14,000+ Page Views, on Back-To-Back Days.

   This could also have been titled "Neat-O: Part 2 Electric Boogaloo" in response to one of my early posts where I blogged about meeting Legendary Michigan football coach Lloyd Carr, and having Congressman John D. Dingell share a link to one of my stories on his facebook page. Today I'll tell you about how I got 14,000 page views on two different stories, on back to back days. There were also another few thousand hits yesterday on the popular one from Friday.

   I'll start with the Friday piece, "The 10 Best Scary Video Games of All-Time." At least one of our reader's blatantly did not like the list, he e-mailed me at my work account several times about it, clearly attempting to start a flame war, but being that it was work related, I had to bite my tongue and not respond the way I would have liked. Instead I thanked him for reading, and told him he was free to write a letter to our editor, which he got confused and thought I meant of the blog, but that's a story for another posting, I'll even share some of the e-mails.

  

   Long story short, he shared the post on Fark.com, where he attempted to get more people to make fun of the list, they had to link back to my story though, also I don't know if it were him or not but the link was shared on another site where they attempted to better the list as well. I haven't ever been to that site (Hardocp.com) before. All told between the two days, the story got over 20,000 hits, and it's still doing well today, and I'm certain that it will continue to do well into Halloween.

   The same day that the video game story was posted, a Top 10 Stephen King Books for Halloween article was posted. It did OK, but not as popular as I had hoped it would have been. Yesterday morning I decided to cross post that article as a blog post here, then I was gonna share the link a few places, one of which being the Stephen King Facebook page. I went to the page, and what do I find there, the page had posted a link to the original article already. The last I saw on that one yesterday showed nearly 16,000 hits, I won't know the exact numbers until tomorrow when our web editor shows them off, but I am completely shocked at all of the hits it's gotten. I know it's not through anything I did personally, at least not intentionally, but damn it if it isn't so cool. The only problem now, is trying to find some way to replicate these results next month.

Top 10 Children's Halloween Movies

 Not everything about Halloween has to be scary. There are plenty of family friendly and far less spooky Halloween inspired films. In the spirit of the season I've compiled a list of 10 child friendly spooky films.

10. Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971). This may have been the first ever magical flying bed. The bed, along with a witch for hire and three young children manage to make a family friendly adventure including witches and warlocks.

9. The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993). The only way this wouldn't be included on the list is if it were considered a Christmas movie. Jack Skellington, the pumpkin king is bored of his life preparing for Halloween, so he decides to have the ghosts and ghouls help him put on Christmas instead. This one might be for slightly older kids as some of the characters might be a bit scary for the real young ones among the family.

8. Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2006). This one has bits for the whole family, references to older movies for the adults, action for the teens and lots of colorful characters for the youngest members of the family.

7. Casper (1995). A star studded cast, nothing scary at all for the young ones, yet still very Halloween oriented having not only the friendly ghost, but his three mischievous “uncles” as well.

6. Halloweentown (2001). A Disney made for TV film, that spawned two sequels about a young witch and warlock first discovering their powers and a secret dimension where it is always Halloween.

5. Hocus Pocus (1993). The Sanderson sisters return from 300 years of being trapped in another dimension to run amok in Salem, Mass. Where they break out in song occasionally as well as attempt to kidnap the parents of all the children in town.

4. Ghostbusters (1984). OK so it's not technically set at Halloween, but it is all about ghosts and ghouls. Outside of the opening scene with the ghost in the New York public library there shouldn't be anything too scary for the young ones in this one, and it's a can't miss for the comedy fans with Bill Murray and Dan Akroyd leading the way.

3. Pooh's Heffalump Halloween Movie (2005). All the fun and family friendliness of any other Winnie the Pooh film, but set at Halloween time.

2. The Corpse Bride (2006). A man is goofing around with his wedding ring before the ceremony and accidentally brings a woman back from the dead that claims to be his rightful wife. Fun for the whole family with very little to no scary moments in this one.

1. It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown (1966). The Peanuts gang has always had a special spot in my heart, and this is one of the best specials that were made in the series of specials made in the 60's for just about every holiday.

The One Year Movie Challenge!

Note: This is not my collection, not even a small fraction of my collection.

   I started this back in May in a note on Facebook, but I've decided to share it with the rest of the world too.

   I'm a very avid movie fan, always have been, always will be. I own nearly 3000 dvd's. I watch an inordinate amount of films, though ironically not nearly as many since I started this challenge. Basically what I am doing though is keeping track of all of the movies I watch, be it on DVD, at the theater, on a BluRay disc, Netflix or even on plain old TV.  I'm keeping a list and updating it regularly.  I'll give periodic updates here in case anyone is interested. Here is a copy of the original note and the list from May 1 until now. Note that TV series do not count on this, yet I do watch those in complete season sets as well.

Starting May 1, 2011 I'll be attempting to create a list of every single film I see this year.  I'll note whether it was on TV, DVD or in theater, but in essence Ill be keeping a daily track of which films I see from May 1, 2011 through April 30, 2012.

Feel free to add your own comments or observations on this note as it is updated and changed over the year, or to make your own list as well. Also feel free to let me know who else to tag, I've got too many moviephiles on my friends list to know who all would be interested in this.

And now, for the list...

1. Tek War -via Netflix. Been trying to catch this for a long time, based on a series of books written by William Shatner, and it caused a spin off TV series that lasted one season. Directed by William Shatner as well.

2. Easy A- via Netflix, starring Emma Stone.

3. Dogs Decoded- via Netflix, a documentary about dogs.

4. 9/11: The Myth & the Reality, via netflix.

5. The Green Hornet -Blu-Ray DVD.

6. The One Percent via Netflix.

7. Thor at the Theater.

8. Hot Tub Time Machine -DVD.

9. Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie -Netflix.

10. Up in the Air -DVD (loved the ending.)

11. Thor: Tales of Asgard -Blu-Ray

12. The Rookie - on TV.

13. Being Lincoln: Men in Hats - on TV, very strange documentary.

14. Power Rangers: Mystic Force - Dark Wish. - DVD

15. X-Men First Class - in theater.

16. The Untouchables - on TV.

17. The Four-Faced Liar - Netflix

18. Rookie of the Year. -Netflix.

19. X-Men First Class. - Theater.

20. Green Lantern -Emerald Knights -Blu-Ray.

21. Diner -Netflix.

22. Then & Now An Evening with Joe Quesad and Stan Lee -DVD.

23. The Green Lantern - in Theater.

24. Chasing Amy -Netflix

25. The American President -Netflix.

26. True Blue 10 years of the Blue Collar Comedy Tour -Cable

27. The Phantom -Cable.

28. Blue Collar Comedy Tour: The Movie -Cable. (yes cable is that sad in a hotel room on vacation...)

29. Hooper -Dvd

30. Stroker Ace -Dvd.

31. The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg - Netflix.

32. Varsity Blues -Cable.

33. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II. -Theater

34. Captain America: The First Avenger- Theater

35. Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief.-DVD.

36. Undiscovered: Disney Parks. - Netflix.

37. Between the Folds. -Netflix.

38. The Almighty Thor -Netflix   (Total trash)

39. Skyline - Netflix

40. The Missing -TV

41. Young Guns -TV

42. Black Swan -BluRay

43. Predators -DVD.

44. Hobo with a Shotgun -Netflix

45. Paper Man -Netflix

46. The Expendables -Netflix

47. Tangled - Netflix.

48. The Fighter -Netflix.

49. Indiana Jones & The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull -TV

50. Zombieland -TV

51. The Bounty Hunter -TV

52. X-Men: First Class -Blu Ray

53. Thor -Blu Ray

54. Weird Science -Netflix

55. I Love You Phillip Morris -Netflix.

56. Star Trek (2009) -DVD

57. Inspector Gadget's Last Case -Netflix.

58. The Bob & Tom Comedy Tour -Netflix

59.