Odds And Ends (random book)

2020 Year in Review

My Top 5 Songs of the Year:
1) Once In A Dream - In The City
2) Night - Adna
3) Capital of Nowhere - The Gathering
4) What Could Have Been - Novembers Doom
5) Wounded Bird - In Tenebris

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Well, the beginning of this year was going great. Surprisingly enough, the pandemic did not affect me as much as I thought it would. Near the beginning, sure, it was disruptive to my regular schedule. But, thankfully, my job involves sitting in front of a computer all day. There was not much difference to doing that at home. I have no stable social life to miss. Since I normally wear headphones when I work outside of the house, there was no 'work culture' to miss (certainly not). And my equipment at home is sufficiently powerful, though I have noticed some deficiencies here and there. The width of my keyboard encourages improper posture. My audio equipment sucks, all of it. A 1440p or 4k monitor would greatly help with creative work, as well as the GPU to drive it. On that, I will have to wait until either a second wave of Trump/Biden Bucks comes in to splurge on it, or sell old equipment. Regardless, the PC I have was very powerful three years ago, so it is still strong now. Coincidentally, my entertainment is also had in front of a computer screen. In total, throughout the whole year, I have spent more time in front of a screen than not. It reminds me of college, where my job, studies, and entertainment still fell in front of a computer screen. On that, I wish I had the money to travel. I do not live in a terribly exciting place, and 'nightlife' activities like drinking and dancing are not really my thing. And just walking around at night to random places with no aim is a great way to get robbed. 2021 is not going to change the travel situation. I will still spend the majority of that year in front of a screen.

It also does not surprise me a global pandemic and a major disruption to my work schedule is not enough to shake some of my habits or posting to this account. I had to stop a few weeks, but I still managed to post something almost every week. Now that I have nothing written to post , the first half of the year is likely to be dry. I do not post first drafts, and do not post as I go ('Warriors: Bleed' was a bad exception, but I still only posted when each chapter was final). I could touch up on vectors. I will defiantly be updating the Specialized Writing Guide. I do not know about starting another one for a different fandom next year. I will think about it. Animation will likely stay on hold. Maybe I will mess around with Blender, now that its 2D tools are as robust as I can afford. I want to buy Toon Boom Harmony since Adobe Animate will not get its act together. At around $1000, it is relatively cheap as far as editing and creative software goes. Better than a subscription fee. Animation is something I have really wanted to do. I just do not have a lot of skill with traditional animation or drawing (what I can draw is on my Deviantart profile... and is why I stick to vectors). Learning it is free, though. I just need time to practice.

As far as 2021 goes, not much is set to change for me. Aside from where I work, perhaps. It was an unfortunate year for most and I hope 2021 is taken as a rebuilding year for the more disrupted parts of your life and society as a whole, physically, financially, or mentally.

On some side notes:

+  I will finally type with contractions! I avoided them to distance myself from my actual writing style. Quite a stupid reason, but a successfully adopted habit.

+  I have been here for five years now.

+  No more posting a story before it is completely finished offline.

+  I will continue misspelling defiantly without a spellchecker.

+  Razer sucks, NZXT sucks, Amazon Basics monitor arm rules!

+  If you can afford it, a good office chair is worth not being in back pain. Back pain sucks.

+  If you have problems with your drawing tablet, check the cable first.

+  I would rather pirate or use an older version of Photoshop than use GIMP. I just cannot stand its interface and the lack of mods to change it to mimic Photoshop's. Damn Adobe.

+  I spent the least amount of money this year since graduating college.

+  If you buy the right phone, it will last for years without any performance loss.

+  I will start exercising again; my high school sports and high metabolism have ceased to carry me this far.

Looking forward to 2021, despite not much changing for me. It cannot be any worse than this year.