Wednesday, May 20, 2009

400

Hiya,

While I talk a lot about myself here, I tend not to talk much about the blog proper.  That said, I did want to take the opportunity of my 400th post to thank all my occasional and regular readers out there.  Thanks!  When I first started this blog, it wasn't really with the expectation that anyone would read it or find it interesting - I basically took a habit of journaling, and started typing and uploading them instead of just writing them down.

It's been nearly four years since I started, and it's already been pretty remarkable to see what the blog has become.  I flip back to the very earliest posts and am instantly awash in nostalgia, remembering how excited I felt upon first arriving in California, how limitless the possibilities felt.  I read other posts and am surprised by how far away the memories seem, or how recent, and occasionally stumble across something that I wouldn't remember at all if not for the electronic evidence.

One of the weirdest and most interesting aspects of the blog is noticing its transformation from an explicitly private to an explicitly public medium.  I first announced the blog in my instant messenger profile, including the warning, "Shhh - don't tell anyone!"  I eventually released that restriction, and also opened up the blog to Google's crawler.  Since then, although my regular readers continue to be friends, family, and co-workers, I've received a steady trickle of visitors from Google who have stumbled across my blog looking for something.

I have to think that, in general, these people are disappointed.  Some are obviously searching for useful information - like "Why is Quicken so slow?" - that my blog can't help them with.  Occasionally, though, they might have some interest in, say, a three-page-long description of appropriate strategies to use when fighting the Nazis on the coast of North Africa.  Hey, it's possible!

In commemoration of this quasi-anniversary, I thought it would be fun to share my personal "#1 List".  These are all queries that, at one time or another, returned a Timmy's House of Sprinkles post as the #1 Google search result.  Most have since fallen off the first page, but a surprising quantity (and surprising diversity) remain.

human sucker
house of sprinkles
fraa suur
manhunter sierra remake
timmy house
paranoia deja vu out to get me song
anime themed sprinkles
adjectives for narrators orientation daniel orozco
anathem printing error
ender and bean's relationship
Firefly Bebop
is the use of earth in anathem a typo?
mammoth camp age of ice civ iv
giant icon sprinkles
three adjectives that describe the narrator of Daniel Orozco’s Orientation
how to rid of graggles
build house for sprinkles
chief thief in qfgV
"al fontina" revere
being gangster isn't cool
jules verne anathem breathe air
everybody coming to get me song
paranoia paranoia everyone's coming to get you song
EMMAN BELDO
anathem down the wick
grand sheep
LISTENING terrifying stories
anathem ala arbitrary
you'll laugh you'll cry you'll wonder what they were thinking
how does christopher kimball stay skinny
grab that cash with both hands and make a stash, new car, caviar, four star daydream
house divide by zero
i'm in the high-fidelity first class traveling set
kill vivec early in morrowind
can sprinkles kill?
stabbytown
power mines games cave convox
Where is seller take back on debt stack
epona mulcarn
jimmy peregrino
high fidelity first class
godfather " seizing a warehouse"
test cook
Divide by zero house
keep your hands off my stack new car caviar
qfg1 vga maximizing lockpick

Thank you again for your interest, and above all, your patience.  Here's to a fun future!

3 comments:

  1. Congratulations on your 400th post! I'm still curious about the "Shh - don't tell anyone!" message though.

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  2. Oh - mainly, when I got started, I just wasn't sure if and how long I'd be able to keep it up. I wanted to do a "soft launch" of the blog and let it grow for a little while, instead of telling everyone I knew "I have a blog! Read it!" and then never updating it and watching it die. "Don't tell anyone!" was meant to ensure that only the small number of people who had my AIM screen name - heck, the smaller subset who had the screen name AND would bother to look at my profile - would know of the blog's existence.

    That said, SOME people did talk. You know who you are!

    All ancient history now, of course. I still don't actively promote the blog, but I do let Google and the grapevine do their work. If someone wants to read this, well, it's their own punishment.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Well, the slow-grow plan worked like a charm! Here's to 400 more posts!

    ReplyDelete