I'm not surprised I forgot, but it feels strange to remember.

Back when I was writing for geek blog Exfanding Your Horizons with my pal Alex, I discovered another blog called The Dork Dimension. Thoughtfully written by a guy named Nathan, unabashedly geeky, and sporting a clean and eye-catching page design, this blog was like looking into a mirror that reflects what you want to see about yourself. Part admiration, part casual rivalry, in the back of my mind I always wanted Exfanding to be at least as good as its uncanny counterpart. This blog even started the same week ours did—every time we had a birthday celebration for Exfanding and looked back at our exploits of the past year, it wouldn't be long before I saw The Dork Dimension doing the same thing.

Happy fifth birthday, Dork Dimension. You beat us.

Exfanding formally went on hiatus at the beginning of this year. At the time, it was a recognition that my co-blogger had gotten so busy that our joint blog was becoming my solo blog. We'd each had busy times before, and had covered for the other guy until things settled down in a week or two, but we'd never gone for months without hearing from the other guy. It was a mutual agreement to put the blog on hold, but I don't think either of us expected it to end there. I doubted we'd ever have a full comeback and pick up where we left off, but I envisioned a last hurrah of about a dozen posts, wrapping up as many loose ends as possible before closing up shop for good.

Somewhere in perpetual limbo are a guest post about roleplaying games, a list of Mega Man tips and tricks that just needs screenshots, and a beginner's guide to Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes that might never make it past Season 4. The tentative release dates on these posts reveal my optimism for our grand return: the end of February, not even two months away. We're now about as close to next February as we are to last February, and the thought of bringing back Exfanding hasn't yet come up in conversation. Heck, I've hardly heard from Alex in months—a short text message, a shorter e-mail, and a coffee shop meet-up or two are about all I can think of since the hiatus. Life happens, as they say.

So when The Dork Dimension's five-year post came up in my blog feed, it made me wonder what Exfanding Your Horizons was up to. Was it our birthday already? How odd not to be celebrating. How sad that I had forgotten. Just as writing for Exfanding had been part of my routine for four years, not writing for Exfanding is part of my routine now. I take it for granted that it's Alex's turn to post next. I hadn't considered how long an indefinite hiatus really was until I looked in the mirror and saw the anniversary I wasn't celebrating.

We had a good run at Exfanding. We had our ups and downs, but I'm proud of the work we did. I'm proud of the layout I taught myself HTML to make. I'm proud of the collaborations, our discipline in sticking to our posting schedule, the way our writing styles developed over the years. I'm proud of the friendship we developed. I asked an ex-coworker I had known for barely three years—predominantly through the Internet, at that—to be one of the groomsmen at my wedding. I think that says something about us. We may never write for Exfanding again, or we might be back in full force next week. But ultimately, it isn't how long something lasts that matters; it's the impact it makes while it does last.

Happy belated birthday, Exfanding.

Girls. Guns. Exploding helicopters. Black Lagoon promised everything I ever wanted out of an action-oriented anime series. The premise allowed for so many possibilities: A young Japanese salaryman falls into a life of modern-day piracy on a boat crewed by a burly, levelheaded captain; a sexy, murderous sharpshooter; and a laid-back technological genius. At sea, they use their talents to procure and transport valuable and dangerous cargo; in-between jobs, they get into barfights and cross paths with all manner of seedy underworld folk back at their home port in Thailand.

Sound good so far? At worst, it'd be mindless action with some quirky characters. At best, it'd be surprisingly deep and philosophical with some creative situations and spectacular action sequences. No possible way to mess this up, RIGHT???

Seven episodes. I love the first seven episodes of Black Lagoon. They take down a helicopter with a torpedo boat. They obliterate a squadron of boats with one woman hopping from one to the next with a grenade launcher. They put the two most opposite characters alone in a sunken submarine and let them swap philosophies. They pit two search-and-rescue crews against each other without their knowledge. They introduce the gunrunning nuns of—I'm not kidding—the Ripoff Church. The stories are engaging, the animation is high-quality, the action sequences are great, and the characters are human. So much potential, Black Lagoon. And so much potential wasted.

As the series progresses, the show gets farther and farther away from its namesake. New antagonists and evil organizations take the stage, and refuse to give it back to the main characters. It's no longer about Rock, Dutch, Revy, Benny, and their boat. It's about cartels and terrorists and criminal syndicates, with periodic glimpses of how the heroes fit into the story of these other groups and individuals. Each story arc takes a gamble on a new premise centered around new characters, so you're out of luck for a few episodes if you're not on board with what might as well be the setup for an entirely different anime. It's not the crew or the boat that ultimately defines the series; the theme of villainy, in all its various forms, is the thread that holds the show together.

The boat barely shows up in the second half of the series. Half of the main cast is all but entirely absent from the last six episodes of the 24-episode series. The name of the show is the name of the ship. And if the show isn't about the ship, or the people that crew the ship, then Black Lagoon is sailing in the wrong direction.

There are moments that reminded me why I was initially so fond of this series. A gunfight between two headstrong women that degrades into a hilariously exhausted fistfight. The members of the Ripoff Church handling the armed goons at their door like they're obnoxious solicitors. The battle-hardened Revy showing a bunch of disbelieving kids what they should really look like when they play dead. Even as the plot started to drift away from the high-seas adventures that got me hooked in the first place, there was enough to keep me hopeful that the next story arc would put the series back on course.

I almost stopped watching when they introduced the incestuous gender-bending sexualized cannibal vampire murder children. WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT!?!? WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH PIRACY?!?!? This went well beyond the limits of my comfort zone. And the show kept testing my limits as the second half unfolded. I can tolerate a certain degree of graphic animated violence, but I get unreasonably squeamish when sharp objects get involved. Bullets everywhere? Fine. Chainsaws and axes? Excuse me; I feel ill. Practically every villain in the second half of the show wields some variety of sharp object. Except the flamethrower guy. I would've liked more flamethrower guys. Too much slashing and skewering for my sensibilities.

I've seen shows that have gone in unexpected and unwelcome directions (SeaQuest DSV comes to mind), wasted their potential (Star Trek: Voyager's early seasons especially), or made me uncomfortable in some way (half the Britcoms I've seen recently), but I've rarely seen a show where all of these things happen so strongly and frequently. I might have been fine with one of these problems—sure, it's gross, but it's ultra-cool; yeah, they forgot about the boat, but they're making the most of this new plotline; okay, the main characters aren't developed as much as they could've been, but the show is still good—but Black Lagoon subjected me to a triple-whammy of discomforts and disappointments. Worst of all, the series never went more than one or two episodes without showing me a glimmer of what I wanted out of it, rekindling my enthusiasm just before the fire could go out.

Except for the THREE episodes with the incestuous gender-bending sexualized cannibal vampire murder children. AGAIN, WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT!?!?

Right now, I can't really say I liked Black Lagoon—but I loved parts of it. All that's left to watch now are the five episodes of Roberta's Blood Trail, a follow-up to the series that might save my opinion of it...provided there are more guns than knives, the entire crew of the Lagoon gets at least as much air time as the villains and side characters, and the titular boat actually makes an appearance. Ending the show on a high note might just be enough to make me forget about everything disturbing and disappointing the next time I rattle off a list of my favorite anime series.

Failing that, blowing up another helicopter goes a long way.

Over the last several days I've been working on a post about Otakon 2013, the 20th annual anime, manga, and general Japanese culture festival that once again saw Baltimore's Inner Harbor overrun with tens of thousands of otaku, many of them in costume. To hear me tell about the highlights, you'd think it was a great convention—an off-the-wall Lupin III movie, a panel on the evolution of anime throughout the past century, a tasty bacon cheeseburger and handmade vanilla Coke at Johnny Rockets, a new Mega Man X4 keychain for myself, plenty of time spent with friends I haven't seen in fiveever (that's like forever, plus one)... To hear me spin the complete yarn, however, you'd be depressed and possibly bored by the end of it—public transportation fiascos, mood-wrecking delays and setbacks, frequent surprises unsuitable to the squeamish, anxiety and annoyance about situations involving other people... It was cathartic to get my thoughts and feelings out on virtual paper, but especially after having my wife read through a near-final draft, I came to realize that this post was really only meant for me. I had tried to write it for an audience, but it wasn't meant for one.

I notice I haven't written anything here for over two weeks. I've barely done anything for GameCola in the last month. My attention's been elsewhere: after more than a year of unexpected delays and technical headaches, I've finally had the time, ability, and motivation to work on my Mega Man 7 playthrough videos for YouTube. I've been recording every few nights for the last few months, and the first proper installment in the series went live last week. It's been a joy to read the comments on the new video. Even with a scant bit of criticism, the overwhelming consensus is that this video was worth the wait. It has met, if not exceeded, everyone's expectations. At the time I'm writing this, the video has 3,322 views, 247 Likes, and 0 Dislikes.

That is very, very cool.

Now the pressure is on to make the next video just as good, if not better. Normally this is not a concern—as long as I'm having fun making a video, that's all that matters. Whether it's recording or writing, I try to generate the kind of content I'd want to see, and it's usually the case that other people like to see the same things I do. That's why I ultimately scrapped my Otakon post—it was necessary to write it, but I didn't want to read it.

As I'm recording the next video, I need to remind myself that this isn't a competition. I don't need to outdo myself. And I don't need to "give the fans what they want," as though I can read minds or trust my more vocal viewers to always speak for everyone. What matters is a finished product I'm happy with. Something I'd be excited to show others if it weren't my own. After all, that's what got me into blogging and recording in the first place—the desire to share the things I'm excited about with others. I think I might've misplaced my enthusiasm in the last few days—I've been more interested in the act of sharing than the thing I'm sharing.

Did I enjoy Otakon? Yeah, parts of it. It ended on a high note, for sure. Maybe I'll tell you about the good stuff someday. Maybe I've learned some lessons about conventioning that'll help me from ever reaching the same low points again. Maybe this is all you'll get out of me about Otakon unless you ask me in person. It's hard to say for sure. For now, I'm content to be writing again—writing what I feel like writing, instead of what I feel I should be writing. It makes a world of difference.

Last month I resolved to release Part 1 of my Mega Man 7 playthrough for YouTube, play Mega Man X: Command Mission to 100% completion, and ignore GOG.com and its dirt-cheap game bundle sales. I'm pleased to report a smashing success on two of those resolutions, and a good deal of progress toward the third. Indeed, July brought a renewed focus on the continuation and completion of projects, from working through my Backloggery and my back room to finishing off video series and anime series. I'm very satisfied with how July turned out, especially where my online projects are concerned.

This Blog:

Since realizing last month just how bitter my posts had become, I've been striving to write about the good at least as often as the bad. There's a fair amount of criticism expressed in these posts, but there's also a real sense of accomplishment as I work through the things that have kept me locked in a disgruntled holding pattern. The last two posts are particularly important to me—during the course of writing them, I made peace with something that's bedeviled me for four years, rediscovered the joy of writing about the things I love, and tried my hand at Star Trek fanfiction for the first time (that I recall).

- Retrospective: June 2013
- A Comfortable Rut
- Loser's Circle
- Winner's Circle
- From the Stars, Knowledge
- The Compatible Wife

GameCola:

Switching things up from my regular fare of podcast video posts, games I've recently played, and columns I swear I still write, I took on the Editor-in-Chief's behind-the-scenes challenge to review a game from his "how have we never covered this" list, and extended the challenge to include a huge batch of videos we'd somehow never plugged.

Reviews:
- Little Nemo: The Dream Master (NES)

Videos:
- Mega Man Madness!

YouTube:

This is really where I was spending all my time for GameCola: jumping into someone else's video series (some of the most fun I've had recording for the GameCola channel), and finishing off my easiest video project yet (placing prerecorded audio over still-frame images). At the same time, I was hard at work with the last of the video footage and first of the audio commentary for my Mega Man 7 playthrough. The Megathon moved one step closer to completion on YouTube, concluding the segment that made me swear to swap out Mega Man 8 for Mega Man & Bass the next time I do a marathon. To borrow an expression I've often heard from the livestreaming community, "Dat Astro Man."

GCDotNet:
- Crystalis D&Dcast - Part 7: Burning Down the House...Every House
- Crystalis D&Dcast - Part 8: Moving with Porpoise
- Crystalis D&Dcast - Part 9: Smote on the Water
- Crystalis D&Dcast - Part 10: The Final Countdown
- Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward - Part 8: Bombs and Bombshells
- Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward - Part 9: Sexy Toaster Waffles

DashJumpTV:
- Megathon 2012: Mega Man 8 (PlayStation) - Part II

The Backloggery:

An unexpected gift, some seriously dedicated secret-searching, and an educational expedition into a new (old) series were the basis for these updates to my video game backlog. Completing two games—one of them fairly substantial, and one of them quite substantial—was immensely gratifying. Maintaining a steady diet of adventure games has been rewarding as well: the pacing and skill set required lend themselves to a more relaxing experience than I usually have with, say, action-packed platformers. Oh, and I beat Mega Man ZX Advent, which is the series' epitome of great ideas executed terribly.

New:
- The Magical Quest Starring Mickey Mouse  (SNES)

Started:
- Leisure Suit Larry 1: In the Land of the Lounge Lizards (VGA)  (PC)
- Leisure Suit Larry 2: Looking for Love (in Several Wrong Places)  (PC)

Beat:
- Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards (VGA)  (PC)
- Mega Man ZX Advent  (NDS)

Completed:
- Mega Man X: Command Mission  (GCN)
- New Super Mario Bros. Wii  (Wii)

All across the board, this was an enjoyable and productive month. Here's to many more like it.