ARCycling is cancelled for 9/1/13!

Sorry! That's life!
This does NOT count towards Two Week Time Out. Basically So, if you were to get off this week, you get off next week. If you were to get off next week, you actually get off the week after. Wherever you currently are in your time outs, push it back a week. All donations will be held to next week.

Sorry again!


Now to explain why, Jennifer is working (dull) and Lili, well, Lili is moving in for her freshman year of college!! So while she hasn't abandoned us (yet) for the wild college life, let's start her off in the only way ARCycling knows how to do. Gifs.
Always.
Gifs. Always.

So as someone who's been there, done that, here we go.

First, Lili's gonna be all:


Then she's going to realize college is different than high school:


Especially when she sees those textbook prices:


Then inevitably, this happens to just everything:


Then finals come... oh yes...:


But the most important thing, is to have a party:


And make friends:


And learn some stuff:


And, finally have a blast in Manhattan:


Stay tuned for any planned service changes to ARCycling in the coming weeks as we adjust to have a college student in our midst.

Guess. What.

It's been a year. We are a year old. A year. 12 months. 52 weeks. 365 days. 8760 hours. 525600 minutes.

Okay, a year give or take your definition, but for sure a year that this blog has been open.
Now it's stats time.
In that year, we got to 600 followers. We've had over 800 books given a second, or third chance at life. We've had 250 reviews that wouldn't have existed otherwise. We've had over 200 unique donators. This is all so happying.

And do you know what that means? GIF TIME.
So lately I've rejoined the world of popular things by finally watching Sherlock, Avengers and the solo movies that led up to it and before that Star Trek. So, we're just gonna have a big crazy fandom explosion of all of these things. Get ready for your computer to be loading for like 10 minutes, like the old school days of AOL dial up.*
*Jennifer just dated herself a whole hell of a lot. Dang.

When someone (or me) gives me the idea for a gif post:


When someone is oddly evasive about giving me their full name because it's the internet:


When I make a mistake and just have to publicly eat it:


When someone asks me to do something simple:


When I totally forget it's Sunday until Lili asks me when we should open:


Me, I have to do ARCycling by myself:


When that's not the case and Lili and I are in it for the long haul:


And we knock it out like the bad asses we are:


How I dramatize pressing the 'Publish' button in my head as we open:


When we open and nothing moves instantly:


Me, to Lili for being my TWTO girl:


What solving most problems actually feels like:


When people think I actually get mad over most things:


When I actually get mad for people trying to cheat my system:


When a 'big' book donation no longer surprises me:


When I get a WEIRD book donation:


Me, when something comes up about Two Week Time Out and I pawn it off on Lili:


When I look at someone's blog who wants to request and their reviews are three sentences:


And...


And then...


And finally, my answer:


And our reaction to said blog:


When I get some snippy "suggestion":


Because of course...


When I navigate my massive spreadsheets like a BAMF:


Me, when I 'catch' someone who hasn't gotten their book mailed out in a timely fashion:


Trying to do ARCycling when my internet is slow:


When someone is just SO EXCITED for the book they got:


And now I end on a fantastic crossover:


Good gods, that was exhausting.

Now that you've successfully gotten to the end of this post, you're rewarded with information on a giveaway! Lili does the giveaways, I do ridiculousness.
Go here.

Time for a science lesson.

Remember high school biology? Let's a have a mini refresher course in one particular aspect. I've always liked the concept.

com·men·sal·ism [kuh-men-suh-liz-uhm] 

noun

1. Ecology . a type of relationship between two species of a plant, animal, fungus, etc., in which one lives with, on, or in another without damage to either.

2. Sociology . peaceful coexistence among individuals or groups having independent or different values or customs.

3. See picture below.

  

That's what we are, guys. The bird and the deer. Bird stays on deer's back and eats fleas and ticks and deer provides a buffet of fleas and ticks.

What does this have to do with anything? Well, lots. We can only do our job if others do theirs. And when we don't get donations or (worse) get people complaining about the lack of new books, well, it's like you guys are the bird and you aren't eating the fleas and ticks. We are getting itchy and can't do much other than roll in grass to relieve the itch.*

*Please ignore how strange and awkward this analogy is getting.

 Now, we can't force people for donations (obviously) but we can try encourage it. Just like non-profit charities can issues tax breaks we can offer an incentive. It's not much, but alas, we are, essentially, a non-profit charity.

Like all charities, we survive on the blood (books) that are donated to us. We would not have survived this long without them. Not a chance. We would have died out sometime in December and I would at times find something to remind me of that cute little program I created, that subsequently died when I ran out of my own books. Let me say it again, to make sure it sticks: donators = the reason we live.

So, what's the incentive?, you ask impatiently.
Preferred treatment to those who donate books.

Cannot TELL YOU how excited I was to find that gif set.
But anyway, yeah, don't freak out. Here's why:
1) A lot of those who donate, hardly ever request. Don't ask me why that is, I've just noticed the trend.
 2) A lot of the time the people who donate, don't go for the big titles anyway. Not always, just, again, a strangeish trend I've noticed.
3) It won't be a preferred treatment, like holding books for anyone or especially rescinding books after emails have gone out. No way. 

Will this be a big shift in everything we know and trust in this reality? No.
Does it mean you might loose out to the donator who requested the same book 15 seconds after you? Maybe. (You'd be surprised how often this happens anyway when people request when they are on TWTO unknowingly.)
Do I hope for a big influx of cast-off books from your school reading list just to get preferential treatment? Oh, gods of Olympus, I sincerely hope not. Yes, we'll take Pride and Prejudice, but the day any blogger tries to play this off as a hip and fun read is gonna get a big eyeroll from me. I'm an English major, I can say it.

You might not realize it, but at the end of this month, this little program is a year old. (Yes, the blog didn't get started until late July - but who's counting?) I keep worrying and almost waiting for it to lose momentum and I don't want to see it die. I've worked hella hard on this blog (and all the spreadsheets) to watch it die so easily. Even with me moving and maybe starting some kind of life and Lili going to college, we are willing to keep it going. But we can only do so much. We need you guys! I hope this gets a little more life pumping in the system and if not, well, back to the drawing board on our side.

 

Officially official.

We haven't had gifs in a while. That's a sad thing. Let's fix that.
But first we need some gif-worthy news right? Well. I just so happen to HAVE SOME.

Jennifer IS moving. And it's not to LA. LA fell through like the gods themselves were telling me this was a bad idea.

Instead, Jennifer is gonna party it up in New York City *said all Pace Picante commercial style*.
You remember this if you were a child of the 90s. 

And guess what. I have a place and a date and hopefully my retail job transfers and few friends and I'm really excited... it might turn out HORRIBLY, but this is what your mid 20s are for. Screwing up.

Now for the excited gifs.









And lastly, and maybe the best by far...

A little giveaway that doesn't have much to do with ARCycling.

Unless you are new, don't follow me on Twitter, or don't pay attention to any posts, tweets, etc, you know that I love Percy Jackson. Not like a little. But like any decent 12-year-old boy with ADHD or dyslexia does. Enough to where the following picture is my cover photo on Facebook:

 [link]

Before that, it was this: (I upgraded to have Nico in there. Nico is freaking boss.)
[link] I can't find the exact link, but that's the link to the amazing artist's Tumblr, if you like Percy at all you need to familiarize yourself with Burdge's fan art. Seriously.

Don't even judge me for this. One thing I've learned in my years on this planet, life is too short to be afraid to love the things you want to love. I apply that to lots of things, including my Percy Jackson fan status. Whatever.

Anyway, over the years of my enthusiastic love, I've collected a number of treasures, including, but not limited to, a Son of Neptune promo poster (and you bet your butt I laminated it) and the prize jewel, a Mark of Athena promotional cardboard dump from the bookstore I work at. Perks of being friends with the lead of the Children's Department. However, I might have acquired too much stuff.

It doesn't help that I live in Austin, Texas. Rick Riordan lives in San Antonio, Texas. His launch parties are always in Austin. So there's always lots of signed stock floating around. And I might have purchased an extra signed Sea of Monsters (#2) and Titan's Curse (#3) on a complete spontaneous impulse. Oops. And I might have ended up with an extra promotional Heros of Olympus "water bottle" that was given out by Disney Hyperion. Oops. So, uh, yeah, those things are going to be given away here and now.


Rules? There are none. Anyone can enter! Okay, your dog can't enter, but humans alike can. You don't have to have a status of blogger, teacher or otherwise. And oh, Hades, why not make this international too?

But let's make this fun. And nerdier.
For an extra entry, ask yourself if you can name all of the characters in the first picture. This is all on the honor system for this one.
For extra entries, you're going to tweet something ridiculous. That's all I'm saying.
For extra entries, comment on this post with your favorite Percy(-based) book if you've read them, if not, then which Greek god/ goddess would be your godly parent.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

A crack down. Kinda.

I've spent the last 4 days going over the Review Archive and my long, long, LONG list of Requesters. I mean, the entire thing. Admittedly, I'd let this go too long, but whatever, life is busy. However, what I discovered didn't make me a happy monkey. I knew the review return rate was bad, better than it used to be, but I wasn't looking at concrete numbers. Now I have.

What was I doing? Stalking the crap out of you all. Basically.
But more specifically, if you've ever requested and gotten a book, I went to your blog, looked in your Review Archive or searched (if you had a search bar) for whatever book you got to if you happened to have the review and merely forgot to tell us.
This accrued about 10 reviews. So kudos to you lot for telling us about the reviews! However, less kudos to the kajillion more times I didn't find the book. It got a little painful to see all of the "IMM"s and "STS"s, therefore acknowledging you got the book, but then no review (and I'm not talking from last week. I mean, like from September).
Anyway, I suffered searching through very easily 200 blogs. All of this turned my brain in pudding.

I have suffered, so I'm going to make all of you suffer. A little. Nothing martyr-like.
Let's go over some basic reminders. These should be obvious, but ya know, if I have one piece of sage advice from my close to a quarter of a century on this planet, it is this: never assume anything.

1. The books available here are NOT for blind grabbing. Yes, I know they go fast, but there's a reason we list books like: Catching Fire (#2), then over to the right it would say Hunger Games #2. That means it's a sequel. That means if you haven't read the first, why would you want the sequel? Same goes for the genre and other obvious reasons, if you don't like dystopias and you look up Hunger Games on The Goodreads and it says dystopia, don't pick it. This means:
   • Saying you confused the book you got with another book and therefore not wanting to read it, is not going to fly. I'm going to say 'you've made your bed, now you must lie in it'. Like some kind of Disney villain.
   • Getting a sequel and saying you didn't realize it and therefore won't review it, is not going to fly. Like... HOW? The series number is right next to the title. How do you miss that?!
2. The books available here are NOT for you to NOT review then giveaway on your site. Guys, I went to college, I'm not stupid. If I know you got an ARC of Matched and a few weeks later you're giving away an ARC of Matched, I mean come on. I can put two and two together. I hardly ever (never) ban people myself, but when I saw this (yes, this actually happened) -  INSTA-BAN. If you review it, I could not care less what you do with it after, but that? That's just insulting to me and my hardwork.
3. The books available here are NOT just so you can have the physical version of a book you read on NetGalley. No. If I go to your blog, search for the book and find you thank NetGalley (especially if your review is dated from before you got the book from me), I will take your review, put the link on my site as though it were meant for me. You're cheating my system, so I will use your review to up stats. So there. You want a physical book to own? Go to a freaking Barnes and Noble! This might also end in a banning if I see it happen much more.

All of that being said, I hate changing rules. It's a headache even for me and it just sucks. So we aren't going to change the rules... YET. But I have decided to do something I've debated for a long time.
Public humiliation.

As the rules stand now, Requesters can get up to five books with no reviews before going on a temporary ban until something gets reviewed. If I'm being honest, I'd love to tell you all that I want to shorten that to 3 books. I do. But first I guess I'd have to discuss that with Lili first. Boo.

What the below spreadsheet shows is everyone who has 3 or more reviews pending.
If you have 3 titles next to your name: This is more of a warning shot.
If you have 4 titles next to your name: A warning shot across your nose.
If you have 5+ titles next to your name: You are temporarily banned. Most of you guys who have 5 titles already know this.

The list is sorted by first name, then blog name. Titles are arranged by date received, earliest on the bottom.*
*Only exception is one group blog that has accrued 7 books with no reviews, that one is by blog name with the individuals listed.
PLEASE NOTE: THERE ARE NO REQUESTS FROM AFTER THE END OF JANUARY. Why? Because I'm not a monster. There's a 2 month window to allow for delivery and reading time. Even if you requested a book from February until this last Sunday, it's not on there because it's not 'due'.



Now I'm sure you big Requesters are all, well, excuse me, but why aren't you going after the small time Requesters? Oh, oh I will. Over the next few weeks gentle 'reminder emails' are going to start floating around. If I was to list everyone here, that would take me many, many, many more hours and guys, I like to pretend I have a life even if I don't.

If ANYONE has questions about books they got, reviews or if you think you're supposed to be here and aren't, feel free to email me! ARCycling@gmail.com I'm pretty nice in emails even if I seem mean here.

Well that was a bunch of depressing crap wasn't it? How about for some good information and some gifs?!

First of all, review return rate is now up to 26%!! Up from 18% in December! That's awesome! Happy Muppet gif time!