"I'm not going to speculate. I hope things get better ... but I have no idea what 2020 holds. I'm almost afraid to guess."
Wow. Just... Wow. Sometimes I do think I can predict the future. Thinking Will Arnett would make a good Batman? BAM! LEGO Batman movie. Idly speculating about why no one comments on the fact that Batman and Superman's mothers are both named Martha, the day before BvS premiered? Well, to quote Maggie Mae Fish, "Save Martha!" Telling someone in a years-old comment thread that I found The Dark Knight Rises disappointing because Batman's starting point is akin to "Luke returning to the farm after defeating the Empire?" That... nothing like that actually happened. Canonically, Luke restarted the Jedi Order, married, had a son, and forged a dynasty of Jedi Masters that lasted for at least a hundred years ABY. But I digress...
Anyway, year in review...
Let's pick up a few days after last year's post. It's leap day, we're taking the dogs on a walk and Brinley, our biggun, falls into a flooded creek. Probably the worst thing that could probably happen to her.
Later that night she was hit by a truck.
Relax, she's fine; dislocated a hip, required surgery, but she's back to normal now. Still, hell of a way to start the year (I start in February for arbitrary reasons).
Then, early March, Felicity's mom passes away. We knew it was coming, had known for a while, but it still hurt, especially since Felicity had just lost her dad. She's doing better now, but it was still a blow. Next up on the timeline...
Well, you know. The world ended.
Yeah. You know how it went. We managed to keep our jobs and stay healthy, but... well, 2020. You know.
Round about May Felicity and I got married. Hooray! But even that wasn't without its troubles. Charlie, a shi-huahua mix we inherited from Felicity's mom, shit in his cage overnight. Emergency clean. Hooray! Then Brinley got out and went missing for a while. Got her in and in her cage. Hooray! Then Spuds tracks dirt on the bed. Hooray! Finally, at last, it's wedding time; the ceremony is in our back yard, with a selection of close friends and family (this is still COVID time after all). My sister is bringing out the dogs just before Felicity is scheduled to walk the aisle, and we notice Brinley's covered in blood. Upon closer inspection we find several deep gashes on her chest that we still have no idea how she got or how we didn't notice them earlier. Current speculation is that she ran through some barbed wire while loose. Anyway, we hide her inside, have a hurried wedding, and then it's off to spend the honeymoon at the emergency vet. Hooray!
From there, things are pretty quiet. I got hired on as a location sound mixer for a webseries pilot; it was supposed to shoot in December but was pushed back to March. I shot a quarantine-themed short film that I'm still fiddling with (should be out soon) and, despite lofty promises in the last episode of more content in the coming year, Toys on the Inside is on hiatus. Why? That brings me to the other thing I usually talk about in these posts...
My weight.
Toys on the Inside lost a couple months of production time to... well, most everything above, and by the time I could possibly get back to it, I had started to lose weight. Like, a lot. I've finally done it you guys, I finally cracked the code. The secret to weight loss is - get ready - diet and exercise.
Oh.
As of today I've dipped below 220, and since there's only forty more pounds to go until goal weight, I figured I'd pull off a dramatic reveal for Salman. Same reason there's no pictures here: Raising the stakes, putting in more drama. You look at me now and you're like, "Oh, sure, he's lost some weight." But at the end of the day, I'm still a big guy. Think Seth Rogen instead of Jorge Garcia. I'm holding out for an Ethan Suplee reaction. Look for new episodes late Spring, early Summer.
And with that, I sign off. I won't wait a year before posting again; I've got transformation photos to post, little bits of Toys on the Inside to post as they come out, that short film I mentioned. And what do I have to look forward to in 2021? Again, I'm loathe to speculate, but I know I'll be healthier for sure.
