As you can tell by a year wrap-up post not appearing until nearly the end of January, I am very on top of my shit. Remember those few weeks I tried weekly blog posts? That was a fun idea until I remembered I don’t do enough shit to make it worthwhile. Maybe I should just start stealing links from all the weekly email newsletters I subscribe to and sometimes even read.* We are but reflections of our inspirations!! This is a personal blog not on either of my portfolio sites so I can use as many exclamation marks as I want!! Yes!
January
I didn’t make anything too exciting in the start of the year, but I did see Xiu Xiu perform the music of Twin Peaks at Thalia Hall and St. Vincent’s Fear the Future tour at Chicago Theatre, so that was cool. I did hear about a Kickstarter initiative, which I managed to get into at the last minute…
February
I launched my #make100 pixel portraits Kickstarter which ran throughout February and was successfully funded beyond my most optimistic expectations. It would take me until August to finish fulfilling rewards, which I did not expect. If you’re a backer who never got your reward, contact me! I sent lots of emails! And if you’d like your own pixel portrait, my commissions are still open.
March
In March I got busy fulfilling the first Kickstarter rewards. I also took a trip south to Austin for a few days for work for my sixth SXSW Interactive. Everyone’s all about artificial intelligence and voice interaction! I was very sad that I didn’t get to attend the Westworld activation. I did see an amazing Meow Wolf installation and meet up with my ultra talented college friend Suzanne. Other highlights were Ira Glass’s keynote and hearing Ray Kurzweil and Whurley’s insane predictions for the future.
“Computer people really suck at understanding the future. They don’t want to understand it they want to solve it.”
Bruce Sterling’s closing address
April
Remember when American Chopper memes took the culture by storm? Here’s my contribution.
May
This excellent tweet ended up being my most popular for 2018. I’ll always have a Spire-shaped hole in my heart.
June
My work here was criminally under-appreciated, much like Toni Collette’s Oscars snub.
July
In July I made my annual trip to Minnesota to attend CONvergence and did my first real cosplay. We were Pokémon on Friday and did Twin Peaks on Saturday. It was good! Time to start planning this year.
I also went to Pitchfork, which was great too! And while I’m embarrassed to admit it, I still love the Fleet Foxes.
August
It was Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me‘s 20th birthday, so of course we had to go celebrate at their yearly free show at Millennium Park.
A thunderstorm rolled in, so we had to evacuate early, but on our way out of the park I swore I heard them say Jeff Tweedy of Wilco was playing to win a voicemail for listener Topher McCulloch from Chicago. It turned out they did say that!
September
Another dream came true in 2018 when Steven Miller invited me on his Real Housewives podcast Reading Housewives to discuss Bethenny Frankel’s book A Place of Yes, a subject I knew nothing about.
I then came back for the season one reunion where I did a mean Dutch (???) accent.
Capping off a productive month, I ended my usual policy against re-reading books I’ve read before and decided to revisit Neal Stephenson’s cyberpunk classic Snow Crash and wrote about the experience on Medium.
October
After being unsure I’d be able to maintain momentum, I ended up having a very successful #pixeltober on Twitter. Follow @pixel_portraitz on Instagram!
November
I fulfilled my lifelong dream of having my name in the credits of a movie… by funding a reward level for the second season of Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Return. It’s in the amazing premiere episode featuring Mac and Me. Check it out!
December
In my continuing quest to get The Star Wars Holiday Special re-evaluated and accepted into the queer canon, I reworked my Medium think piece on the subject as a large Twitter thread.
That’s it! Go home! See you next year!
*I like these newsletters: