I can’t believe I went this long without updating. What’s weird about it this time is it’s pretty much different from the last few reasons I’ve stopped updating and isn’t truly signaling a return, as laid out below. I would like to return but that’s oddly complicated. My mentality has to change, or a new outlet is needed to adjust it.
Writer’s guilt
I have never announced this but I had been hired to become a college professor. However, since I do not have a master’s degree the school didn’t wish to process my paperwork in a timely manner, praying someone more “qualified” would show up. Since they delayed the paperwork, after telling me I got the job, I didn’t apply for other jobs. To my surprise, a new regulation was coming which made it mandatory to have either a master’s degree or a bachelor’s degree from a prestigious university. There was also a mandate that targeted online classes, not degrees but classes. This costed me a job. Since then I’ve had a range of emotions but anytime I try to write or do anything, including programming, I feel guilty. This isn’t my job. I don’t make any money off of this. I feel guilty doing something I enjoy while I am unemployed and coasting off of savings waiting for new hiring sessions to start. It’s weird. So, I stopped doing things entirely. I haven’t even been taking notes for things to write this entire time. With the exception of long rants to myself.
A change up
I’ve picked up ranting to myself using my phone’s recorder. This has helped me deal with some of the guilt, but not all of it. I have numerous 15+ minute long discussions with myself about various topics. Most of which lean towards politics, games, and day to day observations. For instance there’s one where I explained why Payday 3 will never really recover after seeing lots of videos saying “this is how Payday 3 should’ve launched” after its shitty UI update. Payday 3’s issues go way deeper than the bad UI. Well, I decided to write that up. Within about 5 minutes I was already starting my second page. Obviously I had lots to say about this. However, what’s the point? I don’t make money on this website. It’s a pure net loss. No one goes to websites anymore, outside of people from China and Russia. See, I don’t just want to write about games but also sensitive subjects. Being blocked from either Baidu or Yandex would literally kill my website. I can’t talk about sensitive subject matters. I understand ranting about Payday 3 isn’t a sensitive matter and I could put it up here, I might, but it would be best to save it for an avenue that I could monetize and potentially have an English speaking audience.
Gobble up the users for more censorship
Yes, I am debating starting a YouTube channel. I’ve an idea on how I want do it and all this jazz, but I needed space. Luckily I just moved into a bigger place so now I have the space for that. Once I finish unpacking and cleaning stuff I’m excited to start working on my new channel. This also allows me to work on things that I want without fear of my website being banned. Unfortunately this means I will have much less freedom than I would if I posted on my website, and it had readers from the rest of the world.
I’m an old man. I still like to go to websites. I hate apps and social media. I really hate when an interesting article is turned into a 15 minute long YouTube video designed to stretch itself out so they get a higher ad payout opposed to being a concise article that I can read at my own pace, as well as easily reference. Unfortunately the rest of the English speaking world has moved on from this. Everyone wants podcasts and YouTube videos which are much easier to misremember and take out of context. If someone wants to edit one of my articles to take them out of context it’s very easy to check. If someone takes a video I do out of context well now you have to watch the entire video to make sure it’s within the context they framed it as. This is extremely annoying. I also don’t like social media because as they grow in users they grow in censorship. This is the nature of the beast. The internet has sucked ass since people have stopped going to websites. It doesn’t help that Google is a pile of automated SEO bullshit these days, but we could just as easily go back to the webring days to circumvent Google’s bullshit.
I realize I am pretty much alone in this regard. People asked me to set up a forum, and I did. 3 people joined. I added every demand people wanted, and no one else joined. Instead they prefer terrible Discord servers and Twitter/Blue Sky. It’s just not for me. Lots of friends I have, who say they miss the old internet and discovering websites, refuse to browse the internet. They would all rather lament and bitch about only having 6 apps to use while the fun of discovering/sharing weird websites is gone. It’s all a distant memory, and it fucking sucks. So, I’ve decided to advance on. I’ll work on a YouTube channel that’ll produce content that is easy to forget/lose due to algorithms instead of keeping everything on an easily indexible website.
What about the new design?
I am still working on that. With this programmers/writer guilt/depression I’ve not been working on it much, but I am trying to finish it. My design doc is pretty much done and I just need to make it. I am having to learn more PHP and JavaScript, which has been fun. I was working on a website called Sealed Hunter, but I have officially canceled it. It was going to track the prices of sealed games, and other collectibles, throughout every auction. This way we could see what the real market is. I wasn’t going to hide the results behind accounts, or any of the bullshit they do to hide the numbers. All of it was going to be front and center with a searchable website. Sealed Hunter had taken up a lot of my time, and most of the work for it can’t be used elsewhere. So, why cancel it?
Well, to operate a site like that would require a lot of my fucking time. I’d have to check every auction constantly, and potentially eBay. It would be impossible for one person to do. I’d need a team to help me input that data and I had no idea how to monetize this idea. There’s also the fact that sealed markets have started to wane and there’s no longer a need for it. I might bring this up to exclusively track Wata and Heritage, but that’s still a lot of work. I just don’t have the interest in it currently.
Anything else?
I have also been working on a browser text based MMO, nothing to announce here, and a rule book for a table top RPG system I’ve been creating. I am unsure if I’ll ever release this book since I am making it for the game I am trying to run for my friends, but it’s eating up a lot of time. If I can find a way to make it donation ware I might publish it. I’ve started to practice drawing. It’s nothing impressive, just an outlet.
That pretty much sums it up. Here’s to hoping I can be more productive next year.