One more time around

Today marks the 7th blogivarsary/blogaversary (no sure the correct spelling of the made up word anyway).

Looking back it is kind of amazing that I've kept this going for this long.  I've watched others come and go, but I am still here clinging to my tiny little corner of the internet, still sharing models and games with both of my steady readers.

The last year has been rough here.  While I haven't been hit with the dreaded plague STILL ravaging the world, it has still affected me.  I've seen a lot of people that have used the extra time they have being stuck at home to get a lot more painting and modelling done - but for me it has killed any motivation to work on my models at all.

I do apologize for not keeping a regular schedule (I remember when I was able to post twice a week with addition unscheduled updates - *sigh* ).  I can't really post about what I'm working on when I'm not working on anything.  I still try to review as much as I can - but I can only review what I have.  I don't know if I should expand to movie/tv reviews as well - because it does seem that is pretty much all I still seem to be doing is sitting in front of the tube - though to be honest, it is a great time for geeky tv right now - there is more on than anyone who has a full time job could possibly watch.

I have thought about revisiting some of my older posts - I often find they are answers to questions people ask on Facebook, but are several years old.  I could just re-post them, but that seems cheating.  But maybe doing new versions would help.

I thought I would share some statistics about the blog with you (if anyone is interested).

Apparently I've had over 1.6 MILLION views ( 1,611,224 as of when I am writing this), for 798 posts (which have gotten 627 comments).  I actually have 10 followers on blogger (thanks folks).  I had a big increase in views in November and December - maybe I could have kept that trend going if I actually was updating regularly :-(.  And maybe I would have worked harder to think of something to write about if I actually checked my views more often so I would have realized I had a spike to begin with.

My post about moving from Warhammer 8th edition to Kings of War 2nd edition is still my most popular by far, with over 186,000 views (which is more than 5 times the second post (at only 3600 views)).  What amazes me that was one of my first posts ever (back in July of 2015) and it is only in the past three months that it has dropped to 9th in most views LATELY).

Unfortunately I still struggle to get consistent readership, and this is one of the place where I guess I am, once again, different than most folks.  When I find something I like (especially when I go there more than once), then I add it to my RSS feed so that I can see when it is next updated.  (I use Feedly, which allows you to add sites that don't put out RSS feeds themselves even - you can just add a URL and it checks it for updates).  (I especially like it for webcomics).  However it is the unfortunate truth that almost no one reads my blog until I post it all over Facebook.  (I can't say no one at all, I get a couple of views when I forget and send the links out late, but not many).

I kind of chuckle that google keeps telling me that if I don't turn ads back on I will lose all the money I've accumulated - but I haven't accumulated enough to actually ever get a check (they won't write a check for less than $100) and I have had more issues with ads than it would be worth to eventually get a my first $100 in a few years.

If anyone would like me to review any game or game product, I'd be more than happy to.  I have actually gotten a small number of items sent to me for that purpose (and almost (but not all) of the books I review are because I have gotten review copies of them).  Otherwise I only review those things I actually have purchased (which does tend to skew my reviews toward the positive side - but why would I buy something I didn't want (or at least want to try).

Anyway, enough rambling for now.  I hope to be more consistent this year, but we'll just have to see.

Because it is all fun and games . . .