Notes and Stuff

The first deadline for reviews was this past Friday. I am thoroughly impressed that everyone, besides myself, made it. In the future I will not plan deadlines so close to all day outings with school children, that was rough. Still waiting on a few corrections and then all the reviews will be posted. The best part about the first deadline was seeing what I communicated well and not so well to my contributors, not to mention how quickly answers and corrections are made.

A few notes going forward.

Each of the reviews are numbered versus named. Take a look at the URL for each and you will see what I mean. The first number is the number of the review over all, the second is the number in that particular genre. I am keeping  a spread sheet if this information, it also includes the title, date it is posted and the reviewer name. There is a small error with this. Because my spread sheet wasn't pulled all the way to the right, I mixed up the column I use to see which number line I am on with the ones that are preset in the program. So number seven is actually number six and when I get to posting the real number seven it will be labeled six. This information is really for any nerds that are paying attention. And just so it is clear, I use the term lovingly.

My next note is this: It is kind of hard to write a review about a book and movie when you don't have them next to you to reference. My last review was Jumanji. I had borrowed both the book and movie from the library and then tried to do a review after returning them. This was silly. Not that having them in front of me at the time would have added a whole lot of detail to the review, but there is a line or two that may not have been so vague. This is something I will make sure to keep in mind for future reviews. Nothing like just running the movie in the background on my computer and being able to stop/pause or rewind/fast-forward, as often as needed.

Come the end of the week I hope to have Watchmen done, and V for Vendetta is lying in wait to be the second Comic entry, though I need to finish True Grit first. Myself and my fellow reviewers will have to be busy little bees for the following month, I'd like two reviews in each genre before I start affiliate programs. This is a deadline for myself, just so there is a wide range of content available. The next deadline is August 5th and I'm excited to see how much more content can be filled between then and now.

Some Changes

I've made some changes to the first three reviews on the site. Before the changes each review had "by: (reviewer name)" changed it to Reviewed by: (reviewer name) and I added the authors name to the title. This will be carried out through the rest of the reviews posted. Not sure why I didn't include the authors name during the first run, probably just an over sight, but it is fixed now. Also, I will be sure to start adding the year the movie came out to each review. This will be especially important for titles like True Grit which came out in 1969 and 2010, both based on the same book.

I will be playing around with appearance over summer, adjust font and font size, mostly with titles, headings, and author names, not really a fan of them currently, but I'm still trying to muddle through the basics. Also, I'll be looking into how I can integrate links right into the reviews without it throwing off the format. This little issue is why the url to the blog is posted in full instead of a quick link. It would be great to be able to reference another source in a review and give the reader direct access, a lot like what Cracked does within its articles, or this blog for that matter.

I will be playing around with the blog as well. I'd like to incorporate the banner from the web site here to create some continuity, and also adjust the color scheme, at least for the links which seem to want to show up light gray and almost to light to read. I'm also thinking of doing screen shots of the web site and posting them here, mostly to document the progression it has taken, though honestly, a lot has already changed since it was beta (yeah, I'm calling it beta.) I just expect it to change a lot more in the coming months and it would be nice to look back and see what it once was.

So much to write on so little time...

There is no small selection of materials to choose from. There are so many titles and genres that I am surprised my head isn't spinning with all that I want to undertake. Currently, I have True Grit and Watchmen in the works, and I am planning to head on over to the library to commandeer Jumanji for a quick Children's post for the weekend. As much as I want to sit down and start producing content for the site, my mind keeps drifting to other thoughts and ideas, and my time is still taken up with two "real" jobs.

June 15th is the first deadline for submissions and it wont get here fast enough. I am impatiently waiting to read the reviews for The Mist, The Secret Life of Bees and Fight Club, and start rounding out my content. By this deadline I plan to have posted at least two more reviews myself, so Jumanji and either of the other two I am working on.

Then there are the titles that reviewers have taken "dibs" on, like: The Princes Diaries (myself) or Lemony Snicket's: A Series of Unfortunate Events and Ella Enchanted (Rachel T.) Bubba Ho-Tep and The Prestige (Jonathan B.). I even got word that there could be a fifth reviewer who would like to take on Les Miserables! As for Heidi B. (wow, there are a lot of B's working on this project, I assure you, we aren't related) though I haven't received anything in regards to titles she wants to do, she has declared her works will be mostly in the horror, sci-fi, and fantasy genres, but I would like to note, I have interest to do The Shinning. I'm hoping to see some, if not all, of these reviews by the August 5th deadline. Also, I'll have to squeeze in some romance novels, possibly A Walk to Remember and The Notebook.

This is just a sampling of what is to come in the next two months.

Oh wow, just two months?

I better get reading.