Usually I spend at least a week writing, editing, and agonising over this annual post.

This year, I figured why ruin a whole week when I can just decimate a Saturday instead?

Work

What an absolute rollercoaster.

We were getting close to the end of our runway and it was looking like it could be tricky to secure another round of funding because of the state of the investment market at the time.

I had every faith that the founders would figure something out so that we could keep making Breakroom but I also began to imagine the bittersweet day where we would all meet at the office for the last time, pile all of our laptops in a stack, turn off the lights and say goodbye.

Thankfully, that day didn’t have to happen.

In July Anna gathered us for a meeting and finally revealed that ZipRecruiter was acquiring Breakroom.

We hit the ground running and shipped the first version of the US site a few months later.

Fast forward to January and the whole Breakroom team flew out to Arizona for our first ZipRecruiter company event.

Whilst out there we attended a meet and greet with some higher-ups at Zip. We were asked “Were you excited when you found out that Breakroom was being acquired by ZipRecruiter?”.

The question-asker was met with a sea of blank faces and bemusement. It was a stupid question.

You see, getting acquired was scary as hell. It felt a bit like free falling. We had no idea what it meant for our jobs, what we would be working on, or what working for Zip would be like.

A much better question would have been “Now the acquisition is complete, are you happy to be working at ZipRecruiter?”.

The answer to this, I think, would be a resounding yes. Sure, there have been some teething problems but overall Zip is making space so that we can keep making an amazing resource for front-line workers whilst being backed by the third biggest job site in the US.

The full US rollout of the site is almost complete and I’m looking forward to getting back to working on improving the site for users on both sides of the Atlantic.

Play

Matt, Chris, and I finally visited Aiden and Claire in Guernsey. A very long overdue visit considering how long they have lived over there now. A lovely time was had and I’m looking forward to getting back out there at some point this summer.

I ran Manchester Marathon, it was very hot and very hard. I knocked five minutes off my previous marathon time but the whole race was an absolute grind and I felt pretty defeated with the result.

I have no idea how to make my body actually perform well over that distance, but I suspect the answer is even more training, which doesn’t even feel possible considering the amount of mileage I clocked this year.

I rather foolishly booked on to Edinburgh Marathon at the end of May as well but I don’t think I’ll be on the start line - my feet are still paying for what I have put them through.

Bouldering continues, I have topped a few more V3s but can barely cling on to the bottom of the V4s. The main success is that we have greatly increased our post-climb Biangbiang noodle consumption.

They added music, maths, and chess courses to Duolingo. Suffice to say I am not learning much Spanish at the moment.

Paint

Last year I managed to corner-cut my way through enough models that I could attend The London Grand Tournament with a fully painted army, including a lovely green Kroot Lone-spear and super fancy Commander Farsight.

I then piloted that army through five impressive losses! It turns out Warhammer is quite hard, and people spend a lot more time getting good at it than I have. Even though I got properly thrashed, I had a great time and picked up a ticket for the 2025 event immediately.

I then attended the inaugural South East GT where I did slightly better¹, managing one win, one draw, and three losses. Then, to my surprise, and despite the incredible quality of some of the other armies, I was able to walk away with the Best Painted Army award for the event. Very chuffed.

Since then I have painted up some Vespid and am planning out my next army projects…

Paint Work

Sara and I have continued with “side project time” for another year, and I’ve also been trying to do a few extra hours each week to slowly and surely edge Paint Pad forward.

Unfortunately, I did bite off way more than I could manage and spent most of last year re-designing and re-building the user profiles. I’m really pleased with the results but I probably could have been working on something a bit more impactful.

I’ve now turned my attention back to the Hobby Log, which is a half-baked feature that I and a few Patreons have been using.

The Hobby Log is effectively a blog with slightly hobby specific features. I built it using React, Tailwind and GraphQL and then promptly lost all desire to work with any of these technologies.

After much deliberation I decided that the only way to find enough energy to keep working on the Hobby Log is to rebuild the whole thing using things I am more interested in. I am close to being able to launch the new iteration that is built using Phlex, Turbo, and SCSS². It’s a lot of fun to work on at the moment.

Things

Another list for another year.

• Book: Yellowface
• Comic: —³
• Game: Counter-Strike 2⁴
• Film: The Substance
• TV show: Severance
• Album: Bicker by Orchards
• Gig: Kate Nash at KOKO
• Podcast: Dragon Friends
• Show: Guy Montgomery at Leicester Square Theatre
• YouTube: jonpaulsballs
• Twitch: ceb_⁵

Finally

Writing is an awful way to spend a day. I don’t know how anyone does it.

At some point this year I started to enjoy the feeling of tucking my t-shirt in to my trousers. It is the beginning of the end.

Baggy jeans are back in fashion and Linkin Park released a new album.

What’s My Age Again is go-to karaoke song.

I attended more funerals than weddings.

Trans Rights are Human Rights.

I‘m flying out to Phoenix again tomorrow. I should start packing.

Onwards.