This is the 1000th post I’ve written on this blog. Well, 1000th post; I did do a month of strictly image posts about 8 years ago. With this milestone approaching, I’ve been looking back on what I’ve written and thinking about what I want to do in the future. My first thought was to just close up shop, disappear as unnoticed now as when I started. If I had some other outlet, I might have done that. But I’ve got a half dozen posts ready to go in the hopper, so at least for now I intend to keep plugging away. So here are 1000 words reflecting on 1000 posts.

What I’ve written over the last 8 or so years is different from what I imagined. What I imagined was me doing what all the popular sites I was reading were doing all by myself. At first I wanted to do TV reviews in the style of the AV Club, but I was getting in on the end of that train; the AV Club even cut back on their TV reviews not long after. Early on I outlined an ambitious plan to do recaps of my favorite shows, a list that is remarkably similar to what that list would look like today, and I got through a season of Futurama. The problem is that they were all comedies, shows without meaningful serialization or plot to examine. Writing about comedy shows is harder than I imagined; explaining jokes is not interesting and it only serves to make the jokes less funny. Without a lot of plot or character development, there wasn’t much to analyze. I always had an idea to start that back up again, likely focusing on different shows, like the CW DC shows, but I really don’t think I will.

I will continue to write about TV, though. I am intending to do more in depth writing about TV seasons as they end. Too often I write a short blurb in monthly post about how much I enjoyed a TV show and add a bit about writing more about it later, knowing that that will never happen. I want to try to make it happen. Also, I want to get some words down about my favorite shows, even if they aren’t episode reviews. I’ve already done that for a few (like Parks and Rec and The Office) but I will get to more. My movie reviews aren’t exactly what I intended when I started, but I am reasonably happy with them. I don’t see how I do them changing, though again I do intend to write more about older stuff.

My Video Game Archeology series was me biting real hard into Retronauts shtick, but even when I started people were moving to YouTube for video game stuff. That is one that might see a return. I’ve got a list of 8 and 16-bit (as well as a few N64/PS1) games that I’ve always wanted to try; it is entirely possible I might go back and give that a go. Otherwise, I will stay the course with my dwindling video game playing and writing time. This blog ended up being a lot more contemporary than I intended. I wanted to write about the things I loved, and at the time I was more inclined to spend time with old favorites than seek out new ones. For nearly a decade I replayed some of my favorite games at least once a year; the trio of Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy VI and Suikoden 2. I’ve mentioned the list of posts I intended to write that I made up before starting this blog before. (I’ll share that list below.) Keeping in mind that I made that list circa 2010, there is a lot on there that I have no idea what I intended to write about and a lot on there that I no longer have any intention of writing about. However, there is very little on that list that was new at the time, especially in the video games department.

I wrote about sports for a time, but my time as an intense sports fan is kind of past. Shake-ups to the college sports landscape, revelations about head trauma in the NFL and the like have kind of put me at a bit of a distance from sports that I didn’t feel in my early 20s. I still watch plenty of basketball, football and baseball, but I can’t honestly say that I care like I used to. Some of my favorite sports memories have happened while I was writing this blog, even if I didn’t write about them. I started a thing about baseball and the Royals after the 2014 season ended in a World Series defeat, and I had another one after the 2015 World Series victory. But I couldn’t really get my thoughts into words. I’m not saying I’ll never write about sports on this blog again, but look how long it’s been since I did.

I don’t have a lot to say about books and comics, I will keep writing about them as I read them and that’s about it. Maybe some more in depth features, maybe not.

I also don’t know that I’m proud of my work on this blog. In preparing for this post, I thought I would go back and find my favorite things that I’ve written, forgetting that I hate everything I’ve ever written. I can pick out some favorite experiences, if not posts. Book: Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde. Movie: Mad Max Fury Road. Game: Breath of the Wild. I don’t know that any of those are my best writing, but those are the best things I’ve written about.

Having the blog was a way to make my time working at jobs that didn’t matter seem less pointless. But my work isn’t so pointless anymore and I don’t know that my writing has actually improved. So who knows what the future holds.

The List (Note: it is no longer 100 because I previously removed the ones I’ve already written and I am not looking them back up):

1. Shannara
2. The Dark Tower
3. Shadow Moon
4. Mistborn
5. Star Wars EU
6. Harry Potter
7. Bill Peet
8. R.A. Salvatore
9. Dragon Crown War
10. Lolita
11. Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
12. Lord of the Rings
13. Royals Fan
14. FF12
15. Handheld Castlevania
16. No More Heroes
17. Okami
18. Suikoden
19. Dragon Quest
20. Professor Layton
21. King of Fighters
22. New Super Mario Bros Wii
23. Pokemon
24. SMT
25. Final Fantasy 9
26. Arrested Development
27. My Name is Earl
28. Family Guy
29. Monk
30. Scrubs
31. Titus
32. Batman TAS
33. Justice League TAS
34. Heroes
35. Chuck
36. Superman TAS
37. According to Jim
38. Hot Fuzz
39. Princess Bride book
40. Raimi Spider-Man
41. X-Men 1-3
42. Tenacious D
43. Fantastic 4 1-2
44. Once Upon a Time in Mexico
45. Willow
46. The Good, The Bad and the Ugly
47. Astonishing X-Men
48. Runaways
49. New X-Men
50. Final Crisis
51. Iron Fist
52. JLA
53. Kirby Thor
54. Claremont X-Men
55. Birds of Prey
56. All-Star Superman
57. Frank Miller
58. Grant Morrison
59. Geoff Johns