Three Years On Blogger

March 9, 2011 was the day I began my voyage of conducting Caponomics through the world of blogging and I have since witnessed positive results from using the blogosphere to put forth my ideas on different areas of interest to all whom expressed interest. As I always do for my anniversaries, I plan to take a statistical approach to informing everyone how far forward this idea has come from being a column in a high school newsletter.

Between my last anniversary and this, this here marks the 70th post. The second anniversary post was the 181st, while this post I am presenting you today is the 251st. In retrospect, I have improved from my second year of blogging, even though my first year remains the most impressive when it comes to the quantity of posts being released. I do, however, agree with the notion that quality is more important than quantity. At the moment we speak, I have 20 followers and a total of 27,638 page views. Of course, how these page views came about is always debatable, but I always take the optimistic stance of saying that I am picking up plenty of interested viewership. From last year to this, the number of page views did more than double from the first two years put together. Let's see if we can see another round of doubling. While this may be a bit more of a challenge, everything is possible, especially with more material.

My countdown should be an intriguing one this year. There have been a lot of curve balls, primarily in the last few weeks, which means the top part of the list has just recently made it to form. As for the Shark Tank posts, they're fewer additions to this list than last year, going from six to three. Before I give too much away, we should start counting down...

#10: Television Review: Shark Tank Season 3 Premiere- This remains one of three posts that has been featured on all three of my top tens and for decent reasoning. The third season of Shark Tank can be deemed the rightful transition of a typical business-based program into a business-based primetime phenomenon. This meant providing Mark Cuban with a full season contract and ousting Kevin Harrington out for good. I'm almost positive that when they taped the second season of the show, they started taping with Kevin H., before having Jeff Foxworthy in the seat farthest to the left during the next taping, and Mark during the last. They realized that Mark and his quickfire personality (including the 24-second game clock) and what the other sharks deemed bully demeanor was what the show needed. People still read this post in order to fulfill their curiosity to this practical turning point of the show.

#9: Memorable Sax Solos- This is the second of the three posts that have been featured on every top ten list. I wrote this back in June 2011 as a response to the tragic death of Clarence Clemons, who remained active in Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band and even performed with Lady Gaga in her album Born This Way, most notably in the song, "Edge of Glory." To celebrate his life, I didn't just include sax solos that he gave (most notable "Jungleland"), but also the notable performances that others gave. This past year, I decided to create a follow-up post in which I ranked my ten favorite sax solos. Perhaps that will give you a hint about what is to come...

#8: Shark Tank Season 4 Premiere- If season three provided Shark Tank with its transition to a primetime hit, season four provided the show with a reason as to why it deserves to be a complete season show and not just a show that has staying power like a typical reality or game show. In this case, Shark Tank's episode count went from about 10-12 per season to about 24-28 per season. They would start at one number and only increase based off of the demand. Quite a demand also meant quite a readership for my post going over the first episode of the season. It dropped from 7th last year to 8th in this, but it proves that Shark Tank remains a reason that people come and pay visits to Caponomics.

#7: My Thanksgiving Post- This past Thanksgiving, a blogger and cancer survivor asked me and several other bloggers to post about what Thanksgiving means to me. I decided to follow along with the idea and jot down my true thoughts about the meaning of Thanksgiving and who or what I am thankful. This post saw massive interests, in consecutive chunks, just as several posts of mine that have held the top position have experienced. Just about everything I posted back in November remains true, for it is exactly what gives me the drive to keep on writing and pushing forward in my craft.

#6: My Ten Favorite Sax Solos- This is the follow-up to my original post, "Memorable Sax Solos," that I wrote back in June 2011. I felt I should incorporate more of my favorites, even if "Jungleland" and "Baker Street" remain at the top of my list without any surprises. These posts do, however, depend a lot on my mood I was in when I was writing them, thus if I were to do a "Ten Favorite Sax Solos" piece in a few years, the top ten may rank in a different formula. Chances are, however, that the two solos I mentioned by Clarence Clemons and Raphael Ravenscroft, respectively, will stand as they may on the top of my list.

#5: Shark Tank Season 3, Episode 11- This is the extent of my Shark Tank-themed posts that appear on my top ten. As a single episode, this one remains the most popular. For those who do not remember this particular episode, it is the one where Mark Sullivan comes onto the show asking for a million dollars for a "Sullivan Generator" that turns ocean water into gold. This is also the episode where James Martin of "Copa Di Vino" returns to the show in hope that this time around, the sharks will be able to help him with a gripe he's having with his company. Interestingly enough, this is the first episode of the series where no deals are made whatsoever. At the moment we speak, there have been three episodes in which no deals were made. Nevertheless, Shark Tank viewers have continued to show interest in what ever happened to the "Sullivan Generator" and "Copa Di Vino" to the point that a 2012 episode remains relevant to the 2014 audience.

#4: Poem Review: "The Starry Night" by Anne Sexton- I have done my best to write up more posts that have to do with books and literature. This gives me the opportunity to brush up my literary chops for when I film episodes of Literary Gladiators, which I plan to release when I'm able. I will say that the gap between four and five on the list is quite massive and I mean 200 page views massive. In this post, I analyze the Anne Sexton work on how van Gogh's notable painting speaks to her. Being a confessional poet, Sexton's poetry could sometimes take on bleak emotion, which is what this one tends to do, while at the same time expresses a longing for comfort and a hunger to see her wish come true. It's quite an honor to have people looking at my analysis of "The Starry Night" in order to fulfill their need of understanding the poem a bit better.

#3: Top Notch Television: Ebert Presents At The Movies- For two and a half years, this post stood on top and its massive surge in readers made it the post read most. Just a few weeks ago, the upcoming post on this list took over that spot and this underrated series that has not aired since 2011 was finally dethroned on the list. At this point in time, those who were close to Roger Ebert and remain close to Chaz Ebert, such as Christy Lemire, continue to contribute reviews to Ebert's website even after he died in April 2013. Nevertheless, it's understandable why this post would lose readership since the show has not seen airtime since it could no longer be funded as a subject to public broadcasting. This is immensely unfortunate, for Lemire and Ignatiy Vishnevetsky had quite a chemistry as somewhat of a mainstream, intelligent critic and a more skeptical, mad scientist-like critic. In clearer terms, some of Vishnevetsky's views were not status quo in the world of cinema, while Lemire's views did not come with shock. Both sides are respectable and necessary.

#2: Let's Be Brutally Honest: Orange Juice Pulp Is Oh So Burdensome- This post (along with the Anne Sexton poem post) remain actively consistent when it comes to attracting readers. While it was 10th on the list last year, it is now 2nd, even if it stood atop the list for about a week or two. As I mentioned before, these are always fun to write, for they are lighthearted and really don't expect too much of a demanding opinion. One can say "to each their own" and that would be that. On the other hand, this could light up a spark with someone who just let an argument like this go over their head, dismissing it as being "fluffy." In addition, I like the "Let's Be Brutally Honest" segments and this has been the first and only to break a top ten and stay long enough to be mentioned in the bigger picture.

#1: Movie Review: Argo (2012)- It's the Academy Award winner for best picture at the 2013 ceremony, it's the last picture Roger Ebert named #1 on his annual top ten (or in the case of a few other years top film) list, it's a film directed by and starring Ben Affleck, along with John Goodman and Alan Arkin about the Iran Hostage Crisis, and it's the most viewed post. Within the last week, this review has garnered close to 2,000 page views. Where this level of interest struck is undetermined, but a level of interest IS a level of interest nevertheless. Before it saw a surge, there were just 13 page views since this post was published on June 9, 2013. I hold high hope that after people read this review and had yet seen the picture, they did what they could to go ahead and see it. On the bus ride home from a trip to Gettysburg, they had this picture and played it as their first of two films (which is MUCH better than playing that Seth Rogen on the way there. Forgive me, but Seth Rogen reminds me too much of the Newsman from The Muppet Show). Argo is one of this generation's finest films!

Of course, just like any other year, there are memories I create when it comes to blogging. I thought I would share them...

All of my posts have garnered at least 10 page views since August 2012- The last post I wrote that didn't garner double-digit views is my announcement that I began posting reviews on Amazon. In all honesty, I haven't posted an Amazon review in quite awhile. It's been a decent outlet and I reached five figures in the rankings when it came to helpful reviewers. Maybe some day I'll return to writing Amazon reviews. Perhaps my Sunshine review and reviews for other lesser known authors is a fine way to resurrect this trend.

An eye on literature- I want to submit more frequently about different works of literature and different topics that fall under the category of literature. I plan to expand on my Literary Gladiators project with my fellow English majors and this would be a fine way for my viewers to also get a taste of my writing. Each of us has a role, while most of my friends plan to teach, I'm the wildcard that wants to write.

My post about Ellen Page last month- In all honesty, this is the post I saw the greatest emotional connection to. While there was a statement about how coming out as being gay, lesbian, bisexual, transsexual, or transgender, the most important part is that Ellen Page is an excellent actress and probably an excellent person. One of my colleagues said it was my greatest article I wrote and I agree that this is one of my favorites. Perhaps in ten years, "coming out" will be a thing of the past and people will just look at your preference as being another element of the world's diversity.

My projects- First off, I will announce that Speculations From New Jersey was released on Amazon today. This features my short story, "Pity Teeth," about a trip to the dentist gone wrong. In addition to this story, you can read fifteen other works from some spectacular authors. There will also be a release at the Lunacon convention in New York. Literary Gladiators also released its pilot back in February and with a re-taping coming up, there should be a batch of ten more episodes coming along. I plan to conduct a taping of up to 40 episodes over the summer and will release that batch weekly starting in September. When I'm not conducting the web show, I hold interest in working on some more fiction, short stories or novel ideas.

I want to thank everybody that has read my blog and hope you continue to read and enjoy what I have to offer. For my fourth year, I hope to continue to flow of posts and will share what I can, which will include every episode of Literary Gladiators. Here's to three years!