March 31, 2004

Well, it has already been a year since I started this site, and remarkably, I am still at it. This is by far my longest-running website; all of my other projects all died obscure deaths in the ether of the Internet after a few weeks or months! Looking over my site as it stands today, I am pleased by how far it has come, but I also feel that I have a long way to go yet before it reaches my goal of accurately representing the depth and breadth of my life and hobbies.

So, I’d like to take this occasion to wax philosophical on the purpose and direction of the site, and talk a little bit about my plans for the future. As one can tell from looking at the different sections of the site, I mostly use it as a way of talking about my hobbies. I got the desire to do so from reading countless anime and videogame fan sites. Looking at some of the content posted on them, I began to think to myself, “This looks like fun! Plus, I bet I could do at least as good of a job as some of these jokers.” So, I slowly hatched a plan to make my own website. However, I wanted to consolidate all my interests into a single, general site rather than make one site for each interest. Partly, this was to save time and effort, but I am also intrigued with the idea of having a living online document that can serve as a snapshot of me.

For this reason, I don’t see this site as ever developing a huge following or ever getting a large amount of attention- the focus is just too narrow, and doesn’t leave a whole lot of wiggle room for contributions from third parties. This isn’t to say that I’m above doing some minor publicizing of my work. I find it very gratifying when someone talks about something that they read on my site or when they give me criticism or comment over something I’ve written.  So, I have put this site on a few listings and posted links to articles here and there, but the fact remains that I have created this site mainly to satisfy my own impulses and curiosities.

Andy’s Random Stuff has been in something of a constant state of flux in terms of organization. The site has evolved considerably in form and function, and I am sure it will continue to do so. Most of the effort I’ve put into this site has gone towards the Anime and Games section in the form of reviews. The format I’ve been using for reviews is still not yet set in stone…my general intention in this area is to shorten them somewhat in order to reduce the time needed to write them. This is a product of the fact that I find myself with less and less time to write for my site. However, I don’t really want to reduce the content level of an article. So, I am essentially working towards compressing my writing style, hoping to cram more info into less space. If, as the saying goes, “Brevity is the soul of wit,” than this may not be such a bad thing.

I am also considering changing the way in which I cover titles, especially in the Anime section. I started out doing a few reviews of whole series, partly as a stop-gap measure until I could review each volume of the series individually. However, I am starting to question my decision in this regard. For one thing, the amount of effort that goes into writing a review for each volume of a series is considerable, since releases usually run around 6 or 8 discs. Also, the utility of my reviewing each volume is reduced by the fact that the entire series is now available for purchase. Thus, chances are that someone reading the review either has seen the whole thing already, or is reading my article as part of researching the title for possible purchase. If I were working for some site focused solely on anime reviews and was receiving review copies at or before the release date, then reviewing each volume of a release would make more sense. As it is, I plan to drop reviewing individual volumes of a series in favor of reviewing the whole series at once. Don’t worry though; the old reviews of individual volumes aren’t going anywhere. 

I feel that the other sections of the site have been pretty well neglected. The poor Star Trek section only has two articles, neither of which I am overly pleased with. Also, the USNA section and the Warship section haven’t been updated for quite a while. I am contemplating a rearrangement of subsections in the near future to help alleviate these problems. First, I’ll probably re-name the USNA section the Photos section, since that is essentially what it has become anyway. Next, I’ll want to get rid of the separate Editorials section and simply add rants and features to the appropriate section, much like I’ve recently done with the Videogame and Anime sections. Finally, I am thinking about adding yet another section to the site, this time devoted to trains and model railroading. I am still debating this however, since I hardly have time to update the sections I have!

Well, I see my site only improving from here. I intend to keep working on it for as long as I reasonably can. I feel that creating this site has provided me with a number of great opportunities to not only organize the thoughts inside my head, but also to practice communicating them to others. Whatever the future holds, I feel that this site has already been a success because of this.

 By Andy Rucker