2016 is off to a great start. In the absence of GameCola (the main site is still in disarray), I've been dedicating my free time to a select few side projects and my New Year's resolutions. Not only have I been very productive, but I feel generally more relaxed than I've felt in a long time. What you see here might well become the format for the year.

This Website:

If you're only going by what I've posted on this blog, I've hardly done anything. But there's more to this site than the blog.

I've made a great many updates to my Mega Man series opinions, chipping away at Mega Man X3 and The Misadventures of Tron Bonne, and finishing off my review of Mega Man Powered Up. In fact, I might start giving each game its own page (instead of grouping them by category) to make my reviews easier to read and keep track of. I've also made serious headway with my Star Trek series opinions, as you'll see below. All of these posts are perpetual works in progress, mind you; the more I write, the more I'm reminded to go back and refine what I've already written.

As far as regular blog posts are concerned, there's the obligatory Retrospective, but the one about New Year's resolutions is easily one of my favorite things I've written here, and perhaps one of the most important.

- Retrospective: December 2015
- New Year's Resolutions 2016
- Series Opinions: Star Trek: The Original Series (TOS)
- Series Opinions: Star Trek: Enterprise (ENT)

YouTube:

Not a bad month for videos. One of last year's most popular podcasts finally made it to the GameCola YouTube channel, and my latest Mega Man Fangame Sampler livestream was especially well received. The Fangame Sampler before it also went pretty well, with me beating one of the games on my first try without losing a life. Lastly, I finished off a playthrough of one of my all-time favorite video games, and the whole experience was fun enough (for me and my audience) to try tackling the rest of the games in the series in the months to come.

Behind the scenes, I've been practicing my showoffery for Mega Man 8, the next video series I have planned for my GeminiLaser channel. I don't think I've been this excited about a recording project since Mega Man 5, which is especially surprising if you've read my Series Opinions on the game. If all goes as planned, you'll see the first video in March!

Flashman85LIVE:
- Mega Man Fangame Sampler #6: Scramble!!, DOS Remake, Star Man Upgraded
- Mega Man Fangame Sampler #7: Hard Hat 2, Foo-roo's Flight, An Uncertain Future
- Star Wars: Jedi Knight (Live Playthrough) - Part 4: What, Fisticuffs!?

GCDotNet:
- The GameCola Podcast #88: When this Podcast Hits 88 Miles Per Hour

The Backloggery:

That New Year's resolution about my video game backlog has pushed me to change my gaming habits for the better. I tried a bunch of games. I removed them when I wasn't totally sold after the first play session. I powered through the last of Dragon Age: Origins in order to free up my lone, self-imposed PC game slot for something more my style. By the end of the month, my wife and I were back in the swing of co-op gaming on a regular basis, capping off one LEGO game we'd been working on for months and diving into a new one we'd just received for Christmas. Finally, in going through my Backloggery to finish writing mini-reviews for all the games I'd beaten before joining the site, I discovered a criminal offense: leaving a Mega Man game marked as less than Complete when I'd clearly met the requirements.

Started:
- Bullet Candy  (Steam)
- Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers  (PC)
- LEGO Jurassic World  (WiiU)
- Mushroom Men: Truffle Trouble  (Steam)
- Osmos  (Steam)
 
Beat:
- Dragon Age: Origins  (Origin)
- Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers  (PC)
 
Completed:
- Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers  (PC)
- LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4  (Wii)
- Mega Man X4  (GCN)
- Mega Man X4  (PS)
 
Removed:
- Bullet Candy  (Steam)
- Mushroom Men: Truffle Trouble  (Steam)
- Osmos  (Steam)
- StarFox Assault  (GCN)

Overall, a very good month. Let's hope things keep getting even better!

One of my favorite blogging traditions with Exfanding Your Horizons was making up New Year's resolutions with my blogging buddy and then reflecting on them a year later. The blog went on permanent hiatus on the day we'd normally do our writing and reflecting, and I somehow never reinstated the tradition on this blog.

That's because, originally, this blog was little more than a place to get my writing fix until Exfanding came back from hiatus. Something temporary. I wasn't planning on setting down roots here and carrying on with traditions. This was the same thing I said about moving to the moon, and I've been living here since 2011. Somewhere along the line, this blog and my moon base became my home, and it's only recently that I've been treating them as such. I'd been waiting for the day where I'd resume business as usual, but this is business as usual. Time to stop looking to the past like it's the future. Time to look at the present and do something about it if it's not to my liking. What a good time to start making resolutions again.

"Resolutions" isn't the right word, though. Resolutions are promises you feel guilty for breaking. I prefer to set goals; goals are things you feel good about achieving. I've learned to set reasonable goals for myself that are general enough to accomplish, but specific enough to be meaningful. Here's what I have in mind for 2016:

Goal #1: Start and finish a YouTube playthrough of Mega Man 8.
Anyone familiar with the saga of Mega Man 7 knows how much of a stretch this one is. Each Mega Man video series I've done has taken longer than the last, so smart money says I won't accomplish this goal until 2020 at the very earliest. Smart money is inanimate and highly flammable, however, so you shouldn't listen to it. I've streamlined my recording process and am livestreaming on a regular basis, which keeps me in the recording spirit, so I believe I can make this happen if I keep at it.

Goal #2: Make serious headway on the video game my wife and I are planning.
We don't talk about it much because we want to keep the particulars a secret, but my wife and I are working on a video game. It's still in the planning stages, but I'd like to have at least a partially playable beta ready before the end of the year.

Goal #3: Run at least one D&D campaign, then learn a new tabletop RPG system and run another campaign.
Since I started playing in college, Dungeons & Dragons has been an endless source of stories and one of my favorite ways to spend time with people. Moving to the moon has put me out of touch with a regular group of players, but nothing says I can't host the occasional one-shot campaign for friends and family who are willing to hop on a rocketship and drop in for a weekend. I'm also looking to diversify beyond D&D, as my other tabletop RPG experience is quite limited, and there's a copy of the Serenity Roleplaying Game rulebook on my shelf that's been gathering dust for too gorram long.

Goal #4: Read 12 books.
I was an avid reader up until late middle school or early high school, at which point I started associating reading with work, rather than with leisure. I've since warmed back up to reading as a pastime, and I casually follow a number of blogs, but I'd like to get back in the habit of reading as an alternative to the electronic entertainment that dominates my life. One book a month doesn't seem unreasonable, especially if I include graphic novels, which totally count.

Goal #5: Get my Backloggery progress index into positive double digits.
It's only since 2014 that I've been finishing more video games a year than I add to my collection, but just barely. Net progress in 2014 was +5, and 2015 was a measly +2 (technically +3, if you count the game I sold in December but forgot to remove from my list until New Year's Day). Lest you think this is a "play more video games" goal, my intention here is to be more discerning with how I spend my time and money, trimming my collection down to only the games I truly want to be there.

Goal #6: Write like I used to.
There are three meanings here: write regularly, write positively, and write for myself. Writing is cathartic, and I want to look back on a year's worth of posts that I would want to read, even if I hadn't written them. I want to unearth the bright-eyed, happy little kid inside me who's been buried under the layers of anger, frustration, disappointment, and anxiety that have accumulated over the last few years of resisting the present instead of reshaping it. With GameCola on hiatus, it's more important than ever that I make this website feel like home, and writing like I used to may be the best way to do it.


Ta-dah! A half-dozen goals, and those are just the ones I'm writing down (I'll spare you the one about eating less fried dough this time). Ambitious? Yes, but not unreachable. These aren't only goals; they're lifestyle changes, or at least catalysts for such—and after the 2015 I had, I have never been so ready for change. See you back here in a year to assess my success!

2015 ended on a high note for me. Good time spent with friends and family, some of the best weeks of work I've had all year, plenty of vacation time, meaningful personal development, and a change of focus that I hope will lead to a joyful and productive 2016. You'll note one big absence on this list: GameCola.net suffered a catastrophic server failure early in the month—the day before the shortest review I've ever written got posted, as though the website couldn't cope with me writing anything of substance shorter than 700 words.

Normally we'd revert to a recent backup version of the site, but due to mysterious technical issues, the latest backup we had was from sometime in November. An executive decision was made to put the site on hiatus to give our webmaster time to look into recovering the lost data, but also to give the Editor-in-Chief time to work on GameCola 4.0, a revised version of the site with all the modern bells and whistles we've been missing. I'll no doubt write more about the situation as time goes on, but in the meantime, I've been devoting my free time to other side projects that have been languishing for too long.

This Blog:

It's good to be writing again on a regular basis, and writing more positively, at that. In addition to the posts below, which hopefully represent a return to the kind of writing I used to do for Exfanding Your Horizons in its heyday, I was busy working on my Series Opinions for Star Trek: The Original Series and Enterprise, which I'll formally link to once they're complete.

- Retrospective: November 2015
- Star Trek Beyond the Point of No Return
- Always in Motion Is the Future
- Running With Superheroes

YouTube:

One GameCola contribution managed to slip through, despite the main site being out of commission. In honor of the new Star Wars movie, I kicked off a playthrough of one of my all-time favorite games, and it's been helping me refine my livestreaming style. The third installment of Jedi Knight and the second Backloggery Choice stream are two of my favorites so far (if nothing else, watch the Paperboy section of the first video below).

Of course, no mention of YouTube videos would be complete without a celebration of the true, final, real end of the Mega Man 7 recording saga. One of the funniest things I've ever released, according to me, and a joy to assemble.

Flashman85LIVE:
- Backloggery Choice #2: Crystalis, StarTropics II, Metal Storm, Paperboy
- Star Wars: Jedi Knight (Live Playthrough) - Part 1: The Force Awakens
- Star Wars: Jedi Knight (Live Playthrough) - Part 2: Elevator Action
- Star Wars: Jedi Knight (Live Playthrough) - Part 3: Confusing the Commentator

GeminiLaser:
- Mega Man 7: Audio Outtakes

GCDotNet:
- Hacks'n'Slash #10: Mario & Sonic Christmas Special

The Backloggery:

December is always a bad month for my struggle against the evil Bak'laag. Between Christmas, winter sales on Steam and GOG, and holiday travels that take me near used game stores, my game collection always seems to inflate around this time. At least my patience has run out for games that aren't worth my time; I'm abandoning bad and unrewarding games with a vengeance nowadays, and I've decided to go back to playing only the games I think I'll like—anything that's culturally worthwhile but not worth the effort is something I can watch someone else play on YouTube.

New:
- Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze  (WiiU)
- Duke Nukem 3D Atomic Edition  (PC)
- Final Fantasy X  (PS2)
- Final Fantasy X-2  (PS2)
- Gun Metal  (Steam)
- Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis  (PC)
- LEGO Jurassic World  (WiiU)
- Mega Man Battle Network 5: Double Team DS  (NDS)
- Mega Man Star Force: Pegasus  (NDS)
- Rokko Chan  (Brwsr)
- Star Trek: 25th Anniversary  (PC)
- Super Smash Bros. for Wii U  (WiiU)
 
Started:
- Final Soldier  (VC)
- Gargoyle's Quest II  (NES)
- StarFox Assault  (GCN)
- Wario Land 3  (GBC)
 
Beat:
- Final Soldier  (VC)
- Gargoyle's Quest II  (NES)
- The Misadventures of Tron Bonne  (PS)
 
Completed:
- Final Soldier  (VC)
- Gargoyle's Quest II  (NES)
- Love  (Steam)
- The Misadventures of Tron Bonne  (PS)
 
Removed:
- Wario Land 3  (GBC)

That about wraps it up for 2015! Off we go into another year.

Long story short, 2015 has not been the greatest year for me. November was the first month in a very long time where I was both pleased with how things were going and looking hopefully to the future. I'm glad to be able to share with you some of the high points of this past month.

This Blog:

Hey, I wrote some things! I'm most pleased with the final entry—after looking back on a couple years of writing for this blog, I came to realize how constantly negative I've been, even after my one friend's comment about my "general bitterness commentary" caused me to reexamine my writing. I'm making a conscious effort now to be more positive in my writing. I miss being fun and friendly and optimistic, and it's within my power to be like that again. I still reserve the right to complain from time to time, but I'll try to do it with a smile.

- Retrospective: October 2015
- I Think You Overestimate Their Chances
- Lessons From Livestreaming: Deponia
- The Next Trek

GameCola:

Things are ramping up behind the scenes at GameCola, and most of my time has been spent updating our staff wiki and drafting up internal e-mail correspondence, despite the five articles below making me look like I did anything of substance on the site itself. I'm also getting back into the habit of writing full reviews, which you'll see in next month's Retrospective; I hadn't realized how much I've needed my writing fix, and churning out fluff posts about archival videos has not been meeting that need. This has been a very productive year for me at GameCola, but I've fled too far from the beefy posts that energize me in an attempt to free up time to work on other projects that energize me in different ways. Time to get things back in balance.

Columns:
- Featured Game Soundtrack: Shogo: Mobile Armor Division
- Q&AmeCola: Games or Game Series We Are Most Thankful For

Podcasts:
- GC Podcast #90: A Not-So-Spooky Halloween – Part 1
- GC Podcast #90: A Not-So-Spooky Halloween – Part 2

Videos:
- GC Podcasts #58-60 on YouTube: If You Die in Real Life, You Die in Mike & Jeddy’s Top 10 Bonus Games

YouTube:

More old podcasts, the conclusion of a livestream series that sparked one of the posts mentioned above, and one of my favorite livestreams to date. I feel like I've finally hit my stride with livestreaming, and I've got a couple ideas for easy-ish prerecorded videos that I may bust out during my December vacation time. We'll see.

Flashman85LIVE:
- Deponia (Blind Live Playthrough) - Part 4: They'll Need a Crane
- Deponia (Blind Live Playthrough) - Part 5: Hungry Like the Whale
- Mega Man Fangame Sampler #5: Rokko Chan, Hard Hat: The Rebellion, Quint's Revenge
 
GCDotNet:
- Hacks’n'Slash #8: Thanksgiving Special
- Off-Topic Podcast #3: The Thirties
- The GameCola Podcast #85: THE The GameCola Podcast

The Backloggery:

I've reached a point in my gaming career that looks an awful lot like where I started. When I first got into gaming, it was all about having fun. If I liked a game, I kept playing it; If I didn't like a game, I stopped playing it. Around the time I signed up for The Backloggery some six years ago, gaming was only partially about having fun; it was also about the cultural experience of these games that other people enjoyed, and about finally getting around to all the games I had bought or been given that were collecting dust on a shelf.

A couple years ago, I began to move past my compulsion to play every game, even the bad ones, to 100% completion. Over the last couple months, I've moved past my compulsion to play the bad ones to any kind of completion. Life's short, and there are things I'd rather do with it than subject myself to completely avoidable tedium and frustration. I'm also acknowledging that there are some genres and series I might enjoy if I gave them a chance, but require too much of a time investment to determine whether they're worthwhile for me. From now on, I'm watching playthroughs on YouTube of anything that seems worth experiencing but not worth however many weeks or months of my life to conquer on my own.

Don't be offended if a game you got me or a game you love ends up on my "Removed" list. All that means is that I gave it a chance and I'm not eager to go back to it, same as any movie or restaurant or anything I take a chance on. Unless we're talking about Cruis'n USA, in which case I wouldn't mind keeping it on my backlog if the game cartridge weren't only useful as a paperweight [glares in the direction of the PAX East 2010 vendor who assured him every game was tested to work].

New:
- System Shock 2  (PC)
 
Started:
- Nintendo Land  (WiiU)
- Rise of the Robots  (SNES)
 
Beat:
- Deponia  (PC)
- LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4  (Wii)
 
Removed:
- Cruis'n USA  (N64)
- Hexen II  (PC)
- Quest for Glory II: Trial by Fire (VGA)  (PC)
- Rise of the Robots  (SNES)
- Rome: Total War  (PC)

Great month! Looking forward to December being even better.

August was exhausting. Exhaugusting, you might even say. The last week in particular was nonstop, characterized by long hours at the office, a household emergency at 4 AM, my first foray into solo video game livecasting, and a busy weekend of traveling that involved more walking and less air conditioning than I've experienced in months. I started a number of writing projects that will take longer than I'd like to finish, and there's a lot of Big Life Stuff up in the air...it's only been a few weeks since I got back from vacation, but I already need another one.

This Blog:

I'm trying to get back into blogging more regularly. This is what that looks like:

- Retrospective: July 2015
- Let's Be Sophisticated

GameCola:

As I continue to spend most of my GameCola time on porting old podcasts to YouTube, my contributions continue to be fluffy.

Columns:
- Q&AmeCola: Favorite Character Customization System

Videos:
- GC Podcasts #7-9 on YouTube: It’s the R-Rated Birthday, GameCola!
- GC Podcasts #10-12 on YouTube: Cap’n Paul’s Big Beard Preview

YouTube:

Fans of my videos know that I'm very, very slow when it comes to producing new video content. Hopefully, that's about to change. Now that I've got a computer setup that works for livestreaming gameplay, I'm trying my hand at a "Let's Play" format that guarantees I won't spend months perfecting my technique and finessing every bit of commentary. My long-dormant Twitch channel is finally becoming active, and I'm uploading my livecasts to a new YouTube channel exclusively for live events.

Flashman85 LIVE:
- Preserved for Posterity: My First Solo Livecast Test
- Mega Man Legacy Collection: Let's See If It's Worth $14.99!

GCDotNet:
- Podcast #31: Metroid; or, Don’t Go Camping with Nathaniel
- Podcast #33: 3D Games
- Podcast #35: It’s Pronounced “Episodic”

The Backloggery:

With my wrist healed to the point where I can play video games again without making funnier faces than usual, I'm back to playing games as my primary mode of relaxation. Or self-frustration, as the case tends to be whenever I play anything for the exposure more than for the fun. I officially dislike the mechanics of TwinBee, and I think I'm too old to appreciate collectathons like Banjo-Kazooie the way I used to, but I still recognize why the game is so well loved. Mega Man 5 was an evening of "comfort gaming" and a way of compensating for spending most of the month crossing one big game off my backlog; it's the Wii Virtual Console release, so it totally counts as a game I haven't played before.

Of course, the latest addition to my collection was what prompted me to get into livestreaming (again); a lot of people were on the fence about the Mega Man Legacy Collection, and though I bought it mostly to encourage Capcom to make more Mega Man, I figured it'd be a good public service (and good publicity!) to give my viewers a tour of the collection. Recognizing that I can only mark Mega Man 5 as Completed so many times on my Backloggery, and because the Achievements and bonus content make the collection so much more than just the six NES games, I decided not to break up the individual gameplay components for my backlog.

New:
- Mega Man Legacy Collection  (Steam)

Started:
- 3D Classics: TwinBee  (VCH)
- Banjo-Kazooie  (N64)
- Mega Man 5  (VC)
- Mega Man Legacy Collection  (Steam)

Beat:
- 3D Classics: TwinBee  (VCH)
- Banjo-Kazooie  (N64)
- Mega Man 5  (VC)

Completed:
- 3D Classics: TwinBee  (VCH)
- Banjo-Kazooie  (N64)
- Mega Man 5  (VC)

I feel almost productive, looking back on all this.

Not a big month for me here on the blogospheretubeternet. Still recovering from a strained wrist (not a sprained wrist, as I'd heard from the first doctor) left me spending more time watching Netflix and less time doing anything whatsoever that requires hands. You wouldn't believe how hard it is to cook dinner with just your eyes. Fortunately, I have laser eyes.

...We should probably get on with the recap. July!

This Blog:

Surprise! The one thing I always manage to write.

- Retrospective: June 2015

GameCola:

When I started my "Lost Art of Good Game Design" column, I intended it to be a quick way to fire off opinions about the ill-constructed games to which I inadvertently keep subjecting myself. July's installment was a doozy—I think my unpopular opinions get stronger when I'm the only one who seems to have them, and I'm verbose enough as it is without any extra encouragement. Not much I can say about my other contributions that hasn't already been said in previous months, which I realize seems to contradict that last statement about my verbosity.

Columns:
- The Lost Art of Good Game Design: Grim Fandango Remastered
- [NSFW] Q&AmeCola: Games That Don’t Deserve to Be as Fun as They Are

Videos:
- [NSFW] GC Podcasts #4-6 on YouTube: Lizo, Can You Feel the Wind?

YouTube:

It usually doesn't take all that long to transfer one of our old GameCola podcasts to YouTube, as I've been doing for the last few months, but this is one of many sections of the archive where I don't appear too often. Fortunately, this is probably one of the best podcasts I've been a part of, so the quality makes up for the lack of quantity. At the very end of the month, the first bonus video for Mega Man 7 started coming together (finally), so expect some brand-new content next time.

GCDotNet:
- Podcast #25: When Cowboys Wore Pink

The Backloggery:

Video gaming is a liability when you're trying to let your wrist heal, so aside from a bit of left-handed adventure gaming and a very short stint with Dragon Age: Origins, I settled for one game where my right hand need only hold down a button the whole time. Also, I was gifted with a game that's been on my "should probably play this because other people talk about it" list for some time, which means I'm not going to like it but will force myself through it anyhow for the cultural value.

New:
- Kingdom Hearts  (PS2)

Started:
- Detana!! TwinBee  (VC)

Beat:
- Detana!! TwinBee  (VC)

Pew! Pew! Laser eyes! Okay, I'm done now.

I've done a fair amount of yammering about recording videos for YouTube and my time writing for Exfanding Your Horizons, but it's not as often that I talk about GameCola, the videogame-humor-turned-gaming-outside-the-mainstream website for which I've been writing since the beginning of 2009. Here and on Exfanding, you might see me mention the site in passing or rattle off links to posts I've written or participated in, but most of the behind-the-scenes tidbits are scattered in bits and bobs across 5+ years of videos, posts, and podcasts on the GC website itself. What's it like to be a Staff Writer/Editor and the YouTube Administrator for the most prestigious gaming website referred to in this paragraph? Well, since you asked...

Ostensibly, it's very easy. The longstanding rule for writers, dating way back to the dinosaur days when GameCola was published in a monthly newsletter format, is that you contribute one article per month. That's it. End of requirements. In our current format, this typically works well: we're posting one article a day, Monday through Friday, with our regular podcast posting on the first Sunday of each month; with a little over a dozen staff writers, some of whom are inevitably prolific enough to contribute more, it should be no trouble to meet our monthly quota. Anytime you see a "Classic 'Cola" article go up with a golden oldie pulled from the archives, it means we totally blew it.

As an editor, I can see how many articles are in the queue for review, and when things are scheduled to be published. During a dry spell, I'll often try to churn out a fluff post to help tide us over until the pace picks up. Anytime you see an article about a video series that's at least three years old, that's a sure sign our most prolific writers are on vacation, or else I'm really struggling to come up with a post this month. Actually, that's only half true; as both the administrator of GameCola's official YouTube channel and a completionist, I like to make sure all the videos we record get proper coverage on the main site.

Unofficially, I'm also GameCola's resident historian. When I was first invited to join the staff, I started doing my research, reading through the archives from the beginning. With the editor privileges I was given during the site's big relaunch in 2010, I soon embarked on a massive quest to bring all of our old articles up to code, proofing and editing them as I read them to ensure a minimum standard of consistency and polish across (at that point) nearly ten years of history. We have a GameCola Style Guide I adhere to when reviewing these old posts, and several of my suggestions for future revisions have come from past posts. I'll do a full editorial review of one or two new articles in the queue per month, and I'll instinctively spot-check any others I read, but what I most look forward to is the day I catch up with the relaunch articles. Anyone who's familiar with my creative works probably knows how much of a sucker for continuity I am; seeing where we've been makes me appreciate that much more where we are now, and it's a joy to be working toward connecting those two places in a meaningful way.

That being said, there's some scary stuff in the archives that I'm sure most people would prefer to keep buried. But at least it'll look extra pretty. Like a skeleton wearing makeup, maybe. We can be selective about what we reference, but we can't always control where Google searches and those suggested "You May Also Like" posts take people, so I figure it's in the site's best interest for every metaphorical room of our metaphorical house to be as tidy as possible when we leave all the metaphorical doors open.

Likewise, I strive to keep our old videos on our GCDotNet channel in good order, moving things into playlists and updating descriptions if need be. The review process is much less structured and stringent there: upload a video privately, and I'll take a quick peek before posting it to the public, ensuring the description, tags, title, and video and audio quality all meet our basic consistency and quality standards. I very rarely watch YouTube videos unless someone specifically shares a link with me, but I make an exception for GCDotNet out of loyalty and my silly notion that I should be informed about the content I'm supposedly administrating. Of course, it sometimes takes me years to do anything more than skim through a video (have you seen our Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward series!?), but I plan to get completely caught up eventually, I promise.

That's one of the fun things about GameCola: I'm as much a fan as I am a contributor. I have side projects within my side project. Call it GamatryoshkaCola. Or don't, because that sounds terrible.

As one of the senior members on staff, I also feel a strong sense of investment in the site. I've been here longer than the majority of the people currently on our staff roster, and aside from Alex "Jeddy" Jedraszczak (our Editor-in-Chief), I'm the only old-timer who's been continuously active over the last year or two. I'm relieved that Paul Franzen didn't fire me about a half-dozen times while he was Editor-in-Chief, because it's been a fun ride so far, and I've been honored to collaborate with him and with Jeddy on some big and small decisions behind the scenes. Together, we've developed a process guide for editors, diffused a few potentially ugly situations on the YouTube channel, and turned The END DAY into an official GameCola holiday. My perfectionist and control freak tendencies have mellowed considerably since joining the staff; frequent participation in group e-mail discussions, podcasts, and video commentary has a way of instilling an appreciation for effective teamwork.

Do I see myself staying with GameCola indefinitely? Hey, I'm happy to stick around as long as they'll have me. As with Exfanding, there could come a day when it's no longer sensible for me to keep going, but I don't anticipate giving up being a gamer anytime soon. GameCola is a great outlet for that side of my personality, and I've met some wonderful and hilarious people as a result of being here; I'm in no rush to break away, especially with all those side projects left to finish. I've got some video and column ideas yet, and at least one more RPGcast that I'm really looking forward to pulling together. And let's not forget about the 40-odd Mega Man games I have yet to review.

In other words, as I say in my biographical blurb on the site, you're pretty much stuck with me. Sorry.

August was a very good month for me, personally and...electronically? Whatever it is I report on the first post of each month. The book The Happiness Project made a big impact, as did getting to spend so much time with family and friends I haven't seen in forever. Even at my most exhausted, I was more at ease and rejuvenated than I've been for some time.

This Blog:

If you're particularly observant, you may have noticed a pattern this past month. In an effort to write more and about more, I launched a personal initiative to write a blog post concerning each of the category tags I'd used for previous posts, in order (so, Anime, Books, Collecting and Collectables, etc.). My original plan was to write a post every day or almost every day, timing it so that this post (tagged as Retrospective) would appear in order after a post on Politics and a post on Religion. Given my travel schedule for the month, it didn't take long to realize the strain that would impose. We'll pretend "R" for "Retrospective" falls squarely between "E" for "Exfanding Your Horizons" and "F" for "Fantasy". A B C D E R F...

- Retrospective: July 2014
- Anime Write About It After All
- The Happiness Project
- Married to Someone Else's Work
- Conventional Wisdom
- Indefinite Hiatus

GameCola:

One of the more amusing Q&AmeCola responses I've contributed, and probably my favorite thing I've written for GameCola all year. I also spent a fair amount of time behind the scenes, editing old articles to bring them up to code. That's an ongoing project you can assume I'll be working on for the foreseeable future, given that the videogame-humor-turned-gaming-outside-the-mainstream website has articles dating back to 2002, and I'm only halfway through 2005 for the review category alone.

- Q&AmeCola: World Leader Appearances
- Castlevania: Rondo of Blood (Wii-VC)

The Backloggery:

Well, this is a first. I don't think I've ever had a gaming month so slow that I had to remove games to make a dent in my backlog. A bit of cleanup that I thought I'd already done, clearing out Flash games I no longer intend to attempt to beat from Homestar Runner and my Flash Flood columns. I continued to slog through Tomb Raider III and Mega Man Battle Network 3 White, though I did add an old favorite, EarthBound, into the rotation—but because my first attempt at playing the game was years and years ago, Started status has long since come and gone, hence its absence from the list.

Removed:
- Awexome Cross  (Brwsr)
- Trogdor  (Brwsr)
- Zombie Attack  (Brwsr)
- Zombie Survival Special Mission  (Brwsr)

Between my blog post project, my GameCola archive project, a bit of revamping and updating of my Series Opinions feature on this site, the games I have going, and the next Mega Man 7 video that's already in the works, I've got plenty to keep me busy for the next month, and hopefully plenty to report on next time around.

Six years ago today, I wrote my very first blog post.

At the time, I was all excitement and ideas. Endless possibilities. Within two months, the grand premise of our blog, "to introduce, explain, discuss, and demystify various hobbies and fandoms to promote an understanding between geeks and to spark an interest in the things that interest us," had become less of a mission statement and more of a general suggestion. My blogging buddy Alex and I didn't write for Exfanding Your Horizons so much as we wrote for ourselves, and the things we wrote happened to be a good fit for the blog most days. Even when the enthusiasm cooled and the inspiration ran thin, there was never any question about keeping the blog going. It was a habit. It was a part of our lives. Nobody wonders how long they'll keep their routine of eating breakfast in the morning before giving it up forever; there are certain assumptions we make. There was never any question that Exfanding would go on indefinitely.

Then suddenly it stopped, and we were on indefinite hiatus.

Look at my first post on this blog. James Bond would return. It was only a matter of time.

Look at my reflections from this time last year. That guy flipping burgers in the back might be Elvis, but in all likelihood, the King had come and gone.

By now, I've come to grips with the fact that I'll never have breakfast again.

Not that I'd turn it down. If Alex came back and said, "Hey, let's get the blog going again," I'd say, "Whoa! I haven't heard from you in, like, a year! How's work? How's life? And also, yes." But The Great Exfanding Revival of 20XX is no longer something I anticipate, or even necessarily hope for. I'll say it again: We had a good run at Exfanding. Past tense. It took me some time to wrap my head around the inevitable discontinuation of the thing that would go on forever, but my satisfaction with what the both of us accomplished through our humble little blog has never wavered.

If anything, I look back more fondly as the years go by. Perhaps that's the real reason why I'm still celebrating. I replay Crystalis every year on The END DAY not because I'm secretly hoping for a sequel, but because I love the game and don't need much of an excuse to relive the fond memories. Why should Exfanding be any different?

I am an anime fan, but for reasons previously discussed elsewhere, I don't often write about my fondness for this fandom. I've been to a few conventions, dressed up as a few characters, purchased numerous DVDs and a manga or two, received a calendar and a couple figurines as gifts, put up a wall scroll and a small handful of posters in my home, even had (or still have) a minor crush on a few characters who I readily recognize are fictional—that's more than enough for me to have plenty to write about Japanese animation and the surrounding fan culture.

Still, next to anyone else I've ever met who likes anime, I'm a rookie and a casual fan at best. I watch a combination of maybe a half dozen films and series a year, I write up a post if there's one like Fullmetal Alchemist or _Clannad or Gurren Lagann or Black Lagoon that sparks a strong enough reaction, and then I go back to Star Trek and Mega Man and whatever else it is that everyone thinks I exclusively do. I'm neither diehard enough nor well-versed enough to feel inspired or qualified to say very much about the medium most days.

I've got my favorites, though: Blue Seed, the formulaic and often intentionally funny action series that acted as my first formal introduction to anime; Trigun, the slightly sci-fi western with a satisfying balance of goofiness and thought-provoking seriousness; Azumanga Daioh!, the cute, innocent, and hysterical slice-of-life heartwarmer; Neon Genesis Evangelion, the classic mind-bending show that starts off about kids piloting giant robots and ends in buh-wha-huuuuuuuuh!?; and the first seven episodes of the aforementioned Black Lagoon, before everything gets all stabby and uncomfortable. There are plenty of honorable mentions, too: Panda-Z, FLCL, Fruits Basket, Dirty Pair, Read or Die, Spirited Away, Perfect Blue, Onegai Teacher, Poyopoyo Kansatsu Nikki, Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit, Tokyo Godfathers, Crying Freeman, Soul Eater, Doraemon, and Sekirei—and if you know anything about these anime, this is a weird list of honorable mentions.

Not as weird as it could be, though. I have no stomach for graphic violence, little or no interest in the supernatural, no particular attachment to steampunk or traditional fantasy, no patience for series that take five episodes to tell a story that could fit into one, and a slew of other preferences and intolerances that tend to rule out sticking with certain films or series, assuming I bother with them in the first place. Drastically dissimilar as some of my favorites and honorable mentions may be, there are some commonalities between many of them: funny or lighthearted, action-oriented, intellectually challenging, emotionally uplifting, beautifully animated, excessively cute, populated with compelling female characters, family-friendly, and light on censorship. Anything I've mentioned probably meets at least four of these criteria.

Evangelion remains my favorite TV anime, and I've been looking forward to adding the reboot series to the collection, just as soon as I'm positive it's all been released and I have any idea how to decipher installment titles like Evangelion 3.141592: You Will [Not] Figure This Out Anytime Soon. However, there's one series I enjoy even more than Eva, and it's one that holds a special place in my heart: you see, I might not be married if it weren't for Lupin III.

My wife and I went to the same college and ran in many of the same geeky circles. One fateful night, things were slow at the video game club, and we opted to skip out early. We talked on the way back to our respective dorms, decided neither of us was tired, and she invited me to watch anime in her dorm. Enter Lupin III and his merry band of elite and stylish thieves. (Hopefully you have a mental picture of Lupin, Jigen, Goemon, and sometimes Fujiko piling into the dorm room with us, with Zenigata and his army of policemen behind them, because that's exactly how it happened.) I loved everything about it: the characters, the dynamics between them, the sight gags, the over-the-top action sequences ("He cut a plane in half with a sword!")--Lupin III was pure fun. Getting to share that time with someone equally fun made it even better.

We ended up staying awake until 4:30 in the morning just talking after the anime ran out (and I hope you're now picturing Lupin and the gang making a hasty egress through the door and window). We were good acquaintances before, but Lupin III is, for me, the start of where we became good friends and eventually a couple. My wife informs me this actually happened on a different occasion watching Read or Die, which just reinforces my sentiment that I'm not qualified to talk about anime.