It’s a bit of a pass time for me, as I have written quite a few of them over the years. My Amazon review views used to be up over 100K, but went down to 60K during Covid & the prolonged shut downs. And now my Google Maps reviews are starting to kick in, which is kind of funny. I’m no connoisseur of fine things, or crap things for that matter, but I’ll spill some tea if it means somebody else has a better expectation going in, than what I had. Manage your expectations of reality and you will be far less dissatisfied with the things in your life. So yeah, is it clean, bright & open, certainly is, but expect to pay a premium on everything because it’s in a remote location and it’s the only shop around for 45 minutes in any direction. Expectations managed. Hot food is tasty, but don’t go if you are in a rush because the service wait times are terrible. Take the good with the bad, manage what you expect to happen, and you will be far less irritated by things.
You’ll still get annoyed by unexpected stuff, but if an outcome was to be expected, and you wanted it not to be so, then you’re the dum-dum who thought the world would be different “just for you”. How entitled!
Found a good deal, I’ll pass that on. Find a did, I’ll let everybody know that too. Something isn’t as advertised, or they tried the bait & switch, then I’ll warn you of it and you can act accordingly. It’s not about review bombing, or chasing clout (clout? What clout? I warn folks about lengthy wait times, or price increases, or shady sales tactics, I’m not getting famous, or extras just because I’ll spill some tea). Just because an experience didn’t go as planned for me, and my group doesn’t mean that every other group should suffer the same way. A tip here can help temper expectations of what reality will actually produce.
Now there are other factors to consider too. What I might consider to be ho-hum may very well blow another person’s socks off. What they find full or tedious might just be the deep dive of a topic I hold near and dear. For example; I absolutely love behind the scenes content on Bluerays & DVD’s, especially from things that were pre-internet/YouTube. It used to be really hard to know what was going on with movies if you weren’t directly in the know, or have an insider feeding you gossip/rumor etc… now they play all of that up as an extension of marketing, but having 3 hours of pre & post production interviews about the art for sci-fi films, the music, the sets, the costumes is my jam! My wife hates that stuff. I eat it up. Janty Yates talking about helmets for The Martian!?! Yes please, tell me more. I don’t think you could bore my wife more than to pepper her with those details. Watching folks build sets for films, seeing their painting techniques — ooh ooh ohh oh yes! But not under my wife’s watch though please, she would rather not. But I would. I’d take notes too, and use it on my next miniature terrain building exercise for war gaming.
Hell I love watching a fair few machinists on YouTube build stuff, but 8 know my wife & kids don’t care for it at all. I like watching metal fabrication, and wood working videos too. Shop infrastructure builds and organization? Sign me up. I love to see a space get cleaned up, organized, and optimized for use. Gives me ideas on how to make my space more functional. I can dig it.
Is Hans Zimmer going to talk at length about music for Dune or Bladerunner 2049? I’ll listen in on that. Extraordinary! Show me how you think of things like that. How does a musical brain work? I find it all so very interesting to see. Probably why I also love watching people paint stuff. Objects like miniatures, or busts, or water colours, oils and acrylics. Landscapes, seascapes and all manner of other things. I can’t paint worth a damn. I don’t do it very often. Maybe once a year on canvas, if that. I doom scroll instead of doing stuff. It’s a weakness.
On the other hand 8 have three sculpts on the go right now, so that’s kinda cool (I think). My Aves epoxy Hellboy, a chavant clay Goblin king which is just an early torso work up right now, and a foil covered armature for a potential fair entry made of Super Sculpey that needs to get built, baked, and painted before October. Failing that I have a ninja turtle I made that just needs to get painted. We will see how things shake out once the kids go back to school in September.
So go ahead write a review. It might just save somebody a melt down or a very long (but to be expected) line up. We might thank you for it later, or not.
Greatwall Studios Graphic Design 