Folks, this has been a year.

Let me just say this first - thank you. From the bottom of my battered and bruised heart, thank you. When I went through diastolic heart failure in June, my brother @upperdecker made a post in the forums to ask for thoughts and prayers. At the time, I was surly and downright angry from days spent in a brutally uncomfortable hospital bed waiting for any sort of person with an MD behind their name to come in and talk to me - at all. I was not the kindest to my family or friends then, which if you know me is unfortunately par for the course. But after a while I finally recovered enough to realize the ocean of kindness and love surrounding me, both personally and online, and I'm reminded of it as being the single greatest highlight of my 2018. "No man is a failure who has friends" is about damn right. I'm in the process of rereading that whole thread, and it's got me tearing up a bit.

The heart problems weren't even the worst part of my 2018. Breaking my pelvis or pissing rocks - the latter at the same time as my heart attack - weren't even the worst parts. The hardest part was losing my last remaining grandparent. Her mind had been going for a while now, and in that regard, I guess it's good she didn't need to suffer anymore, but in my honest opinion? Fuck that. She was my grandma, the woman I turned to when I needed to get away from my house for a night, who I road tripped with, whose mashed potatoes and crock-cooked beans were the freaking best. Yeah, seeing her lose her mind sucked, especially since it fell to my mom to take care of her, but you know what sucks more? The giant gaping hole where she used to be.

Fuck you, Death. Fuck you and the horse you rode in on.

With all that, I don't know. Games were played, I suppose. Some were great. Some were good. Some were bad. You can get better opinions elsewhere on all of them. I just don't have the energy to write up a big wrap-up on all of it. I'll put up a personal GOTY list and talk about the ups and down of each game, but basically it's been a year of focusing on my personal life and my work. Speaking of, I wrapped up a seven book supernatural thriller series this year, shot way the hell over a million words published, and had a couple other milestones that mean nothing to absolutely anyone but me. Should have a new book out in late January or early February, which is cool. Looking forward to a year of writing (and reading) pulpy genre fiction. It's going well. Reviews have been positive, page counts are up on Kindle Unlimited, and I even occasionally make a sale. As a way to try and get back on my feet financially (I'm legally blind and living on disability, a thing I have decideed I don't want to do anymore and am working getting that sweet, sweet lettuce), it's really a fun job. I need to focus on writing stuff with a wider market appeal and just keep grinding away.

I hesitated even writing this blog because it has so very little to do with games. But despite my sometimes-irritable and blunt, overly critical nature, I love this site. I love the people here, and I don't just mean the personalities (though the crew continues to put out a bunch of fun stuff I've been enjoying). I mean, the community. I've said this before but it bears repeating each and every time - Giant Bomb is one of the best communities on the Internet. I love the bloggers here. I love the regular chatters. I love bullshitting on Infinite. I love cussing out things with people on the forums. Despite me drifting a little ways away this year for a lot of reasons, I'm not going anywhere, and I hope you won't either.

Love and thanks,

Cameron Lowe, the sparkiest of buzzsaws