Updates and News

It’s been one hell of a year for me so far. As I wrote a while back, my father died back in January and it was one of the most disturbing experiences of my life. Watching someone go from healthy to withering away into a skeleton in the span of only three months was the most surreal thing I’ve ever seen. Then a month later I found out my grandma was in heart failure, and I went down with my mother to see her in New Mexico. And despite a bout of violent food poisoning, it was one of the best trips in my life. She was in great spirits and it was good to talk with her again, she was a wise woman. She died last week, a little less than a month later.

It hasn’t been all bad though, just as my father’s illness was starting to eat away at him, I met an amazing girl named Maggie who helped me get through it. She also has a daughter, and while I never saw myself as liking kids, I absolutely adore her. In addition, after five years of doing freelance writing, it’s finally beginning to pay off. While I’ve been interviewed by both Microsoft and AT&T, in terms of freelance clients I’ve always had to pitch my services to people. Now for the first time, clients are coming to me with work. I’m also hopeful that this year will be the year I finally nail the interview when I’m (hopefully) contacted by another recruiter. Video game writing would be my dream job, but I’d settle for anything that offers a stable salary and benefits. Living on an unstable income is stressful as hell, let me tell you.

The latest issue I’m facing is the death of my beloved computer, for six years its faithfully allowed me to give you reviews on games ranging from Dragon Age: Inquisition to Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt. This has proven to be something of a mixed blessing. On the one hand, I’ve gotten more work done and been more creative in my writing since my computer has broken. Probably due to the fact that I can no longer call playing video games for 10 hours a day “research.” On the other hand, however, this will mean no new reviews for any upcoming games.

Lacking any of the new consoles and now a PC to play games on, the unfortunate fact is that I won’t be gaming for quite a while. While this means I’m going to miss out on CDProjekt’s new DLC Blood and Wine for The Witcher 3, it also gives me the opportunity to finally write a book. Something I’ve been putting off for far too long.

This also doesn’t mean that my video game reviews will stop entirely, I have a huge backlog of old games I’ve been meaning to review but just never got around to: Dragon Age: Origins, Freespace 1 and 2, followup articles on Planescape: Torment and Life is Strange, and the Knights of the Old Republic series. I also have an Xbox 360 and a Playstation 2, so if there’s some really old retro games you’d like reviewed, I can do that.

My hope is that, eventually, concentrating on my writing will allow me to afford a new computer and my gaming reviews will continue. Until then, I have a goal to work towards and an incentive for accomplishing that goal (because I do love gaming, ever so much.) And of course if you have any requests for TV shows, movies, or books, you can still send those my way! I’m currently watching Better Call Saul season 1, so you can look forward to that review soon.

My lack of computer has already resulted in working on my website to make it more accessible. I’ve now added several pages under the On TV and Movies and On Games tabs at the top of your screen (at least they should be.) My articles on specific games and shows can now be found there and will be updated if/when I write new articles about them. A big thank you to one of my readers, Tara, for reminding me to get off my ass and fix those.

A big thanks to all my readers who have stuck with me through this writing slump I’ve been in and I look forward to providing you with, hopefully, more frequent content in the coming months!