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This year’s main goal for the blog was to have a new post up every 3-4 days, and to spread out any ‘clumps’ to maintain an even posting schedule. I mostly stuck to that, though there were a couple times in January where the gap stretched out to six days, and a two-week period in July with no posts, largely because I was ill, and not doing much. The idea is to build up a small (probably rotating) reserve of posts that I can schedule into the dead spots, and that hasn’t really happened. Most of the time, I’m posting right on top of deadline. So this year, the goal is to get the schedule a little more stable. A count of the posts says I did 91 this year, which is down from 2015.

Taking a quick look at the categories involved, I had 29 in Books, 12 GURPS, 11 Boardgaming, 6 D&D, 5 each Four Vassal War, BvR – The Wind, ASL, 4 each MMO, CC:Ancients, Anime, 2 each F&E, SFB, and 1 each in Life, Computer Games, and Comics. Folding those up the subcategories gives 12 in F&E, and 29 in Boardgaming, 18 in RPGs, and 5 in Computer Games. I may need to split up the Books category some (fiction and non-fiction, most likely).

One of the things hurting the posting schedule is a lack of gaming. Communication has been breaking down in the FtF group, and Bel’s been busy, so the near-monthly feed of F&E updates has gone dry. I’m doing some PBeM ASL, but that takes a while, and is a lot of effort to write up. I’m thinking that I need to find something new to slot into the dance card. I’d prefer either something a little smaller, or something that’s worth reporting on in 1 (or 2-3) turn chunks like F&E is. So, I’m thinking of trying for some EFS or OCS games, or maybe GCACW. I’d also like to try out the Der Weltkrieg series. We’ll see what happens.

As I just implied, not a lot of gaming happened this last year. Similarly, board game purchasing has been down this year, and all I got was the new ASL Journal, an impulse on-sale buy of Osmanli Harbi, a gift of Hakkaa Päälle!, and the issues of Captain’s Log that made it to PDF. I haven’t done a lot of computer gaming either (though I’ve just about finished up a full game of Europa Universalis IV; no small feat!), and the major purchase there is a 2DS and Pokemon (and that’s about the only thing bringing spending into line with other years). You can see the full details here.

The major purchasing attention has been GURPS, even though I’m not really getting any closer to doing anything with that than at the beginning of the year. I can blame the robust GURPS blogging community for the attention, which has helped keep it in my scattershot brain through much of the year. Further, doing some worked-out spells and creatures has helped fill out a lagging schedule some, giving me a practical incentive. Lately, the fact that I’ve done some work has put me in mind to actually see it in motion, but I keep being wishy-washy on what I want to do.

I hit my Goodreads goal of 52 books read this year (one a week; and I actually hit 53), though that includes a number of modules and graphic novels that I generally don’t count as they’re so short. My “Reading Through History” project is mostly bogged down with new books on earlier eras, but I’m up to the 1730s now. As usual, the annual visit to my parents and Christmas have left me over-full on to-read physical books again, which I’ll spend the next few months trimming back down. I’d say the main reading highlights of the year were Peter the Great (Massie is always very good), The Name of the Rose (which actually has some problems, but is still a very interesting read), and Zita the Spacegirl, which is a very fun graphic novel.

So the year’s goals are to do over 100 posts again, get more wargaming done, and read more books. …Fairly typical actually.