Okay, I know I said to come back later in the day for this story, but I couldn’t wait to tell it. At least this way, it’s kept away from the main site-related stuff and is organized.

Remember about a month ago when I told you I was applying to be part of The Des Moines Register’s newly formed team of community reviewers? Well, I got word back yesterday that I was NOT one of the 30 finalists selected from the field of 150 who participated. Incidentally, from that group of 30, 10 will be chosen by a reader vote to be a part of the team.

I’m kind of bummed because I’ve been informally reviewing movies for five years and I thought that would be great experience for them to tap into. I mean, who better than me, right?

I went through this weird analytical cycle. At first I thought they turned me down because they were aware of Theater Hopper and the freelancing I do for their sister publication Juice. The must have figured my legion of fans would skew the voting round.

Then I got kind of suspicious. The editor who made the decision as to what contestants made it to the voting round is the same editor I worked for a couple of years ago when I did freelance concert reviews for The Register. Interestingly enough, he contacted me out of the blue a few days before I got the notice about the movie reviewer thing when he asked me if I would be interested in reviewing a Stone Sour contest this Friday and an all day metal festival called LazerFest going on May 13. I accepted the Stone Sour gig. I’m not available for LazerFest. Was this meant to soften the blow?

Then I entered into acceptance. Well, obviously they can’t pay me freelancing fees for BOTH my contributions to Juice and for my concert reviews. It’s just not fair! Spread the love.

And then I felt superior because I had “let it go.”

At one point early on I thought I would contest my rejection and give a laundry list of reasons as to why I would rock the community movie review team the hardest. But I stopped when I realized that I didn’t know if the community movie review team paid well (if at all) and that I might be shooting myself in the foot if I said “I don’t want to do paid concert reviews! Put me into the voting round for the community movie review team where I may or may not be voted in as a finalist!” Seemed kind of like a dumb gamble.

All the same, I would have rocked it hard. I just know I would have….