In many ways, Year Seven of Da Blog was a wasted year for me. This is the 91st post since my last blog-day post, when I didn’t think I would ever have less than 100 again, considering the circumstances when I last had that few. The reasons I’ve had low post output in the past don’t seem to apply this year – for example, neither this post nor last year’s blog-day post were made cowering in a bus stop shelter.
Part of the reason is that, after making a commitment to more webcomic reviews in my first post of the new year, I wound up not doing a single full review this year, in part because the comics I chose to start with on Comic Rocket were uniformly uninspiring at best (though I hope to get one in by the end of 2013). I also haven’t managed to get completely caught up on Homestuck all year, which would have been good for a substantial number of webcomics posts, and OOTS has gotten even slower at post frequency since Rich’s thumb injury. But even webcomics posts are only part of the story. I’ve tried to put more focus on schoolwork (passing one of the two incredibly difficult classes I had to pass), but even that only goes so far towards explaining things.
No, a bigger issue is the thing that has increasingly taken over Da Blog over the past six months-plus, causing me to be ridiculously late on a number of things, including a sports graphics roundup I should have put up by the end of August: the sports ratings posts. The Studio Show Scorecard has been an especially nasty culprit. The only responses I got on the semi-recent Da Blog Poll were supportive of keeping the Scorecard going, but I’m serious, without it going through each week’s ratings would take only 40% of the time it does and it would still come out to over an hour and a half; as it stands it takes almost four hours, and much of the SSS work is really tedious. (And I’m going to add something else to the SSS that’ll make it take even longer when we get to the November 18 post.) Other than the SNF Flex Schedule Watch, which is pretty short and easy for me to do and attracts a considerable amount of traffic to Da Blog, virtually all other posts disappeared once the SSS started, and neither type of ratings post has been all that successful at attracting traffic to Da Blog. Among other things, the final year of the college football rankings ended up being nonexistent as a result.
In some way, shape or form, Year Eight is going to be a big year for Da Blog, whether good or bad. I’ve said that before, but in this case it kind of has to be. I believe I have one class remaining before graduation, meaning I would be effectively taking the spring off, and the way that class is set up for me I might be effectively taking the winter off. I’m probably going to have to get a real job fairly quickly, and by the end of the year I’ll either be working that job – and probably will have figured out how much time I can devote to Da Blog long-term – or in a situation where my work on Da Blog is being directly supported and nurtured.
I’m going to be making some effort to make something of Da Blog over the first few months of 2014. I’m working on a series of posts taking a big-picture view of the sports TV wars that should go up in the first few weeks of the new year, I’m going to try and do some bigger things around the sports TV ratings posts, and I have a few more ideas I’m going to try to make something of. 2014 is going to be a transition year for me, one unmatched since the year that saw the launch of Da Blog. Only time will tell if it’s going to be a transition that’s good or bad for Da Blog.
2 thoughts on “A not-quite-so-belated blog-day.”