Monday, December 10, 2012

Rewatching Star Trek: Ship in a Bottle


All joking aside, I'm thinking of rejiggering some stuff around here. I was talking with a friend recently and we discussed how I've been taking the "Focused by Caffeine" bit very seriously lately. Part of the reason behind that is that it's easy to shoot out a reactionary essay about something that strikes you as wrong, and with the political season having been upon us, it was an easy trap to fall into.

Larger than that is the issue of just what it is that folks come here for. I've compiled a tentative list from the available statistics about my commenters, popular posts, and search results that lead people here.

However, the content of the blog looks a lot more like this:
I think it's safe to say that whenever you remove accidental visits from the list, math says that the existence of Powered by Indifference, Focused by Caffeine is within the margin of error. That's not a bad thing; I could post porn or adorable cat pictures if I wanted traffic [Note to Self: Start up website network based on people sharing pictures of adorable cats having sex.].

I like writing and sharing cool stuff with folks. I'd like to produce work of quality that engages and entertains people. Becoming a better writer covers all of that, and this is one of the ways I move toward that. However, without constantly aiming for something higher I can put hundreds of man-hours into this blog and still end up like David Gonterman in the end, putting high-school level work on a professional podium.

Come the new year, I'll be changing some stuff up. There will be a general tweaking of formats, tightening up of features, experimenting with tone, and most likely the vaguest hints of direction. Probably more comics, Star Trek, and gaming. Probably fewer strange videos, personal exploits, and navel-gazing blog about the blog. None of that is set in stone though, and I'm quite open to suggestions about things folks want to see more/less.

This place is definitely getting a new color theme though. I love the old ash and orange, but feel it's time for a change.

3 comments:

SkilTao said...

Thought 1: You're only on episode four!?

Thought 2: I propose the next Star Trek: Rebooted movie revolve around a young team-up of Tasha Yar, Ro Laren, and Kira Nerys.

Thought 3: Yeah, if your pastime is something you're interested in and that's what you write about, other people will probably be interested too, whereas writing about the process of writing about your pastime tends to dilute things.

Thought 4: I don't mind personal exploits. They'd be out of place on a monetized high-traffic blog, but I don't think they necessarily detract from the chances of getting accidental visitors to stick around.

Sub-thought of 4: Personally, I enjoy your descriptions of barge work because I'm generally fascinated by large machinery, and any insight into naval life is useful for any number of RPG settings. Lots of gamers are pretty clueless about what crew & positions are required for a ship, what mundane obstacles there are, or what kinds of crisis they'd be prepared for.

VanVelding said...

Yeah, only episode four. It's abysmal. I might be handing the thing off.

I don't know about talking more on barge work. I think I've tapped that vein out. The only other geek interest it might hold is its usefulness during a zombie apocalypse. Which is--

Okay. Mostly tapped out.

I like Thought 2.

SkilTao said...

Heh.