Seventeen years ago, I wrote a novel for NaNoWriMo 2007. I was proud to have written it but I didn’t think it was any good. Until tonight, I’d never read it. With the benefit of seventeen years of professional and personal writing experience…it’s not bad at all. I’m honestly shocked. It’s a first draft, is […]
MartinRalya.com has been online since 2009, and has included a blog since 2012. Over the years, the focus has shifted back and forth between blog posts and static pages. When I last overhauled the site, in 2020, the focus was solidly on blog posts. A single-column layout with a discreet hamburger menu made sense, since
New year, new look Read More »
I’m coming up on a movie milestone: Given that A) it’s spooky season, B) my default cinematic comfort food is MST3K, and C) I’m working on some anime-watching challenges, my money’s on my 3,000th film being from one of those three buckets. It’s also a coin flip whether I blow past it by accident, or
What will be number 3,000? Read More »
For the past thirty years or so I’ve been fascinated by the concept of “everything” and how difficult it is to define. The concept of “nothing” gets all the attention. It scares us more. By comparison, it feels easier to define — it’s both more poetic and more directly relevant to our lives. This is
Everything: a working definition Read More »
2022 has thrown the Ralyas a couple pretty hard curveballs, but so far we’re doing [whatever you’re supposed to do in baseball when someone pitches you a curveball] and managing pretty well. I usually focus on hobby stuff here on Yore, though, so I figured it was time for a little 2022 wrap-up — all
2022 end-of-year hobby wrap-up Read More »
I try not to regret selling any board games, but I don’t always succeed. I’ve regretted parting with my copy of Renegade Legion: Centurion, one of the first wargames I played (around age 12-14), so I bought a used copy. One of the joys of buying used games is finding treasures like this in the
Re-acquiring Renegade Legion: Centurion Read More »
I started reading Takahashi Rumiko’s brilliant manga Ranma 1/2 in high school back in 1992. My then-girlfriend (and future first wife) introduced me to it, and to quite a few other manga and anime series. Our time together was far too lengthy and often extremely unhappy, but a deeper interest in anime and manga is
Thirty years later, I finished Ranma 1/2 Read More »
I love comics. But how I read them has changed over the years, from all single issues as a kid to all TPBs in college to all-digital…and then back to single print issues. And now back to digital-only again, but this time for good (I think). Reflecting on the notion of pulling or subscribing to
From pulp to pixels (and sometimes back again) Read More »
Today is Yore’s 10th anniversary! I wrote my first blog post here on August 28, 2012: Reading Appendix N: The project, the appendix, and the goal. 10! Years! That’s longer than my time blogging on Gnome Stew (just shy of 8 years) or Treasure Tables before that (just over 2 years). Hell, it’s almost longer
10 years of Yore, and dusting off proto-Godsbarrow ideas from 2013 Read More »
I was in the mood to make chili today, but it’s been years since I’ve cooked it and I don’t think I ever wrote down my recipe. (If I did, it was on Google+. Sad trombone.) So here’s my chili recipe, archived on Yore so I won’t lose it again — and shared in case
Crock pot chili à la Ralya Read More »
