Category Archives: Essay

Killing Time Turns 5 Years Old!!!

anniversary-2x

Five years ago today, Killing Time opened its doors to all manner of geeks, nerds, geekity nerds, and random passersby.  My reasons for starting this blog, and maintaining it for half a decade of pretty steady nonsense are more than outlined in the “About KT” tab if you’re curious, but the blog I started in early 2013 was a very different one than 2018’s version.  For one thing, it was missing all of you.  All 9,837 of you wacky, wacky people whose comments and feedback make writing this thing so much fun.  This is, by the by, the 3,578th article for Killing Time, and not counting the Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms, we’ve had 525,395 hits on the homepage alone.

I didn’t expect any of that.  I didn’t think I’d be writing this blog five years later.  I didn’t think anyone would want to read it, to be honest.  I wrote it first as an escape, then as a tribute, now-more than anything-as a discipline to write every day.  And it has become an inextricable part of my day.  The days now have columns attached to them, there’s a rhythm to the whole thing, and if I have to miss a day because reality rudely intrudes into my fervent concentration on ignoring it….I feel odd.  Like I have to sneeze and can’t…or forgot to, which is an even odder sensation.  What I’m saying is that Killing Time has been a surprising thing, a good thing, and all of you have made it what it is.  So thank you for five years.  I certainly can’t promise five more, but I didn’t think we’d be here in 2013.  Thank you, time killers.


-The Management

FILMSGIVING 2017 – 4 Movies; 1 Theater Holiday (mini-reviews included)

turkey
I don’t celebrate Thanksgiving.  It isn’t that there aren’t things in my life that I’m thankful for; there are.  It’s not that I don’t have people I love who wouldn’t bend over backward to show me to their table; I do.  The problem is, the person who should be there sharing it with me passed away a few years ago.  Holidays are the traditions we make with the people we love, but what happens when the people die?  I suppose the traditions could live on if there were more people to see them through, but mine died with my wife.  The first year, I just survived the holidays.  The second year they made me miserable.  By the third year, I’d had enough so I decided to invent new traditions.  I didn’t want to spend another Thanksgiving immersed in the routine (and to be honest….I hate turkey), so thus was born FILMSGIVING! Continue reading FILMSGIVING 2017 – 4 Movies; 1 Theater Holiday (mini-reviews included)

Killing Time Passes 500,000 Hits: The Most Popular Pieces in the Site’s History

Killing Time

On January 24, 2013, I started a blog on media to pass the time (you can click on About Killing Time if you want the entire dynamic origin story).  This morning, during the wee hours, that site passed half-a-million hits.  500,000 hits, baby!  That’s just on KT, not the social media pages, but if you had told me when I was starting out that we’d ever get to 1/2 a million hits, I’d have upped your thorazine.  I saw the number creeping toward the milestone a month ago, as I’ve noticed we’re also nearing 10k followers (you geeky legion, you).  I had no idea it was that high, and I just want to sincerely thank every one of you who makes this a fun site to write, manage, micromanage, rearrange and then re-micromanage, and for the comments, support, and sense of community that has-especially this year-made this such an awesome place to be.


No doubt the morning shows are all over this, but I thought I’d share just a few of the reader reactions to the news.  SO kind (thank you for the mic drop, Mr. President).  After the break check out the most read articles in the site’s history.

      Continue reading Killing Time Passes 500,000 Hits: The Most Popular Pieces in the Site’s History

Why Disney Needs to Keep Star Wars at Christmas

Chewbacca, Peter Mayhew, Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
Happy Holidays! Your reward for making it through another year is a trip to a galaxy far, far away from your friends at Disney. That’s been the case with The Force Awakens, Rogue One, and the upcoming The Last Jedi. However, in 2018, Star Wars films will move to the summer. Not only is this a grinchly move by Disney, it’s bad business. Disney already produces so many blockbusters per year that they’re beginning to crash into each other’s earning potential. Both Disney Star Wars films made over a billion dollars. That’s largely because they were revisited during the cinematic doldrums of January and February. Moving Star Wars to summer will pit the films not only against blockbuster competition from other studios, it will stunt the box office potential for Disney franchises typically used to summer dominance (The Marvel Cinematic Universe and Pixar Animation, for example). There are three reasons behind moving Star Wars to summer, and in each reason is a counter-argument for why Disney shouldn’t.
Continue reading Why Disney Needs to Keep Star Wars at Christmas

Site Note: KT Undergoing Upgrade

Greetings, Time Killers!  You may have noticed some tweaks to the home page.  I’m moving some things around, trying some new things, and so if stuff looks wonky….I’m probably in the middle of messing the entire site up.  Perfectly normal.  One thing to note for people who read the Word Press page only, I’ve divided up the workload because I spend 1-2 hours a day on this blog and I can’t get to everything.  Casting news, posters, pictures, and general news will get published to the Facebook page (www.facebook.com/killingtime2014) or to the Twitter feed (@sleeplessdave), which now displays the last 10 news items on the site for those who hate Facebook and Twitter (there are enough of you that I am writing this, so you know who you are).  The addition of the Twitter widget will give WP site only readers the same kind of total access the Facebook horde gets.  The things I do for you all.  Keep stabbing minutes, you wacky little wombats, you!

The Management