Nine years ago today 2008

On May 24, 1999, is the first use of the term "blog" on this site. (The title was added later since my posts were untitled in that distant era).

Brad posted about exactly the same thing the day before me so he got the OED reference, darn him. :)

I was working with Ev & Meg on a contract project at HP at that time, so I was almost certainly the vector for Peter's "wee blog" to be converted to verb form "we blog" and thence to the name Blogger.

I had Blogger blog #11 and helped test this new little "side project" of the Pyra gang. The rest is history. Good times, good times.

As Brad puts it so well, happy birthday, you awkward, uneuphonious little word!

9 Years 2007

When I was 9 years old I went on a big trip with my folks to Scotland & Norway and still feel the echoes of that wonderful trip today.

What will MetaGrrrl.com do now that it's nine years old? Exploration, new friends, new horizons, new foods, new ideas... that's what I'm hoping for.

Thanks for reading and commenting and being part of my adventure!

Venerable 2006

To my amusement this evening I received some spam with the subject line

when to stop blogging

and I just had to laugh because tomorrow is MetaGrrrl.com's 8th birthday.

When to stop? Not yet!

MetaGrrrl Classics #1: Best product endorsement ever 2005

December 21, 2000

Thanks again, Neale!

Wait, how can I be a trendmonkey and behind the times? 2005

And in the category "Best second comment on a weblog" the winner is danf for

Of course, you would probably start a live journal now that several other popular bloggers have mentioned having private livejournals and other switching to live journals already.

Honestly, do you ever do anything other than follow? I use to enjoy your site. But you seem to just tag along with everyone else. GTD? You started writing about it months after it broke, like it was some new deal. Now this live journal rant when it's already been passed around the web.

I'm disappointed, really. Thanks for the previous years, though. I'm sad you changed.

I know, I know, cheese? EVERYONE writes about that. Pictures of baby rhinos? SO old hat. And, really, who DIDN'T quote Greg Brown lyrics this month?

Sheesh.

Other bloggers are talking about LiveJournals? Dude, I'm just writing about 'em because someone turned me on to a really good one and I've read 3 years worth of posts in the last 3 weeks. Given my blog-centric past, it made me wax philosophical. (And what's funny is I've been reading that journal so much I think I missed the other discussions you reference).

To clarify: I post about things that I find interesting, amusing, beautiful, useful and/or significant. And I've been doing so since 1998.

This may come as a shock to you, but MetaGrrrl.com is not in fact a news site or the home of the meme-of-the-week.

Nor do I write it to please you. If it does, cool. If not, there's a big wide web out there and don't let the door hit your ass on the way out.

I am curious, though; hey everybody, what do you think are the classic Dinah posts? You know, before she sold out.

Soundtrack for this post? Tool.

I'm not trading this in, but... 2005

... after much consideration, I have to concede that one of the differences between a blog and a LiveJournal is that the latter seems to be more likely to develop the kind of community that leads to strings of fantastic comments.

For example, a couple years ago (yes, when I find a site I like I do tend to dig for those deep album cuts) Gordonzola asked everyone what they hate and generated an enormous response. Replies included:

- lysosy's hatred of "PolarTec couples. You've seen them. They wear khakis and fleece pullovers with hiking boots, and their Golden Retrievers sit in the SUV under the kayak. The girls pull their ponytails through the hole in the back of the cap, and the guys always have skinny legs."

- amarama's long list includes SUVs with "Free Tibet" stickers and White men who only date Asian women.

- capn jil hates lots of stuff I agree with, but especially "white people with fugly dreadlocks"

- I'm also right there with misia when it comes to "People who send me multiply-forwarded urban legend e-mail. (OH MY GOD THEY'RE PUTTING KITTENS IN BOTTLES!)" and elusis on "Top-quoters in email" and wasop regarding "People who take their dogs everywhere.  A dog is not a child substitute, and it does not need to help you pick out a new throw blanket at Crate and Barrel.  " and the anonymous poster who railed against "anyone wearing so much cologne that I can taste it when I am not actually licking them at the moment"

And then there's this gem from msjen:

People who teeter around SOMA on Friday and Saturday nights, holding each other up as they stagger to their cars (parked in valuable parking spaces), giggling and announcing how drunk they are.

When I lived near MIT frat row in Boston, where this of course happens a lot, I proposed building a satellite death ray that would be triggered from space by any human that yelled "Whoooo!!!" and had a certain blood alcohol level.

I think it's time.

Seven years good luck 2005

Happy birthday, metagrrrl.com. Seven years of blogging. Almost 2500 posts. Wow. I guess I found my medium.

Sure was a nice weekend here in San Francisco. I had a great time Saturday night. My friends Len, B.J. & Bev and I went to dinner at Sneaky Tiki (pricy but fun, with tasty appetizers). On the way there Len and I shared a cab with a nice woman we met at The Trolley Stop Where The Trolley Never Seems To Be Coming and in our 6 block ride together heard the nutshell version of her life which entailed decades as a Southern Baptist preacher and head of a funeral home business in Texas before realizing a few years back that none of that was right and he was a she. "On Sunday I said farewell to my congregation, on Monday I sold my business and by Wednesday I was on my way to San Francisco to begin transitioning." We all agreed it was good to let go of the things that don't fit in your life and she said "yes, like Southern Baptism, the Republican party and conservative Texas". She positively radiated that "I'm on the path that is absolutely right for me" vibe that's so energizing. I love this town.

After dinner, Len, B.J., Bev and I walked over to Natoma Street to a little tiny hidden theater space to see TVLand Presents Star Trek Episode 4: Mudd's Women at Theatre Tableau Vivant. Tremendous fun and Leigh Crow does an amazing job as Kirk. Marvelous satire and yet also capturing why he's a such a likeable character. I'll definitely be watching for TVLand's next show.

Had a lovely lazy Sunday brunching and puttering around Open Studios with a certain very pleasing fellow.

So, my weekend having including all the necessary ingredients: alone time to kick back, hanging out with friends time, getting chores done time, laughing time, enjoying local creativity time, kissing a handsome man time, being fed tasty food time, and the aforementioned sipping cocktails, clever interior design, flirting with cute boys, outrageous fashion, witty friends and more than my minimum recommended weekend allowance of gender-bending, I'm ready to face the week.

Absolution 2005

My friend David writes, and I heartily concur,

NO, I'M NOT KEEPING UP WITH YOUR BLOG.

I would like to. I really would. I like it and I like you.

But we're now well past the point where we can keep up with all the blogs worth reading from the people worth keeping up with.

I just can't do it any more.

I've been faking it for a while. Months. Maybe a year. If we've met and I look confused about something you told me, and if you said, "I blogged it," as if that should be explanation enough, I've made some excuse as if I read every one of your posts except that one.

The truth is, I probably haven't read your blog in weeks. Months maybe.

And I don't expect you to have read mine.

I don't want to lie any more. I don't want to feel guilty any more. So let me tell you flat out: There are too many blogs I like and too many people I like to making "keeping up" a reasonable expectation, any more than you should expect me to keep up with Pokemon characters or Bollywood movies. You shouldn't expect me to and I'm not going to feel guilty any longer about my failure.

I will read your blog on occasion, either because I've been thinking of you or because something reminded me of you. Maybe it'll be because you sent me an email pointing a post you think I'll enjoy. Go ahead! I'd love to hear from you.

But I hereby release you from thinking I expect you to keep up with my blog, and I preemptively release myself from your expectations.

Otherwise reading each other's blogs will become a joyless duty. And we're too good friends to do that to each other.

[This post written Saturday morning just before 10am, but posting deferred until Monday so as to provide more time for those people who aren't reading my blog a chance to see the announcement about the Carmina Burana production.]

I am not a journalist, I'm a writer. 2005

"Folks, journalism is a craft. It takes a lot of time to learn to do well. There are rules, written and unwritten, that are applied. Laws that matter. Experience that you have to earn. Journalism - good journalism - is really, really hard.

Blogging, like you're reading now, is not hard. It's not supposed to be. A lot of people have worked very hard to make blogging as easy as typing a thought and hitting a button. That's the beauty of blogging - anyone can do it, about anything.

So again I say: Please, for the love of all that's good and holy, do NOT turn bloggers into journalists!"

Derek Powazek, Bloggers Don't Let Your Children Grow Up to Be Journalists