Whilst doing that, I’ve also been catching up with uploading some of these YouTube vids to blip.tv, which could be seen as a more finalised, sanitised and ‘professional’ channel containing the better pieces. Here’s the latest of these, a video review of the Mega Drive classic Premier Manager.

More info here.

• More info at Hindleyak’s Retro Yakkage.
• See more video game vlogging at The Yak’s Blip channel.

Well, it hasn’t really been away, but this week sees some big things going on over at the Nonsensical Encyclopedia.

On to these big things I started telling you about, then. January has seen an explosion (or at least a small increase) in activity at the site, prompting renewed fervour for article writing and just general mucking about without the admins consent. Nah, don’t worry, they ain’t gonna ban you or anything… as long as you don’t go all Gordon Ramsay on them and start questioning their legitimacy and such. See, I happen to know them personally and although they’re a little but insane they aren’t bad people looking to knock you down a peg or two.

This increased interest in the site has led me to take a hammer to the front page, instating a long-awaited modified landing pad for the Big Cheeses’ helicopters. Not really, on our wages they couldn’t afford a second hand bicycle from Hindley car boot. Hopefully this rejig will lead to even bigger ‘n’ better things, such as world domination or at the very least a slap on the back from some bloke in the pub. Which isn’t really likely, since I don’t think anybody in the Fox and Chicken would have even heard of the Internet.

Nevertheless, the Illogiblog has seen an upsurge in contributions and there’s actually the feeling that people care about the place again. Not that it was ever missing, but at least there’s a general collective community spirit beginning to appear once more.

Contribute to the Illogicopedia. Go on, you’ll like it.

This weekend sees the unofficial launch of my new project, Harry Yack’s News Network.

Said blog will contain the usual news stories and opinion pieces you see over at Retro Yakking only in an ad-free and more aesthetically pleasing manner. I’ve got some big ideas for YNN, which is effectively just a parody of generic news outlets including BBC News and especially The Daily Mail. The name is a play on CNN, the American news channel, and also that news programme off Family Guy. You know the one I’m talking about.

Content-wise, it won’t be too much different from the stuff going on at Retro Yakking – the only difference is that news will be brought to you live from a new home on the interwebs. Well, kind of new, because it’ll be hosted at the same server as Illarterate until further notice, but I hope it’ll grow large enough to move to yaknews.co.uk or something similar. We’ll see what happens with that.

It’s all a bit ramshackle at the moment, with only one or two stories to tide you over for now. Hopefully things will begin to pad out sooner or later, though, and I won’t keep abandoning it like I do with certain other projects. But what can you do, eh? You try and get motivated enough to update four blogs all the time.

Anyhow, I plan to start sharing my time between RY and YNN and take a more loose approach to the former. Perhaps.

Go to YNN now!

I am aware there are numerous people

Some time ago, the company laid off a rather large section of its most popular and active writers, leading to numerous speculations over their ultimate motives. Well, I am here, at the risk of being lambasted or even losing my Today.com account, to put the record straight and say to these people — in the nicest possible way — what the heck did you expect?

Now, I am quite fortunate (?!) to have been screwed over in the past by certain web hosts by virtue of neglecting to read the small print, blundering blindly forward without a care in the world, and am not one of the said bloggers laid off by Today. At least not yet. I’d like to think, however, that my (bad) experiences have given me a little bit of insight about how the business works – you scratch my back, I scratch yours; you get nothing for nothing and any other such cliche you could care to mention.

When you sign up to Today.com, you enter into an agreement that basically means you represent Today.com by the very fact your blog is hosted under their name on their server. If you violate the Terms of Service, you can expect to be notified and perhaps even warned, just like in the real life workplace.

In the same way, don’t expect to be rewarded if you’re doing nothing to earn it. Today.com is a business and has to first of all stay afloat in order to continue providing the service it offers, all the while catering for the interests of its bloggers (or ‘workers’, if you like).

Now, I will concede the aesthetic side of the business — variety of blog skins etc. — has been largely and unfortunately neglected. We all know we’re going through a tough economic period and smaller, more independent businesses are having to accommodate for this so as not to go out of business. Today.com is no exception.

Whilst I am not obligated to do so, I feel I have to stand by the company whilst I still can and do my part in helping the company as long as I can. Today, in my opinion, is a noble and honest organisation that deserves at least some credit for its efforts. Who knows, maybe tomorrow things will change and I will be forced to move to another host, re-establish Retro Yakking right here at Illarterate or perhaps set up a whole new website.

But I would not have any ill feelings towards Today should this happen. I would not feel ripped off or screwed over because of the experience I have gained from many months of blogging with a competent and honest company. Even if it turns out they have taken me for a ride, I wouldn’t really care that much because it’s been so much fun. And I think that’s the most important thing.

• Give Today.com a go
• Visit my Today blog

As regular readers of the Illarterate blog (yes, I know some of you do exist, even if only in my deluded mind) might have noted before now, one particular subject I’ve been particularly outspoken about is the analogue-digital television switchover currently in operation in the United Kingdom.

For the past few years, I’ve made it pretty clear that I am not in favour of this change, though mostly this has been for comedic effect and in a tongue-in-cheek manner. Nevertheless, I am going to miss analogue with its snowy reception and (relatively) lo-def resolution.

Seems I’m not the only one, either. For the benefit of those finding it difficult to cope with all this new fangled digital television thing, I present to you a series of mildly humorous articles — written by the very same person sat typing this post right now — which you may or may not find interesting.

• How to retune your set top box: Having problems rescanning Freeview? Struggling to find the menu button because the label rubbed off in the first week? You’ll probably find this guide useful.

• More tips for retuning your set top box: Still struggling? Here are some more tips, released just in time for the November retune. Many are still applicable, so act now before the BBC blow your box up without your permission!

• The Great Digital Switchover Scam: How this whole thing is a conspiracy set up by the BBC to make us buy brand spanking new, state-of-the-art equipment we don’t necessarily need, just so they can fund more episodes of Strictly Come Prancing.

• September 30th Freeview retune – thousands lose channels: How the BBC are not only ripping us off, but also making us take time out of our day to execute a complicated series of button presses just so we can watch the News at Ten.

• Surviving the Digital Switchover: more general tips covering High Definition televisions and DVD cassette players.

• Teletext to meet early demise: Opinions on the news that Teletext will cease as of January next year. It should be noted that BBCi will still keep going, however, at least until they too deem their interactive text service no longer profitable.

Just a quick word for a blog I started up months ago but never gave the time it deserved. Up until now, I’ve been posting glitched up stuff on the Illarterate blog, but I’ve decided to give Autoglitcher another chance, at least for a while. I’ll look to retrospectively post some of my glitch art excursions from the past few months if I can get round to it this weekend.

As the title suggests, this site’s all about interesting glitches in television, video games and general media. The idea of autoglitching relates to those glitches you seemingly stumble across or have little input in, especially those created completely by accident.

A must for all fans of glitch art, even if I do say so myself.

As a bit of a follow up to my earlier piece on Wikia, I’ve gone to the trouble of outlining some specific things you ought to know when creating a Wikia wiki. Don’t see these articles as a personal attack on Wikia, who, on the whole provide a very good service. Consider them a rant against the general over-reliance on advertising at free content websites, something that’s becoming increasingly prevalent in this current economic climate, and something that cheeses me off slightly.

Look out for more posts on this subject in the future and perhaps some sort of archive bringing all my Wikia pieces together.

I’ve witnessed the downfall of Wikia due to its increased reliance on advertising first hand in the past year. Whilst I don’t want to dwell on the events of precisely one year ago, I decided to breifly revisit the subject with a general account of what happened from my point of view. It can be found here, and is the first piece I’ve published at HubPages.com, an online content hub (as it were) for writers and businesspeople to post articles.

It’s been somewhat painful, though I hope to have exorcised one or two demons. Hmm, I know that’s unlikely, but it was nice to vent my spleen again.

As you might have read in the title, some rather enterprising person has translated my Uncyclopedia Poo Lit Surprise-winning article Age of Umpires into the Polish language. I’m kind of honoured, but at the same time nobody knows I wrote the thing. Excellente!

Excerpt:

Gracz zaczyna na stadionie w Wigan w District League, a jego celem jest awansowanie w krykietowej…