Men in Black II is a forgettable sequel, but one scene resides permanently in my mind:
Agent J: What are you doing?Kevin Brown/K: I always do the driving.
Agent J: Oh, no.
Kevin Brown/K: I remember that.
Agent J: No, you drive that old busted joint. I drive... the new hotness.
Agent J, pointing at K: old and busted.
Agent J, pointing at himself: New hotness.
K ends up driving anyway. It's a marginal joke, but it's stuck with me all these years.
Why do I bring this up? Because in completing my End of Year Review, as well as my Goals for 2022-23, I do look back at previous years and see what's still trending, garnering views. After 14 years and over 4,200 posts, there are still hits on older items from new places (I just got traffic off a D&D blog from 2018 that reference my pictures of the Hacklopedia of Beasts from back in 2011. Never saw that site on my data over these years. Very odd).
2021
No surprises only a year back. Three post crack into my annual Top Ten with tremendous fury. Hinterland Minis Shuttering Its Doors isn't too surprising (#8 result in Google). The first post on Planet 28 stats for the Gnomish Space Marines has been referenced a LOT, and after some initial traffic drawn to Nauvoo Legion for Gnome Wars, references to the "Mormon Alamo" during Historicon 2022 had reignited interest. Alas, a Google search for Mormon Alamo does not pull up the blog (which is a disconcerting process in and of itself).
2020
Perhaps the winner for most traffic for all of this past year is my Risus "Search for Pumpkin Spice" game, which was a solid top 20 performer, but in posterity has accumulated hundreds of hits from various sources, moving it to the #3 post for the year.
2019
Of course, after three years, one of the greatest adventure concepts of all time, "Fourteen Beers at Chili's" still gets enough traffic to qualify well into this year's Top 20. Things get much more pedestrian after that, with a number of hits for an art-only New Years Eve post, follow by my review for Back of Beyond for Contemptible Little Armies.
2018
The well-aged posts continue to live into perpetuity. 2018 had a lot of bot traffic, so anything that still generating hits is the real deal. My reviews of the My Little Pony: Tails of Equestria RPG and the Lost World of Lemuria for Pulp Alley have maintained their popularity. I've also realized that my D&D actual plays, the Ballad of the Pigeon God for this year are gaining traction, with a fourth post emerging on the Top 20 posts for the year.
2017
A slower, but steadier year, my Review of Lettow-Vorbeck and Golden Goblin Press' Tales of the Caribbean are the only consistent posts of note.
2016
Some algorithm picked up my post listing the 2016 Ennie Award Nominations, more than doubling its view in the past year, with the Pulp Rescue from Kisi Rushwa coming in a distant second.
2015
The fun thing about generic sounding Kickstarters is that terms like Halfling Adventurers on Kickstarter continue to survive with the vaults of search engine results into perpetuity. In a similar vein, talking about one of the Reaper Bones Kickstarters stays popular, although I'm interested what people are exactly looking for when I mention my project Board on my painting bench.
Not much traffic at all. The most popular post this year was my initial review of Hinterland Miniatures, probably elevated by the company's closing.
2013
Lower traffic again, but the Gnome Wars report from Cold Wars 2013 cracked the top 20.
2012
This year is the end of the Golden Age of Gaming with the Gnomies, where certain posts just received so many visitors that they seem to permanently draw folks to the blog. Hunting for Wizard of Oz Minis and my Review of Contemptible Little Armies have 4-6 times the views of other productive posts, and 30 times the popular posts currently.
2011
Only two posts of any note this past year. Paper Tanks, if Not Paper Tigers and the initial announcement of Eureka's Mice Warriors. Folks love their non-skaven rodent minis. My nostalgia wanes a bit with my post about uses for formula bottles dropping out of the Top 20. Never did find a good use for them, and I don't foresee any babies from any direction for a good long while.
2010
My first year blogging still gets draw for my first post about Reapers Mousling line, and the first game of my 1920's Call of Cthulhu campaign, which is, a Northeast Pennsylvania rendition of The Haunting.
Beyond this past year, my top eight most popular blog posts 2009-2021
8. Quick Reference Guide - Traveller to Star Wars d6 (2020)
7. Review: Pulp Alley: Lost World of Lemuria (2018)
6. (Kickstarter) Halfling Adventurers (2015)
5. Apathy of the New Releases (Jun '18) (2018)
4. Call of Cthulhu - Curse of Nevoz #3 - Fourteen Beers at Chilis (2019)
3. Review: My Little Pony - Tails of Equestria RPG (2018)
2. Ennies 2016 Nominations (2016)
1. The Search for Pumpkin Spice (2020)
And to round out all the lists, the all-time list
Not too many changes from my Top-30 all time list. The Search for Pumpkin Spice and Star Wars #10- - The Great Pirate Outpost crack the Top 15, and Fourteen Beers at Chilis and Historicon 2010: Uncle Duke swap spots to #9 and #10 respectively. The only significant post to drop out of the Top 30 was my initial review of Pop's Culture Shop.
So, besides reaffirming I have a penchant of deep dives into stats and trends (it is my job at work, after all), what does this mean? I don't have any desire to start monetizing it and sit on the back end of its life cycle, but the old adage "Give the people what they want." has a shred of truth to it. There is an upcoming reorganization to the painting bench, and despite just posting my goals FOUR DAYS AGO, there's nothing wrong with a few dips into Wizard of Oz, Mice and Mouslings, and a much needed revisit of Contemptible Little Armies, in healthy doses.
But if the stats hold any weight, this also means I need to complete my four episode Halloween Horror story arc for Star Wars d6, and jump into another Spice Girls episode, where Pumpkin Spice turns evil and teams up with her Australian step-sister, Ugg the Conqueror.
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