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Thumbs for the Memories

Thumbs for the Memories
From gallery of W Eric Martin
I hope you'll indulge a somewhat selfish post as today I'm going to forgo my usual policy of not talking about myself to celebrate something that's taken more than a decade to achieve, something that I had not thought about until I happened to look at my profile in November 2021 and see that I was close to rolling over some digits.

Today I received my one millionth thumb on BoardGameGeek.

From gallery of W Eric Martin

Amazingly, the thumb count of the entirety of BGG reached 100 million in October 2021 — with the current tally as I write this being 101,933,746 — which means that I have received close to 1% of all thumbs given.

As you might note, this is somewhat ironic given that my account shows only 10 thumbs given (and I think that count is too high given that only five are linked), but I prefer to tip GeekGold instead of giving thumbs. I'm not sure why, but I also neither thumb tweets nor like Facebook posts. I realize the purpose of such things is to demonstrate appreciation for what's been written or shown, but somehow I just can't bring myself to do it. I'd prefer to leave a comment instead, but often I don't do that either. I'm generally a reserved person and keep my thoughts to myself...unless I'm doing my job, in which case I'm playing the role of "W. Eric Martin" and then can share a bit of myself.

Along those lines, 2021 was not a great year for me — nor for millions of other people, of course — but one thing that I did find comfort in throughout the year was this job and my ability to think about games and write about games and even occasionally play games. I love being able to do what I do, and ideally through my work I can help you discover things that you want to do. My wife often comments that I never take time off or have a "real" vacation, but I find joy and satisfaction in my work, so in a way writing about games is as relaxing as any vacation might be. (Aldie, I might still take a vacation some day!)

I'm not good at taking on long-term projects and seeing them through — a lesson I've painfully learned and re-learned — but short-term projects suit me perfectly, and this total reflects 18+ years of posts, images, videos, and more on BGG. I'm grateful that you all can demonstrate appreciation more easily than I can, and I look forward to sharing game announcements, diaries, and news — not to mention my enthusiasm about and thoughts on games — for many more years to come.

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