Crunchy Numbers

Today I noticed that it was almost the middle of the month and I hadn't posted anything yet. Then I remembered that way back at the end of last year, in a fit of irresponsible ambitiousness, I set a personal goal for 100 posts for the coming year. Currently my 2012 total stands at an underwhelming 22 entries down; still 78 entries away from my quota. I looked up the amount of days in the year and interestingly enough it turned out to be...78 days.

Now if you believe that by that above observation I am implying that I am going to set off on a prolific rush of updating at a rate of at least one post per day; I have to seriously question if you really know me at all. I'm not saying it's completely out of the realm of possibility but it is most definitely a long shot. If I were to aggressively attempt to hit my numbers I would have to really readjust the old quantity/quality ratio around here. It's not like what I was banging out were New Yorker think pieces or anything but things would have to get reduced to the most shallow and inconsequential of fleeting personal musings. Essentially it would become a Tumblr. I have too much respect for myself and you dear reader to take that sort of shortcut. I will however put more of an effort going forward with the rest of the year to contribute more to this space at a better rate than I've done so far. 25 entries? 50 entries? 100 entries (hey, this post itself has already kept me on pace)? Who knows?

If anyone wants to throw out a total number for the end of the year, you have until the end of this week to get it to my attention. The closest number without going over (we're using "Price is Right" rules) will get an unspecified, completely arbitrary prize from me of unknown value! 

Odds - Future

Counting this article (and I guess barring any sudden uncontrollable compulsions to update in the next four or so hours) my final year end tally for entries on "Victor Sells Out" will top out at 52. It averages out to about a post a week, a pretty modest number for a supposedly active personal blog; additionally I'm not even factoring in the actual quality of these 52 posts. Of the five years (feeling so, so old) since I started the blog proper, it'll rank right in the middle as my third most productive year (if I remember my middle school math that will make it the "median"). It's nowhere near my prolific 130 from 2008 (I really should have been studying a lot more that first year of law school) and almost double my pathetic 27 from 2010 (I really should have written more since I was unemployed for most of that year).

My ideal target since I started this blog has been to average 10 posts a month for 120 on the year. The only year I actually matched (and surprisingly surpassed) it was my magical 2008. Since it is the end of 2011 and the promise of a fresh new 2012 with seemingly limitless possibilities looms ahead (and seeing as I needed one more entry to make things an even 52) I figured I would publicly set an official post goal to keep me accountable for the upcoming year; although truth be told there are no real consequences for me if I miss this number aside from mild disappointment. It'll also give something for you compulsive types to wager on. After some consideration I will officially set my target goal for the coming year at: 100 Posts.

Now having told you that my ideal number of posts every year is 120, it may seem a bit defeatist to set it well below my defined standard for success. However, aside from being a nice looking round number to set a milestone towards, I like to think 100 posts is a tempered, realistic goal and a admirable step towards gradually achieving an output of 120. Also, I'm a massive pessimist. Do you know anything about me? Have you ever read anything here?

Of course, this target number will be null and void if the world comes to an end as supposedly the Mayans and "The X-Files" predicted. Happy New Year Everybody.

Announcement: Side Bloggin' Plug

Dear reader(s), you may have often wondered while perusing all my updates to this blog: "Gee, that Victor is so boundlessly prolific, maybe he should guest contribute to another blog that's more in need of articles." Well, you poor deluded fool, it looks like Christmas is coming in April this year!

Recently I was conscripted by an old college friend to be a fellow contributor to his latest get rich quick blogging scheme "Nerd Outrage". Despite explaining that I haven't exactly been cranking out the content here at the home office, I was brought on board anyway (if it's to piggyback on my World Series of Pop Culture buzz and fame, he's in for much disappointment). As the site's mission broad statement says, it's generally going to be a forum for opinions and angry dissents about a wide range of topics (we felt the internet hadn't quite reached full snarky blogging saturation yet). While I'm not exactly an "outrage" sort of guy, more of a minor complaint person, I promised to put drop in an article when I can. So I invite you all to check out the blog when you can. The way I figure it since I'm one of five contributors, the frequency would likely be 1/5 of the frequency of the posts I'm putting in here (you might have to break out a calculator if you're going to quantify that small fraction).

As for this side project's affect on the output of "Victor Sells Out", rest easy worried reader, you will get your 4-5 articles a month. This blog has always been and will alway be my main neglected priority.

Happy New Year!

Fellow friends of Victor Sells Out, I want to first start off with an apology. It has been well over an entire month since my last post. Although this blog is no stranger to extended posting delays, that was inexcusably long hiatus even for the extremely low standards of this blog. For that I am sorry.

Compared to my banner year of 2008, the previous year has been a clear letdown. The blog regressed from 130 total posting with a minimum of 10 per month to a mere 76 total posts overall with December registering an all time low of 1 post. In addition to the quantity, I felt the quality of the posts were a bit off. There were more than a couple posts that were either too brief or were questionable departures from logic. In pushing a lot of my time and energy into completing my yearlong Lockhorns project (and to a lesser extent: school, work, personal life, etc....) I unfortunately gave my flagship blog the short shrift. Also, I think I'll blame the recession too. For a blog that entered 2009 with high expectations of growth and greater success, it was a great disappointment on par with the 2009 Mets or Season 3 of "Sliders" (you can probably lump the rest of the series run in that category).

However, take heart; it is a new year (and even a new decade)! It's the perfect time for improvement and everyone's on a redemption kick. What will this mean for Victor Sells Out in 2010? Well, if there's one thing I learned in law school thus far is never to definitely promise any future action or result, lest you open yourself up to liability; but I will promise that I will attempt to churn out a significantly improved blog for the upcoming year in terms of both quantity and quality. I will try to not procrastinate too much about posting. I will give my best efforts in trying to post prompt entries that are more current and relevant. So basically my tentative non-binding promise to you is that at the very least it'll be better than last year.

So Happy New Year follow readers and get ready for another year of (slightly less) spotty updating courtesy of Victor Sells Out!

The Internet Never Forgets

My senior year at NYU was probably my favorite school year ever (although I faintly recall kindergarten to have been quite pleasant and 6th grade wasn't all that bad as well). While nothing resembling outrageous Rothian standards, between all my AP credits and my early core class heavy schedule, by the end of junior year I had completed all my essential requirements for my Communications major, leaving me with an already light senior year schedule that I had to fill with wacky, superfluous electives. I went to school a maximum three days a week (I got it down to two by the spring semester) and when I happened to be there I was either taking guitar lessons or developing film or workshopping poetry. It was sort of like a year long day camp...that cost about $30,000. By the end, all my frivolous class taking even gave me enough credits for an unexpected minor in creative writing.

One of my light elective classes was a digital art class where we learned basic level Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and had some lectures about art and composition. Aside from all the neat posters we got to make and print out on the fancy giant printer, the rudimentary Photoshop skills I learned are still used by me today (sadly, as a communications major, this was probably the only piece of useful, substantive education I received during my whole 4 years there). One of the ongoing assignments during the semester was for everyone in class to create and maintain a simple photo blog on Blogger that they would have to update with one interesting image every week. We all dutifully maintained our little blogs (mine was called "Amazing Victor's Blogosphere") and when the semester ended we all just abandoned them, to lie fallow and forgotten on the endless plains of the Internet.

This would be the case for almost the next three years or so until I recently found some of my old digital assignments while sorting around the files of my old college laptop. It was then that I wondered if my temporary little site still existed. I put the name in on google and, lo and behold, there it was, a mass of 1s and 0s frozen in time, perfectly preserved since September of 2006, waiting for the next update. I had also forgotten that after I submitted my final picture, I had randomly uploaded two other entries: some random shots of me unkempt and unemployed post college (my how things have...remained exactly the same) and some shots from a College Bowl meeting that stands as probably the only known photographic documentation of an actual NYU College Bowl meeting.

This blast of digital nostalgia also helped me gain some perspective on just how unfathomably vast and full of crap the interest is. There's an entire world of users out there leaving random web footprints that'll out last the Pyramids. Every fleeting web page, bog, social network profile, web board comment, etc., no matter how inconsequential is probably preserved in the infinite folds of the web. You wouldn't believe the number of immacuately preserved websites for forgotten movies of the past still exist (looking to download some sweet desktop backgrounds or AIM icons from the movie "Paycheck"? I know I am!). It's an interesting thought that your "LOL" comment on the Star Wars Kid Youtube video from 2004 will likely be around far after you've disappeared. The ancient Greeks would be so pissed that immortality in the 21st century is a few clicks away; they had to spend all their lives chipping away on marble slabs, creating sculptures and shit.

I have to admit, however, there are even some limits to the internet. I'm pretty sure my geocities webpage from 1997 consisting of an all cap "Welcome to Victor's Home Page" greeting, lime greenback background, a picture of Mr. T and a free web counter is lost forever.