugging me, but I’m having a lot of joint pains and suchlike also, and I suspect losing some weight will help all those problems.

Aside from this, I feel like I might need to shake things up with regard to friendships and personal relationships also. Over the course of… probably the last decade or so, really, I’ve been dismayed at how far a lot of people with whom I used to be very close have drifted away for one reason or another. In some cases this was down to lives going in different directions, in others it was down to misunderstandings and in others still it can be attributed to some seemingly being more willing to make a bit of an effort to maintain a relationship than others.

I can’t pretend that I’m not at fault in some of these situations, but there are also plenty of cases where I have been the one who has been making an effort, only to get things either thrown back in my face or met with silent indifference. I won’t go into specifics right now as this isn’t about naming and shaming or anything like that, but when discussing a couple of instances privately with some more recent acquaintances, I felt somewhat vindicated when these relatively neutral “outsiders” (to the situation in question, anyway) confirmed my suspicions that yes, indeed, the things that I had previously felt were a bit out of order were indeed out of order.

It’s hard to know what to do in cases like this, though. Do you just cut and run? That’s probably the sensible thing to do; if you’re the only one willing to make an effort, that’s not a friendship, and it’s really not worth trying to maintain something that isn’t there. But at the same time you have to ask if you’re having unreasonable expectations of people whose circumstances have changed, as your own have. In that instance, is it appropriate to “punish” them for just the natural process of your lives going down different roads?

There isn’t really a right answer, but I do feel like in this new year I want to have another go at rekindling some of these friendships where possible. There are, I’m sure, multiple instances where I can still do more to try and fix things, but equally there are also plenty of cases where I’m sure the situation is beyond “help”, for want of a better word. And that’s sad, but it’s also supposedly a natural part of life. I vaguely recall reading something the other day that suggested men of my age generally only have one honest-to-goodness friend that they feel they can rely on — and I’m certainly in this position now.

Well, just make new friends, you might say. But, well, social anxiety tends to put paid to such plans when you explicitly make them — although in the last year or so I have added a number of new people to my personal acquaintances through both work and online socialisation. So I suspect it’s probably going to be worth cultivating those friendships further rather than continuing to make an effort in cases where I feel increasingly excluded.

But anyway. That’s enough rambling for today. Because aside from all of the above, I’ll also be making more regular use of this blog in 2023, too. With the general collapse of my enthusiasm for social media — coupled with the right hash Elon Musk has been making of Twitter — it’s probably the optimal means for me to freely express myself and communicate with others. So if you’re not already following me here, hit up the links at the side (or wherever they are on your screen) and stay up to date with me that way. This place is probably going to be the most reliable means of “seeing” me online from hereon.

Happy new year. And may your own “fresh starts”, however small or grand they might be, bring you joy and satisfaction.

2541: Farewell

This is my last daily post on this blog, to coincide with the last hour of the last day of 2016. I’m not going to rule out posting on here again when I feel like it, but this is the last of my daily entries. I feel that the exercise has run its course, and I’m definitely satisfied with what I’ve accomplished over the last 2,541 days.

Why am I stopping now? Well, it’s part of a broader plan I outlined a few days ago. I want to unplug and get away from the constant noise of online culture in 2016. It stopped being fun a good while ago — roughly coinciding with the rise of the outrage brigade who love nothing more than using their social media clout to shame people for enjoying “problematic” material — but it’s also been becoming increasingly apparent that the reasons I’ve been keeping my social media accounts active for as long as I have simply don’t seem to be the reasons other people keep them active.

On previous occasions when I’ve considered deactivating my Facebook and Twitter accounts — Facebook in particular — the thing that has always stopped me is the thought that “oh, people won’t be able to get hold of me easily, since everyone uses Facebook nowadays rather than anything else.” But over time it’s become apparent that while everyone does indeed use Facebook, pretty much the last thing they use it for is keeping in touch with other people. Rather, the inherent encouragement of narcissism in modern social media encourages people to post everything about their lives — or rather, everything in a heavily edited, idealised version of their lives — in an attempt to make other people feel like they should be having more fun/sex/babies/delicious meals/strong opinions about Donald Trump. And while that occasionally leads to heated debates in comment sections, it very rarely seems to lead to good conversations.

Twitter comes at it from a different angle. I’ve heard Twitter described as being like going to a party where everyone is shouting things at the room in general hoping other people will come and join the conversation, and that’s a fairly apt description. The particular trouble with Twitter is that its original selling point — its 140-character limit, intended to encourage people to “microblog” rather than post walls of text — isn’t conducive to nuanced discussion and debate, which leads to particularly obnoxious behaviour when people of differing ideologies and/or opinions about which anime girl is hottest come into contact with one another.

In short, I’ve been finding social media to be more trouble than it’s worth, so I’m unplugging from the noise in the hope that those people who do value my friendship will make use of other, more private and personal means of contacting me rather than everything being aired in public. And this blog comes under that header, too.

This blog has been valuable “therapy” for me over the course of the last few years, which have been, to say the least, rather challenging and difficult for a variety of reasons. I’ve faced many obstacles — some of my own creation, some by other people being colossal jackasses and my not really having any power to do anything about that — and, while I wouldn’t say my life is where I want it to be in the slightest, I feel that I’ve grown stronger as a person as a result.

But I feel like I need to start a new chapter. Leave behind the past, and look forward to a hopefully brighter future. It’s not easy to shed emotional baggage — not to mention the physical baggage that mental stress can leave you with — but severing my ties with the past, be they social media accounts or indeed this blog, feels like the right thing to do right now.

I’m not disappearing entirely, mind you; as I mentioned in my previous post, I still intend to keep writing weekly on MoeGamer, which will become my main place to write about games I’ve found particularly interesting or exciting, so I encourage you to subscribe over there if you like what I’m doing. And for more general writing, I’m starting up a weekly TinyLetter — effectively a small-scale mailing list — for personal notes to those of you who have been kind enough to show me friendship and support over the last few years. If you’re interested, you can sign up for that here. (Those of you for whom I have email addresses already, I’ll be taking the liberty of signing you up automatically at some point on New Year’s Day; I hope you don’t mind, and if you do, please rest assured that if you decide you don’t want to receive my notes, you can unsubscribe easily.)

Aside from that, though, at this point in my life I feel like broader Internet culture just doesn’t hold the value it once did for me, so out the window the unnecessary crap goes for 2017. I’m not encouraging any of you to follow my lead and I’m certainly not casting any judgement on those of you who still find value in social media and Internet culture at large; I’m simply saying it’s not for me, and explaining where I’ll be going if you do want to find me.

If you’d like to stay in touch more privately, please either subscribe to my TinyLetter — which you can reply to just like a normal email — or drop me a message via my Get In Touch page with your email address and/or any other contact details you’d care to share.

For those who have supported this blog for any period of time — be you lurker or regular commenter — thank you, good night, and I wish you a happy, healthy and hearty New Year. Here’s to 2017 being a better year for everyone.

2172: Happy New Year, 2016

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Happy new year! It’s the beginning of another arbitrary division of time which we ascribe more meaning to than is strictly necessary. And yet, as always, it’s difficult to resist the allure of thinking that “this time, things will be better”.

2015 was pretty shit. Not just for me, but for a lot of people I know. And that sucks. I hate to see people I know and care about having a shitty time, but it does make me feel slightly better (if a little guilty) to know that I wasn’t the only one dealing with difficult shit.

I don’t know whether or not 2016 will be better or not. I’d like to hope it will be, but realistically I know that there’s no reason it will be. I don’t have anything in particular to look forward to, but at least I don’t think there’s anything I’m particularly dreading either. Compare and contrast with the start of 2015, where it was gradually becoming apparent that I was getting forced out of my job (albeit one I didn’t like anyway) and where my own personal well-being with particular regard to my weight was at something of a low ebb, and the start of 2016 already looks a little more positive in comparison.

2015 wasn’t all bad, of course. I got married, for one thing, and that was pretty great. I met a bunch of new friends, too, and developed my interests further and deeper. I successfully got through what was quite possibly the second work-related nervous breakdown I’ve suffered in my life and out of the other side mostly intact. I lost nearly six stone in weight (though have probably put a bit back on over the Christmas period — we haven’t been terribly strict!) and feel noticeably better about myself.

So I guess I should be feeling all right about looking forward to the new year. There are still lots of things I’m worried, anxious and upset about. But the only thing I can really do about them is keep on pushing forwards and hope things work out for the best in the long term. After all, that approach has got me this far, even if I’m not exactly in the position I thought I’d be in at the age of 34 when I was younger.

Happy new year, everyone. May 2016 be a good year for you, and if you, too, suffered a mountain of stress and other shit in 2015, may it soon be nothing but a distant memory. Thank you all for your support and kind words over the last 365 days, and here’s to many more good times and pleasant chats as we slide inexorably into the future.

1808: Happy New Year!

I intended to write something a little earlier (i.e. ahead of the Big Change to 2015) but, well, that didn’t happen, so here I am at twenty past midnight trying to think of how to bid farewell to 2014 and welcome in 2015.

When I look back at 2014, I see a year that was somewhat mixed. It was a significant (and good!) year in that I bought my first house with Andie; it was a bad year in that it was the year I had to give up on what had previously been a lifelong dream of working in the games press.

Thinking about it, these two things are probably the two single most significant things that happened in 2014 to me, so let’s contemplate them in turn.

First, the good, then. After renting places to live ever since I left home for university in 1999 (with the exception of a return to my childhood home for a few months in 2010 after Bad Things happened), finally owning my own place (well, sharing it, anyway) is a good feeling. It’s one of those things I felt like would never, ever happen, and I couldn’t see how anyone could ever do it. But fortunately a combination of circumstances saw both Andie and I in a position to be able to pool our collective resources and acquire a very nice house that isn’t falling to pieces or anything.

There’s a lot of work for us still to do — both the front and back garden need some significant “sorting out”, for example, and neither of us quite know where to start with that, so I’m still extremely tempred to just “get a man in” — but we’re in a position where our house is not only habitable, but actually (I feel, anyway) rather pleasant. We’ve hosted several guests, both for day visits and for lengthier stays — we have a spare room, which is a pleasant novelty after only ever renting two-bedroom places in the past, and we also have a sofa-bed downstairs to host further guests if required — and none of them went away with ebola or smallpox or anything, and they still talk to us, so it must have been all right for them.

In 2015 I don’t know if anything significant will happen with the house. I’d like to get the garden sorted so it can be a space we can enjoy rather than feel faintly embarrassed about whenever we look out of the back window. I hasten to add that we didn’t let the garden get into a bad state; the previous occupants obviously hadn’t paid it much attention, so it was already a bit of a shambles when we moved in, and we haven’t really done anything with it to sort that out. That’s a job for this year, then.

So that’s the house.

What about the other thing: the giving up of a lifelong dream? Well, it’s sad to think about, but as I’ve noted on these very pages before, the games press of the 21st century is not the games press that I fell in love with as a youngster. Websites are not magazines, and the art of writing for the Web is very different to the art of writing for magazines. It’s been a significant shift, particularly in the last few years, and I don’t feel it’s a shift for the better, either; I used to love getting in a variety of game magazines each month, reading them from cover to cover and then looking forward to what might be in the next issue. Each magazine had its own distinctive identity, and everyone covered different things in different ways, because they all only had limited space and thus had to prioritise what they were going to allocate pages to.

Nowadays, the games press is much more homogeneous. Certain sites do still have distinctive identities, but it’s a far cry from the uniqueness of magazines. Clickbait rules supreme, with provocative articles making increasingly regular appearances in an attempt to get eyes on pages and ad revenue rolling in, and long-form, experimental or simply humorous work is on the way out. That’s not to say it doesn’t exist at all any more, of course, but it tends to be more on the enthusiast side of things rather than the professional press.

Then there’s the growth of YouTube. This has been happening for a few years, but I feel that 2014 is the year that YouTube really became a significant threat (and yes, I use that specific word deliberately) to the written word. YouTube, or so Google says, is one of the world’s top search engines, despite not really actually being a search engine. People are increasingly turning to video instead of the written word for all manner of things — help and advice, criticism, first looks at upcoming products, comedy — and the narrative that is constantly being pushed is that If You’re Not Doing Video, You’re Doing It Wrong. I disagree fundamentally with this, but that’s something to discuss another day, I feel.

As for my own career, then, well, I just burned out. Being unceremoniously informed by email that I no longer had a job just before my birthday and right as Andie and I had finalised arrangements to buy our house was the last straw: I was sick of being jerked around by a cynical, unstable, manipulative, bullshit industry that treats its employees like shit unless you’re one of the few people lucky enough to become a recognisable “personality”. I was sick of having jobs that I enjoyed but which I was in a perpetual state of wondering if I’d still be in work each morning. I was sick of the feeling of being “gagged” from writing about interesting and unique things in favour of the necessary clickbait bullshit. I was sick of seeing the increasing number of games journalists and critics who appeared to genuinely loathe their audience, and of being criticised for being enthusiastic about the things I was passionate about. And I was sick of a “career” which had seemingly no structure for progression, training, growth, advancement, whatever you want to call it. So when I was shown the door, I didn’t even try and find a new position in the games press. That was it. I haven’t looked back. And while I won’t say I’m exactly in a dream position right now, the stability of a regular paycheque sure is nice.

So what will happen on that front in 2015? Who knows? There are many different paths I could follow from here. I mentioned the other day that I’ve been taking the time to train up my own skills and make myself a more attractive proposition for any potential positions that might appear in the future. And I intend to keep doing that; I enjoy learning, training, bettering myself — it’s just finding the appropriate opportunities to 1) keep the things I’ve learned in practice and 2) being able to apply them in a professional situation.

But that’s something to worry about another day. For now, it’s New Year’s Day, and it’s time to relax and chill out for a bit. I hope the end of 2014 was good to you, and that 2015 is better still to you.

Happy new year.

1444: 2014 Arrives

…and it was with a bit of whimper, to be honest.

This isn’t any reflection on our gracious hosts Tim and Sophie, of course, who not only laid on a sausage-tasting session (no, that’s not a euphemism) for us, but also cooked an immense amount of beef and other goodies, but to the fact that we all, as a group, found the moment of that single digit changing on everyone’s calendars to be somewhat underwhelming.

Is it cynicism? Jadedness? World-weariness? I don’t know, really. Perhaps it’s the fact that staying up until midnight isn’t really a novelty as a “grown-up”, or the realisation we’ve all had at some point of the fact that a new year doesn’t magically mean a new beginning, a fresh start or anything like that.

I mean, sure, the first of January is as good a time as any to say “right, I’m going to get [x] sorted out” but I’d be interested to know just how many people do successfully manage to get [x] sorted out and who are quite happy to maintain the status quo, continuing to allow [x] to do its thing as it’s always done.

I don’t have many things I’d like to do massively differently this year. I’d like to pick up on the exercise again, even though every time I engage in it I feel like it’s an increasingly futile gesture. I’d like to start drawing a few stupid little cartoons on this blog again — not today, though, as it was a busy day; tomorrow perhaps. I’d like to pick up work on my game again. And I’d like to continue learning Japanese.

These are all relatively simple, small and attainable goals. I’m not going to make any grand gestures or promises that are impossible to keep — no “I will be thin in 2014!” bullshit, for example — but I would like my life to continue in a reasonably positive direction, even if my own messed-up brain occasionally gives me days of distressingly dark thoughts.

There’s plenty of possible good things to look forward to in 2014, at least, but I shall spare you enthusing about things that may or may not happen for now because… well, they may or may not happen. But we shall see. I’d like to be positive. I’d like for it to be a good year. But I’d settle for it simply to not be a bad one.

Happy new year, everyone; may your 2014 be adequate for your needs.

1442: Yearly Wasteland

We’ve reached that peculiarly barren time of year — it’s no longer Christmas, but it’s not quite New Year either. Some unlucky people have to go back to work for a few days — Andie is one of them — while the rest of us bum around, twiddling our thumbs and wishing we had more presents to open. (Actually, we will have a few more presents to open on New Year’s Day, which is nice. I think I know what mine will be, and if I’m right I’ll be very pleased with it.)

I feel a bit frustrated by the holiday season at the moment. I miss the “magic” it used to have when I was a kid. I’m not sure quite when it stopped being exciting and fun, but it’d be nice to get that back.

I’ve mentioned before my curious inability to express genuine-seeming outward signs of excitement, surprise or anything like that, and I have a feeling that may be something to do with it. I love opening presents and getting cool stuff, but I hate the pressure there is to look pleased with what you got. Everyone who buys you something is almost inevitably looking carefully at your face to see if you smile, grin, laugh or look disappointed at the things that have been purchased for you, and given that I feel enormously self-conscious about getting excited or joyful, my reaction often appears to be somewhat more “meh” than it actually is. I generally do like presents, whatever they are — because I’m not an ungrateful twat who returns gifts that other people have bought for him — and I am always appreciative when someone thinks of me and buys me something nice. It’s just sometimes a bit difficult to show.

Same with New Year’s. Everyone builds it up to be some kind of massive big deal, so when the time comes to actually say “Happy new year!” to people I feel very self-conscious and stupid. It feels like a cliche to say it. Well, it is a cliche to say it, but surely there’s no better time to actually say “happy new year!” to someone than at one minute past twelve on New Year’s Day. Garrgh.

One day I might get over all these stupid neuroses. Sadly, that day is not today, so if you are, by any chance, hanging out with me for New Year celebrations at any point in the future, I apologise in advance for my seeming lack of enthusiasm about the year increasing by one.

We’re off out to a party at my friend Tim’s tomorrow night to ring in the new year. There will be sausages. And no, that’s not a euphemism; the plan is actually for there to be lots of sausages. This is a situation I am absolutely fine with.

There will be one last post of 2013 before the new year — that will hopefully be before midnight, if I remember — and then it’s onward to 2014 and great things. Or just the same things as usual, but with a different number in the “YYYY” section of forms.

Anyway. Happy holidays or whatever.

1105: Braindead

It’s coming up on 1am and I’m struggling of things to write here. But write I must.

Well, let’s review how things are going. That’s usually a good way to fill a day’s post, as nothing especially interesting has happened today. Unless you count letting our pet rats out for a run around in the hallway and going to Yo! Sushi (not at the same time) as being somehow “interesting”. I guess both of those are sort of interesting — I mean, I enjoyed them both — but really, you sort of had to be there in both instances.

It’s coming up on the end of the first month of 2013, and we’re still in that weird sort of limbo where it doesn’t quite feel right to talk about the year being 2013. I mean, I’m not sure what I’m really expecting to “feel” different, after all, but a new year is always a symbolic sort of thing, after all.

This year has already started somewhat differently, though, because I’m in a nice flat in the city I wanted to (and indeed used to) live in. I’m close to my friends (geographically speaking, obviously) and have even had them over to visit more times in the last month than I did in the year and a half I lived in Chippenham, which is good and makes me happy. I feel like I’m in a relatively comfortable situation — I enjoy my job, particularly as I get to work from home; I have an awesome girlfriend who puts up with my idiosyncracies and shows an interest in the things I’m passionate about; I have two surprisingly entertaining pet rats to whom I probably attribute far too much in the way of perceived personality; I’m relatively comfortably off money-wise, having cleared a bunch of longstanding debts last year (though student loan is still outstanding and probably always will be, gah); and, to cut a long, tedious and fairly directionless list short, I’m feeling fairly positive about the future.

As anyone who has suffered with one of the various forms of depression and/or anxiety will attest, though, it’s not always that easy to keep feeling positive, even though things are generally seemingly going sort of all right. It’s easy to lapse into negative feelings or self-doubt, and wonder if the things you’re doing are really the right things. It’s easy to want to make big, grand gestures to define yourself and feel like your life is moving in the right direction, but at the same time it’s difficult to either carry those things through — or even to know if they’re the right thing to do in the first place.

I’m content for now, though, occasional lapses in mood aside. It’s a pleasant feeling. I know I still have some way to go before feeling “better” — if it’s ever truly possible to feel “better” from these sorts of issues — but I at least feel like I’m heading in the right direction. When I look back at some of the posts I made over a thousand days ago, I see someone who was desperately unhappy and struggling to make it through the day for much of his time. It’s hard to let memories of bad times like that go, but I’d be lying if I said things weren’t massively better than they were way back then.

Onwards and upwards, then. The end of January will see us take ownership of a new sofa that will hopefully fit up the stairs into our flat, have our Internet properly connected and subsequently feel like we’re “properly” settled in.

Bring it on 2013, I’m a-ready for ya.

1079: It’s 2013

Page_1 Welcome to the first day of a new year. Doesn’t feel much different, does it? That’s because it isn’t, really, yet we ascribe such huge importance to the December 31/January 1 changeover that you’d believe the world ended and was subsequently reborn every New Year’s Eve.

I’ve seen a number of people expressing such cynical sentiments recently, and they do sort of have a point. But at the same time it’s quite nice to have a relatively arbitrary place to draw a line under everything and say “right — that’s enough of that, time to move on with new and better things.”

I do it myself, as you’ve probably noticed. I refer to 2010 as a “bad year” because it was largely memorable for the bad things that happened in it. 2011 and 2012 were relatively unremarkable throughout their duration, with relatively little to distinguish the two of them, and yet here, now, on January 1, 2013, I still find myself looking forward to a new year as if something is going to be magically different. And yet we all know it’s probably going to be the same old, same old for the most part, because those big changes in the world take significant amounts of time.

This is true of new year’s resolutions, too. While it’s admirable to use the start of a new year as a “starting line” for a new challenge, many people are a bit unrealistic about their own expectations of themselves. “I’ll get fit,” they’ll say. “I’ll lose weight.” It’s not that simple — those aren’t behaviours that you can just “turn on”, sadly, otherwise life would be much easier for the fatties of the world. It takes time to change, and it’s easy to fall off the wagon. Believe me, I know.

As such, I’m not going to make any grand, sweeping statements about what I will or won’t achieve in the coming year. It would be nice if I could get fit and lose some weight, but I know from past experience that neither of those things are particularly easy. There are plenty of other things I would like to achieve, too, but none of those are easy, either. As such, setting unrealistic expectations for myself is only going to set me up for future disappointment. Much better to set some long-term targets and use the year to at least start working on them, even if they do not come to complete fruition in a single year. After all, unexpected things have a habit of throwing spanners in the work. Best-laid plans and all that.

As such, here are some things I am going to make a start on (or, in some cases, revisit) in 2013, with no promises of any of them actually being finished in 2013:

I will do some form of exercise at least twice a week. I’ve had a hefty period off from running, gymming or indeed anything — a combination of depression and a general lack of motivation sapped my inclination towards doing these things towards the end of the year. Now I’m in our new place, I will make an effort to use at least two days in the week for sweaty purposes. I anticipate this will primarily take the form of taking my bike to Southampton Common, which is very near our house and eminently suitable for cycling around.
I will work on my visual novel book. I have already made a start on this, and now I’m a bit more settled, I’m in a position where I can devote some time to it regularly.
I will make a game. It will be a small-scale, not-overly ambitious game made with RPG Maker, and it will probably be rubbish. But I will use my writing skills and creativity to make something I can show to other people. If I find myself able to make said game relatively quickly, I might even make another one that is better.
I will play the piano several times per week. I have had relatively little motivation to make music for a while (again, partly due to depression and whatnot) but I will regularly settle down and attempt to get my skills back up to scratch.
I will see my friends more often. I am fed up of being a hermit. I know I am not an especially social person, and social anxiety doesn’t make that any easier, but I would like to see my friends more often — for coffee, food, board games, video games, whatever. I am in the right place to do it, so I will take full advantage of that where possible.

I also have a more concrete target in mind, but I will keep that to myself for the moment, and perhaps share it in the near future.

For now, after an exhausting couple of days, I think I need a rest. Back to regular working days tomorrow for me — if you, too, are heading back to work, I hope you’ve had a suitably relaxing break and are ready to go back to the grindstone. And for everyone, I hope you had a wonderful (or at least tolerable) New Year celebration — here’s to 2013 being a good one. Cheers!

1078: Things I Hope We See the Back of in 2013

As I noted yesterday, 2012 was a reasonable year, if a relatively unremarkable one. However, it did play host to a number of trends that really, really need to fuck the fuck off. Here is a selection of my picks for things that I would very much like to not see any more next year.

Gangnam Style

LOOK! LOOK AT THE FUNNY KOREAN MAN! HE DANCING! HAHAHAHAHA

No. Fuck off. When your “viral sensation” gets performed on X-Factor, you know it has officially jumped the shark.

The phrase “jumped the shark”

I can remember it now, but I originally had to look this up five or six times before I could actually remember what it meant. It is a Happy Days reference, for heaven’s sake. Is there not something a bit more, you know, timely you could refer to? Or perhaps just say what you mean? Speaking of which…

Using the term “nice guy” to mean “creep”

I have ranted at length on this subject before so I will spare you that this time and simply say that by doing this you are simply perpetuating the stereotype that people who describe themselves as “nice guys” are creeps and rapists-in-training. Some of them are creeps, to be sure, but some of them are simply shy people with poor social skills. I count myself in the latter category, and have referred to myself as a “nice guy” in the past, and now feel hideously guilty about that. So quit tarring everyone with the same brush and find a new term to describe creepy guys who make women feel uncomfortable, regardless of what they call themselves. I suggest “creepy guys who make women feel uncomfortable” or perhaps just, you know, “creeps”. Capitalising Nice Guy or adding a ™ is not an acceptable way of creating a new term.

Reducing complex sociological issues to binary debates

This is apparent when you look at a number of different issues in today’s sociological climate, but it’s particularly evident any time someone starts talking about sexism and/or feminism. If you’re not in support of the most vocal, outspoken, ranty people who are standing up against sexism, you’re a misogynist. If you are someone who speaks out against sexism, regardless of whether or not you’re being obnoxious in your arguing techniques, you’re a “feminazi”. If you try and have a reasoned, rational debate on this subject, you’re “part of the problem”. There are no shades of grey here.

(Clarification that I am annoyed I feel obliged to include: My beliefs: sexism is bad, regardless of who it is directed towards. Women are awesome. Men are equally awesome. If the world learned this and treated people accordingly, it would be a much nicer place. Yelling incoherently at people is not the same as re-educating them.)

“dot TXT” Twitter accounts

NaNoWriMo participants, fanfic authors and bloggers are all pretty brave to put their work out there for public scrutiny, so how do you think they might feel about having extracts of things they have written or said quoted out of context, posted to Twitter and then retweeted to all and sundry? Yeah. Cut that shit out. On the subject…

Public shaming

Twitter users like “@fart” spend an awful lot of time trawling the social network for examples of things like “ungrateful teens” at Christmas, retweeting what is apparently their most offensive tweet and then, as a bit of frantic backpedaling, encouraging their followers not to harass these people. (I’m aware @fart isn’t the only one, but he’s certainly one of the most well-known.) Sites like BuzzFeed then collect together these tweets and post them as evidence of “first world problems” and other such bullshit. An example was here, but it has since been removed by the author, perhaps partly as a result of this article on Slate.

Public shaming of people for things like this is a horrible way to behave that makes you little more than a bully — especially in cases such as this, where we see that all is not necessarily as it first appears. Call people out if they are genuinely being publicly offensive, sure, but don’t hold them up for ridicule.

Tumblr

Back in 2008, I posted this short entry in which I lamented the fact I didn’t really know what Tumblr was for or why anyone would want to use it. Now I know: it’s for telling the world how awful white people, men, and white men are. The second a white person says something stupid, you can count on there being a Tumblr for it within a matter of minutes, which runs whatever “joke” there was well and truly into the ground, often setting world records for how quickly it can make grumpy people like me want to set fire to anyone who makes such a reference.

White straight cis male guilt

Much of the above leads to white straight cis male guilt. (If you don’t know what “cis” means, it is an abbreviation of “cisgender”, which is where an individual’s self-perceived gender matches their sex, and the opposite of “transgender”. I had to look it up, despite the number of people who are now using it regularly, often in an attempt to make themselves look super-socially aware.) Being a white straight cis male is not anything to be ashamed of, but from the number of people who preface pieces of work by seemingly apologising for being the person they are, you’d think it was the worst thing in the world. The white straight cis male viewpoint is just as valid as the black gay transgender female perspective, and nothing to feel guilty about.

The only thing you should feel guilty about is not giving viewpoints other than your own the time of day, regardless of your ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, sex and any other factors. You can give respect to viewpoints other than your own without diminishing the relevance of your own contributions.

Variations on that Keep Calm and Carry On poster

If I never have to see an “amusing” poster that says “Keep Calm and [something that isn’t Carry On]” again in 2013 and beyond, I will be happy. Indeed, if I never see a piece of merchandise that has the original “Keep Calm and Carry On” slogan on it again in 2013 and beyond, I will be happy. For those who were unaware, the original poster was put out in very limited quantities in 1939 to raise the morale of the British public in the face of the rise of the Nazis, and was subsequently rediscovered in 2000, at which point it exploded and was everyfuckingwhere. Ironically, the reaction on seeing a “Keep Calm and Carry On” poster is now a crushing sense of distress at the state of the modern world rather than a feeling of increased morale.

Data limits

We’re living in the future. We really are. We carry around gizmos in our pocket that are straight out of Star Trek, and yet our usage of them is artificially limited by mobile phone companies’ desire to squeeze as much money out of us as possible. That didn’t happen in Star Trek.

Negativity towards new tech

The new consoles that have been released recently — 3DS, Vita and Wii U — were all met with negativity upon their initial release. The situation with 3DS has improved somewhat, but Vita is still struggling a bit, and it’s too early to say with Wii U so far. These are all great bits of kit that, in many cases, don’t deserve the beatdowns they get. In 2013 I’d like to see a much greater focus on the things that these systems do well, and things that people who have bought one can appreciate, rather than endless Why Not To Buy One pieces.

Sales figures being equated to whether something is any good or not

People don’t like buying stuff that isn’t selling (see: Vita) but this doesn’t mean that those things aren’t actually any good. The Vita (sorry to keep harping on about it, but it’s a good example) is a gorgeous piece of kit, but people are ignoring this arguably more important fact because its sales figures aren’t very good.

Fact: pretty much everything I’ve enjoyed this year has been a “niche” title that hasn’t been designed to sell in massive quantities. Not everything has to be a blockbuster.

Unnecessary mobile social networking apps

If you’re considering seeking funding for a new mobile app that “lets you Like anything!” or is yet another Instagram ripoff then just stop. Now. No-one is going to use your product for more than five minutes. Before you design your app consider whether or not the world really needs it or would at least find it somehow beneficial. If the answer to either of those questions is “no”, then reconsider what you are doing.

Blind reposting

This has been a particular issue on Facebook this year. People see something that they think is amazing (like that supposed Morgan Freeman quote on the school shooting) and then blindly reshare it to their Facebook friends without checking to see whether or not it’s actually true. It subsequently spreads and spreads and spreads, because very few people along the way bother to fact-check it. When someone does fact-check it, discovers it to be bollocks and says so, they are often lambasted. “It does no harm,” people will say. “It’s a nice quote, does it matter who said it?”

Well, perhaps not in the case of a thought-provoking quote misattributed to Morgan Freeman, but when you see the massive virality of scaremongering posts accusing, say, Red Bull of containing a chemical that causes brain tumours, that’s when you can hopefully start to see where the problem lies.

Let me introduce you to Snopes.com. If something sounds suspiciously like bollocks, it probably is, so check it out on Snopes.

____

I could go on but I’ve already written nearly 1,500 words so far. I think if all of the above just went and vanished in time for the new year, I’d be happy for maybe a few days at least. Then something new will undoubtedly come along to irritate me, and I can write another post like this on December 31, 2013. See you then.

(Actually, I’ll see you tomorrow, but you know.)

Oh, and happy new year for later, I guess.

#oneaday Day 713: Welcome to 2012

So here we are in 2012, wondering how Sophia Hapgood got mixed up with the Nazis. Or something.

As mentioned in my brief, hastily-composed post last night, Andie and I (along with a number of others) saw in the New Year in style by eating our own bodyweight in puddings. (“Desserts” to you Americans out there.) There was a wide selection of gooey goodness on offer, ranging from a delicious steam pudding through an excellent trifle all the way to our friend Ben’s creation, a chocolate tart of such gooey, rich darkness that we quickly dubbed it The Black Hole of Puddings. It brought many a pudding-scoffer to his knees, I can tell you that. At least it did until the late-game entry of the minted lamb pudding (not a dessert, but still a pudding — are you following?) which turned out to be delicious.

But anyway. Enough of the puddings. Let’s look back at the year that was, as that’s traditional to do on the first day of the new year, or the last day of the old as the case may be. As a matter of fact, I did exactly that on the last day of last year.

As I recall, my general reaction to 2010 was “fuck you”. This, I feel, was fairly understandable, given that it was the year I found myself sans wife, job, place to live, money, dignity and hope. It was not, shall we say, Good Times. It was with some sense of trepidation that I began 2011 with only a part-time gig writing the news for GamePro to cling on to, but the year built its way up to if not “awesomeness” per se, then certainly a significant improvement on the previous.

Let’s start with GamePro, since I just mentioned it. I spent a goodly proportion of the year acting as a newshound for the website in question. My work was appreciated and praised by colleagues and readers alike (mostly, apart from one commenter who accused me of being a paedophile for writing a news story about a game which explored LGBT issues — he got moderated, blocked and banned out the ass for that one) and as the months rolled by, I built my way up to being able to make a decent living from the work.

When layoffs started hitting the website later in the year, I figured something was wrong. When your managing editor is out of the door, you start to fear for your position. Things continued as normal for a while, albeit with a slight “edge” to them, but then at the end of November, the thing I’d expected to happen happened. GamePro folded.

This was sad to see for a number of reasons. Firstly, it was my job, and no-one likes having their job scooped out from under them — least of all a job that they actually like. (I felt bad when I was made redundant from the first school I worked in, and that was a shithole. I actually enjoyed working for GamePro.) Secondly, there are family ties to the brand — my brother spend a goodly proportion of time there rethinking the magazine and the website for the 21st century. And thirdly, GamePro is — was — one of the longest-running games magazines in the States, and to see it go under really is the end of an era.

I’m sad to see it go, but I’m grateful I had the chance to meet some great people (mostly via email, but some face to face) and hopefully sow the seeds for some future opportunities. I was also grateful to work for an editor who actually provided helpful feedback rather than simply letting things slip by. I feel my writing has improved as a result. This is a Good Thing.

As for the future jobs-wise, I couldn’t say what will happen next in the long term. Starting on Tuesday, I’ll be contributing to Inside Social Games and Inside Mobile Apps on a regular basis. This will bring in a fair amount of money each month, but ideally I need something more to top that up with. I have an interview for a job I won’t talk about for the moment on January 5, so we’ll have to wait and see how that goes. Otherwise it’s back to prostitution for me. Wait, no, that’s not right…

Outside of work, 2011 brought other Good Things my way, chief among which must be Andie, the lovely lady (though she may disagree on the use of that term) with whom I now live and whom I can hear playing Groove Coaster in the next room at the time of writing.

I shan’t get embarrassingly mushy or anything here, but suffice to say that Andie appreciates me for who I am, doesn’t mind watching me play video games and enjoys playing multiplayer Minecraft with me. She is also a good teammate in a game of Pandemic, willing to try her hand at Dungeon Defenders and makes a mean fried rice. She is, in short, pretty awesome, and I love her very much. She’s also a sign that if things go horribly wrong in your life, then very often there are better times around the corner if you just have the patience to ride out the storms that are thrown your way.

Personally speaking, I still find myself visited by Des from time to time, and it’s still difficult to deal with sometimes, particularly when what had started to feel like a period of stability was interrupted by the dissolution of my job. I’m hanging in there, though, and feeling quietly confident about what 2012 has to offer. It surely can’t be much worse than 2010, after all.

(While we’re here, did 2011 feel like it absolutely flew by to anyone else? It doesn’t feel like that long ago I was writing my “end of the year” post for 2010 going into 2011.)

(Also, happy new year.)