A look inside Spored to Death Publishing

Welcome Sporefans to a Spored to Death Publishing special. Today we're giving you a look inside Spored to Death Publishing at how are reviews are made. Now I'm going to go on the record and mention that a good portion of this is complete fiction. I feel that my normal review process just doesn't have enough "Zazz" to be entertaining, so I'm Zazzing it up. A lot.

What is true, and what I'd like to impress upon you all is that it really does take me about a week to get a review ready for publication. So while most of our procedures have been "tweaked" for your amusement, the time line it follows is pretty accurate in regards to how long it takes to get the review up.

Lets take a look at what things are like at Spored to Death Publishing... at least, the portion of it in my mind.


Friday 9:00 am: A staff of gnomes is assigned to the Spored to Death movie collection to search for potential review materials. Using advanced scientific and magickal procedures, the gnomes screen through lists of thousands of titles in order to find the next great movie to be reviewed by Spored to Death. The troop of gnomes considers many things when choosing a movie for review. Factors like title, genre, publication date, cast, budget, subject matter, filming location, format, odor, texture, flavor, popularity, elementary school grades, subtitles, marketability, sugar content, graft and cover art all play an important part of the gnomish selection process.

Friday 1:15 pm: The gnomes have carefully weighed all options and have created a list of potential reviews for Spored to Death's approval.

Friday 1:47 pm: Spored to Death awakens, hung over and weary. After a shower, shave and locating his magical bottle of aspirin, Spored to Death grabs a cup of coffee and heads downstairs to the nerve center of the Spored to Death publishing empire, ie his basement.

Friday 3:11 pm: Spored to Death receives the list, crafted by gnomes, of movies for potential review. The list reads as follows.

1) Gnome chicks gone wild
2) Gnome chicks gone wild 2: Island paradise
3) You've got mail

The gnomes are subsequently fired.

Friday 3:49 pm: Spored to Death rifles through the stacks of DVD's and Video Tapes left on the floor by the gnomes attempts to find potential review materials. Finally, a time honored method is called into play. By closing his eyes and randomly grabbing a title, Spored to Death makes a selection.

Friday 3:50 pm: After grabbing the title "Highlander 2: The Quickening", Spored to Death decides that this movie would be way too easy to review, and further abuse would only be beating a dead horse. The title is discarded and a new movie is selected using the same method.

Friday 3:51 pm: "Hood of the Living Dead" has been selected as the new title for review.

Friday 4:19 pm: Spored to Death wastes time playing video games until "The Damned" can be summoned.

Friday 11:37 pm: Dinner arrives. Mmm... dinner.

Friday/Saturday at Midnight: The Damned are summoned once again to bear witness to the awful craptastic movie for this weeks review. Alcohol is distributed, and all settle in to watch the movie.

Saturday 12:03 am: The suffering begins.

Saturday 12:09 am: Many terrible jokes are made by Spored to Death about the content of the movie, most of which are either terrible puns or thinly veiled sexual innuendo. More alcohol is consumed.

Saturday 12:56 am: Bathroom break. More alcohol is consumed by involved parties.

Saturday morning, exact time unknown: Spored to Death falls asleep watching the movie shown after the "review movie". Usually something just as bad, which will wind up on a later review.

Saturday 2:08 pm: Spored to Death awakens, hung over and weary. After a shower, shave and locating his magical bottle of aspirin, Spored to Death grabs a cup of coffee and heads downstairs to the nerve center of the Spored to Death publishing empire. Today's goal: Research! No good review can be done without research first!

Saturday 3:39 pm: Feeling lazy, Spored to Death hires a research firm to take care of the research and takes the rest of the day off.

Sunday 11:15 am: Spored to Death makes an appointment with the research firm for Monday morning to review the materials that they've acquired.

Monday 10:00 am: Spored to Death greets the two research associates in the Spored to Death publishing offices, wearing his traditional writing garb: a ragged old bathrobe, a pair of flip flops and large sunglasses. Holding a cup of coffee spiked with a little "Irish Creativity", Spored to Death meets with the two research associates to review the information they've gathered about the movie up for review. The following is a transcript of their conversation.


Research associate A: Mr., uhh... Death. We've spent several hours reviewing your website and we have several changes that we'd like to suggest.

Spored to Death: You were supposed to research the movie title I sent you. Where's the information on that?

Research associate A: Oh that? Our research shows that no one is interested in that movie. Its terrible.

Research associate B: We think you'll really like the suggestions we've come to offer you.

Spored to Death: I know its a terrible movie. I watched it. All of it. Can you say the same thing?

(brief pause)

I thought not.

Research associate A: Mr. Death, please hear us out. These changes that we have for you will really help your website grow in popularity.

Spored to Death: Go on...

Research associate A: Well sir, the first thing I noticed on your site is that you don't have any advertisements. We could put ads on your site, increasing revenue 100%. As a matter of fact, I guarantee you will increase your revenue 100%, because your current ad revenue is non-existent.

Research associate B: Our research indicates that if we put ads at the top, on both sides and at the bottom of your website, we can create a... a box, so to speak, that will keep your reviews centered for your readers.

Research associate A: We also feel that we can put ads inside the text of your reviews, so that as the reader scrolls through the review, they will notice the advertisements, further increasing profits.

Research associate B: The ads nestled snugly in the review can even be fitted with scripts or codes that will enlarge the ads when the reader nears perimeter of the ad, and will follow them if they move their mouse within 1000 pixels of the ads. Of course, that might block out a bit of your reviews... but the profits would increase another 200% for you!

Research associate A: Furthermore, we feel that you could also endorse certain products during your reviews to help the readers make up their minds about choosing proven brands when it comes to tough purchases.

Research associate B: Finally, we can install software onto your website that will automatically upload on to the computers of your readers to track their web browsing habits and then give us information about what types of products they might be most interested in buying. This nifty new program costs you nothing, and is installed into the reader's root kit and on several other levels of their computer, ensuring that we can gather the maximum amount of data and thereby provide the best service to all your readers.

Spored to Death: I think I've heard enou...

Research associate A: But wait! There's more!

Research associate B: Our new software not only monitors consumer habits, but obtains credit card and bank data from the readers and automatically sets up an account with our company. As the new potential customer uses their computer, even when not browsing the web, our program launches its own new application offering the customer new products all the time!

Research associate A: The customer only has to click the window anywhere, at any point on the window, even the close button, and the purchase is made! Automatically! The product is shipped to the customer and arrives in about 6-8 weeks, and the customer only has to pay a small finance charge to us for the transaction. Why, if the customer can't afford the product or the finance charge, our software automatically applies for new credit cards for the customer automatically and charges the fees to the new accounts!

Research associate B: So what do you say, Mr. Death? Will you become part of our team?

(long pause)

Spored to Death: Gentlemen. Let me make one thing absolutely clear. I make no money from my website what-so-ever. That is not the point of Spored to Death Publishing. The point of Spored to Death publishing is to provide entertainment to myself and to all my readers. And also possibly to suggest movies that they might find entertaining. That, and nothing more.

Spored to Death: That being said, you have failed me in the one thing that I asked you to do. The one thing, and the only thing that I requested was information on the movie "Hood of the Living Dead". Instead, you bring me this ridiculous idea for flooding my readers with advertisements and transforming my free entertainment into a Capitalistic feeding frenzy for sharks like you.

Spored to Death: I'm gonna have to go with a "No" on this one. In fact, you're not getting paid, because you didn't do what I asked you to.

Research assistant A: Mr. Death, with all due respect, you still have to pay us for services rendered, regardless of how you feel about the research information we've provided.

Spored to Death: Really? Do I? Maybe you guys can be of some use to me after all.

(sound of an intercom buzzer)

Spored to Death: Zombie guards! Attack!

Zombie guards: Braaains! BRAAAAINS!!!

Research associate B: Holy Crap! Zombies! Aaaahhhh!!!

(sounds of a struggle, and then moist chewing sounds)


Monday 10:43 am : Spored to Death fires the research firm.

Monday 11:45 am: After a shower to remove the blood, Spored to Death decides to do research for the movie on his own. Using the advanced power of "the Internet" Spored to Death sets off in search of knowledge.

Monday 12:57 pm: After an hour of trying, it becomes apparent that the Internet has little to offer in the way of material that isn't either someone else's review of this movie or porn.

Monday 1:15 pm: Spored to Death decides that the only way to get information for the movie is to take it from imdb or wikipedia. All else seems pointless. Trivia sections are consulted, cast, crew and budget information is acquired and other useful information about the movie's production is revealed.

Monday 2:19 pm: Spored to Death begins the first draft of the review.

Monday 3:47 pm: Writer's block hits.

Monday 10:15 pm: Writer's block persists. In desperation, Spored to Death eats some "magical" mushrooms.

Time and space meaningless: The walls are covered with crawling chocolate candies. All things in the universe seem probable and everything makes sense.

Later: Things take a turn for the worse when the floating head of Peter Lorre appears. With his forked tongue, Lorre describes the special Hell reserved for movie critics.

Tuesday 10:48 am: Spored to Death awakens to find a large pile of pizza boxes carved up to resemble famous historical figures on his desk. On the computer screen are two large files. One is an almost perfect review for "Hood of the Living Dead". The other is a terrible manuscript detailing a new religion worshiping the floating head of Peter Lorre.

Tuesday 12:19 pm: Spored to Death prints out both the manuscript and the review and leaves them both in the hands of the Spored to Death editing staff. Elated, Spored to Death goes out to get lunch.

Spored to Death Publishing's editor in chief.

Tuesday 2:47 pm: Spored to Death returns to find the review shredded by the mighty claws of his editor. The manuscript remains eerily unscathed.

Tuesday 2:53 pm: Panic. The file that contained the review has become corrupted. The review is lost! Though the research material exists, the review must be written over again completely.

Tuesday 7:19 pm: The first review is lost to the mists of time and memory. A second, substandard review is constructed. As the zero hour approaches, Spored to Death slaps together whatever he can to finish up the review.

Tuesday 9:57 pm: The review is completed, but there is not time for editing. Spored to Death searches the Internet for pictures to post with the review.

Tuesday 10:24 pm: Nothing but more porn. Spored to Death must use technology to take images directly from the movie to post with the review. Using a digital camera and computer monitor, "pictures" are "taken" of the screen, allowing specific scenes to be put into the post.

Tuesday 11:17 pm: The review and images are ported over to the blogspot site. Things refuse to line up correctly, and html editing and cursing ensues.

Tuesday 11:48 pm: The finishing touch, the links, are added to the review.

Wednesday 12:19 am: Already 20 minutes past the deadline, Spored to Death finally publishes the review and calls is a day.

Wednesday 10:53 am: The first comment is posted on the website. Spored to Death gleefully checks to see what his fans have to say about the review.

"You suck" -Anonymous

Spored to Death deletes the comment.

Thursday 11:32 pm: Spored to Death reviews the comments from his fans. Both of them. After faithfully replying to each of his readers, Spored to Death begins drinking heavily.

"Maybe I should quit. Is it really worth all this effort to write these reviews?"

But, no that's defeatist talk, and there will be no more of that. Drunkenly, Spored to Death hires a crew of gnomes to select the movie for the next review.