If ever a year deserved to be buried six feet under…
It’s a week too late to be reminiscing about the past year…. or a month too late if you’re one of those media outlets that jumps the gun and does their year end retrospective before Santa has even come. But given the way my year ended, I was unable to to properly send out the year on New Years Eve as I always do… so I’ll set out to rectify that today and see if there was anything at all in 2019 that was worth salvaging at The Nest…
Nice pumpkin. I’m gonna eat it…
After declaring my blog to be a bit stale after 2018, I started out the new year by adding two new features to my blog. The first was a wildcard series every Wednesday called Random Image Inspiration (Which, ironically, this post is preempting. It will hopefully be back next week)… where via a few numbers from the Randomator and a super unsecret formula, I came up with an image that was supposed to inspire some kind of post. Most of these turned into flash fiction stories or mini episodes of Shelf Critter Theatre… with the occasional topical post. Some of my best RII entries in its inaugural year included karma for the teacher’s pet, crafting with the Shelf Critters, why your wife knows you were out drinking again, air ukelele, tapping the keg, and the answer to the eternal question… how many critters does it take to change a light bulb?
Sexual energy… less pollution, and more fun than a windmill.
Also new in 2019, The Nest entered the WordPress cult that does the Share Your World challenge. Using our disturbed and warped sense of humor, The Nest semi-seriously answered the SYW questions every week… to the approval of current CEO of Share Your World, Inc., Melanie. While my intent was to fill in Tuesdays with my answers… I occasionally waited until Thursday, and just whenever once the plumbing project from hell started Christmas week. I’m consistently inconsistent…
Next time you fuck up, I’m shivving your ass!!!
A couple of special series popped up in the last half of the year… the most popular of which was my attempt top create a monthly squirrel calendar out of my best sciurine photos I took during each month. Every Thursday from August until November, I posted my best pics for each month, with the winner decided by a poll of my readers. The result turned out quite well, and I had a blast seeing where I differed with my audience on the qualities of squirrel photos…
Oh boy! Look ma! I got 31 days!!!
And then there was my Shelf Critter Advent Calendar, where I gave each of my 24 most popular critters their own scene before Christmas. These guys have become the flagship characters for The Nest now, and it’s a good thing I got them in the Advent calendar and some RII shorts… because there were only 18 full length episodes of SCT in 2019. While it couldn’t live up to its best year in 2018, the Theatre still put out some quality work. If you missed them, be sure to check out the SCT news, Val the misanthrope unicorn’s thoroughly pissy debut, Mitzi’s adventures on “the moon,” and a normal day in The Nest’s mailroom…
Special delivery!
Monday Muzak continued on like clockwork, never missing a beat in ’19. The Dusty Vinyl Archive returned after 2018’s novelty song countdown ended… and eventually went on hiatus again to start my Countdown of Whatever, featuring my favorite songs that don’t fit my DVA lost hit mold. That countdown isn’t even halfway over yet, and will continue on into late April of this year…
It’s a good bet these guys won’t be in the number one spot…
And then there’s The Nest’s longest running regular feature… the Saturday Squirrel, which was once again there fifty-two times to usher in your weekend with a smile.
I’m all about hitting the beach on the weekend, dude!
What else happened on my virtual playground in 2019? Well, there was the Sixth Annual Contest of Whatever… themed around “a squirrel walks into a bar,” which as always, produced many awesome and clever entries from my readers! Melanie took home the 2019 top prize, while Juliette won the random draw. The annual tradition that is the CoW will return again around the end of the month! Get those thinking caps on!
That’ll keep everyone from stealing your ideas…
And in the odds and ends department of our 2019 retrospective… there was our look at all of the spam a person named “Gob” left on my blog, the over-commercialization of unicorns, a contest inspired by my hoarding change (Which I could really use now!), and last but certainly least… Olaf the snowman’s misadventures in a Florida Target.
He can’t even hide that he didn’t like it…
So what will 2020 bring to The Nest? Well, hopefully anything but more expensive and thoroughly annoying home repairs. I think I’ll just take that and hope that the blog stuff takes care of itself…
Maybe you could try not to kill me, too?
Evil Squirrel's Nest 
oh we hoped so much that Mitzi is a part of best of…but no pic of buster? oh wait he is not really da best of, right?
Buster expired and we buried him in the hole before we could get his photo. Our mistake…
I’d say that for you – 2019 is not hard to put behind you (bad choice of words since you had no toilet available). BUTT, the rest of the year you were at the top of your game. New features or old features – whatever comes our way we’ll be glad to see because we loyal Nesters are ready for 2020 to be the year of the NEST FEST!
Pam
Well, now that everything is unclogged, The Nest shouldn’t have any problem keeping the sewage flowing this year. And there’ll be plenty of messes for Troll to clean up…
Nice re-cap of the year – so many great topics – always something fun to read. Yay for CoW again this year!
Hope Ody is feeling better! 🙂
I need to start thinking about what I’m going to do for the Contest this year! It’s a lot closer than I realized! And Ody is feeling much better!
excellent recap!
Thanks!
Does this all mean your excavation is done? We have people coming today to assess whether or not our boiler is going to survive the winter and I’m trying to sell my doll collection to raise money for a new boiler. It never ends. There’s always something that you are sure you just replaced, but now need to be re-replaced … or in the case of the boiler, was supposed to last longer than you. Homeownership isn’t as cool and everyone tells you it is, but I suppose it beats out renting a shitty little apartment underneath someone who places hockey in his living room. I hope your new facility is so much better than the previous version that this whole thing turns out to be worth it!
The work’s been done for a week now, but I still can’t get over that picture of my kitchen I took before it got filled back in. I dread what might be coming next… there’s already one piper waiting to be paid in my kidney stone that I’ve managed to avoid getting blasted for a year now, but can’t put off much longer. Good luck with your homeowner nightmare…
2019 was some year, that’s for sure and your recap was great. Let’s hope 2020 has far more positive moments than the “6 ft. under” kinds.
Yeah… a long as i don’t have to use that hole in the kitchen myself, I guess 2020 will be a good year!
Yup, be careful not to use that hole!
Please tell me you’ve filled in that portal in your kitchen? I mean I’m sure Ody would be so glad you got that thing plugged up….the portal I mean, lol.
They filled it up last week using the cheapest Quikrete that my money could buy. I now have what feels like a sidewalk in my kitchen… but I guess it’s better than a portal to hell…
Happy New Year!
Thanks! I was definitely looking forward to a new year this time…
Where do I send the check for the unsolicited (swear!) name drops in the above post? I’m honored to have featured one way or another in the Squirrel Nest this year and am already plotting for my entry to CoW this year…. And dang you’re cute. Even with the hat… 😉
LOL! Let me set the record straight right now that I am NOT the idiot who put the condom on the wrong head! I couldn’t keep a spare condom around the Nest anyway given the way Snuggle Bear keeps mooching them…
It was a good year for your readers. Is that Ody, looking just like Kosmo.
Yes, that’s an older picture of Ody from 2012 when he was much younger and leaner. He still does that, although he looks more like a beached whale…
That is one comfy kitty. 🙂
I don’t think your retrospective is too late. It IS still a very new year. 🙂
A year is just one revolution around the sun, and it can start whenever one wishes!
Damn, you’re so organized…
Difficult to know what to say to all of this. Yet I’m delighted that you were able to put such a positive spin on the year that was. That was your point, right?
It only just dawned on me reading this that there would have to be at least 24 critters at the Nest to do the advent calendar. I hadn’t realised there were so many.
Looking forward to The Nest 2020 Edition!
I think the critters are multiplying on me. I can’t imagine how that could be happening…