Three Years

This entry was published at least two years ago (originally posted on November 24, 2003). Since that time the information may have become outdated or my beliefs may have changed (in general, assume a more open and liberal current viewpoint). A fuller disclaimer is available.

Today marks my three-year anniversary of weblogging. Technically, I’ve actually been at this for a bit longer than that — since sometime in 1998 or 1999 — but at that point I was just updating a static HTML page by hand, and much to my dismay, I lost my archives of those pages some time ago. So, for all practical purposes, I’m just dating back to my first archived post, from Nov. 25 2000.

I’ve been slowly working on moving all of my old archives over into my TypePad account for the past couple months, with a goal of having them all online by today. Thankfully, that happened, and I now have all three years of archives — 1,949 individual posts (an average of 1.78 posts per day) — online and available for perusing.

As I’ve worked my way through them all, I’ve highlighted a few at the top of my archives page as “Greatest Hits”. These aren’t necessarily the most-visited posts on the site. Rather, they’re posts that I find notable or especially worth visiting for one reason or another. Here’s a rundown of what I consider the highlights of the past three years:

1/9/2001: Words of Wisdom
One of the few pieces of forwarded e-mail that I’ve ever liked enough not just to keep, but to post. Just a good list of advice and observations worth keeping in mind.
1/17/2001: Things to remember while e-mailing
Another forward that I found worth saving. A good list of things that everyone should keep solidly in mind before passing on the latest virus warning, plea for help, or urban legend that lands in their e-mail inbox.
4/20/2001: About my tattoo
Some fairly bad pictures of me, but decent pictures of my tattoo. I’ve never been much of one for body modification — no piercings, and this is my only tattoo — but after finding the design years ago and giving it roughly five years of consideration, I decided that I’d found something worth permanently adding to my body.
5/24/2001: Mars needs a facelift!
Pure, unadulterated silliness. After finding some new pictures of the famous “face” on Mars, I decided to go all-out and see how well I could do at coming across as a flaming loony conspiracy theory nut. Apparently I did fairly well, as when I originally posted this on another discussion board, a few people commented that until the end of the post when I admitted that I was just fooling around, they actually believed that I was frightfully serious about what I was writing. There’s not much higher praise than that.
2/28/2002: Where were you?
A list of important historical dates, and my recollections of where I was when they happened and how they affected me. Some dates weren’t overly clearly remembered, most of the ones that really stuck with me range from the Challenger explosion to the Sept. 11 attacks.
3/2/2002: Hippies on Mars!
Another bout of Mars-inspired silliness. A false-color image of the Martian poles that reminded me of tye-dyed clothing patterns inspired this “press release” about Grateful Dead fans traveling across the plains of Mars. As far as I know it’s purely coincidental that I had two Mars-inspired bits of creative writing.
7/20/2002: Best of times, worst of times
Looking back at my experiences with people who went from being friends of mine to being roommates from hell. It’s always an odd time of my past to look back on, as it’s a strong combination of fond memories and things that at times I’d rather be able to forget.
10/28/2002: George
Much as I love cats, my brother’s cat George is the only cat I’ve ever met that I just couldn’t get along with. Completely and utterly psychotic. This is one of George’s more amusing moments in life.
3/2/2003: Sleep — from the painting by Salvadore Dali
A piece I wrote during my junior year of high school, inspired by a Salvadore Dali painting. As can be expected from something written around thirteen years ago, there are definitely things that I would do differently were I writing it now, but I’ve always liked what I came up with enough to leave it unaltered since its original inception.
3/3/2003: Just hang up
I’m not a fan of cell phones at all. I’ll only have one if required and paid for by my job, which has only happened once. One of the things that drives me up the wall is how incredibly rude many people can be when it comes to cell phones, and this rant was born from that frustration.
5/6/2003: Cynicism reigns supreme\
5/8/2003: Darwin has left the building
A pair of posts exploring one of my more cynical beliefs — that the human race is essentially throwing evolution out the window and breeding itself into oblivion. Some very interesting discussion arose out of these posts.
5/29/2003: Glitch
So far, my first foray into ‘fanfic’. Initially inspired by a dream I had after watching “Matrix: Reloaded”, it explores what might happen if someone accidentally tapped into a debugging routine in the Matrix without really realizing what was going on.
6/1/2003: Newly Digital (Back in the Day Redux)
My contribution to Adam Kalsey’s ‘Newly Digital’ project, looking back on my early experiences with computers, technology, and the internet, and some of the wierd and wonderful things I’ve seen over the years since these glowing screens first caught my attention.
7/9/2003: The Purity Test
I first discovered the Purity Tests on a BBS while I was in High School, and have always found them to be quite entertaining. Download the test (100, 500, 1000, and 2000 question versions) and find out just how morally, ethically, and sexually pure you are.
7/31/2003: Blogstop
Wordgame fun. Construct a post from the letters of the last word in the immediately preceeding post. It’s easier just to take a look and figure it out as you go.
10/29/2003: Fifteen Minutes of Fame
I look back on the first day or two of notoriety after news of my brush with Microsoft exploded across the ‘net.

I’m sure there are more goodies buried in my archives that are also worth dredging up from time to time. Some may be of more interest than these, most will be of less. These are just the ones that I find to be most worthy of calling attention to. If you’ve read any of them before, feel free to either just move along or take another look. If any of these are new to you, I just hope you like what you find.

Here’s hoping I’ve got another three years of this — or more — left in me.

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