The End of Year Thread - Wishy-Washy 2018 Edition

[CitizenOfVerona]

I looked up on thesaurus for another word for "bland" since me and Matt had a thing going for making weird titles for our threads instead of using "official". Thesaurus also gave me "milk-and-water" but that's just too good.

Anyways, thought it would be fun to talk about 2018 before the last year of this decade officially kicks off. What were some of your favorite games/movies/tv shows/albums/books? Doesn't even have to be released in 2018, played a game from your backlog in this year of 2019-1? Let's talk about it champ.

Anything important happened to you? Went on that trip you always wanted to go on? Achieved the impossible goal? Got that new fancy hair cut that always tickled your...fancy?

Personally, 2018 was a bit milk-and-water for me. The only stand out thing that I can think of is I managed to pay off my student loan three years ahead of time. Other than that, it was business as usual. Granted, I didn't have much disposable income since I went a bit too heavy on paying the loan off, but even a few months ago it really hit how dull as dishwater everything seemed to be. I'm hoping in 2019 I can actually do some shit.

Last year (2019-2) for Christmas my sister gave me an Agatha Christie book and this year I must have read 7 or 8 more of hers. In total I think I read around 30 books this year, I hope to continue that trend in the new year as well.

Scrolling through the completed game's thread, not much really jumps out at me. I mentioned it before in the CT but when I was in beast mode trying to get my backlog done, a lot of games just blur together. Nier: Automata is a stand out, Kark and I played through Resident Evil 5, I finally did the God of War franchise besides the newest one (still a hipster after all) and I fell in love all over again with Final Fantasy 9 and Majora's Mask. In terms of games that actually came out in the year of 2018, Kark gave me a code for Bloodstained (and she also gave me Owlboy - what a hero), Mega Man 11 kicked all kinds of ass, Shadow of the Tomb Raider may be the best of this rebooted series, Minit is a really fun, unique puzzle adventure game, and Dusk....Dusk is...

Above all there is one game I want to talk about mostly because if it wasn't for one review I read on Destructoid, I never would have heard of it. The Haunted Island: A Frog Detective Game. It took me 44 minutes to beat, there's no combat, the puzzles are easy as hell and it's a very small island. I love it because it made me laugh quite a bit throughout and is perhaps the most charming game I ever played. The humor is so dry and well-written, none of that "VIDEO GAMES RIGHT?" meta humor. The game starts off with your boss from the agency asking if you can take a job involving ghosts on an island where the ruler hired a team of ghost scientists to find and remove the ghost. The boss only asks you because the better detective Lobster Cop is on another case, his response:

That pic kind of sums it up. It's a very humble game, not trying to be the next Mario or jumping on trends, I feel like this was 100% a passion project and I very much enjoyed it. I know some people would say $5 for 44 minutes is a bit steep, but it's $5, I waste more on shit I can't even remember.

So what's up TNE? How was 2018?

 

[CitizenOfVerona]

 

[mattavelle1]

Milk & Water huh CoV.............so it should have read skim milk, but I’m not here for all that.

We here for me to review Mattavelle1: 2019 “No Replacements found” for the 2018 thread at hand. Well 7.9ed is our the window because it was anything but bland or short coming. But let’s let the bulletbpoints do the talking shall we? Seriously I could write a novel I feel like in this year but ima put it out there bulletpoint style and see what happens.

Let’s start with the cons because this one defiantly had some flaws.


- Losing my dad has been harder than I could have thought. They say you don’t know what you got until it’s gone, and that’s correct. What I learned I lost was my greatest cheerleader and encourager.

- Many of you may not have known this but early in the year I had my most difficult job ever in my business. And it wasent because of the Stone, but it was because the management of the job enforced some rules, and not others. I confronted them on many occasions on this issue and continue to drive the knife further for there unfairness. Only to realize they were the ones in power, and they can act unfairly if they want and they made it very difficult the rest of the job on my men and company. Before my dad this has probably been one of the most difficult situations I’ve ever been apart of because sadly I would do it all over again. Any unfairness will 100% of the time be meet by me but this time that stand burned and hurt me something good but to this day I still give them hell about there injustice.

- My brother in law cheating openly on my sister, and at certain times her willingness to protentally entertain goin back to him for many months was quite maddening (if you wanna know why see my personality trait of fairness I spoke of above). And on brother in law front it has taken every ounce of my energy to not just rake his bare face back and forth against stone.

- Personally I have had to make major changes to myself to make my home and family life much more pleasant for all of us living here. That has been a very difficult journey, and actually that’s been goin on for a few years now. There have been a lot of things in my life that have had to be recognized and headed towards the door.

- Work has been a literal full time nightmare all year for the most part. Days full of nothing but work from day light till late night. I don’t wanna sound ungrateful for work because I’m not at all. But I’m 39 now and working around the clock it feels like for 3 1/2 seasons has been very difficult this year. To the point where I’ve had to make many stands I didn’t wanna make but so much work forced my hand a lot of the times. Many of you here have been my close friends for many years. Good, Evil and Jueg have been guys I rely on a lot for true friendship, and because of work this year I haven’t gotten to hang out with my friends the way I wanted to, and I look to make that up this year.

- The forums. To be the leader of something and to watch it struggle, also while you struggle and don’t have the energy to go out and invite like I used to. Or do anything that would really help it hurt me this year and personally I feel like I couldn’t do anything here this year. Know it weighs on me because I’m older and don’t get out, and these are more likely to be my friends here because I can connect without having to meet face to face. And I love connecting and making relationships with people.

- My church bought a big church that had shut down. While we were going thru the process of just talking about buying it. As many of you know there were certain people who were not only very scared about buying the building, on top of that they felt like they weren’t being heard either. I was called to go to those people and it was one of the most difficult things I have had to do because some of these conversations were deep and meaningful to these people, and I stood on the side of we should buy the other property. Very difficult thing to be used as a human bridge.

It also had time of highs I had never seen before. The Great

+ My wife understands me in a way I never thought possible. Thru the difficulty’s of change and removing things outta my life, it has caused her to flourish in a way that has not only helped me to reconnect to her. But I feel like I have a new woman 19 years in and that’s been pretty amazing. Also another side benefit the boys have been amazing.

+ My cousin and I bought the new stone quarry and added our 2nd business. So far so good and the long term goal is for me to be at and run the quarry day to day so I’m super pumped about all this. Also Costello Stone is doing better than ever. We had a record year and over all we have 17 employees now. We have been blessed beyond measure thru our prayers and this next year is looking just as well.

+ Our Church did open our 2nd location. Since then we went from about 200 to 450 in people, and we are reaching and helping the poor kids in our community and the migrant workers to just have food. Also I made a lot of new friends when I went around hearing the negative people out in our church and makin a bridge. So I’m in a great spot in my church and community to be able to impact some people lives here and that has been amazing journey this year. We opened the 2nd location back in August.

+ I’m not gonna dwell on this much. The Discord has been awesome in the fact it has given us an avenue to reach and attract new gamers who do stick around to game and for the community.

+ Ultimatly at the end of the day my sister is gonna divorce my brother in law and she is all the better to do so. I stand behind her 100%

+ These young 19ish year olds I’ve hired 5 in my business and these young people are very impressive to me. Especially when you put them in an environment where they know you got there back, these kids excel. I’m not prescribed to the notion that these next gens comin up ain’t worth a crap because so far they have blown me away.

+ OMG I’m gaming the hell outta it, because for me gamin on the switch. It’s got everything I need or want so gamin right now is as good as when I was a kid.

So there you have it the good and the bad of it all. I’m sure there is more, but these were the things that really stood out over the past year. I don’t know that I could actually rate it.

Very much looking forward, and I’m very positive heading into this next year.

 

[Karkashan]

2018 was the year I was suddenly reminded that Automobile's require this thing called "Oil" to run and just because I had one dashboard light malfunction didn't mean I should've ignored that information completely.

Thankfully, after I had paid off my house, I had been saving a bit of money towards eventually buying a new car (well, new to me) so that meant that I was able to go down to (several) dealers and get a new car without needing to discuss it with a bank first.

However having to deal with a mistake like that did put things in perspective and I slowed down on my video game collecting as a result. (I didn't stop I just stopped being so gung ho about collecting like I was in the beginning of the year)

In terms of games I had quite a bit of fun with several of them, and also a certain, ridiculous in scope project called a "Living Dex" that I still haven't completed. I'm thinking I might be able to finish that in 2019, though, as I'm almost done with getting ribbons for everything in Gen 4 (hence why HeartGold and Pearl weren't added to the GC thread) and I'm only missing 5 pokemon from Black n White. Since Black and White don't have Ribbons, it should be nothing more than a process of getting everything from Gen4/5 to Gen 6, and with that I'll be 5/7ths of the way done to having a complete dex the way I want it to be complete.

 

[CitizenOfVerona]

@mattavelle1

I spoke to a friend last night about how skim milk everything's been on my front since I truly settled into this apartment. It's at the point where I don't know if I'd be able to handle everything you had to go through. You are seriously one of the strongest people I know but I'm happy to see there has been some good points in 2018 as well. I really hope your 2019 is much better overall.

 

[mattavelle1]

@mattavelle1

I spoke to a friend last night about how skim milk everything's been on my front since I truly settled into this apartment. It's at the point where I don't know if I'd be able to handle everything you had to go through. You are seriously one of the strongest people I know but I'm happy to see there has been some good points in 2018 as well. I really hope your 2019 is much better overall.

We are all stronger than we think, and if I have a year worse then 2018, we’ll then so be it I’ll still be standing waiting for 2020.

 

[Shoulder]

Thinking back, a few things did occur throughout the year:

-My Girlfriend and I went on a road trip in July to Kentucky to visit many of the different distilleries scattered throughout, and it was an incredible experience. The history, the various brands of Bourbon, the food, and overall atmosphere; an awesome experience. I recall all the smells you could take in when visiting the warehouses where all the barrels were stored. That was one of the coolest aspects besides the tastings. In all, we bought over 2 dozen different bottles of Bourbon, and other spirits that were either exclusive to the distillery, and/or were Kentucky exclusive. My Bar is now full, that's for sure. It was also during that time that she went from being to my GF to my now Fiancee. No, I did not propose to her, nor did she do the same. Instead, we simply had a discussion about it, and agreed it was something we wanted to do. Months later, we would set a date for June of 2020 to get married with our immediate families only attending.

-My Job was rather interesting this year because due to budgetary reasons with our current Contract with the DOT, I was not able to work on one of our major projects, so instead I stayed in our main office to help around the lab whenever I could, plus drive to all sorts of jobs testing concrete, checking rebar, verifying cable lengths for PT Slabs, and becoming certified in different areas relating to DOT projects. I also was sent to a job 4 hours away to do Quality Control for a major Wind Farm project that was originally supposed to take 6 weeks, but ended up at over 12 weeks due to the copious amounts of rain we got over the course of the summer, plus mismanagement for the prime Contractor (what a shit show that was). I did a lot of "helping" out this year for different jobs, not so much because I necessarily wanted to, but more it was the right thing to do, and in this business, you don't really say no. I'm glad I did help out because it's about helping establish your reputation in the industry for the long term.

-On a slightly different note, it was only slightly difficult for my parents this year because over the years, they've accumulated all sorts of stuff, which requires extra storage, and I think it finally dawned on them just how much stuff they have, and while they made strides in 2018, they're hoping to get rid of their storage units in 2019, and be free of the extra fluff. I plan on helping out, and so will my Fiancee in this.

-Speaking of my Fiancee, it's been a bit difficult for her with regards to her job. She revealed to me this summer how unhappy she was working at her job, and how much she hated her bosses, and how they treated her (let's just say the bosses, both of which are men, are quite sexist). During this time, we was already applying for other positions within the company, but that ended up not working out. She also applied for other jobs at different companies entirely, getting a couple interviews in the process, but nothing concrete. She finally got another interview with the University in town, plus two additional intereviews for a Technician job that she applied for, and just last week she got the job, which she starts mid-Jan. Yesterday was her final day at her old job, so a fitting end to that. She is VERY excited to begin this new path.

-In other happier news, I've been getting back into more gaming which I felt was lacking during at least the first half of 2018. With a Switch now in my possession, I plan to game more than ever in 2019, plus playing with many of you online also (Still need to get Switch Online, so I'll get on that soon).

-In terms of my Martial Arts goes, I was on a hiatus while working out of town, but got back into it almost immediately. I'm scheduled to test for my 3rd Degree Black Belt in Ryukyu Kempo Tode-Jitsu in March, so we'll see how that goes, and I'm expanding my horizons with learning, and training overall. Some of my close friends who I've trained with for the past several years have now left to pursue their careers, but we have new people that have stuck around, which is nice. I've been doing more teaching also when my instructor is either busy, or simply has other engagements, although I don't want to make it be something I do all the time. Ultimately, he's the instructor, it's his name on the door, so I should be learning from him. I know that if I can't teach something to someone else, then I don't really know the material, but that is also why I prefer one-on-one versus an entire class. I don't do well with large crowds in terms of teaching, but I can manage if I have to.

There are other things that occurred throughout the year, plus stuff with my Fiancee's family, but that would take awhile to post. Lets just say there have been lots of ups and downs, both good and bad.

Overall, 2018 was not a particularly bad year, but could've been better. That being said, like Monty Python would say, "Always look on the bridge side of life," and I hope to think of it in those terms. For 2019, my Fiancee and I did have plans to visit the Isle of Man TT in June, but due to her new job, she cannot take vacation for the first 9 months, so we're postponing that until 2020 after we're married (honeymoon?). We had other trips we were planning also, such as visiting one of her good friends who is getting married, but again, can't take vacation, so we'll deal with that.

I'm looking forward to 2019. Bring it on!

 

[BobSilencieux]

2018 huh? Yeah, very little to report. Very milk-and-water, if you will. My girlfriend and I bought our first home together, which is obviously a very big deal, but other than that not a lot happened in the last 12 months. It was a pretty cool experience to watch our home go from a muddy plot to an 18-inch high wall to a shell of a house to a furnished, lived-in, cosy abode for the three of us.

On the gaming front, Celeste is the obvious highlight. I absolutely and totally LOVED that game. My post in the 2018 game completion thread perfectly encapsulates my feelings towards the game:-

"Just. Fucking. Sublime. Wonderful story, beautifully presented, beautiful visuals, incredible music. But the main draw is obviously the immaculate gameplay. Holy shit, what a game. Instant 10/10 within 5 minutes of first booting it up, and then it just kept getting better and better and better. God damn."

On the other end of the spectrum, Hollow Knight made me want to set fire to my Switch. And drown kittens. And smash my thumbs with a hammer to prevent myself from ever playing videogames ever again.

Here's hoping Nintendo delivers in 2019 with the likes of Yoshi and Metroid Prime 4.