2022 year in review
Reading time: 6 minutes
It was the year of getting back to normal from Covid times. And by back to normal, I mean people just got tired of following protocols and went about their lives. Though it is a kind of new normal where people are wearing masks when they feel is appropriate, and are more careful to wash their hands more often. Which should help with not only Covid, but standard flu, and RSV which has been going around pretty badly this season.
Within the span of this year, three of my favorite comedians died: Gilbert Gottfried, Amazing Jonathan, and Bob Saget.
My business partner Steve and I celebrated Blocks Edit's fifth anniversary with some major upgrades this past year including a visual template tool for making setting up templates easier, and review comments for better collaboration.
From the blog
A couple of posts for the year on what I've learned working with email design since starting Blocks Edit. How product design ideas come together. And why you should start sending emails.
From the Blocks Edit blog, my favorite post of the year which came out of a conversation with someone from the #emailgeeks community. And my series of posts on modular design techniques.
Articles, videos, and links
- History of the web - a series of articles organized in a timeline of important moments of the early internet.
- Being yourself online - social media has made us think that people aren't being themselves online. This article makes the case that the internet may be the one place where we are able to try and be as much of ourselves as we can be.
- The longer - a good take on the motivation for doing something from Jason Fried of Basecamp and Hey Email. You also don't have to love what you do.
- Hand tracking in VR games - the addition of hand tracking to the latest iteration of Myst is great for understanding a bit about how the process works. It makes perfect sense for the world of Myst and is an example of how much simpler of a user interface it is than using controllers!
- AI art - a good overview of AI generated art and what it means for artists.
- Gravity Falls and censorship - ever wonder what it's like to develop a cartoon TV show for Disney and work with Standards and Practices on what Disney feels is appropriate for kids? The creator of Gravity Falls shared his experience which is pretty hilarious!
- Our capacity for fretting is endless - a great quote that hits me sometimes.
Movies
- Werewolves Within - a comedy horror movie about how there's nothing wrong with being a nice person. And how people are generally good, but if you go looking for the bad in them, chances are you'll find it. Because you're the one creating the bad.
- Listening to Kenny G - why do people like Kenny G's music while others hate him for it? The latest from the amazing documentarian, Penny Lane, is not what you might expect from a documentary about Kenny G, but you certainly won't be disappointed!
- Miss Sloane - a great movie that takes a look at the world of government lobbying. It's more intense than you would think for what seems like a dry subject with something unexpected happening almost every scene!
- The Rescue - a documentary about how twelve boys and their coach were rescued from a flooded cave.
- Come From Away - a stage musical about the true story of what happened to the flights that were rerouted on 9-11.
- The Woman in the Window - a great psychological thriller that also does a good job of portraying mental health.
- The Piano Teacher - a rather dark exploration of kink and sexual identity.
Series
- Station Eleven - a great limited series of a post-apocalyptic world that shows how treating each other with kindness works better than fighting over our disagreements.
- Clickbait - a great take on the online world of dating and meeting someone. The limited series uses the episodic format well, with each episode focused on a different character. And it's able to pull off some great cliffhanger moments in-between!
- The Investigation - another great limited series based on a true story of what seems like an impossible case to solve, solved (spoiler alert) in what seems like an impossible way!
- The Tourist - a basic premise about a guy that has amnesia turns into so much more! It's essentially about how we affect each other, and are able to connect with each other in the chaos that we all are.
- Sandman TV series - the acclaimed comic book series, my favorite comic book series, has finally been made into series. And it is good and true to the source material!
- Moon Knight - a unique kind of Marvel superhero that's on the horror side with plenty of action, of course.
- Peacemaker - following the recent Suicide Squad movie, it's a redemption story of someone you would think cannot be redeemed.
- City on a Hill - about a corrupt FBI agent working with a lawyer in the Boston justice system of the late 80's/early 90's.
Specials
- The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special - my new favorite Christmastime thing to watch. With my new favorite holiday song: I Don't Know What Christmas Is (But Christmastime Is Here)
- Taylor Tomlinson's Look At You - my favorite stand-up special of the year!
Horror genre, new and old
More from my horror kick these past couple of years.
- From the 80's: Cellar Dweller, Basket Case, Wishmaster, and Little Monsters
- Early 90's: Popcorn, Frankenhooker, Tremors, Eerie, Indiana
- Recent releases: Crimes of the Future, Hocus Pocus 2, Scoob!, Glorious, and the Fear Street 3-movie horror series
- Ash vs Evil Dead - horror comedy can be tough to pull off. But Ash vs Evil Dead does it well, with plenty of laughs, and plenty of blood!
- The Munsters - fun fact: the series ran at the same time as the original Addams Family and both shows even had about the same number of episodes.
Video games and board games
- I enjoyed playing Psychonauts 2 including exploring many of the side missions. And enjoyed watching a playthrough of the original Psychonauts along with the VR in-between sequel.
- I also watched a playthrough of As Dusk Falls
- I've been having fun playing some new board games that I was introduced to this year: Santorini, Munchkin, and Doomlings.
- Worth mentioning, Riven, the sequel to the video game Myst is celebrating its 25th anniversary. I remember going to Best Buy with my dad to pick it up the day it came out, October 31st. In a lot of ways, Riven was Myst fully-realized in what the team was able to do with that format and still stands out today as the best game in the Myst series. On the day of the anniversary, the creators, Cyan, officially announced that they are working on a real-time 3D remake for VR!