jchamberlin

jchamberlin / Member

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jchamberlin Blog

Weekend? What Weekend?

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This weekend seemed to just fly by for me, and I'm wondering what on earth happened to it. I seemed to spend all of the time working around the house and got absolutely nothing accomplished around here. I'm three episodes behind on The Daily Show and six episodes behind on The Colbert Report. With sweeps here, I'll be busy recapping the three CSI shows again this week, so it looks like I'm going to have to do some serious catching-up next weekend.

CSI, CSI, and a little more CSI, Part 2

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Well, I finished my first full week of recapping the three CSI shows, and boy am I glad the weekend is here. Last night's episode was great, although a pain in the butt to write for. Lot of cuts back and forth made it frustrating. If you haven't seen last night's show, at least check out the full quotes section. I guarantee you'll laugh. It was a very well written show. I've noticed that most of the top episodes of the series are written by Sarah Goldfinger. I don't think that's merely a coincidence. I've begun to especially look forward to the episodes she is either credited for being the writer or has had something to do with the general story. Anyway, if you're curious to read any of the recaps I've written recently for those shows, here 'ya go: CSI: NY - Run Silent, Run Deep CSI: Miami - Dead Air CSI: NY - All Access CSI - Rashomama Enjoy!

CSI, CSI, and a little more CSI

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Over the past week or so, I've recapped one episode of CSI: Miami and two episodes of CSI: NY, and I'm already getting tired of it, lol. The recaps aren't as simple and stripped down as the ones I am used to writing for The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, Becker, and The Drew Carey Show. I can usually keep up with a basic recap as the episode airs for those, but not with the hour-long shows. With those, I try to give much more information in each scene, so I have to constantly pause/resume the episode to keep up with it as I type. When I recapped last night's new episode (currently promoted on the main page by Waltmor, btw), I noticed it was taking longer than I expected. It took me two and a half hours to watch the episode and write the recap! It's no wonder I haven't been looking forward to doing them. Spending so much time on those has caused me to get even further behind on my other shows. In a way, I'm actually looking forward to the end of the fall 2005/2006 season in a month or so. It'll allow me to catch up with everything else I hope. I still plan on eventually recapping all (new and old) of the CSI, CSI: Miami, and CSI: NY episodes, but it's not looking like it'll happen anytime soon. Anyway, there's a new episode of CSI on tonight, so I'll be busy again tomorrow morning. :P Stop by the main TV.com page and take a look at the preview videos they have made available. There are three video clips. If any of the staff are reading this, I hope you consider giving recaps a separate section in the submissions page (a completely separate page, I hope). We should receive more than eight points for a recap. Two and a half hours and all I get is eight points?! We should also get a bigger level increase for the time taken to work on good episode recaps. How much of a level increase do we get for a recap? I'm not sure, but if I spent those two and a half hours submitting quotes and other things, I'd certainly get a far higher level increase than I would from a lengthy recap. We should have some additional incentive for spending time on them. Having them promoted on the main page by Waltmor is nice and all, but it only applies for new episodes and for the more popular shows.

More DVDs

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My stack of blank DVD-Rs has really gotten small. I think I've got about 10 DVDs left, so I ordered another spindle of 100 late last week, and the UPS guy delivered them this morning. I should be good for another three months, but we'll see. :) In other news, I finished a recap for last night's new episode of CSI:Miami. I wasn't that impressed with the episode's primary plot. Perhaps that's why I haven't been watching the show very often lately. On the other hand, Prison Break is actually getting better as we go along. This is one of the few "new" shows I'm really liking.

Got My DVDs

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An hour or so I got back from Target with my new DVDs. They're having a big sale on a few shows (see previous blog), and I wanted to be sure to get in before any local smartass got in there and bought them all to re-sell on eBay and make a profit from them. ;) I left the house a little later (30 minutes) than I wanted to, but I was able to get my DVDs and get out before the rush of people came in. On the submissions front, I submitted a dozen or so quotes and wrote a few recaps. My level of enthusiasm isn't what it used to be, unfortunately, so anyone paying attention to my blog history may have realized this. Ten submissions in a day is pretty big for me over the past several weeks. I'm lacking sufficient motivation at the moment. There wasn't much on TV last night, so I watched re-runs and watched a little comedy on Comedy Central. I would have watched Saturday Night Live, but it was a re-run and that show has sucked for so long, it doesn't give me a reason to stay up 'til midnight on Saturday nights anymore. Fortunately, there's something on tonight, although nothing fantastic. The second-to-last episode of Malcolm In The Middle is airing tonight. I missed several seasons of the show (3-6 and some of 7), so I've missed a lot of the show. Also, there's a new episode of The West Wing, which is also coming to an end soon, just a total of four episodes left according to the guide here. Anyone else like the WYSIWYG editor on the forums? I know it's helpful for some, but I disabled mine. I'm used to hand-coding my html, and it's not like I use more than bold, italics and underline anyway, so it's just not necessary for me to use.

The West Wing DVD Sale

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Starting this Sunday, Target (U.S. store) will be having The West Wing DVDs on sale. The first five seasons will go for $22.99 each, half the normal price. If you're looking to preorder season six, try FYE, who has it for $32.99 after a $10 rebate. It's not a great price, but it's the best anywhere else. Target, by the way, has other shows on sale next week: American Dad: Volume I >>>> $27.99 Gilmore Girls: Season 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 >>>> $22.99 each Nip / Tuck: Season 1 / 2 >>>> $22.99 each The O.C.: Season 1 / 2 >>>> $22.99 each One Tree Hill: Season 1 / 2 >>>> $22.99 each Veronica Mars: Season 1 >>>> $22.99 Also, if you look here, you can find out about Warner Bros. big rebate program. Buy two DVD sets, get $10 back... three sets, get $20 back, etc. I just wish Paramount would allow for a big sale like this so we can all get our CSI DVDs. In other news, the family dog was been put down the other day. I honestly don't know how old she was, but she was full grown when we got her 15+ years ago, so who knows? Anyway, she had a lot of health problems and it was certainly time for her to be put at ease. The bug fixes continue, and it seems the staff has fixed quite a few, although several remain. I reported a few this morning since no one else seemed to. My CSI: NY recap was promoted on the main page yesterday, and that guide's popularity went from something like #75 to #21. It goes to show you the main page is great for improving page views for guides. That was the only recap I've written for a one-hour show; all of the others I do are for 30 minute comedies which require far less detail and work. I plan on doing more recaps of hour-long shows, but it's not a high priority at the moment.

Every few months...

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Every few months we lose a few big contributors for one reason or another, and 95% of the time it's because of bugs which have yet to be squashed. It looks like we're losing The_Unknown2 and The_Huntsman, which is another big shock to the site. I was pretty surprised when I read The_Huntsman's blog about his reasons for leaving (for the most part). Any staff member threatening to ban someone for merely being persistent in his questioning of icons should be punished, plain and simple. Will this happen? I seriously doubt it, unfortunately. While we're on the subject of staff, I'd like to apologize to freaksngeeks. I know it may have seemed that I was singling him out, but that wasn't exactly my intent, but rather raise attention to the fact that the site didn't have enough bugs worked out before going live. In my eyes, I never got a satisfactory answer to this subject, but it looks like more of the bugs are getting fixed now. CybertronR has been quite active in the Technical Support Forum over the past few days, squashing several of the bugs which have come about since the style was introduced. My only wish is the staff had a public bug list so that we knew what was logged and what wasn't. This is needed for not only the new bugs, but bugs which have been around for several weeks and months. When a bug has been around for a certain period of time, you can't help but wonder if the staff knows about the bug. Being unsure means another forum post or another private message to the staff, and you're really not sure which ones are being read unless someone responds to them. The issue of bugs brings us right around to to what I mentioned at the start of this blog, and brought up the other day.
The design of the site isn't what has been responsible for driving a lot of dedicated editors and general contributors away, it's the bugs. The site is nearly a year old and it seems no one paid to work here has noticed this.jchamberlin
It's quite a coincidence, isn't it? It also proves that I'm right about this subject. Get more QA people to focus on this site, and you'll see more big contributors stick around. This is also an issue the staff has to bring up to their superiors/supervisors. The only reason people come to this site is because of the content and the people who provide the content, us. No content means no site. No site means you'll have to find employment elsewhere, so if you need a selfish reason, think of your own pocketbook.

The Wait Begins

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Now that the BETA has gone live, we must play the waiting game... how long until the bugs introduced with the "upgrade" are fixed? Anyone coming up with Vegas-style odds yet? I can't believe I wasn't able to get an actual answer to my "why go live with a site that isn't ready?" question yesterday. It wasn't that difficult of a question to answer... Anyway, I'm trying to catch up with updating my off-line cast/crew lists. I'm several behind. Also, I missed Sunday's episode of Malcolm In The Middle, so I wasn't able to do the cast/crew lists for that (sorry TVTome_Shadow). Also, I'm a week behind in recaps/reviews on The Colbert Report, so I've got plenty to work on. :) Prison Break was pretty good last night. They've had a few "filler" episodes lately, but last night's was much better. If you haven't seen the show, be sure to take a look at it. It's one of the few shows on FOX that is worth watching.

Levels and Taxes

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It seems angelandspike and I are thinking of the same thing today, hehe. It's good to see some changes have been made to the levels. Level 50 and 52 have been difficult to progress (51 was a piece of cake for some reason). When they ran the levels after the adjustment, my level increased exactly one full level, oddly enough. With more and more people progressing towards level 50, not adjusting the levels would have created an increasing amount of complaints in the forums, so I think they made the right decision with this. Yesterday, I finished up my taxes and they're in the mail as we speak. I vowed to get them finished early this year, but that obviously didn't seem to work out, did it? ;) Thanks to emaldalani for adding one of the shows I submitted a while back. Most of the shows I submit are documentaries and don't require much in terms of submissions, and aren't shows which will give me enough points to become editor, but it's still nice to see them get approved for the site.

New Site Changes = Great, But There Are Some Problems

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Last night's preview of the site was pretty cool. I was kind of shocked to see the design changes, and from all that I saw, I thought they did a great job with it. The personal pages (blog/profile/whatever) looked better, had 10,000 more emblems, and contained all of out stats in a little box, including contribution numbers, review numbers, forum posts, etc. This box will certainly have an affect on many of our blog entries, since a lot of them seem to include that info, and a few, nothing but that info. In fact, my blogs will no longer feature this info. Anyway, the staff had to pull the site changes because of performance issues. Anyone who logged on at the time noticed there was some serious lag. I'm sure they'll have it fixed within a few days, like the performance problems that existed when the forums were upgraded. One bug which caught my eye with last night's preview was found on the show guides. I noticed this while checking The Drew Carey Show page, where the top contributor was retired, but he had the new "Editor" graphic next to his name, yet I still seemed to have Editor powers (the show was listed under my profile's list. I recommend that the staff look into this before they go live with it again. Because of the performance issues with last night's changes, I was unable to check the changes to the submission status pages, but I highly recommend they re-think the idea of the drop-down menus to narrow down the options for the show/person you contributed to. As discussed here, there is a huge performance issue with people who contribute a lot. The average contributor likely won't contribute to more than 30-40 people/shows, but the top contributors contribute to a lot more than that. Contributing to hundreds of shows and people will likely create a large number of queries to the database to get the appropriate info to fill out the drop-down menus. I am reminded by a contributor who put over 600 shows in his favorites list, which pretty much disabled his account until the staff went in and cleaned out his favorites list. It was just too much to load at once when he tried to login or browse. The same is true for the submission status.