Movie Blog Housekeeping

After the first few weeks of blog publication, and the start of a new year, seems like a good time to mention a few blog housekeeping matters, in no particular order. Feel free to comment on any of these or add your own points. I'm quite open to suggestions.

There is a description of the blog, under the main title, but for a reason I cannot figure out, it does not show up when I view the blog with Internet Explorer, but if I drag the mouse over the space it will show up. I use Firefox and it shows there. If you can't see it in your browser, it says "A place to share movie memories and thoughts about movies, past and present."

Anna recently informed me that I have been following the  archaic practice of putting two spaces after a period. I have tried to cut that down to one, but there may be occassional lapses. If youi are interested in the history of the practice, check this article.

I have chosen not to make movie titles in the blog articles active links, because it takes extra time and busies up the look. Let me know if you would like links and what site you would prefer to be taken to for information on movies mentioned. The IMDB has comprehensive info and does not requre membership or registration for the link to work.

I have been putting Blogger labels at the end of some articles, to facilitate search of the blog by labels. I can see where that would become more useful as the blog archive grows.

I think the date and time of the comment postings is confusing but I don't see how I can change it. The information is posted at the end of a comment, following a blank line. Then the next comment begins with the name of the next commentator without any spacing, so to me it looks like that is the date and time of the second comment.

The box for writing comments is quite small and does not enlarge on preview either. Other than for a brief comment, I suggest writing it in your word processor and pasting it into the coment box, so you can see it better and so you don't lose it if there is a glitch at the Blogger end.

You can be notified of new postings of articles and comments if you like. You can subscribe to new article postings through services like RSS, and if you want me to add your e-mail address to a notice list for new comments, I can do that.

I have been looking into adding some action to the blog, whether animations or videos, but am somewhat disinclined to make it distracting. Content is what I want to offer and what we all look for in your comments, and that does not need to be literally flashy.

Finally, my picture came originally came out much bigger that I expected, so I have just reduced the size.

Movie Memories and Musings

Daughter Anna has been suggesting that I start a movie blog, as a way to indulge my desire to do some writing and my need to talk about the movies I watch.  Since putting "Sense from Seattle" on sabbatical, I have missed writing, but not the intense involvement with politics.  In deciding whether to start another blog, I made a classic pro and con sheet.

On the pro side of the page, I listed a movie blog as a place to practice writing, recall movie related memories, and discuss and dialogue about movies with family and friends.  On the con side, I posted concerns about setting up and formatting such a blog, feeling obligated to it, spending too much time writing, being tempted to go back over too many past movies and how personal to get.

Obviously I have decided to give it a try.  I do like to write and I do like movies, so Anna was an accurate muse.  I am again using Blogger as a host, but chose a new template for a different look and more customizable options.  I hope this blog will see more reader participation that Sense ended up with.  The subject matter here should be much less combative than politics and that is the spirit with which I launch the blog.  Our memories of movies and our musings about them are matters of our personal experiences and tastes, and we should expect there to be individual differences.  I encourage everyone to feel free to recall memories and express opinions here, without criticism from others.  Our praise and our criticism of movies and of those involved in making them may be divergent, but we are each entitled to our own views.

Choosing a blog title first involved labeling the subject.  Are we talking about movies, flicks, videos, films, cinema or what?  I chose "movies" by process of elimination.  Flicks are the flickers of old projector light, no longer applicable and a little to flip (though it works for Netflix).  Video is the picture, but technically ignores audio, the sound (even so-called silent films have music).  Film is both too general (still pictures and slides can also be film) and too narrow (many productions are shot digitally without film).  Cinema is merely foreign sounding, and smacks of discrimination against American movies.

Memories and thoughts will be written about here, and I like alliteration, so Movie Memories and Musings emerged.  I want this blog to be more participatory, so the title eliminates reference to me and my location.  Maybe the title sounds more like the blog of a still fairly young mother rather than that of a progressively aging grandfather, but I expect it to be an accurate description of what gets written on these pages.

Anna will be the first informed of this launch, then my other children and a few other relatives and friends.  Comments on articles can be posted as usual and you can also post as a comment any reviews, memories or musings you like.  I may choose some comments to pull out and make into separate article postings.  I may include a blog index and other features - we'll just see how it goes.

You are invited to follow along and encouraged to participate.  We all like movies and have memories and thoughts to share.