reflection on 2023

I don’t often blog about personal things, but lately I’ve felt the desire to put ‘pen to paper’ in this very busy year. As I age, time seems to move faster or at least the way I experience time. When I was in high school, everyday felt like a eternity of time allowing me to play, read, and listen to music as i get older time is getting more precious.

fell into gaming (again)

A member of my family died last year which meant I was bequeathed their laptop. As I am trying to save the planet (and am also a cheap ass), this laptop i inherited was way faster and newer than the one i had been using. I noticed a few older games on Steam for very cheap and thought, why not?

Games I played this year:

• Black Mesa
• Half-Life SUPERSCRIPT
• Left 4 Dead 2
• Half-life Episode 1
• Half-Life Episode 2
• Wolfenstein: The New Colossus
• Dying Light
• Dead Island

I have been picking up games that are 5-10 years old for $100-150 NTD. I had been out of gaming for a long time. I was what would call a gamer (nerd) in high school and university but then stopped gaming when I became an Apple Mac user for a time.

I forgot how fun gaming is! It’s great to immerse yourselves in a good game. A good game can sometimes be as good as a good book.

kept reading

I was busy with improving myself with higher education over the past 9 months, so that ate into my reading time. I also got back into gaming and podcasts which ate up time, too.

Read about my books here Reading Challenge 2023

the year of podcasts

This has really been the year of podcasts for me. I’m not sure when I got back into them, but podcasts are now my constant companion. I listen to podcasts while I mark homework, do the dishes, and ride my bike. For me, they replace reading news websites. I also listen to podcasts about history, true crime, and linux news. I am always on the lookout for new podcasts, so please share your favourites on Mastodon!

My favorite podcasts:

1. American Prestige ¹
2. LINUX Unplugged
3. The Intelligence from The Economist
4. ChinaTalk
5. Hard Fork

This year ² you played 108 hours of podcasts from 26 different podcasts.

news years resolutions suck but…

New years resolutions suck but I will try to make some goals of things I’d like to do more or less of this year.

Increase ++

1. Read more books during my workday - lunchtime or other times.
2. Bike or walk more frequently during the week.
3. Blog more about books, life, gaming, or podcasts.

Decrease –

1. Snacking after dinner during the week!
2. Worrying about things like how much I read or blog.