I'm pretty sure it has been nearly three thousand days since I stepped foot out of this building. In all that time, for only ten of those days I was without electricity, with a maximum of only two days in a row. Its amazing how efficient even the utility companies can be in the face of competition.
There were also six days, three each time, when I had no water, in fact no plumbing of any kind.
Whilst electricity provides my real lifeline to the world - communication - it was the plumbing that nearly, but not quite, led me to emerge into the world. A toilet that doesn't flush and no shower nearly shattered the shell around my little world. After the second crisis I had a tank installed on my balcony and another in the rooftop garden.
The numbers mean something, because I am coming up to three thousand reviews too, all written and paid for. There's a chance I can write my three thousandth review on my three thousandth day. It won't have meaning for anyone else, but maybe I should treat it with some kind of reverence. It's not like I do birthdays anymore, and if I did, who could I invite? I wore out people's patience years ago, making excuses for every invite. Eventually invites stopped arriving.
Showing posts with label product reviews. Show all posts
Showing posts with label product reviews. Show all posts
- 1 -
Send. Another review submitted and another free piece of semi useful gadgetry bought and paid for with very positive, but not too sickly praise.
It used to feel like such a pleasantly banal way to make a few extra dollars. Making money from a hobby, or more accurately a fetish or obsession, is a dream that rarely comes true.
I wonder if everyone else who manages to make it a reality finds it as underwhelming after a while.
The reality hit after only a couple of years with the realisation that the reviews don't have to be believable, nor overly flattering. Each product has a positive characteristic, and the review should reflect that the reviewer was pleasantly surprised, or when appropriate, proven wrong, by this unique characteristic. Simplistic products possess "ease of use". Cheap or poor quality products are "affordable" or "aimed at the budget conscious", and so on.
Some products are genuinely brilliant, however the real problem with reviewing genuinely brilliant kit is overdoing it. If you bang on about a product too much, you're less likely to get a shot at a competitor's equivalent product for fear of unfavorable comparisons.
It used to feel like such a pleasantly banal way to make a few extra dollars. Making money from a hobby, or more accurately a fetish or obsession, is a dream that rarely comes true.
I wonder if everyone else who manages to make it a reality finds it as underwhelming after a while.
The reality hit after only a couple of years with the realisation that the reviews don't have to be believable, nor overly flattering. Each product has a positive characteristic, and the review should reflect that the reviewer was pleasantly surprised, or when appropriate, proven wrong, by this unique characteristic. Simplistic products possess "ease of use". Cheap or poor quality products are "affordable" or "aimed at the budget conscious", and so on.
Some products are genuinely brilliant, however the real problem with reviewing genuinely brilliant kit is overdoing it. If you bang on about a product too much, you're less likely to get a shot at a competitor's equivalent product for fear of unfavorable comparisons.
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