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 Dysartes wrote:

 jaredb wrote:
This is our litte guy, Orson.

Spoiler:

I hope Orson continues to do Welles.

Sorry, couldn't resist - give him a fuss and a "good boy" from me, would you?

Already done! He's passed out right now on the couch next to me. He's a pretty happy little dude.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
IDK if anyone remembers, but earlier this year I lamented not getting a promotion

I remember that thread, it was a good discussion. Glad it's working out for you now.

The good:

- Bought my first house
- Set up a dedicated hobby space
- My woman moved into said house
- Was able to get her living n a nice place and not a cappy hovel of a flat
- Bought a car with my missus
- Been working as normal throughout the whole thing.

The bad:

- Been working as normal throughout the whole thing. No furlough.. No working from home.. no nuffing. Yet, nothing is open. No cinemas. No holidays, no restaurants no nuffin..
Kinda sucks when it seems you are the only one working..

- Gyms not open, hard to maintain weight. Put on weight.. :(

Got a pet cat, a 12 year-old ginger tom, very friendly, huge vocal range which never fails to amuse, he once made a pew-pew noise that could have come straight from an 80's video game. Also learned 3d sculpting as a fall back for if/when brexit ruins my (very small) business next year.

Very few it any redeeming qualities of this year in my life. I don't even want to get into it much. But I can't imagine next year being worse...and if it is...god forbid.

This year's been pretty mixed for me.

The bad:

- had to put down my 16 year old dog
- got laid off early in March
- lots of family issues due to lockdowns

The good:

- starting off a great college program for my new dream job
- getting a lot of painting done (finally fully painted an army!) during my time unemployed
- got more fit thanks to the free time to work out

So i guess some of the bad stuff this year led to the good stuff, so overall it's a bit of a wash. Gotta focus on the silver lining though!

Yeah, been a pretty crappy year. I'm struggling to think of much good to come out of it personally other than to say it could have been worse. Health has gotten worse, work has gotten worse, covid has meant I missed a long overdue promotion, living situation has gotten worse.

Have gotten to spend more time with my parents, which is nice, but the reasons for it have been negative.

I've been fortunate enough to say none of my family have died this, but now several of them have come down with covid, so we'll see if that statement lasts the year.

I can't think of anything good that has happened to me. There have been a few good things but they were things I made happen strictly through my own efforts, not things that happened to me. Mostly it's been gakky.

There have been some ups among the many downs this year, but the big positives are things that could have been worse, but weren’t.

-My surgery wasn’t as successful as they’d hoped, but the recovery was way, wayyyyy easier than I’d expected.

-Twice this year I was sure I was going to die, but I didn’t. (More than twice if we include time on the freeway.)

-Two of my sisters in law got Covid (hospitalized) and both survived, although one still has issues.

-MIL diagnosed with cancer, had a plate sized tumor, seems to have completely beat it.

Can't say anything good happened to me this year, no. Got a new job last year as a mailman with Canada Post that I absolutely love and I'm super grateful that it's pandemic proof. In late August I pinched my sciatic nerve and went on short term disability for 3 months because of it, which cost me quite a bit of coin. Worst pain I've ever felt in my life. I'm completely fine now after physio, chiropody and acupuncture. The wife works retail and also lost a gak load of money from being furloughed during the spring lockdown in Toronto, and has now had her hours cut again with the new lockdown we have going atm.

I haven't lost anyone but all in all it's been a pretty gak year.

Ah hell no

Although think I might have jinxed it early by discussing with my oldest gaming chum at the local nerdshow up whilst my full time father herding can be challenging so long as I can take the odd evening to myself for pub, cinema and toy soldiers I'm muddling along, cue The Event...

Have pretty much cleared my book and comic backlog even finally caving and getting some reading glasses, pile of shame less so as total motivation failure occurred

Oh and Dawson's Creek on back on Netflix, hmmm Katie

Really heartening to read some of the stories on here.

For my own part, I definitely think it's a year to count your blessings and realise how lucky you are to have the things you have (at the risk of sounding like a straight-to-TV Christmas film!)

I've lost an (extended) family member to Covid and had a friend hospitalised. Also had friends and family members lose their jobs (and the jobs market is so bad right now, at least here in the UK - so many industries really struggling and it's likely to get worse over the coming year).

So I think it's important to be thankful for what you have: family, friends, a roof over your head, a steady job. Of course, a lot more time to paint miniatures!
And to try and be there for your friends and family that haven't been as fortunate as you.

Well said Pacific.

Probably the best thing that happened to me this year is that I was able to run a charity tournament to raise funds for Men's Mental health foundation. Over two days we played X-Wing, Legion and Armada and raised just over $1300nzd. It was truly lovely to see so many people come together in what is some tough times to throw some dice and raise money for a charity. The charity itself does really good work, there is a culture here that says that men should just suck it up and deal with it when dealing with depression and the like and a terrifying number of men commit suicide when they cant. Seeing so many nerdy types who are tragically so disposed to suffering from such issues come together was so touching. It was a real privilege to be able to run the event and more so as it was the last organised play tournaments I will attend in NZ as I move to the UK in 6 days.

I'm pretty insulated from Covid (can work from home, minimal friends/family to visit) so it's not been bad in that regard, though not being able to take the kids out to parks and stuff sucked. Covid means less business travel for me though, which has been useful.

On the plus side, my youngest has started in a newly built special needs nursery/kindergarden and loving it. My oldest is settling in well in a specialist special needs primary school too. So they are doing great.

It's not been a great year, but it's a long way from my worst

A happy thought I think all can share?

At least in 2020 we have multiple streaming options for entertainment.

Can you imagine spending this much time at home with just terrestrial TV? I mean, everyone knows that Daytime TV was invented to make us go to work/school, and stay there.

At least us lucky lot can more or less choose to watch whatever, whenever.

Sorry, had to add I can think of one good thing that happened in my life this year. After working on it for 7 fething years, I finally finished the first draft of the fantasy novel I've been working on.

Otherwise, yeah my previous comment still stands.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
A happy thought I think all can share?

At least in 2020 we have multiple streaming options for entertainment.

Can you imagine spending this much time at home with just terrestrial TV? I mean, everyone knows that Daytime TV was invented to make us go to work/school, and stay there.

At least us lucky lot can more or less choose to watch whatever, whenever.

You know, that's a really good point.

Nah. I was stocked up with Farscape DVDs waiting to be cracked open. Now they must wait. We just don’t watch all that much TV.


Unrelated: hospice scams suck.

Twentytwentyyyyy! *shakes fist*

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
A happy thought I think all can share?

At least in 2020 we have multiple streaming options for entertainment.

Can you imagine spending this much time at home with just terrestrial TV? I mean, everyone knows that Daytime TV was invented to make us go to work/school, and stay there.

At least us lucky lot can more or less choose to watch whatever, whenever.

Also, we are at a time where entertainment is actually good with good stories. compared to before when TV was just one self contained story mostly.

Yeah, I bought a house, and so far that's been excellent. I've had plenty of time for home improvement and I don't miss paying rent.

 Matt Swain wrote:

Honestly, the only good thing I can think of this year is that 2020 was the first year in well over a decade I have not had 2-3 superhero movies forced on me thru saturation bombing advertising campaigns. I have literally come to hate SHMs and get overwhelmed with hate and disgust every time i cannot avoid an ad for them, including product ads at every store i go to, ads on tv, ads on every net site and page i go to, ads in the mail, ad infinitum, ad nauseum. Yes, I can honestly say i hate SHMs for no other reason than unless you're willing to utterly disconnected and live in a cave somewhere in the remote amazon jungle you are constantly assaulted with ads for them for months. Yes, I was glad to have a year where i was not struggling to avoid ads and having them slammed into my eyes and ears daily regardless.

You know, it's pretty wild but I basically NEVER see ads for pretty much any movie nowadays. Other than 5-second ads on youtube...that tend to not be for movies because I just don't buy or watch 'em. There have been several big hollywood superhero movies that have just totally passed me by, and I only see like a billboard saying a new movie is out.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Argive wrote:

- Been working as normal throughout the whole thing. No furlough.. No working from home.. no nuffing. Yet, nothing is open. No cinemas. No holidays, no restaurants no nuffin..
Kinda sucks when it seems you are the only one working..

- Gyms not open, hard to maintain weight. Put on weight.. :(

I feel ALL THIS real hard. I'm actually going in to the office every day and none of the lockdowns matter because we make lab equipment and pretty much exclusively service Covid labs currently.

Well, after all the bad of the year. The enforced periods of lockdown have enabled me to to look again at my previous small business and tweak it some.

Looks like ill be in a good position in having a tidy sideline along my grown up work.

I've also cleared up some hobby backlog and now Son 2 is into wargaming its been good to spend some quality time with him.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
A happy thought I think all can share?

At least in 2020 we have multiple streaming options for entertainment.

Can you imagine spending this much time at home with just terrestrial TV? I mean, everyone knows that Daytime TV was invented to make us go to work/school, and stay there.

At least us lucky lot can more or less choose to watch whatever, whenever.

That is so true, I think even 10 years back would have been so much harder!

Some fair few memes on this topic, on the 'hardship' of being stuck in the house and only having enough entertainment material to keep you going for three and a half thousand years, if you watched it end-to-end

 Mr. Burning wrote:
Well, after all the bad of the year. The enforced periods of lockdown have enabled me to to look again at my previous small business and tweak it some.

Looks like ill be in a good position in having a tidy sideline along my grown up work.

I've also cleared up some hobby backlog and now Son 2 is into wargaming its been good to spend some quality time with him.

That’s really awesome. Bringing families closer together is a really bright upside.

started 2020 by personally fulfilling our family's medical deductible.. got to spend a week in the ICU for non-COVID reasons in mid-Feb

according to the docs, if I had delayed getting to the hospital by as much as 30 minutes, probably would have passed.

After much transfusions, and rebuilding the blood supply, (lol) I was able to resume "normal" work in time for being told to work from home.. so, yay..

Managed to have another involuntary spinal surgery in August, but, that one was a freebie thanks to February..

No one died, not even myself, and none of my close family got COVID, but some elderly aunts and uncles DID, and survived that..

Wife furloughed from work has made things rough though.. plus kid in college

2020 is absolutely a terrible year! everything collapsed, the world will never be the same again! borders are closed, medicine has collapsed, the economy has collapsed, people are chipped, emotions are prohibited, touch is prohibited, there is no freedom of speech, there is chaos in the world !!! Aaaaaaaaaa !!!

My 4 year old son's hair is starting to grow back. He now has full eyebrows and eyelashes. Top isn't back to 100% but I'll take any progress.

That’s good to hear dude. Hope his recovery continues apace

Bit of a body blow dealt last night, with my area plunging into Tier 4 super restrictions.

But? Christmas isn’t cancelled, so much as postponed. And my friend is willing up play Santa in terms of getting pressies to peeps. And I was able to hunt and gather all my pressies.

Still a major bummer. But at least the vaccine is on its way. Kinda hopeful work will provide through our healthcare plan - partially so I can jump the queue, but also so I’m not taking up a place in the queue when it’s not absolutely necessary.

I feel kind of bad because overall I had a pretty good 2020. Yeah a lot of crappy stuff happened but I started a new job, paid off a ton of debt (thanks to the overtime offered by said new job), got to be outside a lot and travel because my job requires it, and overall feel like I'm finally getting my life on track. I actually have real insurance for the first time in my life at 29 years old, including dental and vision, which is a big deal for an American without a college degree. I even had money to spare to get back into a few hobbies I used to enjoy but couldn't support for a while. I had a really awful stretch there for a good 5 years or so so it's been nice to finally have things turn around, for me at least.

Don't get me wrong, I'm definitely an outlier as far as that. And I had some crappy moments too. But I feel like I'd have to be pretty ignorant of how fortunate I am if I said I didn't have a pretty good year. I just wish more people I knew could say the same. I've been trying to make sure I don't complain about things because of that. The absolute worst thing to happen to me this year was ammo prices skyrocketing when I finally have the money and time to shoot again on a regular basis So yeah, I have nothing to complain about personally, but it's rough seeing so many others in a hard spot. I used to work in the music industry and still follow the news for it, it's been heartbreaking to see the stuff they've been going through. For some folks thats all they know how to do, I don't know how some are getting by.

Got a new, better paid job, Bought a van and converted it to a campervan, toured scotland whilst avoiding humans as much as possible, and got engaged on the isle of mull. It's been a pretty good year, if you ignore the lurgy.

The only good thing is that I have managed to keep my job and somehow not caught that dreaded disease. Everybody else seems to be doing the same around me.

But one day now merges into another day of the same old stuff without a break.

Can but hope that 2021 will be better or at least start to improve for everybody.