Thursday, May 23, 2013

Seasonal Videos: A New Trojanpear Concept

I enjoy making my Trojanpear videos. It has brought out a creativity in me I never thought I really had. It has been a challenge though. Even as I learn more about making videos and improving the quality of my videos sometimes I run into difficulties whether it would be lack of time, opportunities, or complications in making the video that can produce videos that are less than I would like with my current level of skill. You may have seen this displayed in some videos where you see my progression, then there is a video that doesn't live up to the quality of the previous one. With four different series I have running as well as Trojanpear Presents specials every once and a while, I find myself trying to figure out how to get the videos done without spending all my time working on videos. (After all each series requires things like reading books, playing video games, watching movies, playing with cats, etc.) So, one idea I came up with to do is to limit each series to a seasonal timeline so I will not have to do to much at once while at the same time give everyone a planned timeline of when I will be working on certain videos. There are four seasons in a year and for simplicity, I start each season at the beginning of the month. So summer, the first season begins in June, continues into July, and August. The fall season is September, October, and November and the other seasons go likewise. Here is the planned schedule of series by season:

Summer Season: June, July, August

The Monster Movie Tournament
Two weeks a month (planned)


Trojanpear's Cats
One Week a Month

Fall Season: September, October, November

Trojanpear's Book Club

The Monster Movie Tournament

Winter Season: December, January, February

The Nintendo Power Adventure

Trojanpear's Book Club

Spring Season: March, April, May

Trojanpear's Book Club

The Nintendo Power Adventure

The Monster Movie Tournament


Of course, this schedule can change and some decisions still have to be made. This schedule also allows for opportunities for Trojanpear Presents Specials at anytime so look for those periodically. Now that I have shared this with you, I must look toward preparing for my first video for the summer. I will post again focusing on my first video for this new season. I hope you all enjoy. As always I welcome any comments you may have. Blessings!

Saturday, March 2, 2013

New Video Extra: Book Recommendations from Friends

After posting my Trojanpear's Book Club video yesterday, I wanted to discuss something relevant to the video that I touched on in the video. As you know, the book selection, The Normal Christian Life, was not my original choice for this month's book club book. I will do that book (series) at another time, but I did not do it this month because I was asked to read this book on a recommendation from a friend, and they wanted the book back when I finished. Well, I read it, but if you saw my video, I did not enjoy the book very much. This poses the question: When someone recommends a book to you, is it as good to you as they thought it would be? In my case while this did not work out well, I understand that is based on peoples interest in the type of book you are reading. As an example, my sister prefers romance themed books, so if I recommend to her a Godzilla book, she will probably not like it (or even read it).

I thought back to other times when I read books that were recommended to me, and I am surprised at how many of my favorite books were either recommended or read because I read a book that was recommended in the same series or author. These situations range from family members to internet reviewers. My mom thought I would enjoy books written by Dick Francis because the stories revolve arouind horse racing. My second grade teacher bought a book for me for Christmas that I never heard of at the time that she thought I would like. It was called Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. The strangest one was when netflix had its own critic who also had a blog. I read his blog regularly. One day he posted a different topic about a famous author who passed away that day. The author was apparently on of his favorite writers. He used a diffent name on this particular series. The name was Ed McBain. The series was the 87th precient series. He made the recommendation to his readers to try the book he felt was the best of them all: Eight Black Horses. For some reason, I felt compelled to check the book out and read it. It is now one of my all time favorite books and I am working on reading more books by Ed McBain. You may have seen several of his books in my collection in the video Bunnicula Series.

How have recommendations impacted your reading? What are some great books you were introduced to because someone made the recommendation?