Meet the Specialist — 42ENGLISH’s Tip Me Off W/O Apr 27 '06    Write an essay on this topic. Tweet Popular Products in Movies Under the Tuscan Sun From $9 Casablanca From $3 The Bottom Line Congrats to Julie for 300 reviews. I'm closing in with only... um... er... I don't have enough fingers to count. I actually started writing this when Julie (that’s 42ENGLISH) first announced this write off to celebrate her 300th review. Stupid me, I never finished completing the task on hand. That’s my bad. But that doesn’t mean I can’t be fashionably late for the party. I work in the graphic design field (12 years and counting) so it’s amazing what types of projects come my way, some things I can’t even discuss because it’s so hush-hush. Here are some things I’ve noticed: 1) Inspiration is everywhere. People find inspiration in the weirdest places, and since I’m one of those weird ones myself, I constantly see things that would usually escape other people’s notice. For instance, I have an assortment of photos on my cell phone (yeah, I have one those phones that takes pictures) of ordinary things… ordinary to the common eye. If you look closely you’ll see different shapes and images taking a life of its own—a plastic bag that looks like a face, the reflection of a light that looks like an angel, a water stain that looks like a frog. What I do with these images, I have no idea yet, but it’s just cool how imagination presents itself when you least expect it. 2) Learn the rules before breaking them. I never understood this until I actually did it myself. I used to design and draw thinking everything I did was great. I even convinced myself that I was pushing the envelope by bending the rules to take me to the next level. Well, guess what? I didn’t even know the rules to realize if I was actually taking a risk. I looked at other people’s work and thought “I did something similar to that, so why is mine wrong?” That’s because I didn’t understand the fundamentals. Once I understood that, then everything started to make sense. Breaking the rules isn’t merely being rebellious; it’s the understanding why things work in the first place before you can take that risk. 3) Be a subscriber to Murphy’s Laws. Ever have one of those days when everything just went wrong? Me too. For the most part, I try never to take things for granted. I may be an optimistic sonuvabitch, but it doesn’t mean I’m a stupid one as well. A case in point: my company purchased a new digital printing press in September 2005, and we have been having problems ever since day one. I’ve been on the phone with tech support almost every second day, so much so that I’ve gone through four different people trying to figure out the problems that keep coming up. In the end even they are stumped and can’t give me any answers. And the funny thing is that the printer always acts up whenever we need to print some dire piece of work… at that very moment! I found it funny when these tech support people called themselves specialists. It reminded me of one of old Murphy’s sayings: “A specialist is someone who knows more and more about less and less until they know absolutely everything about nothing.” That explains a lot. Okay, I’m off my soapbox so let’s get down to business. 1. Which category/categories do you write most reviews for? So far the majority of it is under Movies and Books. 2. Which category/categories do you write the least reviews for? Funny considering my line of work, I should be doing more in Computers & Software. Then there’s Cars, Beauty Products, Home & Garden, Office Supplies… the list goes on and on. Maybe I’ll challenge myself one day to tackle another subject. 3. What is the worst product you have reviewed? There have been a few but the two most recent would be Wonder Woman: Second Genesis and Wonder Woman: Lifelines. I wasn’t too crazy about Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within as well. All of these I rated 2 stars. 4. What is the best of the best? If I had to choose only one, then it would be the JLA/Avengers hard cover book. This book fulfills all the comic book geekiness I possess within me. Worth every penny. 5. Which was the best value for the money? Believe it or not, it would be the Loews Hotel in New Orleans where my wife and I stayed for our honeymoon. It’s a bit pricey but we got so much more out of it than we expected. Money well spent. 6. Which product surprised you most, whether it be good or bad? I was thoroughly surprised by He-Man and the Masters of the Universe: Season One, Vol. 1 by the sheer amount of episodes and extras that came with this DVD set. This is the way it should always be done, and it costs less than most DVD sets of the same nature. 7. What is your most successful review, when did you write it and how many hits did it receive? The most successful review is the one that makes me no money whatsoever written back in May 2003. It was for an Underwear Write Off and has garnered me, as of right now, 3006 hits. If I knew writing about Underoos was going to be this lucrative, I would have insisted it to be added on for a product review. I can see all those pennies flying away right now. I could have had an extra 17 cents added to my substantial total. Don't try to make sense of this. After all this is coming from a specialist's mouth. For more information about this write off, Julie explains it clearly over here. It's never too late to crash the party.

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