October 2025
It was a month where I flexed my creative and coding muscle while not having much to show for it in the end. Don’t get me wrong. I enjoyed it. It’s just that it’s been hard to stay motivated on things that will drive growth of my channels. I mostly just experimented with my tools and rekindled that programming fire.
Solves
on Twitch
Stats
I streamed on 8 different days in October for a total of over 35 hours
I gained 30 follows so far this year, though my current follow count says 27
I streamed for more hours in October than any other month this year.
Thoughts
I didn’t stream the Blackwell series at all. I wasn’t feeling it and found more motivation towards building out a show for crossword solving. To that end, I added a bunch of stuff this month.
Crossword and Word Games scene layout revamped
Traffic light indicates hint level
Crossword solving tips show up across the bottom periodically
Found a solver that doesn’t use too many resources
Summaries of Wikipedia articles show up across the bottom after calling the search command from chat (
!wiki <search term>)Definitions from Wordnik show up in the sidebar after calling the define command
!define <word>)Added an easter egg involving the Letterkenny crew saying “to be fair…” that responds to chat with a meme reaction when they say the magic phrase(s)
November Plan
The aim is to stream more this month before slowing down at the start of December. Been feeling a bit burnt out on streaming stuff due to a lack of chat/viewer engagement, while I’ve drawn a lot of energy from coding solutions to the things I want to see on my stream. For the next month, this is the tentative schedule on Twitch:
Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Every 2 weeks: AVCX Crosswords | Various word games and trivia | Indie XWs on Crosshare | Every 2 weeks: New Yorker Crosswords | |
3 hours | 5+ hours | 3+ hours | 3 hours |
Wordsday Format
My Wednesday streams have been very off the cuff. I think I am slowly getting an understanding for how to build an entertaining stream. Increasing chat engagement is still on my mind, but viewer retention is a metric I’m going to be putting more emphasis on.
With that in mind the format for this month will focus on getting viewers to stay for longer by encouraging the accrual of Channel Points, Twitch’s term for rewards that are open to everybody regardless of subscription status. After watching many of the streams of @rebelappliance and @chetsellers—where viewers and chatters can wager their channel points on the outcome of a game—I have seen how much fun these elements can be. So I’m gonna try implementing this feature into my own Wednesday stream.
So here’s how I’m thinking of structuring those shows
Intro (15 min) - discuss life, general things, what the show is about, agenda, etc.
Crosshare (30 min) - Catch up on solves from the notifications inbox
Wordsday Checklist (2–3 hrs) - Work through a randomly generated list of 5–7 puzzle games, playing each for 10–15 mins
break in between as needed
Reality Check (1 hour) - the pièce de résistance of the show.
How many images can I correctly classify as real vs. AI? (40 images in total)
Prediction
less than 30/40
at least 30/40
If I start at around 12pm my time that would be about 2pm Eastern Time. So when I start the Reality Check that will be around 5 to 6 pm Eastern Time, just in time to catch people getting out of work.
on YouTube
Stats
Overall views decreased from September to October
YTD Stats show the bulk of watch hours occurred in the summer
I gained a whopping 0 subscribers in the month of October. Yay!
Codes
on YouTube
October Review
I completed Week 13 of my Tutorial Tuesday series.
November Plan
Trying to complete the archived freeCodeCamp course on Javascript before the end of the year.
Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Tutorials Javascript, Python | At least once: FOSS contributions | |||
4+ hours | 4 hours |
Look for me to focus on finishing a lot of that freeCodeCamp course so I don’t have to do much in December.
Constructs
October Review
I didn’t construct any puzzles at Crosshare this month. I was too focused on Solves this month.
November Plan
I don’t plan on constructing at all unless I find something especially motivating or inspiring.
Writes
October Review
I didn’t publish anything this month. Boo.
November Plan
I want to write up a few of my coding solutions I did for the Solves stream. I don’t have a target in mind, but I’d like to at least get one draft down.
🔲 Write a technical post
✅ Write an update