This post is my review of the year. An opportunity for self-reflection and future record.

2023 was a year of wonderful highs and soul-crushing lows. My wife and I welcome our second son into the world and have been settling into a life with two children and, honestly, I'm loving it. Obviously there are hard times, but the pure joy is unmatched.

However, recency bias is strong here as the year ended extremely poorly at MAJOR (more below).

Projects

MAJOR

2023 was a year of two parts, the first 9 months of the year were positive as we solidified the updates from the transformative previous year. We were making great strides and beginning to see the impact of all our hard work. But then, through a variety of factors, many unprecedented and unpredictable, the end of the year couldn't have ended much worse. Hopefully we're able to pick ourselves up in 2024.

Monday Night Football

After 2022's big overhaul I haven't touched the MNF site this year, however, it continues to tick along just fine. The expansion of our family put away any significant "side-project" time - though, it was nice to just disconnect from it all outside of work for a considerable time.

I'd certainly like to introduce the next set to desired features (weather statistics for starters) but I'm not at all sure when this will be.

This site

Last year I mentioned that I managed to get this website into a "state that I'm happy for it to go live"; well, I'm glad I did as I've done little to it since.

Acorn

The first version of the is complete and in use at MAJOR, but it needs to be battle-tested throughout the year on more projects.

Sport and fitness

My fitness largely falls into two categories: football and the gym.

Football

Regular Monday Night Football continues to be my most consistent avenue for fitness. Now in it's 15th year of running and our 9th year of tracking data on the Monday Night Football site, I managed 46 out of a possible 49 games; an attendance of 94% - one of those was a holiday and the other two injury related.

I managed to set the highest consecutive appearance streak at 55, breaking the previous record by 18 games.

Gym

Last year I was disappointed by only managing 30 visits to the gym and set myself a target of 40+ for 2023. I only managed 26 - well below my target. I'd underestimated the amount of additional time a second child would absorb and then periods of either poorly children or my own illness of injuries took their toll.

I also, sadly, ended my time at the terrific Intent 91 gym due to the rising costs and my lack of regular attendance. However, I hope to join another local gym and try to ensure a regular habit. I'd like to be able to go every single week, however, being realistic, if I can beat 2023's total of 26 I'll be happy.

TV & movies

TV

2022 was an excellent year for me TV show wise but I think 2023 has surpassed it - really, any year with such an exceptional TV adaptation of The Last of Us would also do well. The variety was top-notch this year, from animations, to supes, to unique comedies and enjoyable action romps. My highlights are:

• The Last of Us: Season 1
• Invincible: Seasons 2
• Reacher: Season 1
• Happy Valley: Seasons 3
• Colin from Accounts: Season 1
• Gen V: Season 1
• The Diplomat: Season 1
• Loki: Season 2
• Ahsoka: Season 1

Movies

Cinema trips were even lower than year (but not at all a surprise with a new baby in town), down to 5 (from 7). The stand-out highlight was Oppenheimer - an absolute all-timer.

Other movie highlights watched this year include:

• Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
• The Super Mario Bros. Movie

Videogames

My videogame playing definitely goes through peaks and throughs now with different time priorities. I only spent significant time with a handful of games this year, of which, my highlights are:

• Marvel's Spider-Man 2
• Star Wars: Jedi Survivor

Podcasts

For the longest time I've been an avoid podcast listener with Pocketcasts my podcasts app of choice. Over the past twelve month I spent 15 days and 6 hours listening to podcast which was down 30% from 2022. The most of that being sports based at 12 days 18 hours - also down 30% from last year

The reduction in hours will be due to two factors: the lack of a FIFA World Cup (which had daily podcasts to listen to), and a substantial increase in audiobooks.

Books

Last year saw a re-ignition of book consumption with 5 audiobooks since September. Well, this year I smashed that out of the park with 9 this yeah (an 80% increase). It's a level I hope to maintain in the coming years as well. My highlights are:

• Agencynomics by Spencer Gallagher and Peter Hoole
• The Diary of a CEO: The 33 Laws of Business and Life by Steven Bartlett
• Mythos by Stephen Fry
• The Infinite Game by Simon Sinek

Music

All of my "chosen" music is streamed through Spotify (I have no way to track my radio listening habits), and thankfully Spotify do all the heavy lifting with their yearly "Wrapped" service. My top listened artists are identical to last year, probably confirming they're my favourite artists at the moment. However, minutes listened was up over 90% compare to 2022.

Top artists

• Coheed and Cambria
• Enter Shikari
• Bo Burnham

Amount listened

• 36,654 minutes
• 611 hours
• ~25 days

Closing thoughts

This year has ended on a challenging note, but it's had some wonderful moments as well.