2024 Content Update

Hello my friends, and welcome back to my blog. 

One of the reasons I initially set this blog up, besides sharing things that maybe wouldn't work as podcast episodes, was to place updates for my content in a central place. As we are fast approaching the end of 2024, and I am becoming much more productive recently, I wanted to share a bit more about everything I'm working on here at Garhdo Towers, which could help give you an idea of when things might make their way to you, my lovely audience.

I'm taking the view that there are six weeks left before we hit Christmas and New Year, and with a lot of current events being the way they are I want to focus on my work for the benefit of my own mental health. The bonus of that is it means I can work on a lot more content!

However that said I don't want to promise when these new releases will be in those six weeks, simply because this has been a bit of an issue for me in the past, and rushing to make or missing deadlines just leads to me making worse content, and having gone back recently to my earliest episodes and seeing exactly how far I have come I don't want to in any way hinder my content from being the best it can be. 

So let's divide by output and look at what is coming next for all of my content streams.

The Blog

So I actually have several drafts here in various states of progress, but not all of them may be coming immediately. The reason for that is that the drafts are serving as a great place to contain ideas and allow me to add and build them as I'm going. That said though there is one blog based on a somewhat topical news story that I had thoughts about that I think will be written sooner rather than later, and may become a podcast episode of it's own depending on any further thoughts I have after writing it. 

Beyond that though I am also working on some more Watch Orders, with the priorities for those being the rest of the Power Rangers lists, especially as the latest developments for that franchise suggest that it is actually ending at least as we know it, if not entirely, as well as a Watch Order for the 23rd Century Era of Star Trek, and a Watch Order for the CW's recently concluded Arrowverse, as well as the other DC Comics media associated with it. For the Watch Orders a lot of the work is already done regarding the actual ordering, and what I need to do is elaborate on my placements, and flesh out the rest of the blog to structure it. 

I do still plan on doing other blogs here, such as some short-form review content for current films and TV that may be outside of my usual content, as well as some behind the scenes exploration, such as a step-by-step guide to how I make my podcast episodes, or some more candid diary updates. 

The Podcast

So the Podcast is, and always has been my main focus. Obviously last year and this year numerous factors that I have spoken about before greatly impacted the content I had planned, as well as the updates I wanted to implement on older episodes, however there are plenty of episodes that I did get a substantial amount of development done on, and so I do not want to completely abandon. As a result several of those are going to be episodes that get made quite early in the newer run, such as my episode looking at the six films in the Jurassic Park franchise, or my episode discussing Star Trek: Picard. Some episodes need a bit more work, such as my episode on Chris Chibnall's Thirteenth Doctor, or my episode on the Doom series of video games. And finally some will be shelved for a while, although I plan to revisit them in the new year, such as my videos on the Matrix series, or my look back at Superman's history in films. 

The two episodes I am focusing on completing and releasing first though are the second part of my X-Men Retrospective, and the episode I was commissioned to make on the Skibidi Toilet series. Both of these are well on their way and should be finished within the next couple of weeks, with the Jurassic Park one not long after that. 

That said I also have several episodes I am planning to finish with my partners and co-hosts, Tallulah and Zulu. Unfortunately while I am very far behind on the research I would need to do for our Discworld episode I have another episode planned with Zulu as we have now completed our watch through the Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel television series, and so that will definitely be one we will produce an episode on very soon, and I would expect that early in the New Year, if not before. Likewise Tallulah and I also recently completed a rewatch of the original run of Twin Peaks, a fun little show we both love, and so there is plenty we would love to discuss on the record about it, and so again I would expect that to also be an episode that you will be able to listen to before the next anniversary. I will post more details about these in the next update. 

Speaking of the anniversary, that is in early April, as is my birthday, and the podcast is also still approaching it's 100th episode, where Tallulah, Zulu and I will sit and discuss the Cornetto Trilogy of films by Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg in a Roundtable Discussion, in a similar way to the 50th episode about Red Dwarf we did last year. While I would love for the 100th episode and the anniversary to coincide, I also do not believe in forcing myself to make that coincidence happen. As I said rushing will make my work inferior, and missing self-imposed deadlines will affect my mental health, so while it would be an ideal goal, it is not one I will force. 

The Gaming

Recently I have ventured into streaming games on Twitch, and as I'm enjoying it it is something I wish to continue. I have been playing Half-Life 2, and I hope to finish not just that but also it's two sequel episodes very soon. I have also started playing through Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, and I forgot how much I enjoyed playing it, and severely underestimated how much I had to say about it, so I will complete that as well. This will be streaming on my Twitch Channel live, but afterwards all videos will be uploaded to a new YouTube Channel that I am planning to create purely for gaming content. The reason for this is that it will allow the gaming content to find an audience interested solely in that, while not diluting the experience for anyone following me for the podcast. 

Once the current games on the slate are complete I will be looking at what else to play. As I am currently playing through both an action shooter and a role playing game I think it only makes sense to follow those with more games in those genres, which as they are two of my favourite genres is also easily done. As a result after Half-Life and it's episodes I plan to play Control by Remedy Entertainment, which has been on my list for sometime, and I will be following KOTOR with Fallout: New Vegas by Obsidian Entertainment, another game I have never played but from a series and world I love. 

Beyond that I have ideas for many other games to play into the new year, depending upon what I can get working with my current setup, including Wolfenstein: The New Order, Dragon Age: Origins, the latest re-release of the classic Doom including it's new episode Legacy of Rust, the excellent fan-made Sonic Triple Trouble 16-bit, the classic Resident Evil trilogy, Rage by id Software, and Baldur's Gate 3.

The Painting

So for anyone who watches my short videos you may have seen that, in the spirit of events like NaNoWriMo and Inktober, I wanted to set myself a painting challenge for November, as a way of both getting into painting again (as it's a hobby that greatly helps my mental health) and also as a way of clearing my 'pile of shame' - a Warhammer term referring to the large amount of unbuilt and/or unpainted plastic that collectors accumulate over their years in the hobby. The intention was to attempt to paint at least one full unit of my Space Marines every day, but I grossly underestimated the time it would take me to do this. 

So what I have instead done is select a group of miniatures and units that could not only make a complete army, but also were completely built and primed, and I have set the goal of having them all painted by the end of the year, if not sooner, and I hope that doing this will get me back into painting more regularly. In addition to this I am also working on the background for my Space Marines chapter, the Knights Chromatica, and I hope to share that with some painted examples in a future blog. 

The Comics

So in my last update, which took place in a live stream last month, I spoke about how one thing I wanted to work on for my own interest if nothing else was a chronicle of Marvel Comics, done by reading every comic on the Marvel Unlimited app from the first issue of Fantastic Four in 1961 right through to the modern day. I have begun this project, and have been making notes for the Chronicle on the earliest Marvel comics, but I've found I actually have a lot to say about the comics themselves and how they evolved over time as the universe was created, and so as a result I may be turning this into a somewhat larger project. I'm not quite sure how to approach it yet, whether it will be a blog, a podcast, a website or something completely different, but I do expect to be talking more about this in the future. 

So that's this update complete. I'm looking forward to getting stuck in to all this, and really looking forward to being able to share it with all of my fans. 

Look forward to my next update at some point over the Holidays to give some more details on what to expect in early 2025, and I hope to see you all soon with the new releases. 

Until next time, my friends, I hope you all do the best you can to look after your physical and mental health as best as you can. I love you all. Bye for now. 

Garhdo