2017 Year in Review

Well, another year draws to a close, and it’s been a quiet year on this blog. That’s bad in some ways, but not terrible.

It’s definitely the case that the heckshow that was 2016 diminished some of my enthusiasm for thinking about the kind of historical stuff I usually write about on this blog. In essence, I try to only write “serious” posts every so often, but I ended last year in a mood that didn’t really allow for the kind of writing I typically prefer. That wasn’t the only reason, though, and the other ones were a little better.

The first reason things went a little quiet is that a new project wound up taking a lot of my time. I’m referring of course to Monster Man, my new podcast about the 1977 Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Monster Manual. I released over 30 episodes in 2017, and also spent a good amount of time blogging and promoting it. I even went up on Patreon, a project that was almost derailed by the recent Patreon shenanigans.

So obviously that project’s been taking up a good amount of my free time, and I’m very pleased with how it’s been going. But it’s not the only thing that I’ve been doing, and the other thing is a little more history-related.

As I have mentioned in the past, I started volunteering at the Centre for Computing History, the computer history museum here in Cambridge. I mostly do behind the scenes stuff, whether that’s adding items to the archive, helping to organise the collections, or just lugging stuff around. It’s fascinating to see the museum at work, and the team there are a great bunch of people. So that’s been good. I should blog a little bit more about it, honestly.

I think the recreated 1970s office might be my favourite part. 

Anyway, all of this adds up to mean that I haven’t had a huge amount of time not spoken for, but hopefully I’ll be able to use the holiday to knock out a couple of posts on things I’ve been reading and watching lately.

Despite the fact that 2017 has been a rough year in many ways as well, I come into 2018 with more a … faint-glimmer-of-hope sort of feeling of optimism compared to the grim resolve of last year. Let’s see how the year develops. I hope that all of you enjoy your new year celebrations and that the coming year is a good one.

This is getting to be a habit

No substantive post again today; work has been busy and I have had other commitments that kept me out of the house as well. I am starting a new history tutoring assignment tomorrow, so hopefully that will inspire something for Friday. Hopefully.

Apologies, all. I don’t mean to be so busy, but it can’t be helped.

Ongoing projects and self-promotion

Lots going on at the moment as the school year begins anew! My foreign students and private tutoring always start a couple of weeks after the beginning of the academic year, so while proper teachers are already at full tilt I’m just getting up to speed, but I have more courses this year, so there is a fair bit of preparation to be doing.

However, that doesn’t mean I’ve been neglecting other fronts completely. New book to review for Fortean Times arrived yesterday, and I am looking forward to getting to grips with it:

Also, I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before, but if you’re in Cambridge on 22nd October, why not come by ExiliCon 2016 and hear me giving my talk on archaeology in the fiction of H.P. Lovecraft. Updated! A little bit shorter! All that kind of thing!

As always, the podcast and the gaming blog are chugging along; we just had a history-heavy episode of the podcast, in which I compare the culture of Restoration England to disco space fish criminals.

Low-content mode incoming

My keyboard has been acting up, and I’ve been getting ready for an event this weekend, so I’m afraid things are going to be a little quiet for the rest of the week. I do have a post queued up for the gaming blog, and I will try to catch up over the weekend, but we’ll see how it all goes. Normal service will be restored shortly, either way!

 

The feel of history happening

Unless you’ve been asleep (which, in fairness, some people have), you’ll have noticed that a large and far-reaching historical change has just happened in my country. Quite apart from my views on the matter, which I’m always happy to discuss in person or on G+ or whatever, I think it’s an interesting lesson in the progress of history.

In case you’re wondering, I do not like the experience of history happening to me. It means staying up all night wondering what’s going to happen as a result of things that are at least mostly outside my control. I suppose it teaches you some empathy for the bad decisions people find themselves faced with — most of them much, much worse than the ones I’m still speculating about.

In almost completely unrelated news, I am going on holiday from tomorrow for a week, so posts on the blog will be sporadic if there are any. Normal service should be restored the week after next.

No Movie Monday this week: temporary hiatus

Hi everyone,

You’ve probably noticed that there hasn’t been much activity on the blog this week. This is because I am simultaneously dealing with a huge project at work and apartment-hunting. It’s been a busy week and it looks to be another. However, I promise that normal service will be restored shortly. (Of course, getting the internet working the new place etc. etc. yadda yadda, but we’ll figure something out.)

Thanks for your patience and I hope I’ll have something more interesting for you to read shortly.

It has been a long day …

… and I have no real post content. Instead I’m going to ask a question. Would people like to see some historical movie reviews? I would mainly be focusing on things I can watch on Lovefilm or Netflix, but on the other hand those would be things that you could also watch and compare. I could do it as a regular feature: Movie Mondays or something. 

If that sounds interesting, do you have any suggestions?