This and that

I've gotten some email asking what's up with the scheduling and projects around here. This post will address some of it - and hopefully give you guys an idea of what you can expect to see on Reasonably Clever in the coming months.

As I've mentioned elsewhere, things are in flux as I try and find a balance between my on-line, personal, and professional lives. Yes, I have a day job. Yes, I even have a bit of a life. And, no, I don't make any money off this site. The little cash that I generate from the Buy-Me-Mizer and the Google Ads go straight back into paying for the site and the LEGO needed to keep it going.

Why do I do it? Heck if I know. There are certainly days when the aggravation runs high and I'm tempted to just shut the site down and move on. But - for now - I still enjoy the projects that keep Reasonably Clever going.

Anyway, here's the news that's fit to print....


Comics:

Brick House is in flux at the moment. I nearly put it on hiatus, but decided I'd at least try and get one episode a week out. I'm not overly happy with the strip at the moment, so I've been working on a script to fix the issues as I see them without resorting to a complete "reboot" of the story.

My goal is to return to at least a 3-day a week schedule for the strip within the next month or two. We'll see if that happens or not. For now, look for episodes on Friday. The format of the strip will probably stay the 4-panel layout I've gotten comfortable with, but I might use more than one layout per day. It'll all depend on how much time I have free to devote to it.

I'm also in the design phase of a second comic project. This time I'll only be responsible for the illustrations - I've teamed up with an up and coming comic author to provide the visuals for her story. It should be a new and interesting challenge for me. Look for that late in the year.

Reviews:

I'm getting a kick out of doing the Daily Fail. I started out my Internet Life writing bootleg toy reviews, and it's nice to return to familiar ground. The new review format is still taking shape - I have some ideas to make them a bit more focused that I'll be trying out in the coming weeks. I still have weeks of LEGO knock-offs in the queue, and when they're done I may start covering non-LEGO bootlegs again.

I've also been toying around with what to do with the bootlegs once they've been reviewed. Several people have suggested destroying them or doing "death match" type contests. I'm looking into that as a possibility - it'd certainly make for some interesting video clips, anyway.

I've been asked if I'll be returning to reviewing LEGO sets as well. The answer is "probably." Once the review format for the Fail is established, I'll likely make a variation of it for legit products. Ideally, it'd be nice to have one "real" review a week, perhaps taking the place of a daily Fail. Again, we'll just have to see how things work out.

LEGO building:

With all that going on, I still have to find time to do some actual building. I'm currently working on some very large models to be shown at CONVergence - with a bit of luck I might even have them ready to preview at BrickWorld.

Serenity is on indefinite hold. I'm still interested in the project, I still have a ton of brick incorporated into various half-complete beta builds. But right now I've got too many other pressing issues to devote any real time to it.

Contests:

I'm hoping we'll see some action on the Micropolis contest soon. I've been answering some questions in email about the standards, but I haven't seen the expected batch of early entries I normally get. Maybe people are daunted by actually having a strict set of rules to follow - or, more likely, it just takes longer to build something to a standard than just making it up as you go.

That said, I'd appreciate it if people would help promote this contest a bit in other blogs - submit it as a news item over at Brothers Brick or your LEGO forum of choice, mention it in your own journal, etc. There are some cool prizes up for grabs, after all.

This will likely be the last contest for a bit, too. Unless I do something small in May it'll be late July before I have the time to devote to another contest.

In Conclusion....

...I'm still looking at spending way too much time doing crap for this site.

Oh, well. I'll figure something out.