Random Hoo Haasthe blog with the guff

Status report!

Sunday, August 31, 2014 at 3:49 pm Comments (2)

It’s been eight months since I post anything, and when I do it’s two years out of date. I guess I’m overdue a little explain-yourself, huh?

Some games I played in 2012
This old thing was sitting around for a long, long time. It’s scary to think that the last proper blog post twenty months ago was when I meant to have it finished. I had draft posts announcing its release dated August 2013, then October 2013, then January, then April…
It was a stack of fun to do! There’s something quite therapeutic about recording your thoughts on everything you watch throughout the year, though it’s tough to know what angle you’re actually going for – it’s not quite a diary, and it’s not quite a review… it’s just whatever I thought of it at the time? I did constantly worry whether it would be of any interest to anyone, but I don’t think that’s ever stopped me before. I mean, a Bomberman fansite!? Get outta here!
Most of it was finished back then, but finding the motivation to finish was tough, and the longer I waited, the less I remembered… which was frustrating for media that I had strong feelings for. I can’t tell you how many notes I’d written for M*A*S*H, but trying to put them into something tight and cohesive and not completely fan-gushy about every darn aspect of it was a bit of a challenge.

I’ve got notes for everything I watched, read and played in 2013 as well, though not nearly as indepth – I made a list, and then recorded my thoughts at the end of the year. They’re meandering and sleep-addled and a touch incomprehensible, but I’d say they’re more honest reviews than most of the crap I discussed on the blog before. Here’s half of what I recorded for Bad Boys.
“This is a Michael Bay film isn’t it? Two cops, Will Smith and Martin Lawrence… uh, I don’t know what they do. Bad guys are doing something? I think? I can’t remember. I’ve forgotten most of it already, but I’m sure there’s worse things I could’ve watched.”
See? No BS, no beating about the bush, just the truth.
If there’s some interest expressed, I might edit them into something presentable and make a General Writing out of them, or even a series of blog posts. ‘Cause I got nothing creative to say!

Comments
The site’s been dormant since January, but I’ve been “away” since September of last year, to be honest! I moved into my own apartment then, but didn’t get an internet connection in until a couple of months ago, so I only got to use it while visiting the parents for the longest time. And I want to say thanks to the folks who’d been posting comments and sending me emails during that time – it was really sweet to come back to such nice messages! I tried my best to reply to most of the emails, though I definitely missed a few. I’m glad my site is still entertaining to folks out there – you people probably deserve a better webmaster!

I was also going to apologise in the off-chance that any new commenters had posted but hadn’t gotten approved yet, since the blog’s “approval pending” folder consisted of like seven thousand spam messages… but the WordPress update a few months back wiped every last comment that wasn’t approved. Well, um, that solved that problem. (less work for me!)

ONM Remembered
I’m glad ONM Remembered is a hit with some folks! I’ll be the first to admit the quality’s mighty shaky – I like the self-imposed challenge of either making dumb observations, dropping informative titbits, or simply striking up topics to discuss on every single image, though my prowess over words is not as astute as some other bloggers (yo have i ever told you dudes to check out GameWTFs???). It was pretty neat seeing posts linked to on a couple of places – Supper Mario Broth reposted some of my favourite stupid images, and the “When I’m 64” entry got shared by cool dudes on Twitter.
The column’s on a break, and I admit its return will probably be the final batch, though I’ve got enough entries backed up to keep that run going for a good while. Yes, that means you can look forward to even more previews of Tonic Trouble! I want to say it’ll start up again around the middle of September or October, but it’s a recipe for disappointment anytime I put a date on something. It’ll show up sooner or later, I’m sure!

Updates
I didn’t exactly intend for 2013 to go by with no updates whatsoever. I mean, ONM Remembered is an unashamed stop-gap measure to save me from worrying about the site for months on end, but I think I meant to have something, even if it was just another Zelda chapter or Bomberman update. Life got busy, I suppose!
I just remembered I did record myself playing some mobile phone games last year – old-timey Java versions of Bomberman and Street Fighter and that sort of thing. Better than nothing?

Are there any plans for Random Hoo Haas this year?
Nothing concrete, really! I admit I find myself more invested in the informative sides of the site, such as the Bomberman and Metal Slug shrines. It involves little more than researching and gathering info, but it feels rewarding to piece them all together, moreso than most of my attempts in producing funny pages these days. I’m keen on filling in the Puchi Carat and Wario’s Woods shrines a bit more, and the prospect of expanding Metal Slug: Missing in Action is unfortunately tempting after I learnt that the Metal Slug Database is completely gone. We never appreciated those rare magazine and manual scans when we had ’em! Time to exhaustively gather information for all the characters and games in that franchise, I suppose. (it’s either that, or I wait for the Metal Slug Wikia to suddenly become good. Who’s betting on those odds?)
(also no i wouldn’t count on me doing this anytime soon)

Besides the shrines? I’d like to finish the dumb Zelda playthrough. Giving the site another Spring clean is tempting – chucking out old junk, rewriting things, tightening up the layout (I legit have no idea where I keep some of the pages. how does anyone even access that sprite ripping tutorial?) and generally polishing off stuff that’s been unfinished… though, really, whether I have the time, patience or interest for that is another matter. I’m more keen on researching rare Bomberman trivia than daring to make Bad Eater The Man into a less embarrassing write-up.

In conclusion, don’t exactly stay tuned, but kind of mill about and peek in every couple of months, and one of those times there might be some half-baked content! Think of it like a haunted house, except with a lazy webmaster instead of the restless spirits of the dead.