My Second Anniversary…ish

I am celebrating my second anniversary – my blogging one, that is.  I have now been at this whole “blogging thing” for two years now.  According to those people who care enough to make up and track these things, this is my cotton anniversary.  While that still sounds weird, at least it isn’t as out of place as last year’s.  That was a paper anniversary – for an endeavor that is completely paperless.

It’s been quite an interesting experience.  There have been lows (writing what you feel is a great post and getting zero comments) and there have been highs (someone letting you know they loved a movie they watched because of your recommendation.)

Some of you may be saying, “Hold on there, Chip.  What do you mean your second anniversary?  Didn’t that happen, like, a week ago, or isn’t it still a week away?  I think your calendar is a little off.”

Yes, I did my first posts on December 29^th, 2010, but I do not consider that the start of my blogging.  I did the posts as the first step in choosing what designs I wanted for the blog, how I wanted the text to appear, trying inserts of photos, links, etc.  I had to decide on ads or no ads.  I had to figure out how to do the Amazon links.  I had to plan out how I was going to work with the Labels to make it easier for people to find things that interest them.

I finally sent out a link to some friends on January 6^th, 2011 and asked them to take a look and let me know what they thought.  I got almost zero responses, so I took a couple of days to rethink, and then finally started blogging for real with some new posts on January 11^th, 2011.  Last year, because I wanted to finish my Harry Potter reviews first, I didn’t do my One Year Anniversary post until January 13^th.  That means my anniversary can be Dec 29^th, Jan 6^th, or Jan 11^th, and last year I celebrated it on Jan 13^th.  That makes this Jan 5^th post an “ish” anniversary.

I’m doing this post now because I wanted to combine it with an announcement on my Lists from Chip site.  Had I left them separate I would have ended up with five consecutive posts that were basically just chatting.  This way I can move on a little quicker to my next movie category – Mainers Making Movies.

Speaking of Lists from Chip, I just finished a complete update of the entire site.  All 66 tracking sheets, with 225 separate movie lists organized by ranking, alphabet, chronology, or genre, are freshly re-uploaded with the latest information.  This includes the major ones like the 1,001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, They Shoot Pictures Don’t They, Oscar Winners and Nominees, Golden Globes, and others. 

It also includes other interesting lists like the 2012 Sight & Sound polls, the movies in the United States National Film Registry, the Independent Spirit Awards, Time Magazine’s top films, a 15 Year Consolidated and Weighted IMDB Top 250, and many others. 

And have you ever wanted to expand your movie knowledge beyond just what comes out of Hollywood?  If so, there are tracking sheets for the BAFTAs, Cesars, Genies, Ariels, Guldbagges, Golden Horses, Grand Bells, Goyas, Palm d’Ors, Golden Lions, and many others – 25 countries, two pan-continental awards, and five major film festivals in all.

You can visit my Lists from Chip site to view or download these tracking sheets by clicking here or by clicking on the “Lists from Chip” link on the upper right of this site.

I’d like to thank everyone who have become Followers and/or who have been reading my posts.  Hopefully you have found them informative and/or entertaining.  If you really like a post, please share it with your friends.  My recent post on The Hobbit, or a Pox on People Who Bring Babies to Theaters was quite popular.

Finally, for the stats people (you know who you are), here are some numbers for my two years blogging:

Number of total posts: 546

Average posts per month: 23

Number of movie related posts:  411

Number of movie reviews:  327

Number of book reviews:  40

Number of hike reviews:  38

Number of humor posts:  40

Number of TV show reviews:  17

Number of website reviews:  4

Number of golf course reviews:  1

Number of discussion starters:  6

My ten most viewed posts are:

1. Humor - Look-alike Celebrities
2. Hike - Mount Battie and Megunticook Mountain
3. Book and TV - Game of Thrones
4. Book and Movie - The Princess Bride (1987)
5. Movies Where Charlize Theron Does Not Get Naked
6. Movie - The Ides of March (2011)
7. Humor - Do You Have a Dirty Mind?
8. Humor - World War II Social Networking
9. Hike - Cadillac Mountain, North Ridge
10. Movie - Hugo (2011)

Of the nearly 90,000 views this site has received (72,000 in 2012 alone), almost half are from the U.S.  This is followed by The U.K., Russia, Canada, Germany, Australia, India, Sweden, France, and Brazil.  I don’t know any bloggers in Russia, nor have I ever had any commenters from Russia, so I’m not sure what’s up with that country being third highest.