WOT TH’!? WUT THE WUT!?
Yes, it’s me, posting for the first time since early June. I took the entire summer off from this website. And in that time, some things have changed in my life:
My wife started working from home
Today, actually! We used to work close enough together that we would carpool to work and back (I’d drop her off and then continue on another ten minutes alone). Now? Not so much. So instead of carpooling…
I’ve started taking mass transit
I now take the train to work! This has two new consequences:
The train station is two miles from my work
So (starting today) I will be walking four miles every day, automatically. ♫ Get in shape, girl… ♫
FREE TIME UPGRADE!
I now have about 40 minutes twice a day all to myself (sans close-proximity strangers) on the train during which I can get work done!
What work am I gonna get done with all that free time, you ask (who am I kidding, nobody is reading this)?
Well, for one thing I can actually update this here website right here quite a bit more. Probably not as much as the infamous March of 2017, during which I posted an update every single danged weekday. But more frequently than once a month. Let’s set the bar at 2 to 3 posts a week.
For another thing, I can plug some headphones into my laptop and start a-writin’ some musics! That’s right, I have an as-of-yet-secret music project that I’m working on this fall. I’m very excited about it! It will be full of sick 8-bit beats!
For yet another thing, if there are any other creative projects I can do with a laptop, I can work on ’em! Like maybe write something (other than websitey stuffs)? Or maybe art something? Who is to be knowing? Not me!
Finally, I can take my Nintendo Switch with me and play some vid-goms. And then review them for this here website!
Ch-Ch-Changes
Coinciding with all of these life changed, you might have noticed (who am I kidding) that I’ve ever-so-slightly changed the header and right-hand sidebar (or if you’re looking at this on a mobile, the bottom-most section):
I’ve decided to discontinue my “Of the Month” features.
It was just too stressful to have to figure out three things to feature every month. Doesn’t seem like it would be stressful, right? But I just wasn’t enjoying living under the gun of the beginning of the month decision-making process. So instead…
REVIEWS!
This whole website is going to be pivoting a little bit to be more review-based than in the past. Whenever I see/hear/read something that I like, I’ll write a review of it. The latest reviews will always be featured in the sidebar “Reviews” section. I have decided on six categories that correspond to my personal interest: Music, Movies, TV, Video Games, Tabletop Games, and Books. Right now there’s a bunch of really old stuff in there, just because I haven’t actually reviewed anything in a looooong time. But those’ll get replaced as I review more things! First Up: a new album review, coming this week! HONEST! Oh, and I also created a new blanket “Reviews” category, and changed my site’s top navigation to have a link to that, so you can just go to one place to read all of my reviews of everything. Neat!
Featured Posts
If I write any post that is of significant interest or length (like this one is turning out to be), I’ll add it to the “Featured Posts” category. And it’ll show up on the sidebar as well! Neat!
Hey, you might have noticed (who am I kidding, nobody reads this website) that, including this post, I have posted on this here computer website blog every single weekday in the month of March! This is a great personal achievement for me, especially considering that in the month of February I posted a grand total of 3 times. So 23 times is a rather big step up.
How did I manage to do it while also playing many, many hours of Zelda and watching all of Iron Fist? Well, WordPress lets you schedule ahead. That’s also how 100% of the posts were posted during work hours, even though I’d written them the day before… or several days before. Once I wrote four or five posts in one day and doled them out over the following week. TL;DR: I cheated.
I don’t know that I’ll keep this up through April. Especially since I’m going on a week-long vacation at the end of the month. But I already have a couple of posts that I’m fittin’ to schedule! So we’ll see.
I haven’t written anything for this here website sing I did the “Of the Month” of June (many days late I might add). What gives?
Well, I must confess: I have been writing. Just not here. Instead…
Oni Press Open Submissions!
I was writing a comic book pitch to submit to Oni Press’s Open Submissions!
Yes, that Oni Press, the comic book company that originally published Scott Pilgrim, and that is currently publishing Junior Braves of the Apocalypse, the comic book co-written by my pal (and retired Green Fool) Michael Tanner:
The Green Fool writes comics. Why not the Purple Fool…?
So we’ll see! If they like it, there might just be two Fools who are writing comics in 2015.
There’s one thing for sure, though: I like it. And I don’t just mean the pitch that I sent. I mean the process of writing something more than a blog post or an article or a movie review (which I haven’t done in over a year now).
I’ve always really enjoyed writing. One of my favorite days in college was when I wrote over 100 pages of a screenplay in one day. Writing little things for this website and doing Fools Play have kinda kept a lid on my creative cravings for the past many years, but now it’s becoming an itch that must be scratched. I feel I have to write something. Something real and substantial.
So I’m going to take the month of July off from doing anything seriously creative (which means you might get some more posts on this here website), but starting in August I’m going to back off from thisischris.com again to concentrate my creative energies in a different direction.
You may have noticed (oh, who am I kidding, nobody reads this) that It took me 14 whole days (or two whole weeks) to post my “Of the Month” choices for January 2015. That’s because after the holidays I decided to give myself a nice, two-week break from doing anything creative.
Don’t get me wrong: I love doing creative things. If I weren’t allowed to to creative things I’d very quickly devolve into a raving, grumpy lunatic.
But sometimes not creating anything is nice as well. Especially after an exceptionally-busy holiday season, where my wife and I each had our own families and each other’s, and plus we had a toddling baby in the mix this time. It’s P.C. (that stands for “Pretty Crazy” – Just ask the Power Rangers).
Also in the first half of January about 136 of my friends and family members have birthdays. And I’m pretty sure there are about 60 more birthdays before the end of the month still, too.
But at any rate I’ll be back to a-bloggin’ now if’n it please me.
Hey, so, I was GOING TO write an awesome article over the weekend about the 8 new tracks (as well as the new characters and vehicles) that were just released as DLC for Mario Kart 8 for the Wii U. I was GOING TO upload highlight reels of each track to YouTube so you could see them in action.
Something seems to have gone wrong ever since the DLC was released. I can’t upload any clips to the YouTubes anymore! The Nintendo support website is no help, only saying, “We are currently reviewing this situation. If you are experiencing this error code when uploading a video, please try again at a later time.”
I guess we’ll all have to wait until Nintendo patches this problem up. In the meantime, I guess you can read these old articles I wrote about video games:
Hey, I know I’ve been posting about a metric tonne of shows and concerts recently, and it might be difficult to keep them all straight in your brain. But did you notice that there’s a new link in my site’s top navigation? It’s a CALENDAR BUTTON!
This screenshot will be out of date SO QUICKLY.
This way you can quickly glance at upcoming things that I think would be fun to go to, do, watch, and/or experience. I don’t end up going to all of these, obviously, but at least you can see what’s what and when. Hooray. Ooh—also, if you know of something upcoming that you think should be on that calendar, let me know. THOINKS!
There are SO many movies coming out in 2014 that I really wanna see in the theater. Way more than in 2013. I’ve already seen a whole bunch as evidenced by my review output in the past couple of months. And I’m already three whole reviews behind! And I’m gonna go see another movie (Captain America: The Winter Soldier) on Wednesday night! YIKES!
Here’s just a brief list:
The Lego Movie
Under the Skin
The Amazing Spider-Man 2
Maleficent
Edge of Tomorrow
Guardians of the Galaxy
Trust Me
Jupiter Ascending
Lucy
Sin City: A Dame to Kill For
Snowpiercer
Let’s Be Cops
This also looks to be an excellent Summer for live musics, with shows coming up from a bunches of excellenté musicians. Here is just a brief list:
4/25/06
10/13/05
11/27/04
6/17/04 
5/31/03
. 
