Season Finale and future plans

Four months have passed since I opened the Millennium Museum for business. In that time, I've posted at least fifty items and done at least three "big features" for the Super Bowl, the Grammy Awards, and the Oscars. I've also demonstrated how all of this fits into the bigger Millennium picture (though the idea doesn't quite come across at first) with content for every item and feature.

Looking at things now, I think it's high time for a break. Aw, don't get all down in the mouth, there; I won't be gone forever...just for a little while. There are a few pretty good reasons for the break:

1. When I started this thing, I had a items and content already done well in advance. I'm starting to run dry, and any blogger knows that near-constant maintenance is the key to maintaining one's audience. In my case, the hunting for items is pretty hard, because a lot of this stuff ended up getting thrown away, and surviving examples are fairly hard to find.
2. This coincides with #1: By closing down, I can focus on the content. More than a few times have I caught myself "grasping at straws" in looking for items to include without thinking about how they fit into a greater understanding of the Millennium phenomenon.
3. Having a month or so without new content allows me to focus on redesigning the site, sprucing things up, and overall making it a lot better-looking. When I come back, watch out for tweaks like buttons, wallpapers, and possibly a new cursor. Originally, I wanted the site to look like an old, antiquated webpage from 2000, and going with Blogger's automatic styles was just a stopgap.
4. Finally, I can get a little more high-tech. You'll start to see more video reviews and things as I learn how to do this stuff. In keeping with the 2000 theme, I'll end up importing them into the site with QuickTime, which was the streaming-video player before Adobe/Macromedia Flash.

Like I said above, the Museum isn't going anywhere anytime soon. In fact, now that I plan on not doing new content--except for next week's video review of Jesus Christ Superstar 2000, which will be a special installment--I think it might be a good time to open the Museum to the readers.

That's right--April is READER CONTENT MONTH! From the First to the Thirtieth, don't hesitate to share the Year 2000 stuff you have on your shelves or have seen in your everyday lives.

All entries can be submitted to Nickdoctorwho@gmail.com with the subject line "Millennium Museum Reader Content Month." Please include your first name, city, state, and/or country if you're posting from outside the US.

I'm looking for:

• Pins
• Clothing
• Toys, games, dolls, plush
• Books, magazines, and newspaper clippings
• Audio/video (movies, CDs, etc.)
• Promotional items (M&Ms Millennium in particular, but any other food product you see)
• Happy New Year party favors and apparel, especially the "2000" glasses that were sold at Walgreen's
• Housewares, such as drinking glasses, plates, etc. My Year 2000 champagne glasses are a good example, but there were others.
• Souvenirs from Disney World, Universal Studios (and all international equivalents thereof), Hard Rock Cafe, Planet Hollywood, Times Square, etc. (No Millennium Dome stuff, thanks--Mr. Norman Hulme of Dome2000.com has that area covered.)

The list goes on and on.

But please don't just take pictures off the Internet. It's too easy. A friend on Facebook sent me pictures of Cheerios' "Millennios" from another blog, which I'll make an exception for because of the item's disposable nature, but in general I'd really you rather not.

I started the site as a scavenger hunt, a challenge; Readers' Content Month should be an exercise in the same spirit.

So, where do you look? Your best bets are thrift shops, toy shows, and flea markets. Sometimes, if you go to those old mom-and-pop dollar stores, you might get lucky. (Why, once upon a time, I found a mint-in-box Ecto-2 in a Gurnee Mills dollar-store...)

Don't take this as an imposition, mind. If you just happen to come across an item or two in your day-to day lives, simply spare a thought for the Museum and either buy it or take a snap of it with your smartphone's camera. (Ahhh, the things we can do today that we couldn't do thirteen short years ago...remember when we had to have a cell-phone and a PDA?)

Who knows? One day I might make a book out of all this!

All the best from the past and for the future,

The Millennium Museum.