More thoughts too short for big posts.
1) I'm really suffering a bit of a writing motivation crisis right now. My goal with this blog is to do an average of one post a day (i.e. by the end of May, there will be at least 31 May posts, 30 in June, etc). I'm a bit behind that goal for May right now, and some days it's really hard to decide what, if anything, to write.
I also owe Curled Up at least one book review, and I'm close to finishing another book so that will be too. I've got a stack of books I've received from Curled Up to read as well.
I just sit in front of the screen, with either the Word document open for a review or the Blog open, and nothing comes to me.
It's just frustrating sometimes. Maybe it's just feeling a bit overloaded at work along with everything else. And I'm over-tired, I think.
Whatever it is, I'll work through it. There are much worse things that could be wrong, aren't there?
2) I use Feedburner for this blog and it's a really handy way to propagate the RSS feed and get it out there. It also can give you a good idea of how many people are subscribing to and reading your blog through blog readers rather than coming to the site itself. That number you see in the box on the right side of this page is today's subscriber numbers.
But I'm still not entirely clear how it works. Is it a daily number, or is a daily *average*? Because it jumps around a lot. I've been averaging between 55 and 68 subscribers over the last couple of weeks (once even hitting 70!).
So it really hits hard when that number drops to 20 or 30 on a day, like it did today. That's happened twice now in the lasts couple weeks. Last time, the next day was back in the 60s, so I have no idea what happened. Part of me is afraid that some of the "subscribers" are automatic bots and that my readership truly is in the 20s.
Tomorrow it will probably pop back up again.
I hope.
3) One thing I am definitely loving, though, is the Xbox Live "Deal of the Week." This is where you can download an Xbox Live Arcade game, or some downloadable content (DLC) for a regular game, for 50% off.
This week's deal is The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition, the old LucasArts adventure game that has been remastered for today's consoles. Ryan McCaffrey, from the Official Xbox Magazine, has been singing this series' praises on the OXM podcast, so to see this one for only 400 Microsoft Points (that's $5 for those of you who don't know), I had to pick it up. So far, it's quite enjoyable.
This "Deal of the Week" is also what inspired me to purchase Zombie Apocalypse as well as a bit of DLC for Borderlands. I'm anxiously awaiting next week's Deal, though I realize it is still costing me money.
But boy, is it worth it!
If you're an Xbox 360 gamer, you'll see these deals announced on your dashboard. A lot of the stuff is really worth picking up.
Showing posts with label Potpourri. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Potpourri. Show all posts
May 13, 2010
Potpourri (Part 3) - Video Games & Other Stuff
Subjects: Talk Radar, Podcasts, Assassin's Creed 2, Video Games, New blog
Thoughts too short to be blog posts.
1) I really wish I could do a podcast and have as much fun as those guys on Talk Radar do. This is almost the definitive video game podcast from some of the contributors to Games Radar, vulgar as hell but hilarious as well. I'm currently listening to their 6-hour (!) Episode 100 extravaganza, and it's some of the funniest shit I've heard in some time. Of course, it helps if you like video games. If you don't, then stay far away, as this podcast revels in its video game geekiness.
We're currently trying to set up a podcast at work, but there's no way we can be anything like Talk Radar. Very crude, in your face, lots of foul language. Yeah, that wouldn't go over well in a university podcast, unless that podcast was done by students or something.
So I think that means they should use me as a guest some time so that I can let loose with the best of them. I do imagine myself doing that sometimes, almost to the point where I think about doing a podcast of my own (i.e. not for work) where I don't have to watch (too much) what I say. But who am I kidding.
Who would listen?
2) Which brings me to the work podcast. We've done the proposal to our immediate boss and we're just finalizing the formal proposal to Associate Dean with all of the details. It's looking promising, so of course I'm getting nervous again. How are we going to keep this interesting, relevant to our programs, *and* entertaining? Why would somebody subscribe to it?
Still, mixed in with that nervousness is excitement that it might actually happen. Stay tuned.
3) One thing I left out of my Assassin's Creed 2 review that I just wanted to say.
You know those glyphs I mention? The 20 glyphs that, when you find them and solve their puzzles, will give you a video memory from your predecessor? Yeah, those glyphs. Many of them are fucking impossible to solve. After tearing my hair out to the point where I was going to go bald, I just used the Games Radar Glyph Guide for them if I couldn't solve them fairly quickly. It saved me lots of headaches.
Yes, I'm a wuss. Get over it.
4) Just was looking at my Xbox Live Gamercard on MyGamercard.net (look, it's over there on the right of this blog!) and see that I've got 52 games on there. If you click on that link (or on the card itself over there in the column...c'mon, you know you want to), you can see every game I've played on Xbox Live in the last 3 years.
Everything from Borderlands all the way to Condemned back in 2007.
Do I have a life?
Don't answer that.
5) Blog recommendation
I've been getting a lot of spammers on my Blog Catalog list, people who leave me nice, flowery comments that are clearly just doing so to get me to follow them. Most of the time their blogs aren't even something I would be close to being interested in.
However, one blogger I found (I think I found her, but she may have found me) that has a great blog is the creator of "Musings From the Over-Caffeinated Mom." She's on a 365-day odyssey to do a post a day, with a daily theme (Weird & Wacky Wednesday, Tech Tuesday, and my favourite, Moron Monday). She's a great blogger, has decent taste in TV shows (i.e. I actually watch some of the stuff she does) and makes for an all around interesting read. It's always fun.
Check her out!
Well, I mean check her blog out...
Um, yeah, anyway.
So that's today's Potpourri! Hope you enjoy, and that it doesn't stink up the place. It really does work as air freshener but sometimes it's just too damned strong.
Thoughts too short to be blog posts.
1) I really wish I could do a podcast and have as much fun as those guys on Talk Radar do. This is almost the definitive video game podcast from some of the contributors to Games Radar, vulgar as hell but hilarious as well. I'm currently listening to their 6-hour (!) Episode 100 extravaganza, and it's some of the funniest shit I've heard in some time. Of course, it helps if you like video games. If you don't, then stay far away, as this podcast revels in its video game geekiness.
We're currently trying to set up a podcast at work, but there's no way we can be anything like Talk Radar. Very crude, in your face, lots of foul language. Yeah, that wouldn't go over well in a university podcast, unless that podcast was done by students or something.
So I think that means they should use me as a guest some time so that I can let loose with the best of them. I do imagine myself doing that sometimes, almost to the point where I think about doing a podcast of my own (i.e. not for work) where I don't have to watch (too much) what I say. But who am I kidding.
Who would listen?
2) Which brings me to the work podcast. We've done the proposal to our immediate boss and we're just finalizing the formal proposal to Associate Dean with all of the details. It's looking promising, so of course I'm getting nervous again. How are we going to keep this interesting, relevant to our programs, *and* entertaining? Why would somebody subscribe to it?
Still, mixed in with that nervousness is excitement that it might actually happen. Stay tuned.
3) One thing I left out of my Assassin's Creed 2 review that I just wanted to say.
You know those glyphs I mention? The 20 glyphs that, when you find them and solve their puzzles, will give you a video memory from your predecessor? Yeah, those glyphs. Many of them are fucking impossible to solve. After tearing my hair out to the point where I was going to go bald, I just used the Games Radar Glyph Guide for them if I couldn't solve them fairly quickly. It saved me lots of headaches.
Yes, I'm a wuss. Get over it.
4) Just was looking at my Xbox Live Gamercard on MyGamercard.net (look, it's over there on the right of this blog!) and see that I've got 52 games on there. If you click on that link (or on the card itself over there in the column...c'mon, you know you want to), you can see every game I've played on Xbox Live in the last 3 years.
Everything from Borderlands all the way to Condemned back in 2007.
Do I have a life?
Don't answer that.
5) Blog recommendation
I've been getting a lot of spammers on my Blog Catalog list, people who leave me nice, flowery comments that are clearly just doing so to get me to follow them. Most of the time their blogs aren't even something I would be close to being interested in.
However, one blogger I found (I think I found her, but she may have found me) that has a great blog is the creator of "Musings From the Over-Caffeinated Mom." She's on a 365-day odyssey to do a post a day, with a daily theme (Weird & Wacky Wednesday, Tech Tuesday, and my favourite, Moron Monday). She's a great blogger, has decent taste in TV shows (i.e. I actually watch some of the stuff she does) and makes for an all around interesting read. It's always fun.
Check her out!
Well, I mean check her blog out...
Um, yeah, anyway.
So that's today's Potpourri! Hope you enjoy, and that it doesn't stink up the place. It really does work as air freshener but sometimes it's just too damned strong.
April 8, 2010
Potpourri (Part 2)
Subjects: iPhone blog reader, Google taking over world, Farmville
Here's the second of possibly many installments of something I like to call "Potpourri," or "stuff too short to become blog posts." You may get some of these on days where I have a few coherent thoughts about random things, but nothing that really seems to call for a big blog post.
Here's the second of possibly many installments of something I like to call "Potpourri," or "stuff too short to become blog posts." You may get some of these on days where I have a few coherent thoughts about random things, but nothing that really seems to call for a big blog post.
March 24, 2010
Potpourri (Part 1)
Subjects: V- the television series; Doctor Who; Coarseness of Internet Communication
Here's the first of possibly many installments of something I like to call "Potpourri," or "stuff too short to become blog posts." You may get some of these on days where I have a few coherent thoughts about random things, but nothing that really seems to call for a big blog post.
The way things are going, these may become more common than they should be. But who knows?
Here's the first of possibly many installments of something I like to call "Potpourri," or "stuff too short to become blog posts." You may get some of these on days where I have a few coherent thoughts about random things, but nothing that really seems to call for a big blog post.
The way things are going, these may become more common than they should be. But who knows?
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