Brief Look Backward

Viewing stats led me to look back at some of the older posts on this blog (circa 2005) recently. I feel a little embarrassed for myself with some of them; I come across whiny and was constantly making excuses for not posting while still never having anything to say. (I still struggle with that last part a little.)

I’m occasionally tempted to go back and delete those posts, but that sort of self censorship would be a mistake, I think. That is who I was; this is who I am. I have to live with it. Plus it’s a reminder that I am getting better at it. A little.

One of the worst decisions I ever made was to delete a website. I was a teenager; it was a Pokemon fansite I’d been running for a few years. I’d written walkthroughs and guides, hosted other people’s work, and had active message boards. One day I decided I’d lost interest in Pokemon, and deleted it. Permanently. I will always regret that.

Twenty Twelve

Twenty-twelve will probably be looked back on as a very significant year for me. It’s a year of firsts, and of discovering things I hadn’t found before (but should have).

This year, I:

1. Travelled abroad for the first time since my mid-teens. I went to Toronto – my first time crossing the Atlantic – did some sightseeing, went to Niagara Falls and -
2. Met up with friends from the internet in real life for the first time. A few thousand miles from home I met with a couple of guildmates from World of Warcraft; it was nice getting to know them face to face.
3. Also while in Toronto, on a bored evening, I joined Twitter. Several years late to the party, I’m now totally obsessed with reading my feed. It’s a very interesting way to see all these little bits and pieces from interesting people, share links and content, and occasionally some big conversation will start up that makes you think.
4. I travelled up to Edinburgh for a couple of days for the Fringe Festival, saw a few good comedy acts and An Evening With Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer. I just wish I’d planned things better to get more seen.
5. Spent a weekend in Krakow with my parents and some others. Didn’t do a lot, just saw a few parts of the city. On the last day we went to Auschwitz-Birkenau, which was interesting – and much bigger than I had expected. The kind of thing you don’t forget seeing.
6. I started little a forum-based role-playing game over on the Kevin’s Watch message boards. It’s my first time doing something like this, and I’m still getting the hang of it; unfortunately it’s been sorely neglected since I had the completion date on my house confirmed. Speaking of which…
7. 2012 is the year I bought my first home. In November I completed the purchase on a little two bedroom flat, which I’ve spent the last month decorating and partly furnishing. I’m a little disappointed it is taking so long to feel like it’s ready, but I expect to be moving in about a week from now. It’s almost enough to make me feel like an adult. Almost.

So, with 2013 a new stage in my life begins – I move out of my parents and into my own place. I’m also starting a book club on Kevin’s Watch in January, restarting my Book-a-Week posts here on the blog, and getting back on track as a GM over on my game.

Here’s hoping for even more new things and firsts in the year to come.

Normal service will resume…

Well, obviously things have been quiet around here lately. At the minute I’m spending a good portion of my spare time working on getting my new flat all prepared to move in – lots of scraping, filling, painting, cleaning, and furniture shopping.

I expect to be moved in by christmas week at the latest. Hopefully once that’s done I’ll be able to get back on track with my reading and writing on here.

I did well for a while here with the regular updates; I want that to continue.

No More Amazon Links

I’ve been an Amazon Associate for as long as I’ve kept a blog, but not really out of any desire to get money out of it. In over ten years not a single person has clicked on an associates link of mine – I just kept doing partly out of habit.

I’ve being going off Amazon a little lately, and of course there are better ways to get your books, so I’ve decided to stop linking there.

For now I think I’ll link to Librarything pages instead.

Housekeeping

Changed the theme here, not sure how much I like it yet. Almost tempting to pay cash for the ability to tweak things a little. And I need a better header image.

I’m having a bit of a clean up not just of the site, but of some of my life in general. I’ve been spending too much time consuming TV and games lately, and need to manage my time. I’ll try to find more things to write about.

Bits

- Sometimes you see something and just wish you had a pen to hand:

- Another batch of books joining the ever-growing to-read pile:

Nick Mamatas’ new novel Sensation, along with his guide for writers Starve Better; Lauren Beukes’ Zoo City, being a recent novel I’ve heard a lot of talk about; and Angela Carter’s The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman.

I decided I wanted to read the latter years ago after hearing about it from one of Jeff VanderMeer‘s posts about must-read works (he seemed to go through a period where he cranked out quite a number of (sometimes very long) lists of genre works, and I can honestly say no recommendation I’ve followed from him has ever let me down).

- Apparently this WordPress theme doesn’t have the ability to centre images; on top of it not letting me leave double line breaks, it’s left this post looking a little crowded.

Maintenance

Noticed a mistake on the links over on the right, which hadn’t been updated in quite a long time, so I took the opportunity to correct it and to add a bunch more of the blogs I’m keeping up with these days.

Coming up, I intend to post up my thoughts on Elizabeth Bear’s Jenny Casey books, of which I’ve read two out of three, but it’s taking me a while to organise my thoughts. In short: very good.
More eventually.