2017 in review

It’s only a couple of weeks old, so it’s probably harsh to try reviewing 2017 already, but I know there are a couple of things coming up I wanted to muse on, so here goes.

[tl:dr Reflections on stuff that’s coming up, a couple of name drops and a quick delve through recent events. Normal service continues sometime soonish.]

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Big Adventures. With a Dragon

I suspect it must be a weakness for the obscure which drove me to name my little company notejuste. A pun in a kind of schoolboy French and also completely available as a domain name. How convenient.

So it’s come as no surprise that my latest venture has wandered into similar territory. From this week, I’m working with two partners to launch and maintain a kind of co-branding exercise to support our efforts (solo and joint) by providing a unified publishing house.

No Dice is live!

After fiddling around with the idea for years and spending weeks talking about it, No Dice is finally live on Kickstarter. Do you like card games? Dominoes? Scoring points? No Dice is the game you’re looking for, even if you never heard of it.

The project video is basically just me mumbling at the camera, and the rewards (including T shirts from Eve2 Media) are fairly standard but I’m truly happy with the game itself and welcome everyone on board to get it off the ground.

1 Walsall Poem

I’m almost a published poet. I’ve been added to a collective effort celebrating Walsall wordsmiths in the form of a curated blog.

100 Walsall Poems is now live, and has been for a little while. My effort is included and I’m rather flattered to have been involved. I met the project curator Peace the Poet this afternoon on my walk from the office to the car.

He’s a pleasant chap with a positive disposition, and well known in the borough as a performer and poet.

By all means have a look at the project, and also check out the other things he is doing. It’s all about community and collaboration.

No Dice – a whole new game

For the last couple of years I’ve had an idea rolling around my head based on developing dominoes and adding elements from card games my brothers and I played when we were young(er). It’s essentially a three part domino design on hexagonal cards and a variety of matching rules to score points each turn. I found a supplier who prints custom decks and ordered one to play around with.

Jimm, Chris, Mike and Scott giving their seal of approval. MNA Gaming Store in Walsall.

Numbers, numbers.

It’s my 200th post. I’m celebrating by geeking out with an idea I’ve had for a piece of music.

World Premiere

Yesterday I attended the world premiere of a commission I’d written.

A completely amateur approach

On October 24th, I helped out at Walsall Social Media Surgery. It was great to work with active and inquisitive folks trying to use and understand the reach of social media. In particular, I enjoyed talking with Bill Ellens from (among others) CUSP in Walsall.

I promised Bill I’d run over some of the tools I was using and talking about. So, here goes:

Things about which I have become excited.

A number of rather good things are in the offing. I am quite excited about many of them, and thought rather than write individual posts to be published over the next few days I’d share them all in brief and save the detail for later.

I’m unemployed

I have no job. It’s a bit irritating to be honest.

The circumstances are by now fairly irrelevant, but the upshot is I currently have no way of paying the bills next month, so I’m casting around for work and trying to find myself a worthwhile occupation. (In fact, if you want to help, or want to hire me, you can get further details here.)

Cue my latest crazy idea – Grammar Ninja.