A Ten Year-Long Finish Line

Tags

blog, blogging, husband things, vlog, vlogging, youtube, youtube blog, yt

At the time of this writing, tomorrow will mark the end of my husband’s 10 year-long vlogging journey. He has aimed a camera at himself every day for ten years straight, marking his thoughts in a video diary without fail. No matter how mundane, no matter how trivial, and with almost no filter and entirely no script.

And I have to admit, I’m relieved.

The 40 Year-Old Content Creation Virgin

Tags

age, content creation, content creator, creative, creativity, gaming, holy shit i'm doing this, online gaming, random thoughts, stream, streaming, twitch, twitch stream

As I write this blog post I’m at the cusp of another livestream for Massively Overpowered. I promise that’s not a plug for the channel or for my stream (though perhaps it should be), but it’s basically a marker in the sand of where I’m at right now in my professional career as a writer for the site.

Let me provide a little context: MJ, the site’s primary livestreamer, suffered a pretty spectacular lightning strike at her house. Mercifully everyone is fine, but she’s been mostly knocked out of streaming, which she used to do every day. By comparison, I did streams for the site barely once a month, if that much, mostly because I wasn’t confident in a lot of things about my ability to be a streamer or a content creator. However, since the weather incident, I’ve done my part to keep the MOP Twitch channel alive by doing weekly streams every Sunday and Wednesday. And I’m having a lot of fun dong it.

All this despite the fact that I’m 40 years old. Which, at least in the grander scheme of Twitch things, is ancient.

The Silent Support of Awful, Awful People

Tags

games, games industry, gaming, gaming community, hogwarts legacy, industry, red dead redemption 2, social, society

Take Two Interactive’s boss bragged about working his devs to the bone in order for Red Dead Redemption 2 to make it to market. Ubisoft has been demonstrably shown to keep miserably sexist and racist people in its upper management. J.K. Rowling has pulled off her mask to unveil a transphobic goblin beneath.

In spite of all this, I absolutely bought RDR2 day one, am interested in Riders Republic, and am at least curious about Hogwarts Legacy. All of which come with the extraordinarily complex baggage that feeling this way means I stand alongside vile humans and their even more vile opinions and behaviors.

Recharging Complete

This will likely be a bit of a short post, but I’ve had a few thoughts rumbling about in my head and wanted to get them on the digital page while they were germinating. It’s about my creative side and how I recognize I’ve neglected it.

I started this blog as a way to foster that part of myself and it sort of took on a little life of its own, becoming a form of personal op-ed space as well as an exercise room for my own attempts at writing professionally. And for a while, I actually kind of felt like I resented that. But some introspection and the tail end of the Blaugust Initiative pretty much rewired me a bit, transforming my annoyance into acceptance.

On Jacksonville

Tags

community, competition, esport, esports, gaming, jacksonville, video games, video gaming

As I write this, it’s a little after 4am locally here. Blame the humidity or my own rumbling head for the poor timing on this post, then, but I had to get a few things off of my chest regarding the events at Jacksonville, Florida.

I love esports. I’m not one of the diehard sorts who roots for a specific org and there are some game genres that hold my interest more than others, but the overall field of esports from a spectator’s point of view is one of my favorite new things that has come out of the modern age of gaming. So to see something so horrible as a shooting come out of this new pastime has struck me more deeply than I thought it would.

Blaugust Reborn and Parsing Being a “Content Creator”

Tags

blaugust, blaugust 2018, blaugust reborn, blog, blogger, blogging, content creation, content creator, creative writing, writer, writing

I love writing. Even if many times I don’t feel I’m very good at it and even more times feel like I shouldn’t be even in the periphery of professionals, I enjoy it all the same. A sort of tortured artist, except without really knowing torture.

That said, you’d be forgiven for thinking I don’t like writing considering how infrequently I post here. So, yes, I’m re-entering Blaugust in its rebirth as a personal challenge to know if I really want to be a content creator. But what does that mean, honestly?

And how much of my desire to do this to myself was born from enjoying this very colorful logo?

Being a Shared Experience

Tags

blog, social media, streamer, streaming, twitch, vlog

I’ve been watching a lot of Twitch lately.

It’s not really something that’s worth blogging about on its own, of course. I could perhaps fashion a listicle about what sorts of channels I really enjoy, but this being a personal blog I’m going to talk about something that’s come up to my mind literally just moments ago. About streaming. About being a personality. About the want to be entertaining and engaging versus that little voice that hums a mantra of self-destructive doubt.

This is, essentially, going to sound like a damn inspirational Pinterest board.

The Value of a Schedule

Tags

first-world problem, free time, gaming, how to, mmos, schedule, time management, writing

My life is dominated by a general lack of time, as is the case with many humans. Working at a 3 to midnight leaves me bare little time for lots of leisure.

Also, sleeping is super nice.

Combined that with the mass of gaming choices and you could see the problem I’m having…first-world though it may be. So I figured setting up a schedule would be helpful. Here’s how my thought processes went.

NBI 2016 – Spring Break

Tags

art, blog, break, burnout, content, creation, nbi, nbi2016, newbie blogging initiative, pause

Like some lazy kaiju, I rise from the waters to strike!

“GIVE ME FROSTED MINI-WHEEEEATS!”

Gypsy Syl had touched on this in her own blog a while ago, but in my case it’s relevant to my rather long spans of silence here. I’ve taken a sort-of spring break, and I found it supremely healthy…which made me think that this would be good to talk about for the Newbie Blogger Initiative.

I’m Sorry, Ladies

Tags

apology, gamer, ladies, shortform bullshit, sorry, women, women in gaming

As a man and a gamer, I feel like the women who love to game are owed an apology. And while I’m hardly the authority on what manliness is, I feel like I should at least get this out there because…well, because I think it needs to be heard, frankly.

So. Ladies. I’m sorry for what’s been going on in gaming of recent. You all doing okay, though? ‘Course you are. You’ve put up with dumber shit I wager.