From the Sidelines 2015 Review

Once again I wasn’t able to give the blog the attention it needs resulting is a steep drop off in traffic. In the collegiate world, it is said one needs to “publish or perish” and so it is also with blogs.

According to Google Analytics, there were 20,175 pageviews from 14,132 visitors from January 1st through December 29th. Statcounter disagrees and says the numbers were 15,048 and 10,033 respectively. Give AdBlocker and NoScript usage, I’ll guess that Google is more accurate and still missed some visits. People from all over the globe visited from more countries than I care to list with the U.S. only making up 47.43% of the traffic.

It amazes me that From the Sidelines has so many international visitors.

Looking at the ongoing web browser wars, Chrome was the dominant browser by far for 45.49% of the share. That was no surprise, however the second most used browser was. Safari was used for 22.61% of visits to the blog easily passing Firefox at 14.58%. This was rather stunning though I knew Firefox is in decline.

Some exotic browsers showed up at less than 1%, most of which I hadn’t heard of before: Iron, UC Browser, YaBrowser, Coc Coc, Maxthon, S40 Ovi Browser, MRCHROME, DoCoMo, JUC, Lunascape, NetFront, and YE. A few of those are state supplied browsers from countries where Internet access is highly monitored, so apparently I haven’t run afoul of their censors.

Aside from the home page, the following posts were the most visited in 2015:

1. Children Who Chase Lost Voices Review
2. The Invisible Boy Review
3. India’s Bantam Weight Fighter: The LCA Tejas Displays 
4. Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind Review
5. The Big Sleep 1946 and 1945 Review
6. Pacific Rim Review
7. Spirited Away Review
8. Battle of Britain Review
9. Dracula (1931) Review
10. Whisper of the Heart Review

The continuing traffic to the LCA Tejas post has turned it into an evergreen thanks to the horrifically (and controversial) prolonged development of the aircraft. Showing how much I know, the post was expected to fade into obscurity when I wrote it. It is pleasing that Children Who Chase Lost Voices ended up at number one for it is a movie deserving of more attention than it has gotten.

2016 will see more posting, or so is the hope since no promises can be made. It will be interesting to see if that stops the decline.

Windows Live Writer Is Dead!

Long live Open Live Writer!!!

As of December 14, 2015, Google turned off the old authenticator code again permanently crippling Windows Live Writer for usage in posting to Blogger. Fortunately, the promised open source version of Live Writer went live earlier this month and the latest revision supports OAuth 2.

Download Open Live Writer here if you want to keep having the Live Writer experience with Blogger.

This is only my second post using it, so I haven’t had a chance to evaluate all the functions. It does import drafts from WLW, so that is a big plus. On the downside, it didn’t import my categories, so I’m having to type them from memory rather than using the convenient check box system that used to be in place.

A leftover review that didn’t get finished for Halloween may be the first to test how it handles pictures, though I may come up with a project before that just for the purpose.

It is terrific that the application will finally get modernized again and I look forward to more features being added over time.

Christmas Gifts

It has been too long since I last posted mainly due to health issues along with an early holiday trip to Indiana to visit my sister and her family. As a result, the materialistic side of the season has already been dealt with so there should be no stress for once during Christmas itself. For a more spiritual point of view, I suggest checking out the new Featured Post section in the right sidebar for something I wrote five years ago.

The best gift received this year wasn’t even given to me directly, rather it was witnessing the incredible achievement of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 launch on the 21st. Blasting off and launching multiple satellites while having the first stage successfully land is historical to say the least. A longer video from the launch to the landing can be found here. Kudos to Elon Musk and all the technicians, engineers, and workers involved in the endeavor.

Thanksgiving 2015

It has been a long and painful month of my father and I suffering from an upper respiratory virus. While still under its effects, there are things to be grateful for.

Take today for instance. Thanksgiving dinner with friends featuring great food, good company, and better conversation made for a memorable afternoon. Not even badly damaging a tire on the way back was able to take away any of the good spirit engendered.

Having a roof over my head along with heat during cold rain turning to ice is not to be sneezed at too. On a more trivial note, watching Mystery Science Theater 3000's Turkey Day marathon featuring silly satire is something I appreciate. Only in a free country can something like it be produced.

That is something not so trivial, on second thought.

Gratitude is an amazing thing for it brings to attention things we take for granted. It is far too easy to lose that which we take for granted, so feeling grateful can inoculate us against that if we  but pay attention.

To all my fellow Americans I wish you a happy Thanksgiving!

Mystery Science Theater 3000 Is Coming Back!

I’ve already pledged my small amount to the effort and those of us who did in the first 24 hours pushed the Kickstarter over $1,000,000. So if you are a fan of the show, please help to bring it to a new generation.

Between this and the old episodes slowly rolling out at Rifftrax, a new era of MST3K has begun. Bad movies watch out, you will now have nowhere to hide!

Looks like I chose a good time to introduce the madness to children of my friends, now they can get in on the revival. You can too, please back the project so we can get as many episodes as possible.

The Phantom of the Opera (1962) Review

When Hammer Films was on a roll remaking classic horror stories the idea of revisiting a masked man lurking in an opera house was inevitable. What they never imagined was that the surefire hit would be anything but. This film bombed so spectacularly that it nearly ended the director’s career. Uneven and draggy, the new Phantom failed to terrify audiences despite some redeeming qualities to the production.

Imagine having Cary Grant playing one of the most famous movie villains of all time. Imagine that the movie would be made by Hammer Films, a studio having massive success releasing color remakes of black and white classic horror flicks. Imagine the box office receipts!

That’s the thinking that started The Phantom of the Opera remake into fast development. What was finally unveiled to the public not only lacked the superstar actor, but also the frights of Gaston Leroux’s novel. There is some confusion as to whether Grant may have been set to star as either the titular villain or the heroic lead, however it really doesn’t matter since he wouldn’t have been able to save this rather bloodless movie.

The Brides of Dracula (1960) Review

This sequel was the obligatory follow up to Hammer Films monster of a hit Horror of Dracula. Beset by production problems from the very beginning, what was put out certainly wasn’t what the public expected. Dripping more atmosphere than blood, the unusually warm and character driven story focused more on the heroic acts of Doctor Van Helsing than the villainy of the undead.

Most people remember Hammer for their vampire films, especially those starring Christopher Lee as Dracula. He isn’t in this one due to personal fears of being typecast (supremely ironic given what happened later), however this movie is one of the better entries in the genre even if the title is false advertising. Yeah, the character Dracula isn’t in it either.