I first met Zar Antonov, the President of Obscurium, in 2019 at MicroCon (yes, the one we hosted in Hamilton). He's a very interesting sort of person, and some of his ideas have inspired some of my own ideas, as often happens in the micronational community. And so, it is with the utmost respect and pride that I congratulate both Obscurium and President Antonov on their eight "Declaration Day", and I wish them many more to follow!
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| The flag of Obscurium (Source: MicroWiki) |
First, a brief apology - between recent work travel (two days in Tijuana, teaching) and switching systems from my old desktop to a laptop, some things (including my social medial presence) have fallen a bit behind. I'm slowly getting back on track though! I'll have to do a better job of pre-queuing posts next time (although my planned return trip to Tijuana has been cancelled due to recent events down there, unfortunately).
Now, on to something a bit more fun! Wednesday this past week was my birthday, and I'm rather tickled by this, which was posted in the MicroCon 2027 Facebook group by the organizers of that event:
"And I discovered that my castles stand upon pillars of salt and pillars of sand" (Coldplay, Viva la Vida)
Although, in this case, you can substitute "plans" for "castles"...
So I don't think I'll be able to do the Great Lakes Regional Micro-Summit this year. Between a lack of action on the part of someone who was supposed to get back to me, and my own life "stuff", it's just not going to come together in time.
But I've already got two new ideas to replace it that I'm working on! (Neither of which, sadly, is any sort of event, in-person or otherwise.)
First up, Slabovian Geographic: I'd mocked up a cover a few years ago (see picture), and I used Slabovian Geographic as a "backstory" for my expedition at the end of last year. Now, I think I want to figure out how to make a "zine" using Slabovian Geographic as the theme/title. If nothing else, it might make an interesting giveaway at the next MicroCon-type event. Although, to do it "right", I'd want glossy printing, which would be expensive. Sigh. Big ideas, small treasury, as usual. 😖
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| The Slabovian Geographic cover I mocked up |
The other idea I had sort of harkens back to my childhood. I was growing up when the "Choose Your Own Adventure" (CYOA) books became popular, and today I came up with the idea of doing a MicroCon-themed CYOA. The idea would be that you're attending your first MicroCon, and you are presented with various choices about who to talk to and what to do, and based on those choices you end up with a good or bad experience at MicroCon. I'm still workshopping the idea a bit, but I think it's got potential. I might even do it as an online experience using Twine, "an open-source tool for telling interactive, nonlinear stories" which would hopefully allow me to embed pictures from previous MicroCon events as part of the story.
I've mentioned before that I've tried (twice) to get Google Adsense activated on this blog, but both times Google's feedback (without explanation) was that it was a "low-content blog", whatever THAT means. Why am I doing that? Well, I'm not trying to do this to get rich, but it would be nice to cover some of the expenses.
Here's the high-level statement of account for the royal coffers for 2025:
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Line Item |
Amount |
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Balance as of
1 January 2025 |
$1,605.73 |
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Income for
2025 |
$421.50 |
|
Expenses for
2025 |
$1,536.64 |
|
Balance as of
31 December 2025 |
$490.60 |
The "expenses" mentioned are largely related to MicroCon 2025 - fortunately that only happens every two years. Even then, that line does not include personal expenses related to MicroCon, such as travel, hotel, food, or uniforms. It's related to the souvenirs we gave away, as well as a sponsorship of the event itself. We also spent $142.60 on postage, $33.27 on photocopying, and $98.35 on printing (i.e. Christmas cards). This is an expensive hobby!
Currently, we have one semi-regular source of income - a tax of 50% on all regnal lottery winnings. That is, I play a weekly lottery game or two, and if I win any money, then half of the winnings goes into the coffers. If I ever win a large prize, Slabovia will benefit.
So, yeah, given that I still don't have full-time work in the so-called "real world", I've been trying to figure out how to monetize this hobby without selling things (other than myself), which is why I've been working on building up a social media presence, although it's not exactly taking off like wildfire. I feel that maybe this is because I'm not exactly controversial, but, well, how can I put this? Royalty shouldn't be controversial (other than their mere existence, which some people feel is controversial enough) - as I've stated before, the monarchy endures, which means it shouldn't really comment on the political controversy of the week.
This lack of funding is something that every micronation eventually faces. In alchemy there's the concept of a prima materia, or first material, the material from which everything else is constructed. Well, money is basically that - with enough money you can realize your micronational vision, whatever it is. But it's important to remember that every other micronation is in the same situation - none of us has excess money just lying around, so trying to make money off of other micronationals is pretty much doomed to failure. Some micronations do make a bit of money off of each other by selling stamps or currency to those that collect it, but this is a small subset of the overall (already small, maybe even micro-sized) community.
Unfortunately, I don't have any answers on this as to how a micronation can make money. Macronations can tax their citizens, impose tariffs, and have various other financial instruments to fill their coffers. Micronations mostly just hold out an empty cup and ask for "Spare change?" (That raises the idea of setting up a Ko-fi page, but I'm undecided on soliciting donations from the public.)
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| The current state of the royal treasury... |
Me, at home... "Ahh, such a quiet and relaxing evening, nothing to do. Why do I feel like there's something I need to do? Well, let me check my social media. Huh, my blog post for today didn't publish? Wait, no, I didn't HAVE a blog post ready for today!"
Oops.
In lieu, please accept the slide deck from my 2023 MicroCon presentation, Defense of the (Cyber) Realm.
It probably could have used another editing pass or two, but I think it conveys the main message pretty well - cyberwar, unlike other types of "micronational war", really can be a threat to micronations!
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| Me while giving the talk at MicroCon 2023 |
There is a lot going on in the world today, but I try never to address it here (although I can be fairly vocal about my opinions in person). Why is that? There's a couple of reasons.
First, to some extent, micronationalism is an escape for me, from a world where I have to worry about things like rent and inflation, the economy, and the political crisis of the week. Within the micronational world, I'm royalty, with the respect of my citizens and my peer leaders from other micronations.
Second, I'm quite sure the macronations (i.e. the major political powers in the world) don't care about me and my micronation. There's no up-side to being noticed by them, and in this age of "big data" and social media data-gathering, there's no impetus to make my opinions known here. It's not going to make a difference in how the "big guys" act and it might attract unwelcome attention.
Finally, I don't think I'd bring anything new or interesting to the mix. Anything I have to say is already said by many others, some of whom are more highly qualified in their opinions than I am.
So, while I wouldn't go so far as to say that this is a "reality-free zone", it's certainly an area where current events aren't so current.
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| A photo from my first coronation Slabovia has always tried to be a bit "different" |
