Hey look, I’m finally writing my New Years Resolutions blog post on time! Normally, I have a longer intro to my blog posts, so it looks good on the summary page, but not this time. Let’s get right into it!
2023 General Vibes
Things were going great this year! I was able to focus on my hobbies, my cooking, my music, my reading, my D&D campaign, and balance all of that with work and social obligations and exercise and get everything done!
And then May happened, and a string of video game releases. Crusader Kings 3: Tours & Tournaments, Diablo 4, Final Fantasy 16, Baldur’s Gate 3, Disgaea 7. Sleep suffered, hobbies suffered, I missed a few gym sessions.
I was able to pull myself back from Baldur’s Gate 3 addiction sometime in October and get my focus back. There are lessons to be learned. More on that later.
The other big thing that happened is I went to Kupo Con, a fan-organized Final Fantasy convention. Although it was really an excuse to see one Twitch streamer that I’ve been modding for, and another Twitch streamer who’s super cute and also happens to live in Toronto. And I successfully organized a meetup with the streamer community and met up with both streamers.
I’m moving up in the world.
2023 Old Year Resolutions
Resolution #1: Read 6 Books – Done. The Three-Body Problem, The Alloy of Law (Mistborn era 2), Caliban’s War (Expanse book 2), Romance of the Three Kingdoms, The Dark Forest (3-Body Problem book 2), Dune Messiah (Dune book 2). And given how massive Three Kingdoms is (it’s physically 2 books) and how challenging it is to read, I think this is one hell of an accomplishment.
Resolution #2: Cook Something New Every Month – Partial success. I cooked 10 new things (I’m not gonna bother listing them all), and I didn’t cook every month, but I did repeat several of the dishes more than once. I didn’t capture the letter of the resolution, but I certainly captured the spirit.
Resolution #3: Upload 4 New Piano Videos – I only uploaded 3, Emil’s Theme and Grandma from Nier, and Silent Scream from FF14. I’m not even going to count this as partial success. The first two videos were easy and were both done in January.
Resolution #4: Plan Eclipse Trips – Done. I saw the October 2023 Eclipse and took a bunch of photos, and I’ve already made plans to see the April 2024 Eclipse. (Staying at a friend’s house in Texas, so the plans don’t need to be locked in for another few more months.
2.5 out of 4. Bounced back from last year, where I did so badly, I didn’t even want to go over my old years resolutions.
2024 New Years Resolutions
Resolution #1: Read 6 Books (Stretch: 9) – Same as last year, except this year I’m adding a stretch goal to push myself even further.
At the time of this writing, I’m already 2/3rds the way through Death’s End (3-Body Problem book 3). I wasn’t sure if I should count it, but I decided that, the whole point of these resolutions is to incentivize me to read more, not to incentivize me to postpone reading just to hit an arbitrary number. With that in mind, I will count Death’s End toward 2024.
Resolution #2: Cook 12 Interesting Dishes (Stretch: 18) – My mistake last year was that I specified new dishes. The spirit of the resolution is to help me get back into a hobby that I love. With that in mind, it’s not new dishes that matter, but interesting ones. (And “interesting” is only here so I don’t just bake cookies a dozen times or make bacon and eggs a dozen times and count that.) And sometimes I want to iterate on a dish I already know, and I feel like the resolution should capture that. (Case in point, I made panang curry like 4 times and curry mac and cheese like 3 times.)
But I still want to learn some new dishes, so at least 6 of these dishes need to be new. Also, I’m going to count “reorganize my spice rack” as an “interesting cooking project” because that’s something I need to do next year, and there’s a lot of overlap anyway.
Resolution #3: Upload 3 Piano Videos (Stretch: 4) – Down from 4 last year. Emil’s Theme and Grandma were both really easy videos, so I feel like that doesn’t really count as 3. Barely counts as 2. (4 is still the stretch goal though.)
Resolution #4: No new games until I burn down my backlog – This was a soft goal this year, but next year I’m making it a hard goal.
I think I did better this year compared to last year. In 2022, I jumped on the Elden Ring bandwagon, and put some other games on my birthday wishlist, and ended up starting a bunch of games that I didn’t finish. In 2023, I made a list of all the cool new releases that I wanted to play (Diablo 4, FF16, BG3, Disgaea 7, Slay the Princess), and I only played those games (and Soma, a short 11 hour game which I played during Xmas vacation), which didn’t help with my backlog at all.
Thankfully, next year is looking pretty light in terms of cool new releases. And since my backlog is super deep, I’m curating it to only 10 games. Finish: BG3, Disgaea 7, Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines (assuming I can find my old save file; I really don’t want to restart that game), Control. DLC: FF16, Outer Worlds, Cyberpunk 2077. New releases (assuming they actually release this year): Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines 2, Avowed. Older games: Disco Elysium.
I’m gonna allow myself to finish my current Crusader Kings 3 playthrough, but I can’t start a new playthrough until I finish my backlog. FF14 is exempt, since I’m a Raider now.
Resolution #5: Spa Day – I’ve realized that I don’t know how to relax. I feel like the best way to relax is plan a spa day and then do… spa things. Whatever that might be.
Either that or go to Hawaii and hang out at the beach with a drink in one hand, a book in the other, and a cute girl by my side. But that requires the right moment and the right cute girl.
This last paragraph exists because I don’t feel like writing an outtro.