One Year Reflections: Looking Forward

Thanks to my extreme laziness and pre-occupation with the start of winter quarter I am about a week off of when I was planning to get this written up and posted. I was so lazy as to even ignore Wunderlist constantly pestering me that I had an overdue task. Without any further delay, I will now delve into my plans and ideas for what I will cover and where my blog will go in this updating year.

1. Major League Soccer - If you've been following my blog, I'm sure you're plenty aware of my obsession with all things Major League Soccer and that the primary focus of my blog is a reflection of that. In 2012 I intend to offer a substantially wider rage of coverage, recapping more than just the Sounders matches. The transition of television coverage from the paid and largely unwatched as a result Fox Soccer to NBC Sports should allow me to do so.
2. Additional Authors - One of the major changes I'm planning on implementing this coming year is the introduction of two other authors to help me diversify the content and coverage of topics offered by my blog. In fact, one of them has already accepted my invitation as can be observed in the authors section on the right hand side of my blog's layout. He has yet to make a contribution, but I expect good things from him.
3. More Album Reviews - If you've read my previous reflection, you'll be aware that my initial intent was for this blog to exclusively provide coverage on music. This coming year, while my main focus will remain Major League Soccer, my hope is to expand upon that and write up and publish album reviews and opinion pieces much more frequently.

As always, feedback is welcomed and encouraged. I want to know how I can keep improving my blog and maintaining your interest and readership, so please don't hesitate to leave a comment.

One Year Anniversary Reflections: Then and Now

Just over one year ago, after taking a couple classes in the autumn quarter of my freshman year at UWT that required me to maintain a blog, I finally found the motivation to start a blog of my own. Now that a full year has passed, it's time to take a look back and review how my blog has changed and evolved.

Title
At the time all I had in mind in regards to what I would post was primarily music-based content (reviews for the most part) as could be reflected in the initial and quite lengthy title of my blog "My Thoughts On Music Or Anything Really". Not only did I get complaints about the length of my blog's url, my focus became much much broader, as I will further discuss, and thus I stripped it down to a much simpler "My Thoughts On Anything Really".

Content & Focus
As stated in the previous section, I initially started out with the intention of primarily posting music reviews and other music related posts. As it turns out, music isn't enough of a topic for me to properly maintain the blog. Only occasionally do I feel motivated enough to review an album, and even rarer do I come up with a topic or idea regarding music to write up and post. Oddly enough, when titling my blog I happened to have that issue in mind, which led to a rather long title that allowed me the freedom to discuss and explore other subjects. As you'll find by sifting through my posts, rather than music my primary topic of interest shifted to the coverage of Major League Soccer, specifically the Seattle Sounders. I don't just post about the MLS, though. Though my primary topic shifted to a much more active one, I also regularly post about other topics to fill the occasional void such as music, Apple, tech, and gaming topics.

Views and Demographics
In the year that my blog has been up my blog has received two thousand plus views, of course many from the US, but also many of them coming from some quite unexpected sources, most notably Malaysia and Russia.

Many of these views have been sourced through rather suspect sites, sites that I am completely lost as to how they're referring viewers to my blog. The one that takes the cake is a site that apparently tracks torrents. WTF?

Next: Looking Forward: What The new Year May Hold

The Nosedive Trend

Recently, several of the better MLS teams have taken a bit ofa nosedive. The most notable being FC Dallas, the Columbus Crew, and most recently Real Salt Lake. Up until the last month or so, FC Dallas was in a constant battle with the Sounders for second place. Now, they find themselves firmly in fourth place with only one three points out of their last five matches. Likewise, Real Salt Lake was on the rise and in a fight for second place, but now have lost a concerning four out of their last five matches. Then there is the case of the Crew, who were having a fine season (much better than anyone had expected, actually) until they completely lost their form in their 6-2 loss to the Sounders. They then went on to experience a five match winless run that saw them accumulate only a single point.

Now, one has to wonder what exactly is the cause of sudden nosedives like these. In each case the team was performing well and pushing and shoving for the top spot in their conference, and then all of a sudden they can't seem to find the back of the net (FC Dallas has been shut out four consecutive times and RSL has only managed two goals in their last four) or simply just can't muster what it takes to win. One factor may be exhaustion that is beginning to take it's toll as the season begins to come to a close (especially in FC Dallas' case as they've had to compete in three separate competitions). Another factor may be the absence of key players due to injury or suspension (very true for RSL and the Crew). Whatever the cause, it's kinda disturbing to watch one of the league's top teams go down in flames.