This won’t be too long and, unlike my other posts, I will actively be speaking in the first person.
To say 2026 has been an….. interesting year for a variety of reasons would be an understatement. Obviously a lot of it isn’t good, with most of it tracking back to one person, but that is not what I am here to discuss.
Instead, this is about celebrating a year where I have rediscovered two loves for most of my life – gaming and film.
Now both haven’t ever stopped being part of my life, but it they definitely began taking more a backseat in my life for no other reason than I just drifted away. And it wasn’t just watching a movie or playing a game, but I followed industry news and announcements less, shared my opinions less, and just generally watched and played less.
I got stuck on something of a loop following the pandemic, which I’m sure I’m not the only one to suffer, and just hadn’t been able to break that loop.
Until this year.
First, I started pushing myself to get back to the movie theater more often.
The theater going experience has always held a special place in my heart. There is no other experience quite like sitting down for a movie you’ve been excited for months or maybe even years for and watching the silver screen light up. Whether it was the next entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe or a loving tribute to Mr. Rogers, the movie theater was a place I would go and just be happy.
I have needed to remind myself of that in 2026 and for as much as the theater-going experience has changed, and not often for the better, having that feeling rush over me again has been a special one. I am excited to go to the theaters regularly again. I have a list of films lined up that I want to try and see by the end of 2026, something I hadn’t really put together in the last couple of years.
On the gaming side, it took slightly longer but that itch to play has also returned in a big way. It was, of all games, Diablo 4 to bring that itch back as dramatically as it did. The release of Diablo 4’s second expansion, Lord of Hatred, for some reason got me digging back into gaming the same way I had for film. I was paying close attention to event schedules again so I didn’t miss any big announcements, most notably the BIG first week of June the industry had with PlayStation’s State of Play, the Xbox Showcase, and Summer Games Fest. A swath of big, exciting titles for me to dig into and mark off the release date on my calendar.
It is even prompting me to look back into something I have wanted to do for years – build a proper gaming PC. I am, admittedly, still in the planning stages but have already made more progress in putting one together than I have in years.
I say all this to say it is never a bad time to discover or, in my case, rediscover passions that speak to us. It doesn’t matter how silly or trivial it may be seen by others, if it speaks to you then it speaks to you and no one can say different. Passions help make us whole, reflect who we are, where we have been, and can be the escape we need in bad times.
Minimum Wage Nerd 