2025 Yearly Theme
I am easily convinced to try and do new things to make my life easier though I rarely follow thru on them or realize that it just doesn’t work (like Johnny.Decimal). However I really liked CGP Grey’s Your Theme video and think of it more frequently than just at the New Year. I have usually come up with some Theme each year, but never write it down or follow thru with it. I’ve thought of getting the Theme System Journal but also know that I would fall off using it after a week or two. I’m hoping that if I type up what my yearly theme is, I’ll both be more likely to remember what I want to do and stay committed to it throughout the year.
Year of Resume
This year I want to pick back up projects and hobbies that I used to enjoy working on but have dropped for a long-ish period of time. Some of these have been on hold for years while others have been since mid last year. I have 3 sections that I want focus on: programming, “house things”, and entertainment.
Programming
I’ve had multiple pieces of software that’ve I’ve developed to a semi-functional point, but there are many things I want to expand on with them. I managed to update BorgAPI in January and get it caught up with current compatibility for the BorgBackup software it’s wrapping (at least I believe I did). Batch Rename Program does everything I need it to right now and just has some QoL changes I’d like to make; this one feels like it’d be the easiest to pick back up and continue with off and on. PPF Checklist needs some small updates to use a production web server instead of the builtin Flask dev server. todo ledger has much work to be done to make it more useable. SPATS is the “biggest” / most ambitious software I’ve been working. I’ve had the idea for it rattling around in my head for almost a decade. I haven’t touched it in about 4 years and have plans to do major technical overhauls I want to do for the backend and frontend (with some possibility of even making it just one repository instead of two).
House Things
Sort of related to the programing, the first two things I want to resume working on is digitizing our physical pictures (and sort of cleaning up our existing digital ones) and competent backup mechanisms (which will be powered by BorgAPI). I also bought a 3D Printer on sale summer of last year but was too busy to set it up for a while and then was struggling with getting it calibrated so I’ve never printed anything with it yet. The last thing is an easy-ish thing and also more complicated. I’ve been working on making a proper electrical circuit map of the house since our breaker isn’t super accurate. With that new map I want to develop a plan for wiring our house for ethernet (which is the more complicated part).
Entertainment
Reading
I used to be a voracious reader but have basically fallen off of prose completely (reading 7 books since 2020). My comic book reading was much more frequent keeping up with my weekly books until COVID hit and then I fell off hard and now have a year plus backlog. Last year I managed to get thru the Star Wars Thrawn Trilogy and am listening to Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea books now. I have some non-fiction this year as well. If I can read 4 books this year, I’ll be happy (counting the Earthsea books as 1). I am also hoping to catch up on a couple Newsletters / Publications that I’ve been enjoying but fell off late last year (Crossplay, Garbage Day, Bret Devereaux’s Blog, and Remap’s writing).
Writing
I had a journal I was writing infrequent thoughts in for the media I was reading / watching / playing and I’d like to make that a bit more frequent, especially as I work on doing more stuff. I am constantly thinking of new table top games and not really writing them down in a coherent way. I want to figure out a way to store the ideas in a better fashion than just random text documents. I have a few that I want to focus on first-ish. One of those RPGs also has a story for some characters I’d been writing and want to pick that back up.
Video
YouTube
I also used to keep up on a good number of YouTube channels that I’ve fallen off of mostly because I stepped back from YouTube for taking too much of my time. I’ve paired down my subscription list so I think I’ll be able to waste less time on it if I just look at the Subscriptions tab. Particularly want to catch up on Angela Collier, Artifexian, Noclip, Secret Base, SovietWomble, and Summoning Salt among some specific videos here and there on other channels.
Movies, TV, and Anime
I had begun on working thru some series and got sidetracked / just dropped when COVID happened (that really thru most hobbies in a loop for me). I got the Criterion collection of the Showa-Era Godzilla films and got thru the first 4 movies and want to work thru the next 11 plus the modern American and Japanese ones (2014 +). I’ve also started working thru the Ghibli movies chronologically since I’ve got big gaps in those movies. The other big project I had been working on is watching every Gundam show / movie anime made and listening along with Mobile Suit Breakdown. I got thru the original show and the three recap movies. Now I need to watch Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam.