"With time so short, we'll say so long..."

"...and go...so soon...goodbye." (Not only in the wake of a New Year, but also a new decade.)

Sadly, what I had on the agenda last time--and in previous posts--is officially written off till next week (give or take a few days) and thereafter. Beyond that...

• After over ten years of attempts (on paper, Paint.NET, Inkscape, SketchUp, and our current carto-suite), Rogatia's national DEM is close to completion. At long last! Never thought I could resurrect the Drop with what little space is still up for grabs on my laptop + USB (or at least the Big Two, Shropshire and Elmshire provinces; Yorkshire is represented by a spiritual remodel), but miracles come true. (Apologies to Air Supply here; apologies to the makers of the underrated Great Mouse Detective in the opener above.)

  In all retrospect, I sounded clearly defeatist when I declared my intentions to scrap the old layout and start over from scratch. Ultimately, all it took was just a bunch of custom inequality formulas, along with hours of previs playback and shrewd guesswork (on Wilbur), plus the highest point on the fractal DEMs in the right spot (on QGIS).

  In short: Making a map like this is just like playing a chess game--your next move must be your best move. (And to think I've never won the real deal in person or online--not as far as I recall.)

  All that remains is the Atlantic Ocean bathymetry underneath the resulting terrain southwest of Barbados and Trinidad/north of the Suriname/French Guiana border, work on which began midday today during my latest nephew-sitting episode. (Now you know I'm an uncle.) Combining the provinces together in one piece on QGIS, and giving them the "Max" (for maximum height) treatment after I convert the bathymetry for Wilbur. A New Year's Day wrap-up is not out of the question; a January 3-4 ETA is slightly more likely. As always, stay tuned for the final layout here and on r/mapmaking. (Coming soon, RFM tie-in Cicaldia/Tovasala.)

• While resurrecting the Drop, I took to a series of rewards for every segment completed. For Shropshire, it was the last slice of turkey left for my usual egg sandwiches; with Elmshire, a clean shave of my beard (which I wanted to keep until everything was a wrap, but decided on it sooner due to the long development time);⊙ and now that Yorkshire's ticked off...how about repitching Unspooled #1 to NaNoWriMo's crew (complete with the perfect first line to the entire series)? That shall do in a day or two--not to mention I've already sketched out a dialogue snippet based on the tail-end of today's nephew-sitting derring-do. Which leads us to...

• Yet another go-round at an old New Year's resolution concept (or two): Deliver the first 10,000 words of Unspooled #1's manuscript within 6-10 months--with or without help from an automated secret weapon an r/Zootopia regular introduced me to weeks ago. In related news: Find enough time to fulfill my first anthro commission (for one "AndyBanez" on Inkbunny)...however soon that happens. (A phrase I've also recently latched onto the progress status of my Sevton Saga, from whence Rogatia. Also applies just as much to the Dixwell tales--but fate may soon intervene.)

• As for Rogatia...

• • National broadcaster HCP is currently simulcasting coverage of the final moments of this decade on all of their local channels--HCP News, HCParadise, HCP 2, Z3, Zone, sur+, Rogatie 1 (en français), Hace (en español), Helio (em portugues), and Alle (in German)--and will carry on with New Year's coverage until the 13th of next month. (After a three-month Article 13-induced stint, the 24-hour news channel [on 27.1 ATSC] and legacy general-interest station [on 3.1] traded dial positions on July 1, 2019.)
• • Article 13 also prompted Rogatia to do the once-unthinkable: Back in April, they settled on a compromise whereby any and all non-Rogatian works enter the public domain 40 years after creation--no excuses, no lobbying, no going back.⊙⊙ Pre-1979 works retroactively qualified at that time; works from 1979 itself will join the crowd pretty soon, those from 1980 in 2021, and so forth.
• • And in movie news: After seven years of serving the Rogatian/CARICOM market, arthouse/kidvid company Skouras officially split in two this New Year's Eve (à la Viacom/CBS between 2005 and now)--no thanks to the strengths of two brands they'd once served as distributors for. One side has been renamed and sold as the local division of America's A24 (they of The VVitch, Hereditary, and Uncut Gems fame); the other, with titles from the likes of Nelvana, the former DIC and Cinar/Cookie Jar, Russia's Soyuzmultfilm, Nippon Animation, and Australia's Yoram Gross/Flying Bark, now forms the regional spinoff branch of Canada's newly rebranded WildBrain. (Bronies past and present may recognise them from their days as DHX Media.) Skouras itself began as a spinoff from Fox Rogatia, and was named in honour of former Fox USA executive Spyros. (As was the 1980s-1990s indie outfit whose branding rights they acquired from the dormant proprietors.) This connection became an artifact by the time Disney acquired Fox in March 2019, and even more so thanks to the MGM collection--Skouras' crown jewel--moving to the Rogatian Disney-ABC via Fox Home Entertainment. (Skouras held on to the theatrical rights per contractual obligations.) With the aforementioned merger, A24 making a name for itself in the indie sphere, and the DHX/WildBrain transition, the writing was ultimately on the wall. Both Gems (on December 18) and--appropriately enough--The Farewell (on December 25) marked the end of an illustrious era.

• In our final edition of the "404 Files" this decade: Yahoo/Verizon (they of GeoCities and Tumblr infamy) have recently struck again by winding down their long-lasting Groups site (at the end of January 2020), and word is out that Tsū--on which I once chanced--is gearing up for a revival. (Where I am right now, stay tuned for my best-of G+ collection on WordPress, and our first rerun re: January 2019's VCL outage.)

• Too bad our last bulletin of the New Tens had to end on a rather humdrum note: Our Spectrum cable box (that's the service provider we switched to post-move) went AWOL sometime during Advent--and along with it, a slew of DVR'd movies I was saving just for the occasion. (Among the highlights: Apollo 11 [a CNN documentary], Paddington 2 [a running gag on r/movies' box-office reports till September 2019], Fun and Fancy Free [the one with "Mickey and the Beanstalk"], Sam Raimi's Darkman [whose chase scene is worth the price of admission alone]...) At press time, that also means we'll miss out on ABC's coverage of the ball drop in Times Square--for the first time in Heaven knows how long. Two traditions I always partake in--gone out the window. Sadly, looks like we'll have to move our New Year's marathon to streaming--and a sister's projector. (Have we all officially cut the cord where we are? Not that I mind--I've long moved on to the net.)

Well, folks...this is where I leave you for 2019. Take care, stay connected, keep exploring, see you in the bestsellers, watch your tails, stay tuned for resteemed highlights...and enjoy your Auld Lang Syne (however else you say or celebrate it).

For now, this Reginald Routhwick. So long.

Closing photo by Nicholas A. Hall, 31/12/2011; public-domain work of the U.S. federal government (Marine Corps). Trademarks depicted are the property of their respective owners.

⊙ If you're a regular Troper or visitor, you'll get the joke.
⊙⊙ This applies only for officially published works. For unpublished material, the clock starts once publication does occur--regardless of creation date. For posthumous material, PD only if author/creator died/went out of business 40+ years ago.