Jammer's Blog

Lest everyone assumes that I’ve forgotten that this website exists, let me assure you that I have not, so I’ll give you a quick update on things.

First, the TNG reviews. Sigh. I’m afraid what I’d hoped would be the Summer of Jammer’s Awesome Comeback has quickly slipped away to become the Summer of Lost Opportunities. After roaring through season five of TNG, season six remains on the back burner, and I regret to inform that I watched the first four episodes of season six back in late May, wrote the first review, and then got pulled away. Fast-forward nearly three months, and my grand plan to get TNG done before fall has become a fantasy. I’ll get back to it, but inertia has dragged me down yet again, I’m sorry to report. (Read more…)

It’s that time of the decade again. Every March in a year divisible by 5, I reach a nice, round milestone. This time, it’s 15. Yes, that’s right: It’s the 15th anniversary of Jammer’s Reviews being on the web.

I guess technically it’s only the fourth anniversary of “Jammer’s Reviews,” since the 10 years before that the site was called “Star Trek: Hypertext.” I think for the first year or so it was actually called “Hypertext Reviews of Current Star Trek Episodes.” Talk about prosaic. If you remember when it was called that, please send a shout out in the comments below. (Read more…)

You can now read Jammer’s Reviews & Blog on your mobile device.

In my ongoing quest to keep up with the times, I’ve installed a mobile edition for Jammer’s Reviews & Blog, which is a version of the site intended to be friendly to on-the-go handheld devices like smart phones.

This initiative was prompted largely by the fact that a few months ago I finally upgraded my cell phone to a smart phone and broke down for mobile Internet. I’ve found myself using my phone for Internet access more than I thought I would. The next logical step was to make my own sites more friendly for mobile devices, now that I could test on one.

I thought it would be a quick project that would take a few hours. It ended up taking a few hours every day over the past week.

The initiative stopped short of retooling my site’s underlying structure. Some structural changes were made, but for the most part I shaped the mobile edition’s code around my existing site, not vice versa. (Read more…)

One thing that’s been abundantly clear to me about “maintaining” (*) my review site and blog this year: Inertia is a bitch.

* I feel the word “maintaining” requires quotes at this moment, seeing as Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox have been running from an explosion on my home page for more than three months now — never my intention when I posted that image. (**)

Back last December I was faced with a panic situation. I still hadn’t written most of the BSG season 4.0 reviews, and season 4.5 was breathing down my neck. I had precious few weeks to write more than half a dozen reviews that I knew would be long and detailed and exhausting (because I was dealing with the exciting and much-to-discuss final season of BSG). And as I had that weekly deadline of 4.5 episodes always threatening me, it forced me to turn out my reviews on a breakneck (for me) schedule so I could keep up. Then the final episode aired and I was off the hook and could sigh in relief. No wonder it took me six weeks to finally post the finale review. (Read more…)

Two years ago, when I launched IDWID, the first incarnation of my foray into the blog world, I had a mission. That mission was: (1) Here’s a blog where I can write more stuff, and (2) there are no parameters to the mission, because It Do What It Do [TM].

IDWID was more or less conceived as a series of inside jokes, and early blog posts reflected that nature. Over time, however, it became clear that IDWID as a name and a concept was too disconnected from Jammer’s Reviews and its audience and where I actually wanted the blog to go. (Read more…)

This is not a surprise, but there’s been little action here at IDWID since I’ve been back to my regular reviewing duties on Battlestar Galactica over at Jammer’s Reviews. This blog isn’t dead. It’s just inactive for the time being. At some point, it’ll be back. There might even be some changes in store for IDWID in 2009. We shall see.

IDWID has been less busy of late. There are a few reasons for that. The first is, of course, the return of Battlestar Galactica reviews, which will be occupying much of my writing time for the next couple of months.

The second is that I’m in the process of buying a house, which, as you can imagine, takes up chunks of time here and there, especially since I’m shopping for things that will be going into that house shortly after I move in. Next week I begin the fun process of packing, followed the week after that with moving.

Consequently, I’m not putting a lot of thought into IDWID at the moment. If a blog topic pops into mind (one actually did yesterday, but I forgot what it was before I had a chance to write it), I might be motivated to write, but otherwise things might be a little quiet in my corner of the “blogosphere” (a term that CNN has endlessly adopted and which needs to be murdered).

That’s okay, because I’m guessing most of you would rather see activity over on the Jammer’s Reviews site than here, anyway.

After my frustrated complaining a few weeks ago over the unending snow and cold, the weather immediately turned around. I complained, and it hasn’t snowed since, and the weather has been consistently in the the 30s, 40s, 50s, even 60s. That’s March for you. Is winter finally over? Well, the second I say that, I’ll jinx it.

I guess I should bitch more often. It pays off.

This is just a quick hello to wish everyone a safe and happy new year. As the year winds down its final hours, I reflect upon this inaugural year of IDWID with my usual mantra:

IDWID: It do what it do. Especially in the final hours of the year. (Read more…)

As noted a couple weeks ago, I’ve had problems with someone in my building regularly stealing my Sunday newspaper. After months of putting up with it, I decided to take some action and call them out on it. (Read more…)