Whelp! It’s about time for another Desk Diary—four years from my last Desk Diary (sorry)—It’s 2020! Annnnd the world has gone crazy town. But I’m not interested in focusing on all that. Despite what has been going on—as terrible as it is—things have actually turned around for me in the last several months. A lot of that is due to a new decent paying job, after a decade of “self-employment.” I’ll go into more current happenings towards the end of this post.
One of the main reasons for my lack of posts has been due to learning that I have a hereditary hearing loss condition called Otosclerosis. My ability to hear is slowly (over many years) getting worse and is accompanied by very loud whistles (tinnitus). This started to become noticeable in the middle of 2016, right after my last Desk Diary post. I went to many doctors that year. At first I thought it was just a build up of wax, but when I finally found out the real reason it destroyed me emotionally for some time. Eventually I was put on an anti-depressant. And over time I started to get as used to it as one can.
These days I just pop my wireless headphones on and listen to music or watch Youtube and that helps, along with the meds, but my mood to post anything or even be super social dipped quite a lot and remained that way for a couple years, which is why I didn’t really post anything new. Working and gaming was pretty much all I could manage.
Continuing from the last Desk Diary, here’s a quick recap of the last four year.
2017
Darkborn took up a lot of my spare time in 2017. I setup the site and Patreon and consistently put out a comic page each week.
When I wasn’t working I did hop into an MMO when I could. I returned to FFXIV for the Stormblood expansion. I also bounced between MMOs like Black Desert and Elder Scrolls Online.
For loot, the biggest item I got this year was a graphics card upgrade. I went from my Nvidia GTX 770 to a GTX 1070, which was a much needed upgrade after getting my LG Ultrawide monitor.
Towards the end of this year I really started to regain an old love for Lego, which is likely due to the expanding Lego movie universe with the release of the Ninjago movie around that time. I had to do a lot of extra side work to feed this new addiction.
2018
Around this time my desk was getting rather cluttered with all the new Lego sets and my Dollfie collection. Towards the middle of this year I wasn’t really feeling Darkborn’s progress was going where I wanted, so I put it on a hiatus.
For loot I got my hands on a Nintendo Switch with some games. It was my first new Nintendo console since the Gamecube (not counting my 3DS).
My gaming didn’t stop there. I stepped a bit back in MMO history and played the Battle for Azeroth World of Warcraft expansion, which I didn’t think was as bad as many people claimed.
Towards the end of the year I had reorganized my desk. I was getting more interested in my gaming consoles, so I put them all together with a custom made little shelf my father made for me and added my old TV to the mix.
Not to forget my Dollfie collection, I actually pre-ordered a Dollfie at the end of this year. She would be my first new one since 2013/14. However I had a year to wait for her release.
2019
Darkborn returned in the beginning of 2019 and continues to update till this day. However, my aspirations for creating stories wasn’t completely satiated, so I started to think up ideas for a possible animation project… yet again.
Which leads into my loot choices this year. In the middle of the year I managed to save up enough from extra work to get a new laptop. I hadn’t had a nice laptop for many-a-years. This one is a Thinkpad with a Ryzen 7 processor. It has a full keyboard, with numpad, and a nice big screen. My plan was/is to use this to write my story ideas away from my desk and maybe even work on some animations on it.
However, I really wanted a digital sketchpad for my creative endeavors, so towards the end of that year, with more extra work, I picked up a new Apple iPad Air. Based on the first generation iPad Pro, this one had the ability to use the Apple Pencil. A digital sketchpad with nearly instant on (unlike my Surface Pro), was very appealing to me. For Christmas I also got the overpriced, but still very nice, Apple Keyboard to add to it… giving me two options for writing stories away from my desk… cause options.
Due to a typhoon in Japan that Dollfie pre-order was delayed till 2020.
2020
And here we are! The year of doom… apparently. All the crazy real world happenings aside, towards the end of 2019 I started working for a company doing logo designs and book layouts. A close friend, that was already working with them, helped get me in the door. Since then they’ve been keeping me pretty busy to the point that I haven’t had much time to even touch an MMO or any game. But I’m no longer barely making ends meet, and that’s a pleasant and appreciated change. Something I haven’t had for over a decade. It really helps raise your mood when you can finally afford things you were only able to “window-shop” for years and aren’t struggling week by week.
Though, not everything has been great for me so far this year. During the first several month my dear 14 year old cat became very sick. I had to readjust my sleep schedule (I’m a super night-owl) to get him his meds on time. It was an exciting, but also somber, and grueling first few months of the year between the new work and an ailing cat. He did eventually pass, which was very hard for me to deal with.
However, I eventually adopted a couple (yes, two) new feline friends. I found these brothers online and knew they would be a fun pair to befriend. They are very active, and love to jump around and explore everything, but they’ve brought much needed liveliness to the home. One is very social and cuddly while the other is more aloof.
Oh, and that Dollfie… she did finally ship… eighteen months later. It’s 2B from Nier Automata. She was well worth the wait. I’ll try to make a separate post about her when I get time to take better photos.
So for me personally, things are very much looking up for the most part. Due to my new work I’m able to start getting many of the things I’ve had on my wishlist for some time. For one, I’ve been adding to my collection of toys at a rapid pace. Which is something I’ll write about in its own post soon. I’m also starting to gather funds for a new computer… a rather powerful one. I still haven’t given up on my dream to create an animation of some sort. I may never get to it, but I’ll keep trying. And with things like my iPad, laptop, and, soon™, new computer… my excuses will certainly not be technical ones, only ideas, time, and skill. Besides all that I have many other plans for my workspace and projects, which I hope to write about on this site as they progress.
So this is where things are for now. While my ear issues put a pretty big damper on my mood for a few years, now I’m working, updating Darkborn every week, trying to plan out an animation project, having fun with my new kittens and getting a lot of things I’ve wanted for a long time. I’ll try to post more often, but if current year has taught us anything, things can change rather quickly… and drastically. Here’s hoping it gets better for all of us soon.
