Rhys Wynne

Forty-Two

Today I turn forty-two.

I remarked on my fortieth birthday that I’m in a good position and that generally doesn’t make a good blog post. I find myself in a similar positionthis year. So forgive me if I approach it with trepidation as within a few months of my fortieth I lost 3 big clients and got diagnosed with high blood pressure that sent me into a bit of a depression for a little while.

But yes, things are….good? Things are good. The AI Aslopolypse has largely missed me, and by January I think I managed to recover the majority of the revenue lost with those 3 clients. Personal wise things are great – Fern has moved back to the UK so I see her loads more, and I’m finding myself and my life busy. I’ve been lucky, and I want it to continue.

Anyway, one negative is that I feel like I’ve put on a bit of weight since last year. Diet hasn’t been quite tuned in. I’ve reintroduced booze into my life, but after my first hangover I’m back off it. I did also take myself out of therapy as well. So lots of personal changes under the hood.

I’ve done a fair bit of travelling in my 42nd year. I’ve gone to Bucharest (three times), Krakow, Paris, Lisbon, Seefeld and Warsaw. All of those have been with Fern for various trips. The notable UK places have been to have been Scotland (I have fallen in love with the highlands and I’m going again this year), Bristol (where I ticked off one of my 50 before I’m 50), London (a fair few times), Gloucestershire and Blackpool (for Play Expo). I’ve also been to two weddings, one of which was my brother’s. I was best man, and it was nice to see my extended family again. Another highlight has been meeting the community of the Retro Asylum, both last weekend at Arcade Club, and last year where I ticked off another 50 before I’m 50 – go to the Cave.

Speaking of the 50 before I’m 50, I’ve ticked off two off my list this year. Obviously that means I’ll end with 40 things not done, if I continue at the same rate, so I need to pick up the pace a bit.

Work

Work wise I’ve been consistent. Although those 3 big clients went I’ve been able to replace them with more clients, which means I’m currently in my “hectic” stage of the freelancer work cycle – so much that I have a pang of guilt taking a day off – but I’ve been able to be consistent on both the blog and my WordPress newsletter. I’m taking on work from April. Please get in touch.

Side projects has been tough as this has been one place that has taken a hit. Revenue has been hit on both All Rumble Stats and Drive in Cinemas. It’s down to traffic mainly. For example, this was Drive in Cinemas search engine traffic over the last year. The orange line is the rankings, and the blue/purple line is the impressions and traffic from search engine.

As you can see, that whilst there has been a smaller drop in rankings, traffic has completely cratered. My thinking it’s those bastard AI Overviews meaning clickthroughs don’t happen. Sigh.

Nevertheless, it’s not all bad news, there’s still a few people who visit All Rumble Stats on the regular (usually to argue about Liv Morgan’s height, Liv Morgan has some passionate fans), and they are easy to maintain, so I’m happy to keep them running for now.

My goal I think for side projects is to build projects that don’t rely on one source of traffic, which is why I’ve been pushing my WordPress Newsletter a bit more. Another side project has been building Revive to Sky. Which is going well.

I have enjoyed blogging more here. I was inspired by a talk at Loopconf and taken a more “publish and be damned” approach to this site, so a few more shorter posts, a more handmade design. I dunno, with the rise of AI a bit more homely designs and looks I feel will be popular in the next year or two. I’ve also been able to write posts quickly. Posts that just focus on one point – a link or a short point – more often. It has given me joy and allowed me to connect with folks again. Start up your blogs again folks!

Hobbies

Other things that have bring me joy have been making more video games. I’ve released two more: Gone Fission! and Mari Lwyd’s Pantri Panic! as part of the Pico 8 Advent calendar. Although they take a lot of effort, it’s really nice to see how folks react to the game. I’ve had a few lets plays and when random threads get put on on subreddits it makes me smile. Do more! Tell people about the art you love! I’ve currently got 3 more games on the go, at various stages of completion. I’ve a deadline for one, but the hope is to get all 3 done before halfway through the year, and focus on the second half of the year with a non Pico 8 game and an advent calendar game I’ve been knocking around my head. It doesn’t involve Mari Lwyd!

I had a decent cricket season. It was my best ever – scoring over 100 runs, hitting my high score of 31 not out (retired), and even picking up a couple of wickets. I also managed to be the substitute for the Hampson Cup triumph for our team this year, which was extra nice as I had my dad with me. However, I felt I could have done better: I did fall away mid season, but I am happy with my progress.

I’m still enjoying my running. I’ve taken about 2 and a half minutes off my 5k time, and I’ve done a fair few parkruns. They’re little moments of a joyful community and set me right up for a guilt free weekend. I think my highlight was my PB at Heaton Park parkrun (with it’s Angina Hill), running the first ever Y Promenad Parkrun, ticking off “Z” in the alphabeteer parkrun challenge¹ in Poland. I Even managed to enjoy the Clarence parkrun, which I was caked in mud by the end.

So, overall, I’m very content and happy at the moment. Things aren’t perfect (looking at you, the entire wider world), but other than the sense of dread that exists with the state of the world and the general anxiety of things going wrong, things are doing well.

And – I think – that’s all we can hope for.

And now the yearly comparison!

As you all love it so much. Here’s my updated comparison with you know who.

Previous Versions: 30, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41

This is where you run a parkrun who’s name beings with A-Z, minus X. I’m currently on 15 letters. ↩︎
I’ve started putting client plugins under my name, so that explains the rise! ↩︎

Syrric – The YouTube Channel I didn’t know I need

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The last couple of nights I’ve fallen asleep to the Syrric YouTube Channel. It is a group of dudes who read out fun facts about video games. The thing that differentiates it from a bunch of other channels? It’s not designed to be watched – but rather listened too as you fall asleep.

Last night I had a hectic day and wasn’t in until about 9pm. I try to fall asleep between 10 and 11pm, so when I went to bed I was still rather awake.

10 minutes of hearing a calming voice talk about the history of Super Mario Brothers? Zonked out.

Also, quite nicely, as their output has been so regular the inevitable questions about it being AI generated came out – which they were quick to answer in this video.

In short, I’ve really enjoyed this channel, and recommend checking it out. Hope it continues for ages as they’ve been burning through franchises like nobody’s business!

Pokemon 30th Anniversary Logos – All of them

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This website has catalogued all 1000+ of the Pokémon 30th Anniversary logos that exist. The Pokémon company has created 1000 of them, that are sent to individual users by replying to the official announcement on that dead bird site. Thankfully Joe Merrick has done the Lord’s work meaning we don’t have to go there, horray!

I must admit, Pokémon is a franchise I enjoy probably more in the sum of it’s parts rather than the individual elements. I was probably half a generation too old to play the games (Red & Blue), and the cards passed me by, but did enjoy the cartoon.

Anyway, as brilliant as this is, the best thing was this fan made commercial from the 20th anniversary. Gets me every time.

Dialed – The Colo(u)r Memory Game

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This is fun. Dialed is a small time waster of a game where you’re shown 5 colours and have to match what you’ve seen by hue, saturation and luminescence.

I started well in the game on this site, however it all fell apart midway through – but recovered at the end. I was on for so much more. Maybe it is because my blue is green?

Anyway, I’ve created a game for those who find this link and check it out. It’s linked in the title. Let me know how you get on!

Play Our game of Dialled

That “Me in 2016” Social Media Trend

If you’ve been on Instagram recently¹ (probably the only major social media platform I tolerate), you’d have seen the “Me in 2016” trend doing the rounds. Though trying to find a page somewhat relevant to link to is tough mind (there was a “Me at the start of 2016 vs me at the end of 2016” meme trend from 10 years ago that was popular after the world went to shit), but if you’re not aware, people are sharing photos of themselves from 10 years ago. Yes. Ten. No I can’t believe it either.

Wanting to jump a bit on the bandwagon, and based on a comment I replied to on the Under Consoletation Podcast Discord group, I thought I’d turn it into a blog post, as rather surprisingly to me I was pretty active blogging here. Granted, a lot of it is cringey unboxing videos as I think I was trying to start a YouTube channel for reasons only known to myself, but I thought I’d share some highlights.

Brexit and Trump aside², 2016 was a good year. I did a fair bit of travelling and actually was settled with everything before the world went to shit. I wasn’t sure if I was going to go freelance (that was a couple of years later), but instead I was focusing on actually enjoying myself, and enjoy myself I did. My highlights were:-

Euro 2016

Euro 2016 was the first time I saw Wales (now with 2 Euros, a women’s Euros and World Cup under their belt) qualify for a major tournament. I cannot begin to talk about how much that tournament meant to me: I’ve 5 photos of Hal Robson Kanu’s goal against Belgium in my house. For context, I’ve 4 of my family.

But mainly, whilst the UK was going to shit with the run up to the Brexit referendum, in France, the Welsh were having a great time. So many fond memories of the 2 weeks I spent in France, the nights in Bordeaux with about 3 groups of friends from high school, university and Wales away, the bar in a spa hotel in Kortrijk, Belgium I was staying at and the memories that included (which was largely me, a German couple and a Spanish barman talking about life. But there was a funny moment where a Welsh couple stayed a night and didn’t realise that Wales were in the Euros, they had driven to buy a caravan). Exploring Toulouse, drinking in the main square, and seeing friends from all walks of life. Just an incredible two weeks for me.

Honestly, I’d wager that it (along with the Euros in Germany a couple of years back) were the last great international footballing tournaments, and even now the World Cup doesn’t interest me, even if we qualify, given the state of the world.

I wrote about it a couple of times on the blog 10 years ago, “We’ll Always Have Bordeaux” and “Je ne veau pas aller travailler“. The first was written after I came home, the latter was after we were eliminated.

Wrestlemania 32

The other highlight of 2016 for me was probably the worst Wrestlemania in years, certainly the worst between 30 and 40. Whilst the actual event was terrible, the memories from the trip to Dallas and New Orleans will stay forever. This is arguably a more impactful trip for me, as I’ve got a couple of really good friends from it that I still speak to most days – one of which has moved to London. So, whilst Wrestlemania was bad, the trip? Life changing. I remember the food, the golf day, the day after Wrestlemania which involved a lot of drinks in the sun (made the flight home terrible) and some other stories I only feel comfortable sharing in person. Just a fantastic time really. Hopefully America sorts itself out so I can visit again.

I wrote about it with “That Shit Cray(fish)” and “Dallas Flyers Club“.

Polish Family

Finally, the third biggest impact (and another happy memory)³ was the wedding of my brother to my sister-in-law. It was my first visit to Krakow, and the wedding was excellent. I also got to meet my sister-in-law’s family for the first time, who are wonderful people. Plus I fell in love with the city of Krakow as well. I’m probably going there twice this year – once for WordCamp Europe, once as there’s been talk of a 10 year celebration.

I talked about the travelling bit of Krakow on a blog post here “Only here for the Krakow“.

The rest of the blogs were seemingly dedicated to a Dryathlon I did in 2016 – which is funny reading considering how much I hated non alcoholic beers back then. They’re pretty much my go to now. Funny.

Anyway, how was your 2016?

I said “recently” when I mean “since the start of the year”. This post has been sat in drafts for a while needing images. Soz. ↩︎
Which is like Mrs Lincoln saying “That aside, I really enjoyed the play”. ↩︎
I jokingly put it third. It’s the biggest. ↩︎

	Rhys (With a Spoon)	Reese Witherspoon
Age	Nearly 42 (Up 1)	Nearly 50 (Up 1)
Oscars (Nominated)	0 – No Change (0 – No Change)	1 – No Change (2 – No Change)
Books Written	1 (No Change)	5 (Up 1)
Marriages	0 (No Change)	2 (No Change)
Children	0 (No Change)	3 (No Change)
WordPress Plugins Written & On the WordPress Repository	14 (Up 3)²	0