Still annual. Oh yeah.

Though this year I'm actually a day (and a bit) late. I would have been on time, but yesterday I was riding my bike, reading on trains and hanging out with excellent people. Next year I'll be back on schedule. Promise.

A quinquennium of blogging.

Here are the other posts in this series.

Work

This year has been quite an interesting one for Shock. I finished at Skywire in the middle of November so I could focus on direct client projects.

This meant working from home, and whilst it started out pretty well I grew increasingly unfocused and eventually incredibly lazy. Not the nicest thing to admit to. This wasn't helped at all by a badly handled project that grew wildly out of scope and became (what felt like) the bane of my existence. It still hasn't launched.

It was an eye opening few months. It was a worrying few months. It was the first time that doing my job felt more like pulling teeth and, honestly, that scared me.

At least I still managed to help make a few cool things.

When Nick dropped me a line to see if I was available to help Friday with a big project I jumped at the chance.

It's been one of the best decisions I've made for a while. Joining a vibrant, clever team has been exactly what I needed to find my feet again. I'm feeling energised and inspired.

Pete got to say “I told you so”.

He knew what I needed all along.

Play

Vegas was a spectacular trip. A bonkers, larger than life extravaganza of a place. I saw Penn & Teller. I touched the Grand Canyon. I spent a week with a decent set of friends. What a time. Then there was a recent stag in Budapest, which was equally brilliant. Next stop is Barcelona. Maybe something else before then.

After stumbling on a Wycombe Skeptics in the Pub meeting one night with Tom at the excellent Bootlegger I've since been to almost all of the talks, made some good friends and even managed to worm my way onto the organisers team (I am yet to organise anything). Some of us went to QED together and that was great fun too.

Having learnt almost 4 chords on the guitar, dearest Brother saved me from my song-less woes and catapulted my friends into audio hell; he got me a ukulele for Christmas. It's brilliant. But no one wants to hear me cover Kate Nash songs and I don't blame them. Local open mic nights can be thankful that I get terrible stage fright.

I've lost a staggering number of hours to Dota 2. And it's the second reason why this post is so late.

OK Go, Sage Francis and Motion City Soundtrack are releasing new albums in 2014. So that's a bit good.

Things

I've been keeping lists of things for a while now, as a way of cataloguing what I've consumed. They'll be published fully at some point, but here are some of the recent entries:

• Book: The Shining Girls
• Comic: The Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes
• Game: Hearthstone
• Film: The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
• TV: Game of Thrones S03
• Music: Maybeshewill
• Gig: Alkaline Trio

Finally

Thank you, once again, to all the lovely people that I still get to spend time with. I know I've done at least a few stupid things this year, and I'm sorry when some of you were on the end of them.

My home continues to be a pretty decent home. I'd like to get the boiler fixed and maybe redecorate the kitchen, but I'm still enjoying having my own space.

I need to get fit.

I need to eat better.

I need to learn to cook.

I must write to Alida.

I'd like to program for fun again.

I should make something that resembles art.

Onwards.