Well, we've almost made it. Ihave about 6hrs of the most fucked-up year I can remember to go, and those of you in Aotearoa have even less than that.
I saw the year in on Kawau Island in the Hauraki Gulf while Australia was on fire. I thought it would all be up from there.
Global pandemic, lockdown, job losses, millions of deaths that don't touch me and a bunch that did - Kobe Bryant, Edward Van Halen, Little Richard, Chadwick Boseman, Peter Green, Ben Bova jump to mind for me.
Games I played this year: thanks to lockdown, a lot of Overwatch (PC), Mario Kart and Super Smash Bros (Switch).
One silver lining to the cloud: got a lot of time to read this year. Books that really stood out:
- Shoshanna Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism
- Thomas Piketty, Capital
paired with - Daniel Markovits, The Meritocracy Trap
- Robert Putnam, Our Kids
- Mike Duncan, The Storm Before The Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic
- Steven Pinker, Enlightenment Now
- Yuval Noah Harari, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow
- David Wallace-Wells, The Uninhabitable Earth
paired with - Michael Shellenberger,Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All
NZGames relocated hosting after Where's My Server shut down, and a lot - hell, maybe all - of you chipped in some money to cover expenses and time. That money also helped me to pay some important household bills at a moment when Kelly (Princess) and I were both jobless. Love you guys.
It's almost time to step AFK and start preparing for tonight's socialising, which will end the year in an entirely unfitting way - overeating and overdrinking. For all the stress 2020 was a good mental reset; I did a lot of exercise, ate better, didn't drink as much, lost a lot of weight, and when I gave blood this week my blood pressure was 110/62, which blows my mind. I don't think I've ever had a BP that healthy ever.
So yeah, 2020 was a kick in the nuts in a lot of ways but not all. Priorities feel a bit different at this end of the year.
Have a great one guys and girls.