I Made it to 100 - Here's to the next 100! Dec 18 '03    Write an essay on this topic. Tweet The Bottom Line It took me almost 3 years to get to the 1st 100, hopefully they add up a bit quicker for the next batch... I thought at my 100th review, it would be kind of cool to look back and consider my time here at Epinions… Did you know when I first started, we used to get royalties on our reviews…not anymore! I guess I’ve been around Epinions for a while, but I just never got into writing the quantity of reviews that I’ve managed to keep up for about the last 6 months or so. First I’d thought some thanks were in order… My Job - without such a boring job, I would never have managed to write this many reviews on Epinions. In a place where such simple tasks as writing a letter have to be triple checked by management and even making a phone call can be an agency wide crisis, I have plenty of time for introspection and thought on the various products, services and places that I have used or been to. I’ve been here on Epinions since January of 2001 and it’s only been in the last several months, as my job has become progressively more boring that I’ve been able to devote so much time to writing reviews. My love of toys - I wouldn’t have half the material to review if I didn’t love getting more and more toys and gadgets. Just how many people really need three different 35mm cameras and 2 digital cameras to take pictures? I won’t even start to list all of the other stuff. My partner - he’s given me plenty of funny anecdotes to add to my reviews and he’s finally stopped rolling his eyes when I go online at home to work on Epinions reviews. Epinions itself - what a cool concept in general, anyone can get a chance to review things that they like or don’t like and those reviews are out there to help anyone who wants to read them. Way back when I was still in Maine, I heard a story on Epinions on National Public Radio, the next day I checked it out, and I’ve been writing ever since. And for someone who likes to write as much as I do, it’s been a great creative outlet. All the people here on Epinions - What a community Epinions has created. Everyone here is great (okay, I’m sure there are some bad apples, but I haven’t run into them yet) and what a give and take all those different people create. It’s been great, especially with my recent reviews of various geology books, I love the peer review that we get here. It gets you thinking outside of your own ideas and makes you a better writer and thinker for it. My annoying coworkers - perhaps if I worked with people that I enjoyed being with, I’d spend less time on the computer trying to look busy (which when writing reviews in Word is very easy to pull off). But if that were the case, then I would be nowhere near this 100th review! About a month or so ago, I started to start to index all of my Epinions reviews and I realized what a varied and different bunch of opinions they were. I’ve got reviews of geology books next to a review of a gay-themed movie, which in turn is followed by a magazine review. I’m amazed at how many different things I’ve managed to get a chance to write about and tell everyone else about. I want to admit I’ve still yet to really master writing music reviews – I don’t know what it is, but out of everything here on Epinions, the one category I still have the most trouble with is Music. It’s not that I don’t like music, I’ve got a CD collection that is obscene, but when it comes down to sitting down and writing about those CDs, I get flustered and I can’t get anywhere when I’m writing them. So it’s an area that I’ve really yet to get into and it’s one I hope to get to in my next 100 reviews, but cut me some slack at the beginning when I start tackling those music reviews. So sitting here at 100, I look forward to 100 more. Look for more geology and science related reviews (they seem to be up my alley), continuing reviews of the myriad magazines I read, more focus on some outdoor gear, maybe a few new car reviews as I really start paying attention while in friend’s cars, some (oh my god, it makes me twitch) music reviews, some focus back on GLBT issues and related topics, and some more travel related reviews. I hope everyone has enjoyed the first 100 and are looking forward to the next, as I know I am. A big thanks has got to go out to everyone who’s been reading and enjoying my reviews and here’s to continuing to be part of the Epinions community!

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