I think we all need at least one really nice positive thing about the entertainment business every single day of the year, including weekends. Sometimes it may be something simple, like a video that showcases something fun and sometimes it may be a movie poster that embraces the aesthetic we all want Hollywood to aspire to. Sometimes it may be a long-winded diatribe. Sometimes it’ll be from the staff and extended family of CHUD.com. Maybe even you readers can get in on it. So, take this to the bank. Every day, you will get a little bit of positivity from one column a day here. Take it with you. Maybe it’ll help you through a bad day or give folks some fun things to hunt down in their busy celluloid digesting day.
1.07.11
By Jeremy G. Butler (Author Page, Twitter Page, Facebook Page)
What I’m Thankful For:
New CHUD
Welp, it’s here. It’s been talked about and planned and started and restarted and fuckin’ restarted again over the course of more than a couple of years. It’s come close to driving our fearless bearded leader broke and insane, but it’s happened. NewCHUD is upon us.
If you’re a longtime reader of the site you’re aware of some of the problems that have plagued us here – wonky searches, slow load times, hard-to-find news and articles…there was a pretty long list of things the users needed changed. And if you were a writer for the site? You cursed the infamous CHUD Backend at least once a day – once if it was a GOOD day. Articles eaten and lost forever, basic functions sporadically giving us all the finger – it was a mess. And that’s no exaggeration – I’ve spent more than a few dozen hours tooling around in the source code for the old site, trying to fix and tweak and update things and it was a fucking mess. The sort of unorganized and inefficient structuring that made me feel like a genius because I was able to make things happen. It’s a testament to everyone involved that we kept the site running as (relatively) smoothly as we did and it’s a testament to you guys that you stuck around. Old CHUD was laborious, to say the least, but it was a labor of love, for everyone involved, both staff and audience alike.
And now we have this. This bright, shiny, sleek, fucking fancy new site and community. Even if all you’ve had the time to give it is a cursory glance, there’s no denying the massive leaps forward we’ve taken. And if you’ve taken the time to play around with it, it becomes exponentially more impressive. I’ve spent the last few days crash-coursing on the admin stuff, and with every new thing I learn – every new feature I get my hands on, I get just a little more blown away. This shit is sophisticated and it opens countless doors for not only us to make the site everything you want it to be, but for you to join in and be as much a part of that as you want.
See, NewCHUD (yes, when I type it it’s all one word because it’s badass) isn’t just a website. It’s Nick, whose determination has been at the forefront of this from the beginning. It’s all the designers who committed to it and stuck it out. It’s the thousands of e-mails that have been passed back and forth all day every day for the past couple of years. It’s us, the writers and the staff who do what we do because we not only love film, but because we love CHUD and we love you guys. And, most importantly, it’s you guys. There’s no CHUD without you. Whether you’ve been with us for years or this is the very first time you’ve ever heard the phrase Sewer Chewer, you’re as much a part of NewCHUD as anything or anybody else.
And for all of that, I’m thankful.