Scoville Units Unite

Well that year kind of dragged a bit.

I’m not quite sure whether this post will ever make it public so I will just write it, read it, edit it and decide.

The year started with me making a big list of about 30 things I wanted to achieve by the end of the year. I’m normally not one for resolutions but some stuff had happened in 2011 and I had started work on some of them already but wanted some motivation to do them all so set a high goal.

A couple of days into the year it became obvious that some of them wouldn’t be achieved as a relationship of almost 8 years started to crumble, not surviving the month.

A week later I had a very uncomfortable big family celebration to go to, where I spoke to one of my aunts for the last time. For a two week period in February I had a terrible throat/chest infection and just as it started she went into hospital after cancer returned to attack her for the third and final time. Due to her being in the cancer ward this meant I wasn’t able to visit her.

As you can imagine this was not a very good time. It wasn’t helped that due to some work happening at the crematorium it took almost two weeks for the funeral to take place. I followed it with the only tribute I could muster, a vodka and coke, a bacon roll and a Star Wars marathon.

During February I was worried I would end up with no home internet briefly so bought a second hand iPhone. My previous phone was about 6 years old and also second hand.

Along with Alan 2 I also launched Joy Stuck in the Past but we haven’t done all that we planned with it yet. Maybe more will happen this year.

I spent a hell of a lot of time at gigs in 2012 and March and April were brilliant, with GBH, Onsind and others. I think I went to more gigs that year than the previous 7. Back to what I used to enjoy to do before then. April also saw a fundraiser for Make That A Take called Big Muff which was a celebration of 90s alternative music. It was to return later in the year for a second outing too.

At a work do, I took part in a sketch show for our department and this spawned the ever amusing brick photo. In movie land there was Cabin in the Woods and Instrument showing. I went to a lot of films over the course of the year but these two stood out already as being brilliant.

In April the house situation started it’s slow momentum with an expectation of closure by July. Ha!

May saw Warped reach an epic high not matched until the birthday party with a special Star Wars May the 4th party. This quickly became my favourite club night. It also saw the opening of Cerberus.

I think it was about May that we started our weekly online campaign of Baldurs Gate. Our NerdFest weekends had continued roughly monthly throughout the year too.

In music news I noticed the UGS group on Facebook had become almost empty due to a stupid upgrade and so kicked it off inviting people again. It quickly grew in numbers and I managed to find lots of long lost friends and acquaintances.

In May I was approved for a mortgage to buy my house. I also got in early donating to Marys Meals before it hit it’s target.

June saw literally dozens of idiots celebrate the Queen’s Jubilee. I mocked a lone neighbour who had up Butchers Apron Bunting. It also saw some football tournament take place to bemused indifference in Scotlandville.

July saw my birthday. I celebrated by going to a really good nerdy talk by Scott Hanselman then holding a big house party. Apparently I made lots of new friends both up to that point and that night itself. There was lots of to-ing and fro-ing on the house and things seemed to be in progress.

In August mortgage stuff seemed to be approved and then sat in limbo for ages.

In movie news we learned of a proposed new He-Man movie. I was obviously unexcited by the information. I got my bike through the scheme at work and it was the final push I needed for a couple of my goals for the year. In sport the first Dundee derby in ages resulted in a 3-0 victory for the big team over the wee team. Revenge was coming assured our bluenose chums.

In music the amazing Franz Nicolay graced Dundee with his presence followed by Chalk Talk (Mike still has my album!) before a welcome one night only return of Entropy.

September started with a visit to Dundee by a bunch of knuckledragging Nazi wankers who were quickly made unwelcome and scurried back to the pits they crawled from. It also saw me do the Cyclathon round Dundee and was when I first became aware of PSY.

Jeff Rowe tickled our eardrums at Cerberus whilst Elway blew us away at Kage. We saw the launch of the Rusty Hip Collective. In nerdy PC world an old hard drive died and I managed to salvage a bunch of stuff off it just in time. Some stuff was lost however although amusingly none of it mine. I didn’t laugh at all. Really.

In October I hit a goal I had been working on for a year ticking off one of the long term items on my stuff for the year list.

My wee sister was greedy for presents and both had a birthday and a wedding.

Music wise we lost Michael Marra which was a real blow to Dundee.

I prepared for the long awaited house purchase to go through and had the rug pulled out from me 9 days before it’s agreed date.

In cinema They Live played at the DCA and Disney bought Star Wars.

November saw the announcement about Major Arcana opening and we set up a weekly games night in Cerberus when we discovered how many people might be up for it.

Big Muff returned and we also saw the start of Book Yer Ane Fest.

At the end of the month I finally got confirmation that the house sale would go through at the start of December. Eleven months of shit finally came to an end.

Hole was formalised. Those in the know: know, those who don’t: get confused what is going on in public.

In December the world didn’t end, but the DCA did show Gremlins and Princess Bride.

So much awesome shit happened and 2013 is looking to be on course to keep up. Obviously there’s loads of stuff, good and bad, which I didn’t post about here but if you know what they were you already know. Also I’ve been a bit busy hence the 5 week delay in my end of year round-up. I’ll try better at the end of this year. I promise.