Gonna head over to a buddy's place to see in the new year. Sorry chat. Anyway, I'm gonna just fly through the old posts a bit and see if I can recall anything fun worth recapping over the course of the past year. I feel like on the whole this was a pretty decent year that had perhaps a rocky start, especially with the deal with my dad and his falling accident and such. So let's see how the electrons balance out:
- Dad had his accident, passing out and smushing his face something fierce. He got better and is no worse for wear now. But damn was that scary.
- Spent a long, long bit of time wrapping my head around a decade-long story that's in dire need of a solid editor.
+ Introduced to frozen White Castle burgers.
+ Castle had an amazing third season and an AMAZING start to its fourth. And we made food. And we made more food.
+ Did an OB podcast. It was a'ight. I was no Alexa, but few are, y'know?
- Anime Evolution died. Local convention scene got complicated.
+ Got the specialist position at the store, which means I'm getting raises again after being capped for the better part of a year.
- Still working at the store . . .
+ Watched Tangled about a hundred times . . .
+ EXCELLENT year for cosplay! Flynn Rider and Tangled has easily become one of my favourite cosplays ever (if not THE favourite right now). Throw in the Nathan Drake update, the Valkyria upgrade, goddamn Robin, BUILDING an assassin hidden blade for good measure, and I tell ya, excellent cosplay year.
+ Started leaving my chin stubbly instead of clean-shaven. Hilarity ensued.
- Sorted out some of the stranger ends of that decade-long story. And even while sorted, still find it stupid.
+ Amazing time at Sakura-Con with relaxed minds, good company, drinks, and Final Fantasy Fight Tournaments. That we lost. But won a moral victory in. In all, the first of many hilarious adventures in Seattle for the year. Quoted: "Best. Sakura-Con. Ever."
+/- The youngest of my childrens leaves town for the next year and a half, back home and then off to Korea. She still dominates more of our current conversations than she should, and she's doing well over there. So it's all good, really. Just a lot harder to grab food right now, is all.
+/- Vancouver Canucks have a shockingly good season and a damn fine playoff run, and then fuck it all up at the end. Many butts were hurt. Downtown felt the brunt of it. GG, Vancouver.
+ Decided our friends Terri, Manda, and York can be summarily described as "TerriMaYo". And I am fine with that.
+ Got a new hard drive for my computer as well as Windows 7. So long, Vista! Hahaha!
+ Introduction to Game of Thrones and all things GRRM. It is all good times. ALL of it.
+ Godson comes of an age where he visually recognizes me and calls me by name. Good job Matthew!
+ Had my 10 year high school reunion. Actually had a very good time with that, seeing a ton of faces I was actually very happy to see. I know a lot of folks are all about how they hated high school and don't feel bad they'll never see those people again . . . but I mean, even though I'm not too sad these people aren't a part of my life anymore, it was still great to see them all over again. So yes, that was good times.
- Had to do public relations a few times for the site's behalf, forwarding messages from angry members to people of actual power and trying to not piss people off too much.. GG, guys. Ah well.
+ Went to the Distant Worlds concert. Had a fantastic time. Absolutely completely fantastic.
+ Brother took me out shooting for my 28th birthday. Damn fun afternoon, shotgun-slap-to-the-face and all!
+ Organized a Masquerade Ball and took part in another Final Fantasy Fight Tournament for Cos & Effect, one of the cons spawned from the death of AE. Decent little con', got a lot of friends from work to come out for it.
+ Started taking liberties with that decade-long story a little, drawing in its margins a little. At this point I stop caring as much and just decide that if the co-author doesn't like my doodling around, the co-author can tell me to stop doing it. So until then, let's see how many ridiculous things I can get in there . . .
- Watched my friend get put through the wringer emotionally a bit for trying to help another friend who isn't fully appreciating it. Kinda pissed me off there. Determined to keep tabs on this friend, as this friend does not deserve that shit.
- Shaved my legs.
+ Went to PAX. The GREATEST CONVENTION EVER. Everything about this trip was amazing and exciting from the swag to the games to the atmosphere to the new chapter put into that decade-long story thing. Actually, thinking back, this one was a pretty solid chapter . . .
+ Started watching Fairy Tail.
+ Committed to cosplaying Fairy Tail.
- Realized I need to do a lot more exercise now because of Fairy Tail cosplay.
+/- Epic earwax. The syringing it out was kinda awesome, though.
+ Got a Twitter account and got a Tumblr account. Both of those are possibly taking time away from here now. Ah well. Happens.
+ Saw my elementary school's 50th anniversary. Again, saw some old faces again, walked some old hallways, and generally nostaligized like a boss.
+ Bloodshots Canada 2011 was good fun. Not completely without its own hitches, but on the whole went well enough. Still room for things I still wanna try, but the raging unsettled feeling of last year is gone now. Unfinished business finished. And hey, we did win an award, after all!
+ AMAZING year for games. Batman: Arkham City, Uncharted 3, Assassin's Creed: Revelations, Star Wars: The Old Republic and tons more from earlier in the year and damn, we had a solid year for games. Skyrim, Battlefield . . . soon . . . . .
+ Carved some solid pumpkins, one of which won me a $25 gift card for The Keg Steakhouse! I still need to use that . . .
+ Flynn Rider at the store for Halloween. You know that was good times.
+ Went on a shopping trip to buy some nicer clothes. Even got a haircut to something a little more modern. As expected, I clean up quite nicely.
+ More solid pages come out of that strange little decade-long story thing with late nights and mutual ripping on other people.
+ Became an uncle to a kid named Logan. I expect this is going to be all kinds of hilarious as time goes on . . . also got an iPhone that day.
+ Took one more trip down to Seattle. Got some more work done with that stupid decade-long story thing. Also learned about Crawfish King near Chinatown in Seattle - why you people never tell me of this place?!
+ And then it was Christmas.
Alright, so it occurs to me I don't really blog about the bad times. And y'know, in the end it was a pretty decent year. I don't feel too bad about 2011.
Not too bad, anyway.
So before I sign off for the year I'll say PORTUGAL! ONTARIO! TENNESSEE! Presents in the new year! PROMISE!!!
'Til later, then. Happy New Year, children!
And Beth.
Totally got a stomach flu or food poisoning or something. It has not been a fun 48 hours.
Beth, be careful - whatever it is that's wiping us out, it seems to be targeting site staff.
UPDATE: Welp, after sleeping for the better part of 12-13 hours, my head's nothing that an Advil won't patch up, my stomach's stopped brewing coffee, and I have an appetite again. All we have to wait and see now is what's coming out on the business end, and we'll be good to go. That said, the fact that nothing has wanted to come out of the business end so far today is probably a plus. So yay.
Also, for those of you who follow this blog: you know this stuff comes up now and then. Don't be acting surprised now.
