2023 - Catching Up

[James]

For any old faces who do stumble back across these forums, how have you been?

It has been a long time. I don’t recall the forum being online all that long when it was temporarily restored in 2020.

[Mikhail]

Wow glad to see it back!
This is a great day!

[James]

Wow glad to see it back!
This is a great day!

Hi Mikhail

Good grief I have taken forever to do this... but it feels nice to finally be doing it.

And this time around it should stay online.

I guess so long as the zombies or plague or whatever don’t finally take me.

[Kong Wen]

James, as you know, I've been around operating a little hobby niche forum of my own for the past 8 years. As an official SoSZ Old Man (and Admin), if you ever need me to give you a hand with anything on the back end, front end, or middle end, don't hesitate to let me know.

On the catching up front, over the past couple of years, I've transitioned to working from home full-time, we've added a second little Doberman to our family, and I've somehow stumbled into being the main content creator (on YouTube) for Langrisser/Warsong's mobile game. It's a pretty fun gig. (And a pretty fun game.) I like learning and making silly little videos.

Everything else is the same as it was in 2019! We've managed to stay safe and healthy here for the most part, even with a couple ill-advised bouts of travel thrown in here and there.

[Xiahou Mao]

I'm still old. Well, technically, I'm older now. But I was also old before.

[Ranbir]

I'm good. I'm Ranbir.

[Dong Zhou]

I have been good thank you

Aged a bit and my body certainly knows it! Moved house (which led to change of email) which was a positive move and settled in well, discovered this thing called twitter and reddit, did a podcast episode for askhistorians (and got the end year wrong, my brain just got stuck on the wrong year), working on a little project with Sun Fin.

I have been good but I have certainly missed this place

[Shizai]

I've been good! When I first joined I was a high school student. I now teach engineering to college kids

Other than finally being a contributing member to society, my interest in the Three Kingdoms was revived during the pandemic. I started working with a group of friends to release Arabic content on YouTube and Twitter.

[ZL181]

These two weeks were rather peaceful for me, though I admit that I was very glad to see this forum return. Now there's chaos to look towards...

[James]

James, as you know, I've been around operating a little hobby niche forum of my own for the past 8 years. As an official SoSZ Old Man (and Admin), if you ever need me to give you a hand with anything on the back end, front end, or middle end, don't hesitate to let me know.

On the catching up front, over the past couple of years, I've transitioned to working from home full-time, we've added a second little Doberman to our family, and I've somehow stumbled into being the main content creator (on YouTube) for Langrisser/Warsong's mobile game. It's a pretty fun gig. (And a pretty fun game.) I like learning and making silly little videos.

Everything else is the same as it was in 2019! We've managed to stay safe and healthy here for the most part, even with a couple ill-advised bouts of travel thrown in here and there.

Very cool to see This Old Neon still kicking! I’m having a hard time in the moment wrapping my head around the “eight years” part. Not hard at all to realize if I spend a moment thinking about it, but in my brain it doesn’t feel like that long ago when you first launched the project. It seems like that’s how pretty much all timelines work for me...

Thank you very much for the offer. I hardly know where to start! It seems like the worst of what I need to get done is taking some really old code and dragging it, kicking and screaming, into the modern era. With duct tape and nails. I do have a couple possible ideas I can chat with you about once some dust settles. The chat feature at This Old Neon seems really nice. How has that worked out?

I’ve now got your Final Fantasy IV Pixel Remaster - ONE COMMAND CHALLENGE running in the background. The nostalgia as soon as that music kicks in.

That sounds fantastic. Your work situation. I’m still working from home, too. Still graphics, web design, development, database stuff. Still a hobby that definitely turned into a job once I made it a job, so a partial win on that front. I remember seeing your post about the new addition to your family. We still have good ol’ Tesla. She’s now about nine years old, which also seems so strange. She’s in lovely health.

I kept myself sane through the pandemic with photography and started enjoying astrophotography, which has been an excellent challenge, and another excuse to enjoy time outdoors and more fresh air. “Sane…” well, that’s a little relative.