Musings

My random thoughts and commentaries

by Oli on Buying, Musings

Kickstarter Addiction

Kickstarter Running Spend

Kickstarter Running Total Spend

If my luck holds, I’m going to be moving house in the new year. As I have a bit of a Kickstarter addiction, this seemed like a good time to go back over my open pledges to work out where things are now and what needs an address update for delivery. My first Kickstarter pledge was back in August 2011 and since then I’ve been a regular backer of projects. In 2013 I went a bit out of control and spent a large chunk of cash on projects, a little under 2% of my income, and since then I’ve tried to restrict my pledging and have fallen back to a nice manageable rate. It may seem like I don’t really care about the projects I’m backing if I need to have a concerted effort to look back over them now, but that’s because I approach each project differently. A lot of game projects get ignored because I both don’t have the time to play the betas, and don’t want any spoilers for games with a strong story. On the other hand, some of them (TinyKeep for example) drew me in with interesting regular updates on the development process so have kept my interest.
On the whole I’ve been happy with the Kickstarter experience. Very few projects have actually failed to deliver, even if some of them are horribly delayed. There have also been some resounding successes in the shape of projects like Shadowrun Returns and Wasteland 2, as well as some products that have become daily drivers for me like the Pebble smartwatch.
I don’t think I’m going to be losing the addiction any time soon, but I’m certainly refining what I’m willing to back in the face of failures of some early access games. That and a much larger mortgage I need to satisfy!

 
by Oli on Musings

AFK

That went well!  Already missed a weekly post.  Unfortunately I was overseas for work last week and didn’t have time to write anything.   I did manage to think of a couple of topics to write up though, so a post should be forthcoming soon.

 
by Oli on Being, Musings

A Personal Retrospective

So 2013 was interesting. I bought a flat and then, due to temporary insanity, decided to renovate it while living in it. When I say renovate, I don’t mean just tiling the bathroom (actually still planning to do that) – this was knocking down walls, moving kitchens, and installing new central heating. All while living in one front room. Yep, occasionally I may have lost it a bit.

 
by Oli on Musings

Tick

Yes, yes. No posts for a while. This is because I’m in the process of buying a house. Do you have any idea how time consuming that is for a single bloke? On the plus side I’ve gone well beyond my original aim to just purchase a property this year and have extended it to learning all about rising damp. *sob*

In other news, I have been growing my hair in the hope that it will soon become sentient and can do my job. Or write blog posts. Either will do.

 
by Oli on Musings

The Thirty Project

Yesterday I turned thirty years of age.  Feels a hell of a lot like 29 to be honest.  Looking back at my twenties, I’m reasonably happy with my achievements.  Graduated from Oxford, wandered my way up Kilimanjaro and started a promising career in the City.  Not too shabby, but I can’t help but feel I could’ve done more with the last decade.  Unfortunately I’m both lazy and easily distracted by new projects, so this year I’ve decided to set myself some goals to try to reach by this time next year.  I’m going to see how much I can work tech into each of these to help achieve my goals.  So, to the list:

  • Drop a waist size.  Nothing like working in London to fatten you up, time to sort that out.  Should give me a good excuse to try out some fitness apps.
  • Write 3 apps.  I’ve got a backlog of ideas and I need to commit them to code.
  • Buy a house.  It’s time.
  • Finish a game backlog.  I have so many games on Steam / PS3 that I’ve never played.  I need to catch up on these so I’m going to go through one platform and clear the backlog before adding anything new.
  • Visit a country I can’t remember.  This may seem like a strange way to phrase this, but I was born in Canada and left when I was very young.  I may choose this year to return.
  • Set up a new site.  I’ve got an idea and I need to actually get it done.
  • Learn 5 new things.  Might be languages, horse riding, another instrument.  I’ll work this out as the year goes on.
  • Quit smoking.  Occasional puff is alright but they’ve been taxed to a ridiculous price in the UK.  Oh, and apparently it’s not healthy or something.