This is probably something I should have done a long time ago and for anyone left in the lurch, I apologise. I don’t know why it has taken me this long to do it but I guess it’s justified my choice in the first place. Let me explain.

I’ve spent the last two and a bit years of my life constantly updating a site called Nidzumi. Me and a couple of friends started it while in college but I still couldn’t tell you exactly why but I’ll do my best. I wrote a few articles for a site called MSXBOX-World and the more I got involved, the more I wanted to do. I kept pushing for new features and content but I was frequently rejected. Hindsight tells me that they weren’t just being tough for toughs sake, it’s actually difficult keeping the basics of a site running before you can run off doing podcasts and columns. I didn’t know that and left to start my own site

Admittedly none of us could write at that point – I still probably can’t now – but that didn’t matter so much, we had fun doing it. The truth is, we were just doing it for fun, at this point I had no idea about review copies or perks like that. I still remember my first review copy, Euro 2008. I was chuffed, like we had made it or something, I didn’t know that my 360 would keel over and destroy the disk but that didn’t really matter.

As the friends moved on, Nidzumi was solely left to me. Again, with hindsight I would have scoured the net for staff to keep the site constantly updated but I didn’t. I reviewed every game, wrote every article and edited everything as well.

Really, it wasn’t until late last year that I started to get some new talent on board. The problem is that by that point I was already burnt out, I just didn’t know it yet. I mean if you want to turn something you love into a chore, open a website about it and try to run it by yourself day after day. Chore is probably too strong of a word, if it was really a chore I wouldn’t have done it for two years but you get the idea.

At the risk of sounding like an awards speech, I would like to thank everyone who wrote for the site at one point or another. Daniel Lipscombe, Ewan Aiton, Jen Allen, Steven Wright, Matthew Maharaj, everyone who signed up originally, everyone who wrote features towards the end and anyone else I’m probably forgetting. Oh, and I’d like to thank god, I’m not religious or anything but I think it’s the law to mention him in your award speech.

I guess I should get onto what eventually happened to the place. Well after my last birthday I decided that focusing on my Graphic Design course would probably be more helpful. For those who don’t know I also study Graphic Design down in Falmouth. Now Graphic Design isn’t your normal type of do a bit of reading every now and then degree, you have to constantly be thinking and working on projects. I’m not saying that a Design degree is harder, but if you want to do well it’s constant work, and I want to do well.

So that’s why I sold Nidzumi.

I have no idea what’s happening with it now. I don’t know who would buy a site and then not use it, but that is what’s happened to it. I wanted to still write for it in some capacity but that’s looking less and less likely with every day the site is inactive. It’s a shame, but surprisingly I’m not so hung up on it.

The past few months have allowed me to make so much progress at Uni, have more free-time to cook recipes on BBC Good Food and for the first time in nearly three years, play a game for what it is. Not that I’ve been able to play a game like a normal person yet, I’m still doing the odd freelance job.

So that’s it really. Thanks for reading this long and overdue post that could have been summed up in one sentence; Nidzumi was a fun couple of years but I’ve sold it now.

Any questions?

*UPDATE* I’ve had a few e-mails asking where their articles have disappeared to. While I’m not sure how long I should have waited before restoring a mirror of the site, the four months and no response gives little indication of anything happening soon. So why not visit Nidzumi with all the spelling and grammar mistakes you remember at http://nidzumi.blogizzle.co.uk/

The last photo of Christian Bale before he was destroyed. He has no idea, does he?

Don’t worry I’m not calling the whole One A Day campaign a farce, in actuality I’m calling my participation in One A Day a farce. I retroactively make my ‘daily’ posts, two or three day’s worth at a time. It’s probably time that I address it all.

It’s no coincidence that the last post I made was about my journey down south, catching up with work and friends have taken priority and this mission has slipped away. It begs the question what did I want from the whole experience. To get better at writing? Meet some new people? Output more content through Blogizzle? Or just the satisfaction of completing a challenge? To be honest with you, I still couldn’t tell you, I just saw everyone posting #oneaday tags on twitter and wanted to be part of the moment.

Not that this is me giving up because the whole challenge has run out of steam, actually to the contrary, a new organiser has taken the reigns and is so far doing a great job (as long as he keeps including me in those weekly wrap-up posts ).

The truth is that I’ve had to prioritise a few things over what has become a pretty stale blog. However, the whole thing hasn’t been a waste of time. Quite frankly it has made be remember that this blog even exists and I’ll probably continue to regularly post on this thing.

One A Day radiates the pressure of a deadline on you every single day and it quickly became a chore rather than something I was doing out of enjoyment. But like I said I’ve gotten what I think I can get out of it and because of #oneaday, Blogizzle is always on my mind and hopefully that will result in some quality posts.

Good luck to everyone else continuing in the challenge, hope you make it.

As most of you know I spend my time either in Basingstoke or Falmouth, two polar opposites really. Well today we travelled back to Falmouth, or so we thought as a trip that normally takes four hours took closer to twelve.

After ignoring the temperature gage for longer than recommended we broke down just past Stonehenge. Maybe some old curse was in affect. Luckily we’re with Direct Line, Tesco Cover or Greenflag (all were mentioned at different points) so we we’re able to be picked up in a brief four hours… Don’t worry we had a crossword. Thankfully it wasn’t horrible or raining and we got to see truckers pee into a ditch! Everyone’s a winner.

Eventually we we’re picked up by what was later described as an ‘antique’. Now pick-up trucks are among the slowest things on the road but despite original estimates of eight hours, we were down in Truro (roughly 10 miles from Falmouth) in about five hours. Not bad going, until the pick-up truck decided to break down…

I’m not making this up, we then had to get a pick-up truck for the pick-up truck. Luckily they transferred the car and the local Cornish garage did the final leg. Considering that I’ve never been in a broken-down vehicle before, the fact that it happened twice in one day was… well… weird.

I still don’t actually know why I’m doing this one a day challenge, that I’ve technically failed due to backtracking. I’m hoping to keep it up though because although I haven’t posted each and every day, I will have attributed one for every day and hope to steer this back on track pretty soon.

The main problem with One a Day, and I’m sure most people will agree, is that you’re either not busy resulting in a lacklustre post about nothing in particular or you’re too busy to make a post. The latter applies to this one, although you could probably argue a case for both.