State of the Monkey

Greetings, loyal blog denizens. With the 2014 season almost upon us, I thought I would let you all know what is going on around these parts.

First and foremost, get ready to see the site itself change. In the next week or so, we are getting a fancypants new look that will be a little more slick, clean and condensed. That new spitshine will be nice, but what we're really excited about is that this new site template has some more advanced options for the types of posts we can do.

That is possible because not only is MWAH getting a new frontend, but a new backend as well. Joomla can go suck an egg, long live WordPress! The editor Bloguin has given we bloggers just wasn't all that great and really limited formatting options, but that should be the case no longer. I fully intend to exploit that, but it will take some time for us to actually figure out what these newfangled features can do.

One area where this will (hopefully) be noticeable is that game recaps are going to be quite a bit different this season. I've never been happy with MWAH's game recaps, not because of the writing, but because they were the same kind of thing you could see just about anywhere. So I'm going to change things up so that the recaps are a bit more unique. With that said, there will be a little bit of trial and error involved as I figure out which parts of the new format I like and which I don't. The same goes for series previews, which will also be getting a format overhaul, though I haven't fully locked that down yet.

The other change with previews and recaps and the site in general is that I will henceforth stop referring to the site as "we." There is now only "me." Well, pretty much. I'm not going to bore you with personal details, but my responsibilities at my day job (you know, the one that actually pays me) have grown substantially over the year, as has my family. That gives me precious little time to effectively manage a staff of writers. It is important to me that the content on the site is of high quality and adheres to an overall tone. I did a really poor job of implementing that last season as I was simply too stretched for time. As such, I've given all of the writers a hearty handshake and a swift kick in the ass as I shoved them out of the metaphorical door. Because of Obamacare, I simply can't afford to not pay them anymore. Their work over the years is greatly appreciated, but I just couldn't make it work anymore, so now Monkey with a Halo is just little ol' me… mostly. Scotty Allen will still contribute, largely on the prospect front, on a semi-regular basis. Other than that, it will be all me, all the time.

Hey, where are you going? Come back!

What that means to you is that I will be handling all of the game recaps. That more than likely means is that game recaps won't actually get published until the morning after the game. if that upsets you, I suggest you get off your high horse and go to sleep earlier. I'm too damn old to be staying up past 11 to get a recap posted that most people aren't going to read until the next morning anyway. There is also a good chance that I'm not going to quite be able to cover all 162 games. I'll do my best, but I do have a life.

To complicate matters further, I am even toying with the idea of re-starting the podcast now that my son is older and no longer wailing at all hours of the night. Don't hold me to that one though because I think we all know my track record of committing to a podcast recording schedule.

Other than all of those gigantic changes, things should otherwise be status quo. Halo Headlines aren't going anywhere. Player Power Rankings will be back on Opening Day. My ramblings will continue all other weekdays. With all that plus the game recaps, series previews and half-hearted commitment to a podcast, you are all going to be so sick of me by the end of the year. I'm really looking forward to it.