Is there truly some place “beyond” out there, or is it just an infinite series of doors, each leading to a hallway so similar to the last that it doesn’t really matter whether they’re the same or not? Stay tuned!
For tonight, I had booked my final movie ticket for 2025 and would have logged my final micro-review for this year, but then I caught the hell of a cold and had to pass. Three years ago, when life sputteringly restarted post-COVID, I began to write these reviews, some longer, some shorter, after every visit to movie theaters, art exhibitions, concerts, operas, and stage performances to savor the occasion, solidify my memories, and express a few thoughts. Lately, however, life caught up with me, and more and more review slots became “pending.” Not that it’s become a chore yet, far from it—but I feel it’s bound to move in that direction. So I will stop doing that, at least for now.
There are so many other things I want to do!
One of these things would be attending more conferences! Which I finally picked up on again in 2025, and I got incredibly lucky—particularly the “Games and Game Studies Beyond Postmodernism” conference set the bar extremely high, not only academically but also in terms of inspiration and terrific people. The second thing is, of course, writing—finally getting that damn paper on player decision models on the road, sketching a follow-up to Ludotronics, working on a possible book contribution, and toiling away at my Voidpunk SF-horror project’s various construction sites. Also, analog photography! Learning to snowboard! Visiting friends and make new ones! Around the world!
Plus, there’s a “beyond” for this here blog as well. Since I started blogging (quite late) around 2008, between drafts underwent several facelifts. But under the hood, especially categories and tags and so on, everything stayed the same, not keeping up with how my life, activities, and interests kept changing. So it’s high time I redecorated the place again, but this time thoroughly, including its internals. Which way? I can’t tell yet. I’m not even sure I want to stay on WordPress anymore, what with all the terrible technical directions it’s been pushed toward and the recent shenanigans of its founder. Also, I’m not in a hurry—but if an interesting solution comes along, I’m mentally prepared to strike.
Similarly, my “weekly” newsletter became sporadic enough lately to demand a conceptual overhaul as well. Working on it!
What stays the same are my Voidpunk blog and my game event-related Journal entries at ludotronics.net.
Anything I missed? Oh, well—I never bother to nuke ancient and obsolete accounts, but you won’t be seeing any new posts of mine at Empire of Evil sites (anything Meta, Nazi bar, and similar). But I’m happy to meet you on Mastodon, Bluesky, Pixelfed, and Flickr! And for all the sites I always forget I’m on, there’s my Linktree account, a convenient platform for you to look me up and for me to let it sort my head.
Soon, it will be 2026. See you around!
J.
If you have something valuable to add or some interesting point to discuss, I’ll be looking forward to meeting you at Mastodon!