2022 in Review

After a markedly lousy start, this decade is finally starting to look up! 2022 was still full of its own challenges, personal and otherwise, but it's easy to be optimistic given where we've been recently. What will 2023 entail? Dunno but I'm ready to find out!

Gaming

I didn't do a ton of video gaming most of the year until Dwarf Fortress released on Steam, though Super Auto Pets gets special mention even if I didn't spend a lot of time with it. I have mixed feelings about the Steam version of DF. On the one hand, some things are markedly improved for using the mouse and Toady has fixed a handful of really tedious and weird interfaces. On the other hand, the new mouse interface is just as obtuse and clunky as the old keyboard one and he moved around a bunch of the hotkeys without replacing some of them. Result? I spent way too long trying to figure out how to dig stairs down and to make track stops work...and make farm plots...and make beds. Also ran: losing the ability to queue things through hotkeys and having to use the mouse. Bad. Eventually the mod makers will catch up and I can go back to being able to, I dunno, do things effectively in a game I've spent untold hundreds of hours with already.

This year I finished two full-length RPG campaigns and ran a very amusing 3-shot sci-fi miniseries. For those of you who follow my escapades on facebook, I mention it pretty often: it's a gift to finish any campaign but in the last six-ish years I've had the luxury of finishing seven full length runs and two mini-series with two in progress right now. That's already got to be in the tiniest minority of all GMs. Better yet? We have cross-referenced jokes, cameos, and, er, references, even across genres. I don't ever recall hearing anyone ever doing that and certainly not regularly.

Gardening

My gardening efforts didn't go spectacularly this year. I transplanted tomatoes and peppers out too early this year and most of them died to a late cold spell. The late start and other weird weather kept yields fairly low. I had such grand plans for all the tomatoes I didn't get. Possibly this had something to do with soil quality, too, but I did amend heavily with compost this spring. I'll probably do more amending thisnext year so hopefully that'll help resolve. 

Painting

In addition to blowing past my painting goals for a third year in a row, I hit a the four digit mark of lifetime painted figs--a pretty cool milestone. Next thousand will be a few years out still. I also finished painting every figure I bought in 2016. I have my records in major groups either by year or by major kickstarter and a couple other random things like 3d prints. Couldn't tell you what the next group I might complete but for a few of those years I probably over-bought. I also completed 260 figs which is five per week--a far cry from the 380 or so I did in 2021 but IMO it's still pretty good. Note: there are a few missing from this shot (I gave them away at the end of campaigns) and the rows at the end are slightly out of order. I didn't think you'd mind.

I also put a lot of effort into raising the quality bar thislast year. While I don't think that the upper end of my range has moved much since 2021, I do think the average has moved quite a lot. NextThis year I want to do a bunch of side-by-sides of much older high quality paint jobs and really crank it up. I'm helped by the fact that I already have multiples or can print multiples of many of my favorites.

Fin

Ending these posts is always weird since it's recapping a year's worth of stuff. So I guess I'll saytype that I have high hopes for 2023 and I guess we'll just have to see how it all works out.