Not that it actually matters for the content of this post, but this post was published at 22:22, on 2/22/2022. Because the dates worked out and the timing is fun. :) I even clicked Publish at the 22 second mark.
Here we are, with me finally putting out an anniversary update like I’ve wanted to every year since this blog’s founding, but never gotten around to before. Four years ago today, on an otherwise unremarkable Thursday evening, this blog was born and my first post went up.
I didn’t have great expectations for how it would turn out; I’ve started many personal projects over the years that didn’t get very far before fading out, and I knew there was a good chance this would do the same. There was no guarantee that I’d stay committed to it and be able to put out much content, or that what I did put out would be good enough for anybody to find it worthwhile reading. I certainly didn’t have in my mind the picture that within four years, I’d have covered five seasons of TAR and a related show “live” and put out 13 season’s worth of historical coverage, as well as other miscellaneous content.
It hasn’t been an easy road, either. Writing is hard – just getting the drive and focus to sit down and type a good amount of fairly well-written content is a difficult task – and since the beginning I’ve taken longer on writing various posts than I would have liked to. I’ve considered dropping my main TAR coverage, although that time hasn’t come yet, and there have been stretches of months where I put nothing out at all.
But this blog has succeeded beyond my expectations. I’ve gotten over 100 posts out now, am still going, and have gotten quite a bit of positive feedback, especially in recent months, from others who have enjoyed what I’ve put out. It’s quite gratifying that I can look at this project as having been a success, if a modest one, and I thank everybody who has left me kind words about it.
I must give credit where credit is due, however. I cannot rightly claim that this success and whatever good writing I have generated come from my own talents, unassisted. Instead, the credit belongs to God, who created me and first gave me life, who continues to sustain and provide for me, and who gave me all the talents that I have used in making this blog. To Him be all the glory.
Some looks, both backward and forward, at this blog’s categories of coverage:
Computer games in general. When I created this blog, this was envisioned as one of two major categories of content on it, and for a little while, I was able to get out reviews, in one form or another, of various games that I had recently played. More looks at other games, especially those without a lot of already-existing content online, were planned. However, this has fallen by the wayside, as I had a hard time writing about new games in a timely manner and never really got the inspiration to write more about others. I sputtered along for a little while, but the last miscellaneous piece of game coverage I put out was a review of Obduction back in 2019, and I don’t foresee any more coverage coming along anytime soon. I certainly won’t totally rule out ever doing more in the future, but at this point this part of the blog can be considered dead.
Backyard Baseball. I had no idea when I made this blog that this would be a major category of coverage, but seven months later, I joined the Reddit Backyard Baseball League (rBBL, or just BBL now as we’re pretty much completely separated from Reddit) and have been a member of the league ever since. For my first season, I produced progressively shorter writeups for this blog; I stopped when I migrated to another dedicated WordPress site, before shortly thereafter burning out and never consistently producing BBL writings long-term again. I’ve put several miscellaneous BBL-related posts on here since then, but those days may be about over now. I initially wanted to go back to making writeups for this season, but that never manifested, and in direct contrast, recently was the first time in six seasons that I failed to make division previews and predictions for the start of a new season. I’ve had heavy fatigue from the BBL itself lately as well, and the end of my time actively participating in it may be soon ending, depending on whether I get better in that regard and what changes continue to come to the league. In any case, there’s a chance I’ll put more random BBL writings here in the future, but it’s a slim chance at this point.
New TAR/TAN coverage. I never made specific plans for this when I created this blog, although my first full post was a season wrap-up for The Amazing Race 30. But it turned out that once a new season of TAR came out over a year later, I wanted to do weekly episode blogs for it, the format worked well, and I’ve overall enjoyed continuing it since. It definitely can be fatiguing sometimes to have to write a new post every week before I can watch the next episode, but it’s worth it later on to look back and get a look at how the season, and my opinions about it, unfolded, and how right or wrong I was in various predictions. Later, when TAR host Phil Keoghan debuted a new show, Tough as Nails, I did the same for its first two seasons, although I never did manage to write a wrap-up post for either of the first two seasons. That was fun as well, but I think a bit less rewarding as TAN is a bit less interesting to analyze.
There’s just two weeks/three blog posts (I haven’t written one for last week yet) in The Amazing Race 33, and I fully intend to wrap up coverage for that. As far as future seasons go, I’ll have to wait and see if I feel up to it when they come along. As for Tough as Nails, I still intend to watch and blog its third season at some point, but that won’t be anytime soon – I’ll need a breather from the regular coverage after this season of TAR ends. For future seasons, of that, we’ll see – I may not be interested in continuing on past the third season if it proves unsuccessful at freshening the show up.
Historical TAR coverage. The primary purpose of this blog from the beginning, its primary focus, and its primary source of feedback has been my posts reviewing, analyzing, and ranking each American season of The Amazing Race as I slowly rewatch them in order. I’ve successfully completed 13 seasons in four years – at the pace I’ve been going (from two to four seasons per year), I could conceivably catch up with the current canon anywhere from 2027 to 2032. Who knows if that will happen, though. It only took me three seasons to abandon my original planned format of a general post with quick leg/team rankings, followed by more verbose posts for the leg and team rankings, as those more verbose posts proved difficult to write and I didn’t want to force the issue, as that would likely just produce poor-quality writing. As a result, I’ve only completed about 3.8 more verbose posts in the eleven seasons since, and the last time I did a full such post was for my Season 7 coverage. They could conceivably come back again someday, but I have a hard enough time with the regular posts as it is, so I certainly wouldn’t bank on it.
I recently had a crisis of sorts as it took me about 6-7 months to blog about Season 12, culminating in me needing to rewatch it for a second time before I could produce its post. Something similar is threatening to happen with Season 14, as it’s now been over 2 months since I finished my rewatch of that. This “crisis” has left the future of this series in doubt; it may simply become too difficult for me to continue putting these posts out in future, in which case I will have to discontinue this series, and other unforeseen life events may also force me to stop at some point. The bottom line is that while, at this point, I would like to do my best to make this series last as long as possible, there’s no guarantees that it will ever get any farther than it has, although recent positive feedback has helped increase my resolve to keep it going if I can. In any case, this will continue to be the primary focus of this blog moving forward.
That was a bit lengthy and perhaps not of much interest to anybody, but it’s my first true “meta” post analyzing the blog as a whole since the night I created it four years ago. Making up for the past three years where I failed to put out such a post! Overall there’s no major projected changes to this blog for the future – no discontinuing of current content or starting of new content. I’ll keep doing what I do here for as long as is feasible, and hopefully some people will continue to enjoy it – if so, that’s as good as I can ask for from this little personal project that ultimately, I do for my own enjoyment and simply share in case others want to see it as well.
The Musings of Eauxps 