Two Years In

Things on Morgan on Media are going to be a little out of order this week for various reasons. Most pertinently to today, the Monday Music Video — despite the column’s title — is going to have to wait til Tuesday. Why is it getting pushed back a day? Because there’s something a little more important to post today. Today, September 9th, 2013, is the second anniversary of Morgan on Media. It was two years ago that the site opened its doors with my first movie review.

Aside from some interruptions earlier in the year, it’s been a reasonably smooth second year. The site is growing steadily, and it’s thanks to all of you who are regular readers.

You’ve been excellent to me. Party on, dudes!

I appreciate every reader and every person who comments on my site. But I want to also give a shout-out to some of the site’s biggest supporters, the guys who are always chiming in. This includes some of my long-time online friends from before my blogging days, such as Fogs, Spikor, and K26dp. It also includes some friends I’ve made through blogging, such as ckckred, Adam from “3 Guys 1 Movie”, and Michael Alatorre of “It Rains, You Get Wet”, who is also very prolific about spreading the word. Thanks, guys. The site wouldn’t be the same without you.

The site’s changed a little bit in the past year. The News Bites grew out of the Weekly Weblinks to become their own thing. The Monday Music Video came along and has been better received than I would have expected — at least, so long as a good song is selected! Last month I finally launched Movie Microscope, which had its origins in last year’s anniversary post… of course, I still haven’t launched What Went Wrong…

Though in some cases, the answer would be “everything”.

I also started writing a weekly column over at Fogs’ Movie Reviews, titled “Catching the Classics”, in which I take a look at certain films on my need-to-see list that have been hand-picked by Fogs. Two years ago I wouldn’t have pictured myself writing a column for somebody else’s blog, even a friend’s. It just would have seemed like extra work. But it’s been a fun experience, and managing an extra post each week has so far proven to be reasonably easy to stay on top of.

In fact, while a broken tooth early in the year and the occasional internet outage have prevented a perfect track record, overall the blog has been updated considerably more frequently than in the first year. I finished 2012 without missing a single day (in fact, October often had more than one post a day), and there have only been a few months since where I’ve missed more than a couple.

So what’s coming in Year 3? Well, on the minor front, there’s probably going to be a bit of category reshuffling. Some of the lesser-used categories will probably be folded into Movie Reviews, Movie Microscope, and Ramblings & Musings as appropriate. This doesn’t mean that I’ll stop writing posts of those kinds… just that, if it’s something I only write occasionally, there’s no real need for it to be separate. Halloween Haunters will be back in just a few weeks, and I’ve already got a lot of it planned out, with 9 films confirmed so far and several tentative ones. I don’t know if it’ll spill into September (as in Year One) or into November (as in Year Two) or if I’ll manage to actually keep it contained to October, but it’s coming. Of course, this weekend provides a little early preview…

Christmas Cinema will of course be back as well, though that is nowhere near planned yet. In fact, I’m further along in planning a different theme month to be taking place in February. The only hint I’m giving on that is that it’s not based on Valentine’s Day.

All in all, I feel like it’s been a pretty good year here on Morgan on Media, and I think the next year is going to be a good one as well. Thanks for being here with me.