Tag: new start

2000: Two Thousand

0001_001Hello! How are you? I’m fine. I hit a milestone today; two thousand consecutive daily posts on this blog. Back when I started doing this, I probably wouldn’t have believed that I’d make it this far (or, indeed, that I’d keep count correctly — which I’m still not entirely convinced I have, but I’ll take it) but, well, here we are.

I say “we”; I have a feeling that readers have come and gone over the years as I’ve written about different things, different events have occurred in my life and different interests have come and gone. There’s only one thing that’s been consistent about this blog over the last 2,000 days (and, indeed, before that, when I posted rather more irregularly) and that’s that it isn’t really about anything.

Well, that’s not quite true, I guess. It’s about me, as dreadfully vain as that sounds. But, well, that’s what it is.

I resolved shortly after starting the original #oneaday project — the reason I’m doing this whole “daily posting” thing at all — to use this blog as a place where I could always be open, frank and honest, even if I sometimes found it difficult to do so in person. As longtime readers will, of course, know, I struggle somewhat with social anxiety issues, and at times I find it challenging to talk about “difficult” subjects. (The exact meaning of “difficult” varies somewhat from day to day, but rest assured most of them probably aren’t what a “normal” person would really describe as in any way challenging to talk about.)

One thing I discovered through the original #oneaday project, though, was that writing is a good outlet. A fantastic outlet, in fact. It allows me to say things that I can’t find the out-loud words for. It allows me to express opinions that I’m not sure how to get across in person. It allows me to share things about myself that might otherwise be embarrassing or difficult to share with other people face-to-face. And it allows other people to get to know me a bit better.

One thing is very much for certain; it’s helped enormously. Having a reliable, predictable means of expressing myself on a daily basis is something that I’ve found to be of immeasurable value over the course of the last 2,000 days, and while the same therapeutic effect could probably be achieved by writing in a private journal — and that way no-one has to suffer through my inane ramblings except Future Pete any time he decides to flip back through the pages and decide whether or not Past Pete’s inane ramblings are embarrassing enough to warrant throwing the entire book out — there’s a little part of me that enjoys the knowledge that other people are reading the things I write. Whether or not they find them helpful or even entertaining is anyone’s guess, but, well, as the old #oneaday mantra goes, this blog isn’t “for” anyone except myself; the sole purpose of this blog is to get me writing every day.

And I’ve done that. For two thousand days. In terms of world culture my contribution is questionable at best, but I’m pleased with what I’ve achieved, anyway.

So looking to the future, then. Regular readers will doubtless have noticed that I’ve redesigned this place. I did so when I reached 1,000 posts and always intended to when I reached 2,000, too. This time around it’s a more drastic redesign, with a new theme, new art style and all sorts of other goodness. The reason I did this was simply because I wanted to, frankly, but I also feel making use of some manga/anime-inspired artwork (courtesy of clunky but fun app ComiPo!, which I haven’t used that much up until now) reflects my personality and interests as it exists in 2015. I don’t know how ambitious I’ll get with the artwork or how often I’ll put it in there — I enjoyed doing my old stickman comics and feel they’re very “me”, but they were surprisingly time-consuming and eventually became a bit of a chore — but it’ll show up every so often, at least. Plus, it’s an opportunity for my MoeGamer mascots Midori (redhead; I know, I know, she should probably have green hair) and Yumi (grumpy) to put in an appearance on a somewhat more regular basis than they have the opportunity to over on my irregularly-updated Japanese gaming-centric site.

Anyway. To those of you who have been reading since day one, I appreciate your support. To those of you who have been reading for a while, I appreciate your support, too. In fact, anyone who takes the time out of their day — however infrequently — to read the drivel I push out, usually when I’m about to go to bed: I appreciate your support very much indeed.

Here’s to another two thousand days… maybe.

 

Changing Course

Hello everyone and thanks for stopping by, as always!

In an effort to write more on this site, I’ve decided to change tack a little from past entries. This blog started as a purely personal blog and gradually morphed into mostly games-related stuff. And fair enough, it’s a principal hobby of mine. But I have all these unused categories going free at the top of the page so I thought I’d branch out and try to write a bit more on some other topics to give all of you lovely readers the opportunity to get to know me a bit better in some other areas. Plus, you never know, I might even pick up some more readers along the way – this was clearly demonstrated a while back when I reviewed Haunted Stereo live at the Hobbit (cue Pingback on myself… ’cause no-one else ever links to me :)) and I met a whole bunch of fine new folks as a result.

So from this week forwards, this blog will be… a blog, as opposed to a games blog. You’ll still find games writing here, of course, but there are plenty of other things I’d like to talk about. My last few video games articles have also been posted over on Bitmob, so do go check me out (and comment!) over there if you like what you see. You’ll also see a couple of my articles on Good Old Games, which should be your first destination for picking up… well, good old games. Check out my articles on Rise of the Triad and Simon the Sorcerer.

Right. On to other matters.

My Dan and Charlie project that I discussed in my last post has been proceeding nicely. It’s been fun to “roleplay” these two characters and imagine the situations they have been getting into and how they interact. In practice, it has also been an interesting experiment in separating out various facets of my own personality into two separate people. Those who know me well will have already spotted this, but I also think it’s a potentially interesting way of telling a story from different perspectives. My research on the subject is admittedly limited, but does anyone know if anything similar has been done before, outside of ARGs such as Perplex City? (Perplex City is, I confess, where I got the idea from in the first place, although those characters’ stories were rather less mundane) I’d be intrigued to see how other people have approached it.

That’s it for now. Like I say, this change in approach is largely an excuse to get me writing more on a broader variety of different topics, so assuming I have a bit of self-discipline about this I’m sure I can find something interesting to say on a semi-regular basis. I hope I don’t disappoint. 🙂