State of the Mike

I'm starting to think I should have "I Aten't Ded" as a tag on this blog (sounds of typing - oh, wait, I do!), although to be fair if you've been following me on Twitter you'd be aware I've been busy.

So: to catch up,

I came down with a rotten cold (no, not Covid-19!) the last two weeks of February, for which my brain was typically getting about as far as 'Good morning" for the first week and then giving up - it took me a week before I had a day without a sinus headache or migraine. Sadly, not enough brain to string coherent sentences together for DuxB... Once I recovered, life has been a combination of catching up on work (as *another* of our team was leaving, deadlines were looming...) and finishing up tarting up the Dead's Army boards, which, if you HAVE been following me on Twitter, now look pretty bloody awesome, and you can see them at Hammerhead tomorrow!

We are (after a last panic to assemble the Rubicon telegraph poles I'd bought and forgotten about) now done, and I was looking forward to a weekend off at the O2 for my annual pilgrimage to Country2Country and then finding some time to finish the Compendium.

Fate has other plans. Just about every US country artist has fled the country in a Covid-19, Trump-induced panic, so C2C got cancelled. And on Thursday, my boss called me to tell me they were letting me go with immediate effect. If you want the gory details of the latter, feel free to DM me on FB or Twitter, or ask me at Hammerhead, but my opinions probably shouldn't be aired anywhere permanent and public :D

So - here we are :D

I have various agencies looking out for things for me - if anyone knows of Perl developer vacancies, particularly short term contracts or even part-time ones,  especially if they allow telecommuting (not that they might have much choice soon!), feel free to let me know. However, I do have most of a month pay in lieu of notice, and a couple of small contract jobs from CricketArchive to extend that with luck, so, the short term plan:

• reformat the work MacBook and wait for them to tell me where to send it. Dead prawn in the battery bay tempting but unlikely.
• tidy the s**t out of the office and workshop (already in progress, the labeller is earning its keep)
• set up the studio for game videos etc
• Finish the Compendium. 
• Start podcasting again (possibly two)
• Start writing the next batch of gaming stuff, which includes CoC scenarios and some D&D stuff for the DMs' Guild (quick wins for money as they're already hand-written up in the dread Green File Of Gaming)
• Look at starting a Patreon or other ways of further monetising this so I don't have to go back to work full time as a developer.
• Remind Anne that all the above is potentially paying work and that doesn't mean I have time for DIY 

Comments, opinions, good wishes welcome.