Special Ingredients: Our New Year’s Resolution; Blah

I think, as a nation, we secretly hate the New Year because we’re expected to make resolutions to change ourselves. Unfortunately, these changes are supposed to be for the better, which means self-improvement, and which usually involves hard work. Work, especially hard work, is bad. We don’t even like having to stretch our arms and contort out bodies to snag the TV remote, which at one point in our chip eating frenzy, managed to fall to the floor and bounce a precarious three feet from the couch. Self-improvement is like asking someone to spend their eternity in Hell wearing a wool parka.

Before I dwell on the goals that were missed, let’s take a look back at what we accomplished. Perhaps our biggest event took place on our first (late) update of the year: the premiere of our exclusive web comic, Bug. The goal was to release one strip every update, and we stuck to this, with the exception of the last update, which, in a deviation of the plan that was positive for a change, saw the release of nine comics in a continuing story that concludes along with the year’s first update. It was sort of a sinister way to string the readers along, but since it was the holiday season, everyone should be happy one was released.

We also started a discussion feature called Religious Reflections, where I invited readers to share their opinions about various religious topics. As an interactive experience, it was somewhat of a flop, but we’ll keep it around until it stagnates too much. I’d hate to waste that logo.

We also received a few e-mails, which may sound pathetic to all of you one million hit webmasters, but to us, this is big. Oddly, every single one of them were comments about our Chick Tract Trashing feature, and all of them were basically positive (with one neutral suggestion). I really would have preferred people commenting on other parts of the site, but I guess of its Chick they want, it’s Chick they should get.

Last year, I made several New Year’s resolutions for the site. For those of you joining us late, or just don’t care for anything that isn’t Chick related, check out that article and follow along. I know I’ll need to, since I didn’t give that article much thought and I forgot most of what I promised.

Interestingly, my overall goal for the site was to add more content to Random Acts of Nerdness. Particularly, I wanted to give some attention to the Iron Nerd Foam Dart Gun Challenge. However, since that feature requires (shudder!) time and effort, I haven’t gotten around to it, and frankly, I started to wonder if it’s worth the effort. Keep reading for an announcement on this.

And in case you’re wondering about those enigmatic articles that I proposed that would be “relevant to the country,” that fell through. The article that I was hoping to write was an interview with a friend who just happened to join the NSM right after Sweetest Day Riot. This fellow was in public relations for the group, and had some commentary about the NSM that doubtlessly would go without belief by the rest of the world, but was interesting nonetheless. Since that time, this friend disappeared (he was never one for consistency), and then reappeared as a solider for the US Army. The Army in turn molded his brain into and transformed him to a reasonably stable sociopath into a reasonably stable sociopath that’s been physically abused and has been given combat training. So he may not be the best source, and I feel the relevancy of the article may have passed; Nazis aren’t chic anymore.

Continuing with our shortcomings, I’ll be the first to admit our update schedule has been mediocre, thanks to a sophomore slump of sorts. Trying to balance work, relationships, obligations, goof-off time, and pornography downloading along with materials for the update has proven to be a bit of a hassle for both C and I, as evidenced by the fact that we’ve averaged one update per month, but hopefully we can put in a solid effort, motivated as much as we can be by the immense revenue and recognition this site generates for us… oh, wait…

So to help ensure a more productive year, it’s time for some goal setting. First of all, it’s time we trim some fat, and it’s with reservation that I announce the cancellation of the Iron Nerd Foam Dart Gun Challenge. When factoring in the sheer amount of time and effort it takes to update the feature (seriously, calculating dart gun trajectory is less fun than it sounds) and comparing it to the relevancy and popularity, it doesn’t make much sense to continue. The consumer report satire that is the INFDGC will be no more, unless there is a demand for it. That’s not to say that it won’t re-appear in some form or another, and we’ll have an archived as it was last updated available at all times on the site, so if anyone is interested in seeing it, the feature will be there.

Besides that, I don’t really have too many goals for the site, mainly because I’m lazy… no, I mean because I want the site to grow naturally. Saying “we need to write twenty articles for Random Acts of Nerdness, so forget the other sections” sort of undermines the purpose of the site, which is to share points of view and observations about a variety of topics. This is simply a noble way of saying we’re going to write what we damn well please.

Although I can’t deny that Chick Tract Trashing is a popular feature, so we’ll be keeping an eye on that one. Ultimately, the entire point of the site is to present material to you, the audience, so what you want is what you’ll get, within the mentality that you’re getting all of this wonderful entertainment for free.

While it may seem contradictory to the spirit of keeping the site growing, our final resolution will be to not stress about frequent updates. Instead, we’ll focus on providing quality articles, putting out the best work, which means getting it done when we feel like it.

So that’s our goal this year. No grand plans or big promises, just keeping the site going and adding content. We may have seen some trimming this year, but rest assured we only make cuts to benefit the rest of the site. And while it’s sad to see the Iron Nerd Foam Dart Gun Challenge go, we’ll have more time and space to devote to other articles and features. So here’s to 2007, and all of the bare minimums it promises.