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Monday, April 28, 2014

Three Year Blogoversary! And A Retrospective

Today is the third Blogoversary, or anniversary, of the inception of my blog! Thank you everyone that has ever left a comment or followed my blog during the past three awesome years. It means a lot to me. To celebrate the occasion, I decided to post a timeline of J and J Productions chronicling some of the milestone events during my time writing this blog, as well as letting everyone know my original intent for the blog. 


Tuesday, April 26, 2011: The Beginning
Technically speaking, April 26 is the actual Blogoversary of the blog. However, due to the fact that I did not have the time to write all of this in time, and that the post was only a test post at the time, I am declaring today the Blogoversary. Anyway, my original intent of the blog was not to review movies, or even write a movie blog at all. In fact, my only intent was that J and J Productions 1809 be a place to promote the stop motion animation Lego movies that my brother and I made, not for movies and movie reviews. Above is a picture of the original J and J Productions header, which has odd white bars at the top and bottom that make the picture look odd.


Tuesday, June 14, 2011: Inception of Reviews
On June 14, I decided to try something different and write a movie review. Why did I decide to write a review? Honestly, I do not even know. It was just on a whim. My only reasoning that I can recall is that thanks to Marvel working on The Avengers and the other films leading up to that, I was very interested in what was happening in production of the film, so I read a lot of articles on IGN.com, which lead me to reviews. My initial reviews are some of the most horribly written crap ever with tons of misspellings and incomplete sentences. Also, my first review was for Inception, which is ironic since it was the "Inception" of my reviewing hobby. Despite the complete lack of writing ability, my first review contained many of the main features that are still present in my reviews today like breaking down scores into each category, all of which I still use today, just with a few extras. Also, unlike basically everyone else that has started a blog, I disliked writing. Writing was actually my worst subject in high-school. Today however, writing is easily my strongest subject in college with many of my teachers telling me that I was the best in the class at writing, particularly my English professor. My improved skills are largely thanks to blogging, which gave me a reason to write, which in turn led to improved writing ability, and without it, I would not be the straight A student that I am today. 


Sunday, January 1, 2012: The Madness Begins
2012 marked the unofficial beginning of my maddening drive to post almost every day. While my original intent at the was not necessary to post every day, at least I thought not, that actually ended up happening for the most part, even if I did miss a few days during 2012. However, ever since then, my average posts per-year has been over 365, and my goal is to make 2014 the year that I post literally every day. Despite college slowing me down, I almost reached that goal last year, but thanks to an unfortunately timed illness last summer that sent me to the hospital for a day, I missed one day, but made up for it with more posts overall, 389 to be exact. Honestly, do I not know why I decided that I need to post every day, but it is something has just happened, and considering that am an obsessive perfectionist when it comes to certain things, I just do it. Plus, reading your comments everyday is the most satisfying part of blogging, and that is what keeps me going. Honestly, I am just a madman with a blog (Doctor Who fans will get this one).



Friday, May 4, 2012: The Avengers Assemble
After four years of waiting since the After-Credits scene of Iron Man, The Avengers finally assembled, and not only was it one mind-blowingly perfect experience, it remains the best cinematic experience I have ever made, and it opened the door to legions of new fans, some of which I partially influenced. In many ways, it was my interest in the news of The Avengers that indirectly led me to become a reviewer. Also, to this day, I consider convincing several fellow bloggers, who are now friends, to watch The Avengers and the films leading up to it, which turned them into fans, one of my favorite accomplishments as a critic and writer, plus I made cool friends.


Tuesday, November 1, 2012: Disney Buys Star Wars and Episode VII on the Way
When I first heard that Disney bought Star Wars, I sick with something that I do not remember, but I do remember bringing up the Blogger Dashboard for the first time a couple of days and seeing someone post something along the lines of "Disney Bought Star Wars: Episode VII Coming." My first thought was, "This is obviously a joke," and after a little research, I discovered it was true, and I was left in a bit of shock for a while. Considering that Star Wars is my favorite franchise of all-time, as well as being the number one reason behind my interest in movies and geekdom at all, I was both ecstatic and skeptical, but nonetheless intrigued for the future of my favorite franchise. Whether good or bad, it is bound to make a giant impact on pop-culture and geekdom, as well as this blog.


Thursday, April 11, 2013: Top 100 Movies
After literally a year and a half of planning to make a Top 25 Movies list, which turned into Top 50, which turned into Top 75, which led me to finally make a Top 100 Movies list, I actually accomplished the feat by actually posting it! Despite posting that list, it is in severe need of re-working because some of the movies on are not even ones that I like anymore and entire look of the post is dull and boring. Therefore, in the next month, I will be reposting my new Top 100 Movies List with all of the new additions and a near complete re-ranking of most movies on the list. 


Tuesday, July 23, 2013: Anime Endeavor
My endeavor into the world of Japanese animation began nearly a year ago, and thus far, it has been a fun ride. Considering that serious American animation died with The Clone Wars' cancellation (with the exception of the Avatar series, which is said to be good), my search for something to fill the void led me to anime, which began with Death Note and my review of it.


Saturday, July 27, 2013: 100 Followers!
After more than two years of blogging, I finally reached 100 Followers! Reaching 100 followers is a milestone of sorts for most bloggers, and it was great to finally achieve it.


Friday, December 27, 2013: 1000th Post
Another milestone for many bloggers, I reached 1000 posts! Currently, I am at 1123 posts and I do not plan on slowing down anytime soon. 

There are undoubtedly other milestones and other important dates from my time blogging, but I should probably stop here because this post is getting too long. Also, while writing this post, I noticed that Tuesdays seem to be big days for me in terms of posting things, which is interesting. 

My next goal for the blog is to make it better. Something does not seem right. Maybe it is the content or something else; I do not know, but I want to figure it out.

Thanks everyone again for following and commenting on my blog! Without your comments, I would not be doing this right now. Also thanks to my guest authors Jamie, Jordan, Rebecca, JT, Maegen, and Ashley Tara for contributing to the blog as well during the last three years.

If you want to contact us or have any questions please send an e-mail to johnstarslayer@gmail.com.

23 comments:

  1. Happy blogoversary! My kids are really into Legos now, so I'll have to check out some of your videos and see if they would like them :-) I guess i never really looked at your list of pages and realized you made those!

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    1. Thanks! My friend's little sister and my young cousins seem to enjoy my old Lego movie, so I hope your kids do as well. :-) I don't know how old your kids are, but they have any interest in actually making Lego movies, I know a few family friendly websites that taught me and my brother how to make the Lego movies when were kids (I started when I was 13 and my brother was 11 I believe).

      -James

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  2. Happy Blogoversary!! :D It's so great that you have had such successful three years of blogging and I hope you have many more. :)
    And thank you for getting me into the Marvel universe! I'd been wanting to find a really good bunch of superhero films for years, and I finally was able to! :) :D

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    1. Thank you Maegen! :D
      I am glad that I helped you become a Marvel fan! :)

      -James

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  3. That's funny, the Avengers movie was what prompted me to start reviewing movies too! :D Congrats on all those milestones James, you keep a fantastic blog!

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    1. Cool! The Avengers has been a very influential for many people. :) And thank you Sarah!

      -James

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  4. Happy blogoversary! And congrats on all those milestones you have reached! :) It is great fun looking back to see how far a blog has come since its first months or years in the making, and I really like all you have done with your blog so far :)

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    1. Thanks Stilwater! I am glad you liked it! Also, thank you again for convincing me to watch Death Note; you helped me turn into a major Otaku now! :)

      -James

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  5. Congrats James! Thats a huge milestone and I've definitely seen improvement in your blog over the past couple of years.

    Glad to be a part of it!

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    1. Thanks Jordan! Hopefully I can continue improving my blog in the future.

      -James

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  6. HAPPY BLOGOVERSARY!!!!!!!!!! This post is crazy, I can't believe there was a time before The Avengers movie ACHK what did we poor nerds talk about?!?!?! LOL. THAT IS SO AWESOME BLOGGING IMPROVED YOUR WRITING SKILLS FOR SCHOOL! And to think some people consider blogging a waste of time! :P

    This post is awesome; I can just barely remember the early years--but it feels like more than three years have gone by to me. I'm so glad you're still blogging and that you've gained so many more commenting followers!! And of course, thanks for helping me get into The Avengers and Doctor Who and Sherlock and even Harry Potter! I definitely appreciate you as a great friend and I really look forward to seeing where you take your blog in the future! Congrats again on the big milestone!!!!

    ~Jamie

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    1. Thank you Jamie!!!! I know! The time before The Avengers was a dark one indeed. lol
      Yes! Blogging is certainly not a waste of time; without it, my writing skills would be nonexistent. :)

      I know what you mean. It seems a lot more has happened during the last three years. Also, thank you Jamie for inspiring me to continue writing my blog and for being a great friend. :)

      -James

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  7. Love this blog, James! It's one of my favorites to read, and the reason your "fans" post comments daily is that you always take the time to respond. Which is cool. :)

    And you are most definitely a madman with a blog :P

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    1. Thank you Clara! Excellent point as well, and you are right. Haha, I am a madman indeed! :)

      -James



      -James

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  8. Congrats on three years! Here's to many more to come! This is easily one of my favorite blogs, and I check it everyday. Happy Blogoversary, and I really liked you Doctor Who reference. It was nice to read the history of your blog, and I'm glad you decided to do reviews, because your reviews on awesome.
    Happy Blogoversary, Mad Man with a Blog! ;)
    -Tegan

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    1. Thanks Tegan! That means a lot; I am glad that my blog is one of your favorites! I knew you would get the reference. ;)

      -James

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  9. Congratulations! Not everyone has the patience or the passion to maintain a blog such as yours, so what you're achieving / you've achieved is really something. I hope you continue posting!

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    1. Thank you! And as of now, I have no plans of stopping!

      -James

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  10. (This is rather late...) Happy Blogoversary!

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  11. Excellent .. Amazing .. I’ll bookmark your blog and take the feeds also…I’m happy to find so many useful info here in the post, we need work out more techniques in this regard, thanks for sharing.  Zoechip

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One rule: No strong profanity. If you want to link to one of your posts, please do; I am always interested in other reviews and such.

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