It’s been a pretty crazy year, hasn’t it? Music took a turn for the looney bin, skinny jeans were popular on guys again, the middle class decided that the best way to stick it to the man was to become homeless, I went an entire year without over-drafting my bank account; I mean, crazy things just keep on happening!

It’s been a roller coaster ride, this year, and I’m glad I was part of it. So, while the world is putting together New Year’s Resolutions and Holiday lists (do you put together a wishlist for Kwanza or Hanuka? I don’t know.) I’m sitting in my little cubicle, gleefully holding a sharpie pen and thinking about how awesome things are when you’re hopped up on your third or fourth cup of coffee.  Really, who can remember anyway.

This has been a year full of awesome things, to be sure. Let’s focus on that, and think about the bad things later, when we’re trying to put together a book of depressing thoughts to bring down the Glee monster…

12 Awesome Things

• Twitter People– I don’t think it’s possible for me to say enough good things about the people I’ve met through Twitter. There is this huge group out there that just sits around and says crazy things to each other. Going into this year, I had convinced myself that the best thing I could do would be to use twitter as a promotional tool. I thought it would be the best way for me to become a professional writer, blogger, and internet celebrity. I did things to push my follower count higher and higher, thinking it would actually have some sort of impact on my life. Here’s the truth, though. What I got from twitter was a handful of really good friends, a circle of great people to read and follow, and a growing sense of the global community at large. One little bird showed me that the world was bigger than just my little city. It expanded my perception of the world to a grander scale.
• Finishing NaNoWriMo – I might be a little repetitive in my saying this again, but I don’t think I can put a bigger feather in my cap this year than finally, on my fourth attempt, finishing a full 50,000 words in one month. Of course, at this point, it’s starting to seem like less and less of an achievement, because as I keep writing every day, I get closer and closer to pumping out 2-3k words daily without really pushing myself. The big difference, though, is that I did it all following one outline, one bigger train of thought. I don’t think I’ll use what I wrote this year as a book. It doesn’t feel like it’s ready to be that, but what it does feel like is a 50,000 word series of blog posts that I will probably look to sharing sometime over the course of the next year. There is a lot of work needing to be done to it, but I’m so very proud to have put it all out there. That is, if I can find the time to work on it, with so many new projects fighting in my brain for the next chance.
• Doodlin’– I’m not sure at what point this year I started sharing my doodles with the world, but I am 100% glad that I did. I love to doodle, and I do it constantly. The fact that all of you seem to appreciate it, too, just adds icing to the cake. I even managed to sell  a doodle on Fiverr.Com and I sold 1 t-shirt before I closed down my cafepress store. In the next year, probably sometime before Valentine’s day, I plan to re-open my store using Printfection. The selection of items is smaller, but the need to sell constantly in order to maintain the store is non-existent. Besides, if I can save up a little money, I might even start wearing my own t-shirts.
• Boffer – If it wasn’t for Eldaraenth, I’d probably be a lost little puppy, and this past year was it’s 25th Anniversary! The family, friends, and even enemies I have there make life spicy, and give me both a outlet for doing creative crafts and beating people with weapons, which probably keeps me from doing it in real life. If there were any two things I can recommend to people to make their lives better, the first would be journaling, and the second would be boffer.
• Taco Tuesdays and Podcasting – My P.i.C. Chris (@Yeti_Detective) spent years saying things like, “We should be recorded, we’re hilarious.” I never really believed it, but then when we did, a lot of people responded amazingly well to it. So, I guess there was something there to it after all. Now, we get together every Tuesday night for Tacos at Kansas City’s The Brick, head back to his apartment, and spend an hour or so screaming at each other with a microphone recording us. Turns out, we are actually pretty funny, and you guys think so, too. By the way, we are pretty random about the topics we pick to talk about (year right, we’re broken record most of the time) but, if you have something you’d like us to say, or even if you just want us to give you a shout out, Send us a tweet, or send out a #HalfDrunk hashtag and we’ll pick it up.
• Yellowstone National Park – This August I got to spend an entire day with my Dad and Older Brother in one of the coolest places in the United States. You could spend an entire lifetime exploring this place and still never see everything awesome there is to see. Part of me can’t wait to go back there one day, but another part of me just thinks about how many more cool things there are to see out there. Robot bodies definitely can’t get here too soon, my insured immortality is the only way I’m going to enjoy everything the world, and the universe, has to offer.
• Abbey Dog– No man is complete without his dog, and look at this puppy face:

  

• Pinot, in all it’s flavors – I’ve never been a guy that has a “go to” drink. Honestly, I’ve never been a big fan of wines in general. I enjoy a local homemade wine (Bursley Mills) and have spent more than one occasion chugging down a bottle with one of the two gentlemen who make it. It is tasty and has a high alcohol content. Really, though, this year was the year I discovered my preferred wine of choice, the Mutha-Fuggin-Pinot, bitches. I’ve had it in both it’s Grigio and Noir forms now, and have even heard but not yet seen that there are other varieties. I can’t wait to try them.
• Facebook Games– Have I mentioned lately that I’m addicted to Zuma Blitz? No? Well, I am. Hardcore. I even did that thing were you reset your game to level 1, but you get to keep your golden frog just so I could play through the 80 levels again. I think I might actually need some sort of rehab for it. Worse, now they’ve managed to get me into playing Castleville, too. It’s not even a good game, I’m just Pavlov’s dog, clicking my chickens so I can get more coins. I have a serious problem, and I don’t think you should be laughing at me like that.
• 30′ Scarves and Magic Trilbys – I have a style that is my own. It starts with my amazing hat, a trilby (not a fedora), and spreads on down through my extra special scarf. You see, my scarf is modeled after Tom Baker’s scarf from his run as the 4th Doctor, but it’s longer, much, much, longer. It actually totals it’s length somewhere around 30 feet, and that makes it about 1 1/2 times the length of the Doctor’s longest scarf. So, suck it, Baker, I’ll fight the Daleks now!
• Blog Comments – Every little comment I get is like a happy surprise in my inbox. I live for them now. It’s like a tiny box of validation each and every time you guys share your thoughts with me, hint hint.  I’m pushing in on almost 1000 comments on the blog for the year. It’d be really nice if I go there. *HINT HINT* I’m not begging or anything, though.
• Having a Job that I hate – I’m extremely lucky that I have a job at all, and that I can afford to hate it is even nicer. The fact that I can get away with actively disdaining my job while I am at work is icing on the cake. There are so few things you are allowed to hate in life, your job should be one of them. Plus, as long as I have a job to hate, I will never feel like I am doing a job when I spend 40-60 hours a week working on these other things that I do. Even if I’m getting paid for them (which I’m not yet), I won’t consider them work, because my real work is the job that I hate but have to go to. Someday, I might quit this job, but by then, I’ll be able to dance and frolic robotically in the meadows… so to speak.

There you go. 12 Things that are awesome, and that’s not even mentioning my awesome bullet point fingers. Yeah, you know you like those.