Cabaret The MC

…In with the new.

Welcome to The Matinee! If you’re a reader who has come over from my previous blog – The Dark of The Matinee – thanks for making the jump. If you’re a new follower to my movie-obsessed drivel, welcome! Drop your hats and coats anywhere and come with me on a little tour…

Haven’t I Seen That Before?

As you might have already noticed, much of my previous content has migrated over to this new space. Some bits were deleted if they pertained particularly to the old space or felt irrelevant. As for the very thoughtful comments and conversations that happened over there, while many of them have been brought over too, not all of them were able to make the voyage.

I’m still hoping to spread the love to my fellow writers and readers through a blogroll, but to clean things up, that has moved to the top menu. Please be sure to nose through it as there are some great bits of writing and podcasting to be found within.

Hey – That’s New

Beyond the domain name itself, you’ll notice things tend to be easier to find around here. Topics have been sorted in the navigation bar below the banner. Certain features have also been given their own page – for instance all of my TIFF news and activities can be found at thematinee.ca/tiff

I’m easier to reach these days too. In the top menu you’ll find a contact form if that’s your style. Since we’re all friends here, do know that you can also reach me at my new email address: ryan(at)thematinee(dot)ca

Pleased to Meet You

That’s another new detail. Some of you might know me by my nom de plum “The Mad Hatter”. I’ve decided that it’s time to leave Wonderland and start owning up to the name my mama gave me. So I’m Ryan McNeil – nice to meet you. This isn’t to say that I won’t answer to “Hatter” anymore (I’m not Prince), just that I wanted to finally start ‘putting my name on it’ as it were.

Tweet! Tweet!

I’ve caved to peer pressure and signed on to Twitter. You can find my Twitter feed in the sidebar, but if you need it spelled out for you I’m @thematinee_ca. I’ll be keeping most of my tweets movie-centric (gotta ease me into this slowly people), but please do feel free to follow me.

Anything Else?

There’s one last thing I’m planning, but it will have to wait until October or so. In the coming months, I’m hoping to migrate the feed for The Matineecast – pulling it from mypodcast.com and self-hosting it. This will allow me to deliver some better audio and up the features, but doing so will take a bit of finesse (Anyone who wants to offer advice with that – drop me a line!).

Have You Thought About…

While many details of this site are locked in, I’m very eager to hear people’s thoughts and notes about the feel of it as a reader. Some older content is still in the process of being updated, but if you notice something that feels off in any way, drop me a note – I’d love to hear your suggestions as this show moves into its second act.

Thanks…

There are certain bits of web design and coding I can fudge my way through, but many of y’all who know the short range I have can tell that I never would have been able to get this up and running myself.

Steve Johnston – I still say that the deal we made was a complete rip-off on your end. You have been an invaluable help, a great mentor, and an awesome friend.

Nicole Pullin – You really helped with the trickier bits. Thanks for helping an old friend and when it inevitably comes time to do some upkeep on this site, I will hire you on proper.

Sasha James – Designing sites since you were ten, eh? When I was ten, I spent most of my time playing road hockey. You might know code backwards and forwards, but I bet you can’t hit my parent’s picture window with a backhanded shot. Jokes aside, you were a massive help detailing this shiny new ride. Thanks for helping out, and doing so with a smile.

So as I said off the top – Welcome to the Matinee!

47 Replies to “Willkommen (Welcome to TheMatinee.ca)”

  1. New site looks awesome! Really like how well everything is organized. Feels professional yet still holds the charm of the old site. Great job all around.

      1. It all comes naturally, dude. And take a look at your mobile version of the site… notice anything about the icon?

  9. I love it! Great design, nice organization- congrats on the big move! And I’m so happy you got on twitter so I can have another way to chat with/harass you. I’ve gotten pretty bad with blog commenting but I’m always on twitter.

    1. Yeah, I got a great little Twitter Baptism this morning – go back and take a look at all of the tweets Sasha put up about me to haze me into the Twitterverse.

      Thanks for the kind words – and btw, your poster is going to the framers tomorrow.

  14. So as to avoid any confusion on my part, I shall call thee McNeil of house Matinee… though I’ll shorten it to McNeil because, well, it’s just easier that way. I am liking the new digs here, though. Very snazzy. Were I a cooler man I would be snapping my fingers in unison with a dry jazz rhythm, with overly large square sunglasses in a dimly lit night club chatting up about how awesome The Matinee will be. Since that’s not going to happen anytime soon, I’ll just say looking forward to seeing what you bring to the site!

  15. s’okay… i s’pose.

    Nah, who am I kidding! I’ve known this was in the works, so I’m really happy to see it come to fruition. It’s like going from renting a 1 bedroom apartment to a house in the burbs. Looks great Mav!

  16. Congrats on the new digs, Ryan! And I like the name better too! Matinees are one of my favourite things out there and if this is THE matinee, well then you’re going to have to be a favourite too. All the best!

    1. If I was ever going to live up to the quality of your work, I had to do *something* to close the gap. Glad you like it man, hope you land that interview with M!

  18. Congratulations on the updgrade. Your passion for writing and the impressive numbers of people who follow you on the net resulted in the most natural outcome: outgrowing Blogger and creating your own site.
    Thumbs up!

    1. Thank-you Edgar. I’m certainly not the first to make this sort of leap, and I won’t be the last. That said, I’m pretty proud that I’ve come this far, given that I thought about shutting it all down once or twice through the years.

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