Resolutions for 2013

Last Updated on Monday, 7 January 2013 02:03 Written by Kadomi Monday, 7 January 2013 02:00

A week into the new year, and I have finally gotten around to thinking about my resolutions for the new year. I don’t usually do those, at least not for RL stuff. As far as the nerdy side of life goes, I have a few things in mind that I really want to aim for.

1) Blog more consistently. Aside from the occasional MMO post and my Goodreads book reviews, 2012 wasn’t that great a blogging year. I admit to missing the glory days of WoW blogging when my warrior blog actually saw a lot of traffic, but those days won’t come back, and I won’t blog like that anymore. Still, I want to aim for at least one blog post a week that’s actual content, if not more. Some of the things I have in mind are directly related to resolution number 2. Others involve possibly blogging more about WoW again. Now that my chosen class is death knight, I find that there’s a dearth of blogs about them out there. I felt kinda on my own learning how to become a decent frost death knight. Maybe others feel like that as well, who knows? I might post gear guides and such. Maybe. We’ll see. I want to, for sure.

2) Play more Steam games. It’s always the same. Everytime Steam does one of its huge sales (usually in summer and around Christmas) I act like a nerdy monkey and buy games. Every day I open the Steam shop, boggle at the sales and buy something. Gone are the days where gaming meant you had to pay a lot of money. One of the first games I ever bought was Ultima V. It cost me 79 DM back then. Nowadays, I buy games for under 10 Euro a pop, and they’re often not that old yet. People are ready to shell out a lot of money for cheap games. In this regard, Steam is revolutionary. Never has gaming been more accessible. What this means for me personally: a Steam library full of games I have purchased and then never touched. I know I am not alone with this problem, because many people buy Steam games on impulse simply because they are cheap, yet never play them. I plan on moving away from this. My resolution: play all unplayed games in Steam Library for at least an hour. If I like the game, I will work on actually completing the game. I will blog about my game reviews. I am going to start this week, with my indepth review of L.A. Noire.

3) Meet my Goodreads challenge this year. I am a huge fan of Goodreads. It introduces books to me I might otherwise never have heard of. I love reading, and it’s great to be able to discover books based on my friends or based on books I already love. Last year I challenged myself to read 40 books, and failed this, ending the year at 38 books. Close, but not good enough. My challenge goal for this year is 35. Definitely doable. Hopefully I might be able to up it. I think I’ll stop posting my reviews from Goodreads over here though. I might instead do a monthly summary of books I have read instead.

4) Find a new show to love. I always wanted to blog about it, and never got around to it. Last year I fell in love with the show Chuck, and inhaled all five seasons. I love it. It’s made my life a happier place. I wish all the best to all the former cast members of Chuck and fervently pray for a Chuck TV-movie. For 2013, I want to find a show that I might love just as much. Taking any suggestions! I am going to try out White Collar, based on many recommendations, but I am eager to hear more.

That’s pretty much it for now. Feels good to have direction for this year. May you all have a great 2013!

Random link love

Last Updated on Thursday, 1 March 2012 11:13 Written by Kadomi Wednesday, 4 May 2011 04:24

ife’s still vaguely busy, having to balance work with a social life. Wtf, I say! Instead of nerdery I shall have to give you guys a couple fun links instead.

Friends who blog:

Two of my WoW guildies recently started blogs of their own, celebrating our girlish geekness. Both are fantastic friends, who will now be fantastic bloggers.

• Caiters is posting over at treepunch.com. She easily beats me on the nerd scale by being a web designer, who plays a shitton of video games, board games and reads books at a rapid rate. Her husband is also a geek. I know she’s working on a super-huge ass post about co-op video games, so please check her out!
• Jen is another web developer person by day, and nerd by (day and) night. She recently picked up blogging again. In ‘Sailing the Widest Sea‘ she blogs about what kind of fantasy books she really enjoys (as a shocker, it’s not the GRRM kind) and why Portal 2 is amazing. Goddammit, bring on the Portal 2 sales, I want to play it too!

Book goodness:

• I mentioned the jailbreaking guide for custom screensavers for the Kindle before. Here are some shinies to use as screensavers: all House symbols of the big noble families in Game of Thrones. I pick the Direwolf, just so you know. If that doesn’t float your boat, check this amazing Tumblr for even more options.
• Ever have issues finding a book that’s similar to something you loved? YourNextRead might be the solution. You can type in what you are currently reading, and it will come up with a bunch of suggestions that you can then save or downrank, and it learns as you go. As bonus, as Goodreads user you can import all your bookshelves. Interesting! Btw, if you are currently reading A Storm of Swords, it recommends A Feast for Crows. Duh! It does the usual social bit, so you can also login with either your Twitter or your Facebook account.
• Patrick from Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist is posting a fun poll for GRRM fans. Who do you think will be the ultimate survivor, last man (or woman) standing in A Song of Ice and Fire? My vote was Jon Snow.

I realize I don’t write a lot about gaming right now, because I am not super passionate about any games atm. Well, DA2, but that doesn’t count at this point. I need something to tide me over until Mass Effect 3 gets here. I want to play Portal 2 co-op with my SO, but at current pricing, and as PC only gamers, that’s not happening. I will probably buy Magicka. Minecraft bores me, I am not the creative type. What else is out there that you guys really think I should play?

Oh, last and definitely least, I am still obsessing over fanfic, so please enjoy my latest and longest Merrill&Hawke fanfic: Safe with Me.