Happy new year, journal people! I'm still coming down off the marfGH grind, so it's taken me a few days to deal with the backlog of places to update and get back into my art and music habits. Let's start with this Cammy! Caby got me a really nice XP-Pen screen tablet for Christmas, in every way an upgrade over the 2012 Wacom Bamboo I was using, so I drew a Cammy. He's good and chunky, I'm happy with how this boy came out. I told Somnol that I seem to be slipping into Garfield's sleepy smug gay expressions with him, and y'know, that's okay, it works.

There's an R.E.M. lyric that's been on my mind a lot lately—"Richard said, "Withdrawal in disgust is not the same as apathy"". It's actually apparently from Oblique Strategies, not something Richard Linklater came up with, but that's kinda been my feeling going into 2026. On a personal level, I feel really good, more confident in myself and my abilities and the friends I've made and been able to keep. My site overhauls are satisfying, and I'm happy in how I'm presenting myself to the world. In that world though, I have zero interest in being ambitious right now. The career world is a fucking disaster. My friends are all having a tough go of it. Politically, things are turbulent as fuck. I have faith that good is triumphing over evil, but it's gonna take a while before that becomes clear.

Something I realized through 2025 is that if this were it, if my life were just me pursuing my hobbies in between visiting friends and working whatever shitty jobs for whatever period of time, I'd be okay with that. I was never going to be a CEO, I have no real desire to have kids or build some dynasty, I just want to be creative, have my websites, do some cool shit, and enjoy my nice little pocket of the constant chaos of modernity. Of course, that doesn't mean I won't go off to better work (need it to be with my Caby!), and that doesn't mean the 2030s won't be better than the 2020s to the point where I actually feel like there might be a place for me out there. I'm just saying, for now, I am content with where I am and whatever comes.

That kinda sets the tone for 2026, so here's a rambling list of my plans for this year, in no particular order.

1. I'd like to reconnect with my friends. Maybe reconnect is a bad word. Call it "make them more of a priority". We talk every day and I love them and I know they love me, but I feel like I could be so much more present for things, make more gifts, be more engaged. More group calls. (We'll have one tonight, hopefully.) I'm already streaming only their favorite games this year, partially because it makes them happy and partially because I'm always looking to branch out and try new things, beat new games, find new albums I like, make new memories.
2. I'd like to reconnect with my characters. I was very lost out on art in 2025, and I want to change that for this one. I want to do silly little story things, I want to do Art Fight again this year, and I want to take the weird stylistic experimentation I forced myself to do to vary up the marfGH menu art I did back to the animal people art I normally do. That Cammy is a start—the "Japanese pattern" generator in FireAlpaca was used for the background I made up.
3. I want to commemorate 30 years of Quake with a new episode or at least some standalone levels. A lot of especially the end of 2025 was spent modding Guitar Hero, so how about some more from me on the Quake front? I want to separate layout experimentation from level visuals and hopefully make both better—more boxouts to experiment with layouts and monster positioning and gimmickry quickly, and then when I have something fun and satisfying, rebuilding that with a cohesive visual style of whatever I feel suits it, castles or Aztec ruins or Hell.
4. Yes, I'd like to do another marfGH volume as well. A lot of the work wasn't just for Volume 1, it was to build out a base I could reuse for future volume sets. I have a lot of ground broken on a twenty-song Volume 0 reissue to bring that up to my modern standards, and a bunch of charts done for the indie band-focused Volume 2. It takes me maybe ten days if I'm focused to finish one chart. I should have plenty of time to do both this year.
5. I want to get back to helping out Protoweb. I lost interest in helping Protoweb restore sites in 2024, but it was all just me being silly anyway. I have specific skills, they have specific needs, and I know they'd go appreciated there. I'm aiming for one every month, twelve in all. Might sound like a lot, but I apparently did four in the span of like a month in 2024, so I know I could knock that out. My one for January, even, a restoration of Opera Software's site circa 1998, is mostly done thanks to work I did back then. Pretty sweet.
6. More bass, more reading. I spent way too much on this sweet-ass bass rig for how little I play it, and I do really enjoy playing it, so I wanna get back into it. If I could lay down some solid root notes and maybe make my basslines walk a bit by the end of the year, I'll be thrilled. Books are similar to Protoweb—I wanna do one a month. I have so fucking many lying around, dudes, and it's unfortunate to watch them go unread. On topics I'm interested in, too! Music, silent film, badgers in British culture. C'mon now.
7. Another Wales trip please? But that's a given... Maybe Caby coming here? I do have a car now.

For now, I'm taking January slow and also dry, because December left me kinda sick of partying. I also have put a moratorium on buying basically most media unless it's something I already know I love. I have two tall as fuck stacks of CDs to listen to. I'm gonna use this next year to focus solely on old Cammy favorites and, again, reconnect with things. 2025 was a year of great expansion, now I think I should settle into stuff more, and I don't just mean music.

I'm optimistic. Things will be good this year, even if it sounds like retreat in defeat. Nothing wrong with PS1 games in between dumb animal people stuff.

I don't care about the state of art
Everything I cared about is falling apart
Don't wanna hear about the new design
I don't mind if I get left behind

I'm not interested in changing my life
Not even if it's at its lowest price
Don't bother telling me the pros and cons
You got nothing in this world I want

• "State of Art", Brad Sucks

Tagged under: art real-life