update and a year end meme
The past couple weeks have been very busy at work, trying to finish up as much of our Q4 objectives as possible. I have zero interest in a raise or a promotion, but i still care about my team hitting our goals so the younger or more ambitious guys can get paid. Also, it's a nice feeling anyway when you finish something off by a deadline.
In Taiwan there is no Christmas holiday, which takes the pressure off the usual end-of-quarter push. In this final week of the year you can arrive at work in the morning and there isn't a stack of emails and instant messages waiting for you, and you can leave in the evening without feeling guilty that you're abandoning your European colleagues in the middle of a conversation. I gotta say... it's really nice to have this one week in the year where we don't have to fill the role of harder-working, lesser-paid remote team. It's so much easier to get stuff done and seems to boosts team spirit.
Anyway, it's been busy, i'm exhausted, and now i have three days off. For the past couple weeks i have been saving up everyone's end of year meme so i can relax with a coffee and read them all in a bundle. I hope everyone on LiveJournal knows how grateful i am to read their posts every day. Thank you all and happy new year.
1. What did you do in 2023 that you'd never done before?
Visited Laos and Macedonia.
2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I don't remember making any, but i just checked my 2022 post and it said i wanted to do less binge-drinking. Mission accomplished. Next year i would like to try expand my social life beyond work. Even just emailing my dad more than once or twice a year would be an improvement.
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
No.
4. Did anyone close to you die?
No.
5. What countries did you visit?
Laos, Macedonia, Greece.
6. What would you like to have in 2024 that you lacked in 2023?
More than 3 weeks annual leave.
7. What date from 2023 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
I don't remember anything especially remarkable happening this year.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
I'll quote Marc Almond: i've done nothing / i've achieved nothing / i work for a firm but i want to burn it down, down / i am so ordinary. Song's over 40 years old and still perfectly describes pretty much everybody's adult life. Being a grown-up is very tedious.
9. What was your biggest failure?
Also nothing.
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
My infernal itching and rashes finally lifted sometime in 2023, for no apparent reason. They briefly came back on a weekend trip to Kaohsiung which makes me think that i must have developed some kind of allergy or skin sensitivity that i never had before, but i am too lazy to go back to the doctor for the zillionth time to try figure it out. I guess i'm just getting old.
I haven't been sick since before COVID, though. I'm not sure if it's related to wearing a mask in public, but since i keep not getting sick, i keep wearing a mask.
11. What was the best thing you bought?
I don't think i bought anything this year outside of food, music and games.
Just having a quick look at my Steam favorites, i have two games i bought this year favorited. 再見 Once Again and Citizen Sleeper. They are both visual novels. The first is a Malaysian VN about the grieving process of a kid whose mother died and all he has to remember her by is a single photo. The second is a sci-fi VN where you play a drug-addicted robot who fled their employer to seek community in a delapidated space station. Both have great writing and really resonated with me.
The most-played song in my MusicBee that i bought this year is Cignol - Binary Choices, which i posted a few entries ago, but here it is again because it's a flawless example of melancholic Detroit-influenced electro smashed into bright-eyed acid house... The kind of music i want played at my funeral because it sounds like how my heart feels. This is it, the music of my soul.
Cignol - Binary Choices
12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?
It's kinda weird to celebrate people for their behavior. Just be a good person, that should be the default.
13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
The Internets. Nothing fails to depress me more than clicking around the comments on a topic related to my work, or a current event i am interested in, or a piece of entertainment i enjoy, and then there is an endless trainwreck of ignorant, bigoted shitheads engaged in furious battle over stuff that most of the time doesn't affect their lives one bit.
14. Where did most of your money go?
Rent.
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
I don't much get excited nowadays. I'm old. Anything "exciting" is probably something i already did a dozen times before.
16. What song(s) will always remind you of 2023?
I don't listen to music in that way any more.
17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
I. Happier? I think happier, mainly because i'm free of whatever skin condition i had.
II. Thinner or fatter? Probably around the same.
III. Richer or poorer? Richer. I am always richer when i work, because i don't spend money unless i am not working.
18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Going clubbing. It always seems like such an effort to go out after working all week, and the music here isn't really to my tastes... but even a mediocre night out will usually feature at least a few decent moments, and they're moments you can't get anywhere else.
19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Work.
20. How will you be spending Christmas?
Work.
21. Did you fall in love in 2023?
No.
22. How many one-night stands?
None.
23. What was your favorite TV program?
This is always going to be unfairly biased toward the end of the year. I watched this year's season of The Chi recently, which is a drama about people living in the south side of Chicago that features some of the best music on television. Reservation Dogs ended this year too. I like that show, reminds me of living in Canada. Heels was a decent smalltown wrestling drama, which hits harder if you also watch the documentary Wrestlers. On a lighter note, i really enjoyed the One Piece live action show. Total feel-good stuff, it's a delight to watch such unabashedly joyous television.
It's been a bit of a weak year for sci-fi. I guess Star Trek: Lower Decks finally moved beyond the endless parade of in-jokes into a storyline that made me care about the characters. Foundation season 2 was decent space opera. I just finished Beacon 23 which was the ultimate "spend 8 hours hinting at a storyline and then nothing fucking happens" show. But it's sci-fi, so i'll watch it anyway even when it's terrible. I'm hopeless.
24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
No.
25. What was the best book you read?
The only book i read this year was an old classic - CJ Cherryh's Pride of Chanur. I started reading the second one in the series but haven't made it through. They aren't quite as good as what i hoped they were going to be. I feel more like i'm reading a concept than a novel. I really like the idea of telling a first contact story through the eyes of the alien, but the jargon gets impenetrable after a while. The descriptions of the space battles are gritty as hell, though, and stick a thumb square in the eye of unrealistic dogfight sci-fi like Star Wars. Actually, the descriptions of the space battles were memorable enough to make the book worth reading just for that alone. You can see where stuff like The Expanse got its inspiration.
26. What was your greatest musical discovery?
No real discoveries this year, i'm mostly listening to the same sort of genres and artists i always did.
27. What did you want and get?
My skin condition to subside.
28. What did you want and didn´t get?
More annual leave.
29. What was your favorite film of this year?
I don't watch movies.
30. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
God, i have no idea. Probably i went to work. I'm 43.
31. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Not having to work.
32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2023?
Same as ever. Black work pants. Raggedy tank top. Flip-flops.
33. What kept you sane?
Star Trek, i think. I rewatched all of Voyager and Next Generation this year, and they were so comforting. I tried to rewatch DS9 for the same reason but it was boring so i gave up. Maybe i'll try a Stargate rewatch next year.
34. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Nobody.
35. What political issue stirred you the most?
Displaced peoples. There was an article the other day in the Graun about Bidibidi refugee camp in Uganda, mostly housing refugees from the war in South Sudan, and somehow it touched me more than pretty much any other news i read about this year. It utterly infuriates me that there are millions of people around the world forced from their homes for whatever reason, trying to build new communities starting with just the clothes on their backs, and selfish asshats living comfortably in the richest countries of the world still whine and moan about how "open" borders are diluting their culture or destroying their economy or whatever. Like, have a little sympathy for your fellow man, fuck.
36. Who did you miss?
I still miss my mom from time to time, even she died a few years ago.
37. Who was the best new person you met?
I don't hang out with anybody outside of work, so i didn't really meet anyone new.
38. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2023:
Everyone who says life begins at 40 is lying because when your body gets old and decrepit literally nothing is better than it used to be. You can't abuse your body and get away with it any more. It's just a slow march to death. Still plenty of fun things to do along the way, though.
39. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
I don't really listen to music with lyrics, but i suppose the Marc Almond lyric from the top of this post is an evergreen quote.
40. Post a picture of something that made you happy this year
A cool statue i found at a fishing spot somewhere between Kaohsiung and Tainan.
41. Did you wrong or hurt somebody in 2023?
I hope not.
42. Is there some new place you are planning to visit in 2024?
Maybe i'll finally get back to east coast of Taiwan. I've been toying with the idea of Philippines because it's close, but in truth i'm far less interested in Philippines than Indonesia food-wise. Then again i am not at all interested in Japan food-wise, but still my interest has been piqued because so many Taiwanese people holiday there. It's close too. My dad sent me a Christmas message saying he'd like to meet up, but he's in New Zealand now so i'm not sure what that would look like. I don't know if i want to spend annual leave on a trip where i can't be free. Plus i would prefer not to fly intercontinental, it seem like too much carbon footprint when there's places nearby i'd still like to see. I'm just shooting myself in the foot now, right? Sigh.
43. Where would you have wanted to go and did not in 2023?
East coast of Taiwan. But i ended up having fun on the west coast anyway. West coast is much more convenient for traveling by share bike.
44. Did you learn any new life skill in 2023?
No.
45. Any new food or drink preferences developed in 2023?
No.
46. What is your greatest fear for 2024?
I spent a long time thinking about this. Wasting the whole year working and then suddenly dying? I think i need to write a longer entry on this topic.
47. Did you follow any sports event in 2023?
No. Well, yes, if you count wrestling. I only watch one show a week - AEW Dynamite - and it has kinda sucked this year. The show has gotten less interesting the more ex-WWE talent they hired. The indie comedy acts, high-flyers, luchadors and joshis that made the show fresh and exciting for me seem to have given way to big, dumb meatheads who lumber around hitting each other for no storyline reason other than that they want to prove themselves to be the bigger toughguy. It's so boring. But i still love pro wrestling and i am not sure what other weekly show could give me a similar little escape, so i'm sticking with it for now. At least Roddy Strong has been hilariously pathetic in his neckbrace and "Timeless" Toni Storm is one of those fabulously silly wrestling things that everybody outside of wrestling should know about but probably wouldn't get if they did.
Actually, thinking about it, going to a pro wrestling show might be another good excuse to book a trip to Japan.
48. Which social media did occupy most of your time in 2023?
LiveJournal.
49. Is there somebody you feel particularly grateful to this year?
All my friends here who are a much bigger part of my life than they probably realize.
50. Name a hope you have for 2024
Same as one of my friends said: less war.
In Taiwan there is no Christmas holiday, which takes the pressure off the usual end-of-quarter push. In this final week of the year you can arrive at work in the morning and there isn't a stack of emails and instant messages waiting for you, and you can leave in the evening without feeling guilty that you're abandoning your European colleagues in the middle of a conversation. I gotta say... it's really nice to have this one week in the year where we don't have to fill the role of harder-working, lesser-paid remote team. It's so much easier to get stuff done and seems to boosts team spirit.
Anyway, it's been busy, i'm exhausted, and now i have three days off. For the past couple weeks i have been saving up everyone's end of year meme so i can relax with a coffee and read them all in a bundle. I hope everyone on LiveJournal knows how grateful i am to read their posts every day. Thank you all and happy new year.
1. What did you do in 2023 that you'd never done before?
Visited Laos and Macedonia.
2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I don't remember making any, but i just checked my 2022 post and it said i wanted to do less binge-drinking. Mission accomplished. Next year i would like to try expand my social life beyond work. Even just emailing my dad more than once or twice a year would be an improvement.
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
No.
4. Did anyone close to you die?
No.
5. What countries did you visit?
Laos, Macedonia, Greece.
6. What would you like to have in 2024 that you lacked in 2023?
More than 3 weeks annual leave.
7. What date from 2023 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
I don't remember anything especially remarkable happening this year.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
I'll quote Marc Almond: i've done nothing / i've achieved nothing / i work for a firm but i want to burn it down, down / i am so ordinary. Song's over 40 years old and still perfectly describes pretty much everybody's adult life. Being a grown-up is very tedious.
9. What was your biggest failure?
Also nothing.
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
My infernal itching and rashes finally lifted sometime in 2023, for no apparent reason. They briefly came back on a weekend trip to Kaohsiung which makes me think that i must have developed some kind of allergy or skin sensitivity that i never had before, but i am too lazy to go back to the doctor for the zillionth time to try figure it out. I guess i'm just getting old.
I haven't been sick since before COVID, though. I'm not sure if it's related to wearing a mask in public, but since i keep not getting sick, i keep wearing a mask.
11. What was the best thing you bought?
I don't think i bought anything this year outside of food, music and games.
Just having a quick look at my Steam favorites, i have two games i bought this year favorited. 再見 Once Again and Citizen Sleeper. They are both visual novels. The first is a Malaysian VN about the grieving process of a kid whose mother died and all he has to remember her by is a single photo. The second is a sci-fi VN where you play a drug-addicted robot who fled their employer to seek community in a delapidated space station. Both have great writing and really resonated with me.
The most-played song in my MusicBee that i bought this year is Cignol - Binary Choices, which i posted a few entries ago, but here it is again because it's a flawless example of melancholic Detroit-influenced electro smashed into bright-eyed acid house... The kind of music i want played at my funeral because it sounds like how my heart feels. This is it, the music of my soul.
Click to viewCignol - Binary Choices
12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?
It's kinda weird to celebrate people for their behavior. Just be a good person, that should be the default.
13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
The Internets. Nothing fails to depress me more than clicking around the comments on a topic related to my work, or a current event i am interested in, or a piece of entertainment i enjoy, and then there is an endless trainwreck of ignorant, bigoted shitheads engaged in furious battle over stuff that most of the time doesn't affect their lives one bit.
14. Where did most of your money go?
Rent.
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
I don't much get excited nowadays. I'm old. Anything "exciting" is probably something i already did a dozen times before.
16. What song(s) will always remind you of 2023?
I don't listen to music in that way any more.
17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
I. Happier? I think happier, mainly because i'm free of whatever skin condition i had.
II. Thinner or fatter? Probably around the same.
III. Richer or poorer? Richer. I am always richer when i work, because i don't spend money unless i am not working.
18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Going clubbing. It always seems like such an effort to go out after working all week, and the music here isn't really to my tastes... but even a mediocre night out will usually feature at least a few decent moments, and they're moments you can't get anywhere else.
19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Work.
20. How will you be spending Christmas?
Work.
21. Did you fall in love in 2023?
No.
22. How many one-night stands?
None.
23. What was your favorite TV program?
This is always going to be unfairly biased toward the end of the year. I watched this year's season of The Chi recently, which is a drama about people living in the south side of Chicago that features some of the best music on television. Reservation Dogs ended this year too. I like that show, reminds me of living in Canada. Heels was a decent smalltown wrestling drama, which hits harder if you also watch the documentary Wrestlers. On a lighter note, i really enjoyed the One Piece live action show. Total feel-good stuff, it's a delight to watch such unabashedly joyous television.
It's been a bit of a weak year for sci-fi. I guess Star Trek: Lower Decks finally moved beyond the endless parade of in-jokes into a storyline that made me care about the characters. Foundation season 2 was decent space opera. I just finished Beacon 23 which was the ultimate "spend 8 hours hinting at a storyline and then nothing fucking happens" show. But it's sci-fi, so i'll watch it anyway even when it's terrible. I'm hopeless.
24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
No.
25. What was the best book you read?
The only book i read this year was an old classic - CJ Cherryh's Pride of Chanur. I started reading the second one in the series but haven't made it through. They aren't quite as good as what i hoped they were going to be. I feel more like i'm reading a concept than a novel. I really like the idea of telling a first contact story through the eyes of the alien, but the jargon gets impenetrable after a while. The descriptions of the space battles are gritty as hell, though, and stick a thumb square in the eye of unrealistic dogfight sci-fi like Star Wars. Actually, the descriptions of the space battles were memorable enough to make the book worth reading just for that alone. You can see where stuff like The Expanse got its inspiration.
26. What was your greatest musical discovery?
No real discoveries this year, i'm mostly listening to the same sort of genres and artists i always did.
27. What did you want and get?
My skin condition to subside.
28. What did you want and didn´t get?
More annual leave.
29. What was your favorite film of this year?
I don't watch movies.
30. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
God, i have no idea. Probably i went to work. I'm 43.
31. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Not having to work.
32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2023?
Same as ever. Black work pants. Raggedy tank top. Flip-flops.
33. What kept you sane?
Star Trek, i think. I rewatched all of Voyager and Next Generation this year, and they were so comforting. I tried to rewatch DS9 for the same reason but it was boring so i gave up. Maybe i'll try a Stargate rewatch next year.
34. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Nobody.
35. What political issue stirred you the most?
Displaced peoples. There was an article the other day in the Graun about Bidibidi refugee camp in Uganda, mostly housing refugees from the war in South Sudan, and somehow it touched me more than pretty much any other news i read about this year. It utterly infuriates me that there are millions of people around the world forced from their homes for whatever reason, trying to build new communities starting with just the clothes on their backs, and selfish asshats living comfortably in the richest countries of the world still whine and moan about how "open" borders are diluting their culture or destroying their economy or whatever. Like, have a little sympathy for your fellow man, fuck.
36. Who did you miss?
I still miss my mom from time to time, even she died a few years ago.
37. Who was the best new person you met?
I don't hang out with anybody outside of work, so i didn't really meet anyone new.
38. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2023:
Everyone who says life begins at 40 is lying because when your body gets old and decrepit literally nothing is better than it used to be. You can't abuse your body and get away with it any more. It's just a slow march to death. Still plenty of fun things to do along the way, though.
39. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
I don't really listen to music with lyrics, but i suppose the Marc Almond lyric from the top of this post is an evergreen quote.
40. Post a picture of something that made you happy this year
A cool statue i found at a fishing spot somewhere between Kaohsiung and Tainan.
41. Did you wrong or hurt somebody in 2023?
I hope not.
42. Is there some new place you are planning to visit in 2024?
Maybe i'll finally get back to east coast of Taiwan. I've been toying with the idea of Philippines because it's close, but in truth i'm far less interested in Philippines than Indonesia food-wise. Then again i am not at all interested in Japan food-wise, but still my interest has been piqued because so many Taiwanese people holiday there. It's close too. My dad sent me a Christmas message saying he'd like to meet up, but he's in New Zealand now so i'm not sure what that would look like. I don't know if i want to spend annual leave on a trip where i can't be free. Plus i would prefer not to fly intercontinental, it seem like too much carbon footprint when there's places nearby i'd still like to see. I'm just shooting myself in the foot now, right? Sigh.
43. Where would you have wanted to go and did not in 2023?
East coast of Taiwan. But i ended up having fun on the west coast anyway. West coast is much more convenient for traveling by share bike.
44. Did you learn any new life skill in 2023?
No.
45. Any new food or drink preferences developed in 2023?
No.
46. What is your greatest fear for 2024?
I spent a long time thinking about this. Wasting the whole year working and then suddenly dying? I think i need to write a longer entry on this topic.
47. Did you follow any sports event in 2023?
No. Well, yes, if you count wrestling. I only watch one show a week - AEW Dynamite - and it has kinda sucked this year. The show has gotten less interesting the more ex-WWE talent they hired. The indie comedy acts, high-flyers, luchadors and joshis that made the show fresh and exciting for me seem to have given way to big, dumb meatheads who lumber around hitting each other for no storyline reason other than that they want to prove themselves to be the bigger toughguy. It's so boring. But i still love pro wrestling and i am not sure what other weekly show could give me a similar little escape, so i'm sticking with it for now. At least Roddy Strong has been hilariously pathetic in his neckbrace and "Timeless" Toni Storm is one of those fabulously silly wrestling things that everybody outside of wrestling should know about but probably wouldn't get if they did.
Actually, thinking about it, going to a pro wrestling show might be another good excuse to book a trip to Japan.
48. Which social media did occupy most of your time in 2023?
LiveJournal.
49. Is there somebody you feel particularly grateful to this year?
All my friends here who are a much bigger part of my life than they probably realize.
50. Name a hope you have for 2024
Same as one of my friends said: less war.