300: Rise of a Sabbatical

Faithful readers, this is my 300th post on Slice of Fried Gold. And it's time for me to take a break.

I started this blog in February of 2008 as a place where I could save and catalog the strange and funny things I found on the internet. For a while there, I posted whenever I saw fit, but then somewhere along the line I decided to hold myself to a weekly post. So, for the past few years, the plan was that I would pick an idea from my email inbox and I would spend the week crafting and polishing a post and then have it ready to go by 12:01 am each and every Monday morning.

But that's not what happened. For the last year or so, as my life got busier (or I got lazier, I can't really decide which one), I found myself doing the Sunday night scramble and ignoring my family and friends as I furiously typed away on the laptop and scoured the interwebs for random stories and YouTube videos to embed into the post -- believe it or not, the hyperlinks were usually the most time consuming part of my blog posts.

Additionally, writing a blog post started to lose some of its luster. This arbitrary weekly deadline I set for myself began to loom over my head and I began to dread Sunday evenings because of it. I struggled to find things I wanted to write about, and a number of times I just posted a YouTube video with very little text, simply because I wanted to get the post out of the way -- and that's not the way it should be. This blog was a way for me to get my creative writing bug out, and now that it's become more of a chore, I decided it might be best for me to back off a bit.

However, I didn't want to leave you, my faithful readers, hanging. It bothers me when TV shows end without giving proper resolution or when radio stations change formats without an explanation. So this is my explanation to you: I won't be posting regularly from now on. I'm taking a sabbatical.

Frankly, it seems to me that the age of the blog has passed. I've seen a number of talented bloggers stop blogging and I believe it's partly because the times have changed. Sure, there are popular mommy blogs and opinion blogs out there, but there's not really room for a blog that posts funny videos and weird stories weekly, when people can get the same thing hourly on Twitter or Facebook. I saw the downward slope of my traffic and choose to believe it's because of the decline of blogs in general and not because of a decline of my sense of humor, but still, my heart just isn't in it anymore.

Yup. These are my actual stats from Blogger.

However, I would like to take a moment to acknowledge some milestones on this, my 300th post:

My Most-viewed Post

• The Anatomy of Cartoon Characters. With 20,647 pageviews, this post about cartoon skeletons dominates over the others, which is odd, because it still doesn't have a single comment. The runners up would be A Cinematic World Without World War II (9,059 pageviews), Angelina Jolie: Why is She Famous? (7,118 pageviews), Disney and the Single Parent (4,224 pageviews) and, for some reason, May I Request a Sidebar, Your Honor? (3,892 pageviews).

Most Comments on a Post

• The Curse of the Number 3 (26 comments). This post about the third movie in a series usually being the worst of the series got a pretty big boost because it was featured on the front page of IMDb (on the Hit List, which is something they've since discontinued). I was pretty proud of this one. It barely beat out Breaking Silence (25 comments), which surprised me, since Twilight fans are usually pretty defensive and vocal.

Sidenote: I once said that I was going to stop blogging whenever I got three posts in a row with no comments, but that happened far too often. :) 

My Favorite Posts
That's a difficult question. I mean, I have 300 to pick from. It includes all of the ones mentioned above (with the exception of May I Request a Sidebar, Your Honor? - that was a throwaway post), but in addition to those posts already mentioned, I also really enjoyed writing:

• Totally Subjective Film Lists and Totally Subjective Horror Film List - I reference these lists regularly when recommending movies to people. 
• My Least Favorite Movies of All Time - I reference this list when I'm warning people against watching certain movies.
• Essential Ingredients of a Romantic Comedy - This tried and true recipe still holds up.
• Breaking Down the Term "Chick Flick" - An important post for all to read,  since the term "chick flick" has multiple meanings.
• Literal TV Titles - This one was also featured on the IMDb Hit List.
• Why I Watch Edited Movies - In defense of clean media.
• Around 23 to 42 Questions That Lost May Never Answer - They didn't answer some of these, but I still enjoyed how Lost ended. 
• Best Horror Movie Theme Songs - Essentials for anyone's Halloween playlist.
• Six Horror Movie Clichés that Need to Go - Hollywood still hasn't taken note of this post.
• My annual top 10 movie lists.
• My multiple ranting Oscar posts.
• My annual kids scared of Santa posts.
• And, of course, Send in the Zombies, which was my first post on this blog.

Now, this isn't a goodbye. I still plan to post when I have something to say, but I'm not going to be doing it on a weekly basis. My time seems so limited lately, and, to put it in current terms, I'm furloughing non-essential activities. I'm taking my Sundays back, and I'm spending more time with my growing family.

I thank you for being a faithful reader of Slice of Fried Gold.