2005 Thoughts and Looking Ahead to 2006

[niko]

Real Life:

This was the first year in a while that I had a fairly active social life - going out to dinner, watching movies, or playing board games with friends.  It actually took some getting used to...it'd been quite a long time since I'd had friends who just decided to do something and DID it, without requiring two weeks of planning to clear everything with the hubby, arrange for someone to watch the kids, etc.  It's been fun. :)
 
Two big events stand out as particular landmarks for the year.  First, the birth of my nephew.  Not having kids of my own, my niece and nephew are important as heck to me, and this little guy has been a joy to watch this past year.  The second is rather less auspicious, but on Halloween weekend I got well and truly drunk for the first time EVER.  Hella fun.  I have newfound respect for the awesome powers of alcohol in a party situation. :)

 
Work Life:

A year of change.  My main client, who was a thorn in my side for the last four years or so, has finally dropped off the radar a bit.  It raises some financial concerns for the boss, but I've been free the second half of the year to do some work that DOESN'T involve working overtime three out of every five days.  I still have some stressfulness left over, but hopefully that will get resolved by the end of January, and I can move on with happy stuff.

 
Online Life:

I've come to a realization lately that ExIsle has gradually stopped being my "home" board this year.  It's still the board I visit by default whenever I open a browser and don't have any specific destination in mind, but I could stop going there right now and probably not miss it.  This has nothing to do with all the "troll" activity...it's been brewing for a while - at LEAST since the threads earlier this year about whether the "General Discussion" forum needed to be fixed.  The thing I loved about this community was the thoughtful and interesting conversations that were had among intelligent adults who really grokked genre fandom.  As was pointed out in the AQG threads, that kind of conversation still happens in the "Reviews" forum...but usually only for a given episode in a given series.  Since I watch very little live-action TV these days, I don't really get much out of those.  What I always used to love were the truly GENERAL discussions...but Gen Disc is overrun by pointless news threads now, and no one seems interested in meaty conversation of a less specific nature.  Basically, my interests and ExIsle's focus have drifted apart too much for me to really get much satisfaction out of the board anymore.  :(
I doubt I'll be leaving for good or anything for the foreseeable future...but I'm definitely wishing that Jumpgate or Yonder would get more traffic in 2006 to help fill the gap.


Anime Fandom:

2005 was a year where my anime fandom exploded exponentially.  The AOD Reviewer gig is a huge part of that, obviously.  I still can't quite believe that Chris is happy enough with what I've done so far that he continues to send me stuff to review.  It's pretty amazing.  But even before that, I was pursuing anime as a hobby to a degree I never had before.  I attended three anime conventions this year, just about tripled the amount of manga and DVD's I bought from previous years, and just generally devoted a boatload of time and energy to anime-ish pursuits.  I'm hoping to regain a little focus this year (cutting back on the number of manga series I'm collecting, for example) and not spend quite so much money, but we'll see how that goes. ;)


Fave Movies Seen This Year:
- Howl's Moving Castle
- Serenity
- Good Night and Good Luck
- Harry Potter & the Goblet of Fire
- Rent

Still To See:  "Brokeback Mountain" , "The Producers"

Fave Books I've Read This Year:
- Tower of the King's Daughter - Chaz Brenchley
- The Wizard Hunters - Martha Wells
- Alphabet of Thorn - Patricia McKillip

Favorite Anime I've Seen This Year:
- Infinite Ryvius
- Fullmetal Alchemist
- Kurogane Communications
- Beck
- Escaflowne

2006:

Looking ahead, I have a ton of projects on my plate for the first quarter of the new year.  I want to code a PHP website that will let me catalog and keep track of all my anime stuff, and if it comes out half as neat as what I'm envisioning in my head - with pictures and views by series, by item type, etc. - it should be wicked cool.
The other big ones are all projects to reduce clutter and overflowing storage in my house.

1. I have gone through several video-collecting phases in my life, and between the different phases, I've accumulated probably a couple hundred VHS tapes with old TV shows, anime, and theater bootlegs.  Whenever I buy new DVD's, I always have issues because I'm just OUT OF SPACE for video and DVD storage.  So, after years of thinking about it, I've finally gotten serious about porting all of those VHS tapes over to DVD and store them in one big binder.  I think just this move alone will reduce clutter in the house by about half.  I can't wait to have a nice clear shelf space to store all my DVD's again. :)
   
2. Ebay!  I got my first digital camera for Christmas, and I can finally take decent pictures of items I don't want anymore but can't quite bring myself to just throw away.  Here's hoping I can make a little cash.  :)
   
3. The REALLY big project is going to be an organization of my books.  Since I first moved into my house about eight years ago, my books have just been chugged every which way, and half of the books that I really care about are still in boxes from the move.  I want to weed out a lot of the fluff books in my library and get my bookshelves organized, in general.

Other than that, in the short-term, I'm tremendously looking forward to the Miyazaki movies on Turner Classic Movies in January, planning on attending Ohayocon, looking forward to a couple of my favorite shows finally coming to DVD, and overall hoping 2006 will be a year where I get my act together and make progress in a lot of areas. :)