2026 January 2: Have kids and grandson visiting, but aren't up to much other than that. The cats hate the intrusion.
When they were out yesterday afternoon, I went for a longish walk, contemplating what to do in the next weeks. Listened to the last 30 minutes of my own music and I really don't mind it. All very much the same, and not sure I should, or need to change that a bit. I only have to please myself and if I continue to have fun doing just what I am doing, I don't need to change anything at all.
This morning I finalized my 2025 expenses spreadsheet I use for tracking my finances and printed it out and put in a file I have for these.
I put up my newly printed Renwa 8 / 2026 Calendar pages and it is very open at the moment. The only actual important things in the next 3 months are a yearly Tax document submission, wife's birthday and a Dental appointment.
The ASTERISM - Kick Down the Wall, their new CD, and Urasawa Naoki's manga ASADORA #9 in English will be released in January and have now penciled those in.
More will come up I am sure. They always do.
One thing about being retired is that it is always like the time between Christmas and New Year for many people, when you forget what day it is. So that I do know what day it is, I mark off in green the days and see what important stuff is on for today when I get up in the morning. I have a few codes I use for things like that and mark them on the calendar too.
CorelDraw has a Calendar generating script and I have been using that and making my own and printing it (usually in B/W) for probably the last 10 years. I used to have when I had to pay bills marked on it, but now it is what events I will attend and what creative things I have done, and birthdays etc. 2 years ago I bought a calendar that was almost this format and used it for awhile, but I always find making my own means I can put something in for many months in advance, that you can't actually buy a calendar for yet.
I am not expecting to get any illustration enquiries any more, but we will see. The rise of AI and the way Google search changed during 2025 with AI summaries completely killed illustration enquires from our website.
Most accesses have been by AI BOT SCRAPPERS using the content for training AI systems. Maybe I should be flattered, but see it as the continuing enshittification of the Internet, and nothing I can do anything about.
I may now be truly retied.
Our daughter may visit us for a few weeks end of March or April. A few other family things may happen. Wife is going on a 10 day trip in May.
I don't have any big goals anymore, other than stay healthy and active again this year. I expect to continue to make cartoons, comics and bits of music. I did around 60 pieces of music last year, and put most of them on my Bandcamp page. I hope to continue to get out and visit a local cafe regularly and listen to music there. They may release some great movie I don't even know about yet, that I will have to see.
I haven't sculpted anything for 3~4 years now, and maybe the urge to do that will return. Maybe not. Or something else will come up that I will just have to have a go at.
What will be will be.
We can be found at ArtAndTechnology KYOTO JAPAN
