Continuing from our cheerful mood of last year and keeping with the spirit of the Best Christmas Ever we, the Eriksson family, spent what was also one of the best New Year’s Eve celebrations ever.
After that, things calmed down and not much happened. And I mean this in the best possible way. We’ve simply enjoyed each other’s company and when we haven’t we’ve been playing some games.
Rebecka and Lucien have been playing Black & White 2. As it’s one of her favourite games of all time it makes sense that she would be the one to introduce him to it. Besides, I’ve never been as benevolent as her, finding more pleasure from picking poor unsuspecting villagers and flinging them into the ocean.
So instead I set my sight on a game I’ve been eyeing for a long time. The first game to crack open the new year for me was the excellent and morbid Don’t Starve, an action-adventure survival game by Klei Entertainment.
Don’t Starve follows a scientist named Wilson who finds himself in a dark, dreary world and must survive as long as possible. Toward this end, you must keep Wilson healthy, fed, and mentally stable as he avoids a variety of surreal and supernatural enemies that will try to kill and devour him.
Everything from the surreal Tim Burtonesque art style, the incredible soundtrack to the whimsical voice effects and the constantly looming threat of permanent death makes this game a sure hit as far as I’m concerned.
January was also the month when Microsoft blew the collective mind of the internet with the unveiling of HoloLens, their standalone wireless helmet which creates holographic illusions in the wearer’s field of view.
In case you’ve missed it, here’s the video again.
Honestly?
The sceptic in me is screaming, “Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. If it even works like they portray it then we’ll just use it for porn”.
At the same time as the imaginative little child inside me is jumping with excitement over the prospects and possibilities that holographic technology brings.
I also got around to finishing—as much as I ever could—the next batch of sketches so that I could book another tattoo session. So last Saturday at 10:30 I stepped into Stainless Steve’s to have another session with Jamie.
Four and a half hours, after a lot of inking and discussing, we called it a day. I’ve already booked in another session in two weeks, giving my arm enough time to heal before we move on the smaller details and fillers.
And finally, Winter is by far the most disappointing season in the UK. All it ever does is rain—but not as much as you think—and there’s never any snow.
As it turns out, we all miss the snow a little bit. Enough so that the other day when it started snowing a little we all got deliriously excited only to have our enjoyment crushed a moment later when that snow turned into rain and well, disappeared.
And that was the joyousness that is January.
I… well no, we have a small announcement to make.
No, Rebecka isn’t pregnant.
Starting tomorrow we’re going to attempt to recreate the austerity and rationing of living during World War II by transporting ourselves back to February 1943.
Mind you, we have no intention of glorifying war or violence but merely hoping to gain a deeper understanding and sympathy for the hardship that our great-grandparents had to endure for many of the luxuries we take for granted.
I plan, and hope, to write with about the same frequency—so between rarely and never—as I do here but starting tomorrow, both Rebecka and I will be writing at the newly created Wartime Life as well.