Off to the Blaces

Now that April proper has begun, accompanied with the usual practical joke hullabaloo (don't get me started on the NYT crossword today) it feels like a good time to give a little bit of a run-down of the sort of thing that I'm planning for the next month on the Leaflocker. Not that things are likely to change from the usual nonsense all that much, but I'm hoping that by clearly announcing my goals I have maybe half a chance of meeting them. After all, this is the first blogging festival for a while which hasn't been interrupted by moving house or being on holiday, so I actually have half a chance of getting some things done around here. Not a big chance, but a chance nonetheless.

Maybe this is the year we
finally beat 2016's postcount.

Firstly, I'm planning on spending a solid block of time of about one cup of tea writing here on the blog (People measure days in teacups, right?). That time might not actually see any post come out of the end of it, but hopefully things will move in a generally publishable direction. I haven't got the discipline to set aside a specifically allotted consistent time each day, but I get the feeling I'll be able to fit it in if I try. I'm sort of hoping for 31 posts out of these five weeks, which would leave me with four cheat days, but as long as I manage a post for each weekday I'll be happy (a boy's gotta rest some time, after all). 

Mondays will continue to feature our Great Conversation, a process that I continue to enjoy as much as I ever have, even though it continues to attract absolutely no interest from the readership. They do say that one should blog for themselves, though, so it's staying. If my track record is anything to go by I won't actually be able to get one of those posts up each week, so hopefully on the off-weeks I'll be able to talk a little about some of the non-classic stuff that I've been able to read during the week when I was actively avoiding Mr. Plato.

Tuesdays will be board games content, a run down of the weekly games night as well as any other thoughts on the topic that I might have. This last week was a bit of a bumper issue and I doubt I'll be able to go on that long each time, but hopefully we'll be able to dive a little deeper into one particular game or aspect of games instead of just skimming over the surface.

Wednesdays should see the return of the Monday History quiz, the feature that I most wish that I had the willpower to pump out every week, as it seems to be a hit with a small but vocal contingent of the readership and could really benefit from actually appearing on a regular basis. As evidenced by the fact that this post is here instead of a quiz I don't always find it an easy one to get out on a schedule, though, so we're likely to need a backup option to fill in the gaps when the creative juices run slow.

Thursdays will be to day for my video games stuff, pandering to the Blaugust crowd a little and generally spending some time trying to think a little more critically about the medium that I seem to spend a truly ridiculous amount of my time on lately. I'm still picking up new games on a pretty regular basis, and hopefully having to plan something weekly will help me to branch out into something new instead of loading up yet another round of CounterStrike.

[Here I took a slight break to play Counterstrike. My team won 16-14, coming through on the CT side of Mirage despite my best efforts to lose it with some very erratic sniper play in the critical moments]

Fridays are currently earmarked for Special Features, which never bodes well, but thankfully I have a couple of relatively timeless posts on the backburner from last Blaugust that I should be able to serve up relatively easily if nothing new comes to mind. I'm hoping this slot will allow an outlet for a little more creative expression in some form, but like many folks I'm finding that creative spark pretty difficult to come across at the moment, so we'll see how we go.

Saturdays are Crossword days. I'm vaguely intending to have a new cryptic up every now and then, but the idea of one each week seems improbable verging on impossible, so it might be a recap of a crossword that I particularly enjoyed during the week. Or it might be a day off. I'm pretty happy with the idea of having weekends off of anything approaching work, so if I'm not enjoying the process Saturdays will just be empty.

Same goes for Sundays. If I have something to get off my chest about either the quarantine situation or about church or prayer stuff I'll put them here (so if you're not interested if hearing more aobut either of those two potential triggers, consider this a free pass to just not drop by a day each week), but I think Sundays will probably be dormant except in the unlikely event of us actually working up some kind of backlog here at Leaflocker HQ. Stranger things have happened, but not that many.

So that's a wrap of the sort of nonsense you're likely to find around these parts this Blapril. Any given day's scheduled programming might be either supplmented with or completely thrown out in favour of some kind of blog response post like I mentioned a couple of days ago, but at least I've stuck down my general plans. Now all I have to do is keep to them.

Now what was tomorrow, again? Video games? Guess I'd better get ready for that with a little CounterStrike...