It was a very quiet year indeed around these parts.
I'm doing fine, too. Down here in Melbourne we had one of the strictest, longest lockdowns in the world, but as a super-introverted homebody my mental health was largely unaffected by the loss of freedom and social connection, and now we've had nothing more than isolated outbreaks over the past few months — so my wife and I have been able to see my parents and most of our friends, which I think is helping her cope better. As scary as things got here at the worst point, though, it's been much scarier seeing what's happening elsewhere in the world. I hope those of you in countries with high COVID numbers are coping okay and staying safe.
My work took a nosedive when the pandemic started, but the Australian government's JobKeeper subsidy made up my lost income and I actually ended up having a good year as a freelancer. Turns out stay-at-home orders are a boon for most tech companies, and I got lots of copywriting and editing work from one of my long-term clients (Telstra). I spent the rest of my time getting
my next book and
my games history podcast going again, and have set the foundations for what I hope will be a great 2021 for me professionally.
On a personal note, I recently got back into emulation again. I bought a GPD XD Plus towards the end of 2020 and am having a wonderful time playing N64, PS1, GBA, and SNES games on there. It runs Android, so there's a lot of emulators available, and I'm looking forward to experimenting with Amiga and Atari ST emulation — as well as various other systems. Hopefully I can find something that lets me use one of the analogue sticks as a mouse.