2024 In Review

Whew, what a year, huh?

Painting of Ampersand by Paidia Majcher

Life in General

Let’s start off with two of the big changes: Nic and I got married in January, and we moved to East Lansing in September! They got a job at MSU, and Austin (and Texas, yeesh) has become unlivable for a variety of reasons, so off we go.

The move wasn’t as hard as it could have been—in fact, some stuff is still in the old house in Austin, which still hasn’t sold after six months—but you accumulate a lot of stuff being in a place for twenty years and change. We rented a Pod, sent that up, and drove with Pai and the rest of the stuff from Austin. Unpacking the boxes didn’t take too long, but unpacking the boxes themselves… well, we’re still working on it. I carried a literal ton of books and games from there to here, and I think I’m done with that for a while.

First snow in East Lansing, Michigan

Moving meant finding a new home for Pozzo and Gogo, our two remaining chickens, and I think we found them a good one. We did bring up Ampersand, and recently got him a roommate (Octothorpe)—they are not getting along great right now, but we’re easing them in, and things should be better once we bet Octo an attitude adjustment at the vet.

Crafty Stuff

I got myself a table at the Staple! zine show in April, sold a bunch of games there, and talked on a panel about indie RPGs with a couple other game designers. Good time all around—I’ve a mind to head back to Austin to do it again this year, and maybe I can convince Pai to table with me this time so they can sell some of their stuff, too!

Pai at Staple!

In addition to all the woodworking stuff, I took up blacksmithing via some classes at Pioneer Farms just outside of Austin. It’s super fun, and I’d love to get a forge set up at home at some point. (I also built a janky short-lived smelter at home to melt down aluminum cans, but that’s way too much trouble.) I also taught myself how to knit and do felting, but I’m still a super beginner at both of those, but they keep my hands busy.

Working the forge at Pioneer Farms

Gardening has been off and on—too hot in Austin and too cold in Michigan—but I did manage to get a ton of basil out of my hydroponics setup, and a bunch of ginger and tumeric and peppers from some containers. I’m going to have to wait until spring here to get those going again, I think. I left a bunch of good compost back there, a giant pile of reclaimed wood, and a decent worm farm, too, boooo. The corpse flower we raised from seed got all messed up in the move, unfortunately—burned to a crisp in the Texas sun, then damaged further on the drive up, and deprived of sunlight when we got here, but I dug around a bit and saw that the colm was sending up a new shoot, so it might be salvageable after all! It’s under lights and on a heating pad and whatnot now, so we’ll see.

I did go through the first steps of getting a master gardener certification here in Michigan, took the Foundations of Gardening course at the university here, and now I just have to do some volunteer hours and I’m all set. I’m not sure what I’m going to do with it, but it’s something to do.

Hanging out with an egret on campus

Health

In Austin, allergies were completely destroying me. The city was bad in general, and the house wasn’t super great for that, either. I don’t know if that made my anxiety and depression worse there, but it sure didn’t help. Fortunately, since moving to Michigan, allergies have been almost non-existent (or at least nowhere near the completely debilitating levels they were in Texas), and everything else has been pretty great—who knew that living in a better environment could make you feel better? Weird, right?

My doctor put me on Mounjaro for managing my pre-diabetes stuff, and aside from a bunch of minor gastrointestinal discomforts, it’s been pretty good to me. I’ve lost a healthy amount of weight, and I just feel better in general, blood sugar-wise, so I guess I’ll keep doing that.

I got pretty bad food poisoning twice—once while at GenCon, and once driving back from PAXU, so I guess I just need to be more careful when I’m eating at cons, huh? That suuuucked.

I’m also fifty-five now, and doing things like carrying tons of boxes or assembling furniture or sitting in a car for twelve hours or, you know, just sleeping wrong will mess me up for a bit, so I need to manage that a bit more consciously. Soon, I’m sure.

There’s soooo much more…

Oh yeah, I guess weed is legal in Michigan? I haven’t smoked in a real long time (I’m not drinking either, unrelated), but we decided to pop by a local shop and see what’s what, and… I dunno, man. I don’t think it’s for me. I got shit to do, you know?

Travel

Despite being broke as hell, I managed to get a bunch of traveling in this year, partly by bumming along with someone who gets to travel for work, and partly by arranging travel and buying tickets and hotels well in advance, when I still had a job (or at least hopes of being employed again soon). That’s probably going to slow down significantly this year unless something changes, but we’ll see. (At least I can drive more places that I’d usually be flying to now…)

• Visited Wakefield and Providence with Nic, visited friends there, and had a good time exploring everything there.
• Went to the Carolinas for Nic’s sister’s wedding and visited their pawpaw’s farm. We met some very good geese and a buzzard that was grumpy that we disturbed his barn.
• Drove down to Port Aransas to peep some whooping cranes before moving out of Texas, saw some dolphins, too!
• Went to Origins in Columbus, GenCon in Indianapolis, BGG.Spring and BGG.Con in Dallas, and Philadelphia for PAXU. All fantastic times.

Garden Competition!

• We flew up to visit East Lansing in July to look for places to stay, and wound up having to rent a car to drive back to Austin because of the whole Delta computer thing. Not fun.
• We did have fun driving back up to Michigan with Pai and Ampersand, though! Played the truck game a whole bunch, and got some fudge from Uranus.
• I flew back to Austin to get another load of stuff, and drove said load back in a rental truck, and that was less fun.
• We went to Tunisia for Chaos League’s Sahara Expedition larp! We were camping in the deep desert for a few days, then toured the country for a week or so with some of that group, and hung out in Tunis for a day or so on either end. It was a lot, but really great.

At camp in the Sahara

• Doing a lot of driving to Michigan places — Ann Arbor for Nerd Night there, Detroit for the airport, Canton for Ikea, Jackson to visit folks, Frankenmuth for CHRISTmas stuff, and so on. After everything else, little hour trips seem like nothing.
• A bonus: I think I’m over needing to knock myself out with xanax or something to fly now! I rawdogged the whole flight from East Lansing to Austin to Frankfurt to Tunis and back and it was totally fine, so, that’s really good! I still have a lot of anxiety with bridges and tunnels, but that’s getting better over all the driving, so we’ll still work on that.

Other Stuff

Pai is driving now, which is wild! They’re going through all their college application stuff and preparing for all that—it’s pretty stressful, but they’re gonna do great. We also went to pet some baby capybaras with them before leaving town, which was awesome.

Feeding baby capybaras at the Snake Farm

My laptop died for a bit, and that was a pain, and my car had a bunch of trouble, which also sucked. I’ve still been unemployed since December 2023, which has not been great, but I’m still limping along on savings. I got a little unemployment after banging my head against the system for months, and sold a few woodworking bits—a few raised garden beds and planters, a couple of bat houses, a cedar chest. Good to pass the time, but not much in the way of cash. Things will look up when the house sells, but that’s been a much bigger trouble than I thought it’d be, so… yeah.

Let’s not talk about the election.

There was a solar eclipse, and that was pretty cool! We went to the Michigan Ren Faire, and hung out with some friends who’d moved up (or back up) here that we hadn’t seen in a while. We’ve found some cool places here in East Lansing—Horrock’s, Hoplite Games, Homebrew cafe, Strange Matters, The Avenue, the Half Barn Farm, and so on—but we’re still trying to get situated here, so it’s a process.

Half Barn Farm

Speaking of process, I think I’ve got myself a pretty good system figured right now to get shit done. I don’t do new year resolutions or anything, but I’ve got a quarterly theme system that’s been working okay, and I’m starting some more solid goal setting stuff (quarterly, weekly, and daily) and logging and journaling habits that have been going really well. I’m curious to see how long it lasts, but for now, yay! I aim to get started doing more producing stuff on youtube and blogging and maybe doing a podcast, so keep an eye out for all that.

That’s all the qualitative stuff, so…

Now, for some data:

Games Published

• Icebox: Timeline ashcan (after what, a decade?)
• Monoculture (for a One Shot Network compilation)
• The Pact (vampire game poem, also on stage)
• Toffet Station for Desperation
• Shadow and Spark for pregen jam
• Almost done with Roguelike
• Did a Loot stream with Spencer

Some Media Numbers

• RPGs sessions played: 233
• RPG systems played: 62
• Movies watched: 57
• Board games played: 44
• TV shows watched: 27
• Video games played: 26
• Books read (not counting RPG books): 9
• Plays attended: 3

RPGs Played

• Slugblaster
• Lancer
• Court of Blades
• Mausritter
• The Mecha Hack
• Master of Sword
• Mothership
• Troika!
• Fatigue Museum
• ViewScream
• Dead Belt
• Lady Blackbird
• Stars in the Dark (Star Wars drift of Blades in the Dark)
• Masks of the Masks
• Depths Unfathomable
• Psi*Run
• The Hunted
• Trophy Dark
• Eat the Reich
• Trophy Gold
• Beam Saber
• Cloud Empress
• The Silt Verses
• Cohors Cthulhu
• Tomb Raider
• Holdfast Station
• Hit the Streets: Defend the Block
• Dallas
• Moonlight on Roseville Beach
• CBR+PNK
• Corp Borg
• Lost in the Glow
• Shadowdark
• Brinkwood
• FIST
• Mobile Frame Zero: Firebrands
• Swoop Gangs (Star Wars drift of 1%er)
• Mountain Home
• Nonlinear Supervillain Heist
• Dialect
• Magical/Girl
• Deathmatch Island
• Endless Quest
• Kingdom
• Heart: the City Beneath
• Bump in the Dark
• The Between
• Lovecraftesque
• Against the Monster
• Into the Odd
• Night Witches (BSG)
• Dreaming the Devil
• Bite Marks
• Olympus
• Sahara Expedition
• Cairn
• Wanderhome
• Outgunned
• Desperation
• The World We Left Behind
• Roguelike
• Swords Without Master

Adventures/Incursions

• Tomb of 1000 Doors
• Exclusion Zone
• Horror on Tau Sigma 7
• The Haunting of Ypsilon 14
• Picket Line Tango
• For Queen and Company
• Under the Dunes
• Year of the Rat
• Started Dying Hard on Hardlight Station
• Isle of Water and Blood
• Hissing Darkness
• Last Voyage of the Bean Barge
• The Seed Vault
• Children of the Wolf
• The Flocculent Cathedral
• A Warm and Pleasant Hum
• Wag the Cat
• Leviathan’s Bridge
• The Emerald Orchid
• All the Silt Verses Assignments + God Feed
• The Iron Coral
• Waxen Moon
• Fertile Ground
• The Culling
• Beyond the Pale
• Times the Fry Men’s Souls

You’re doing great! Here are some bunnies as a treat.

Board Games Played

• Sky Team (or “Airplane Bros” in this house)
• Blood on the Clocktower
• RUN
• The Fox Experiment
• Dice Throne
• Harmonies
• Some lame Escape box puzzles
• Forest Shuffle
• Planet Unknown
• “Infer” (just Zendo)
• Azure
• Baronda
• Hive
• Tussy Mussy
• Belratti
• Arcs
• Magic Maze Tower
• Missing in the Caribbean
• Things in Rings
• Ritual
• Backstories: Alone Under the Ice
• Flashback: Lucy
• Happy Homes
• Hollywood 1947
• Wilmot’s Warehouse
• Mori
• Flock Together
• Charcuterie
• Foundations of Metropolis
• Dark Venture
• Cartographers
• First Contact
• John Company
• Cross Clues
• The Glade
• Iron Forest
• Only Murders in the Building
• Yubibo
• Stalk Exchange
• Kyoto No Neko
• We’re Sinking!
• Life in Reterra
• Garden Competition
• Shobu

Video Games Played

• Got an OLED Steam Deck so I can play Windows-only games!
• Into the Breach
• Oxenfree
• Slice and Dice
• Vampire Survivor
• Pistol Whip
• Walkabout Golf
• Balatro
• Fallout 3 (finally)
• Return of the Obra Dinn
• Dicey Dungeon
• Mini Metro
• Lords of Waterdeep
• That’s Not My Neighbor
• Dungeon Clawler
• Cryptmaster
• A Monster’s Expedition
• Punch Club
• Last Horizon
• Tactical Breach Wizards
• The Legend of Zelda (original)
• Luddite
• The Climb
• Escape Simulator
• Space Pirate Trainer
• Superhot
• Beat Saber

Plays Attended

• Romeo and Juliet (The Baron’s Men)
• The Black Feminist Guide to the Human Body
• Thirst

Movies Watched

• Stalker
• Saltburn
• Nimona
• Drive Away Dolls
• Dredd
• Upgrade
• The Hunger Games: Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes
• Love Lies Bleeding
• The Ritual
• Tomb Raider (2018)
• Solo
• Dune Part 2
• No One Will Save You
• Judge Dredd (1995)
• Prometheus
• Black Adam
• Men
• I Saw the TV Glow
• Pitch Black
• We Are All Going to the World’s Fair
• Skinnamarink (and Heck)
• Caveat
• Constantine
• The Dark Tower (2017)
• Blade Trinity
• The Mummy (1999)
• The Wicker Man (1973)
• The Howling
• A Wounded Fawn
• X
• Pearl
• Maxxxine
• Lisa Frankenstein
• Cure
• Pulse
• Suspiria (1977)
• Deadpool and Wolverine
• Alien Covenant
• Alien Romulus
• Borderlands
• Alien
• History of the Occult
• Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
• The Suicide Squad
• Blade Runner 2099
• Pacific Rim
• The Substance
• The Fall Guy (2024)
• Edge of Tomorrow
• Monkey Man
• Terrifier
• Terrifier 2
• Terrifier 3
• Longlegs
• Paprika
• The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare
• Nosferatu

TV Watched

• Dungeon Meshi
• Echo
• Mr. and Mrs. Smith
• Command Z
• Hazbin Hotel
• Danger 5
• Invincible s2
• X-Men ‘97
• Fallout
• The Peripheral
• The Three-Body Problem
• Naussicaä of the Valley of the Wind
• The People’s Joker
• The Boys s4
• Acolyte
• Smartypants
• What If? s2
• Hellsing Ultimate
• The Boys: Diabolical
• Umbrella Academy s4
• What We Do in the Shadows (all)
• Interview With the Vampire s1–2
• Schitt’s Creek (all)
• Uzumaki
• Gotham s1
• Agatha All Along
• The English Teacher

Books Read

• Unfuck Your Business
• DIE
• Delicious in Dungeon
• The Invisibles
• 17776 (not a book, but damn)
• Wanted
• How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying
• Larp Design
• Like, *so* many RPG books

Podcasts and Video Consumed

• The Magnus Archives
• The Silt Verses
• Quinn’s Quest
• Waters Ironworks
• Read The Fucking Manual
• Dice Exploder
• The Brain Trust podcast
• Game Studies Study Buddies
• Third Floor Wars Tabletop Talk
• Fear of a Black Dragon
• The Darkened Threshold
• Tabletop Book Club
• Design Doc
• Party of 1
• Yes Indie’d
• Between Two Cairns
• Ludo Narrative Dissidents
• Bastionland Podcast
• Rowan Rook and Decard Heart Director Commentary

We did the thing!

And that’s that!

Good year, y’all, we made it. Watch this space for more!