This Blog Is The Cockroach Of Blogs …
Ten years ago today, I started this blog.
TEN YEARS.
That’s longer that 99% of Hollywood marriages!!!
Now while I’ve experienced a huge amount of things in that time …
I’ve lived in 4 countries.
I got married.
I got a cat.
I had a baby.
My mum passed away.
I sold both my companies.
I got to travel the World.
I qualified as a bloody teacher.
I bought countless amounts of tech rubbish.
I managed to still stay employed.
Got to do some of the best work I’ve ever done.
I had the best holiday of my entire life.
I had the most needed holiday of my entire life.
… and so has the World …
Global economic collapse.
Olympic Games in China and London.
The re-emergence of global terrorism.
The first black President.
[Yes, I know there’s a ton more, but my memory isn’t what it used to be]
… the fact is, the standard of my writing and my posts subject matter have remained pretty much the same.
Want proof?
Here’s the very first post I wrote.
Now you might think that I’m dissing myself by highlighting this fact, but when you take into account I’ve written TWO THOUSAND SEVEN HUNDRED POSTS [I know, mad eh!] I think it shows a level of consistency and reliability than Volkswagen would be jealous of.
According to the stats, there’s literally been millions of idiots who have supposedly visited this blog – but the fact is, the majority of comments have come from pretty much the same small group of people as it always did.
Sure, some have come, some have gone … some have even gone and then come back … and even this blog supposedly closed down only to start up again because I’m a sad, sadomasochistic fool … but the fact is I have to admire their commitment and industriousness because they’ve managed to write over SIXTY FOUR THOUSAND comments between them.
Or should I say 64,000 insults.
OK, of that 64,000 … at least half are by me trying to protect my honour, but that’s still impressive.
Of course, it could be argued that the reason so many people now check out my rubbish is because there’s less blogs now than there used to be.
Back in 2006, every man and his dog had one … but in the past 10 years, it appears people have grown up and decided it’s better to live a life rather than write about one. Or they simply moved all their complaining over to Twitter.
While some may say the reason I have continued writing when everyone else has left is because I am always a few years behind the times, I prefer to think of it as me winning the ultimate game of [blog] survivor.
Except by me winning, it means humanity has lost.
But despite everything … despite all the good, bad and indifferent stuff that has happened on this blog … I feel this blog has made a powerful difference in my life.
Not because of the rubbish I write – though it has been interesting to debate and learn from people as well as see how my viewpoints have evolved/changed in the past decade – but because it’s introduced me to a whole host of wonderful and interesting people.
The reality is there’s now a bunch of people in my life that are here because of this blog.
Sure, some of them I knew already.
In fact some of them I worked for – or with.
However there’s a bunch that I only know because of this thing I write every day.
I’ve been fortunate to meet many of them – but there’s still a few who have managed to stay away [well done Northern and Marcus] – but the fact is I’m super grateful to have them in my life and despite their cheek and mischief, I know that when the shit hits the fan [as it did last year when Mum passed away], they are watching out for me.
That’s pretty wonderful for anyone, even more so when it’s the byproduct of starting something simple because I wanted a place where I could release – or store – my brainfarts.
God knows if this blog will have another 10 years in it – I know you hope it doesn’t – but the first decade of it ended up being pretty damn awesome. At least for me. So thank you.
Life With Less Distraction …
A old friend of mine recently sent me this …
I love it. Not just because I relate to it but because it reminds me of a story about my Dad.
When I was growing up, I used to have a lot of friends come to my house and – like it shows in the photo – they would dump their bikes outside the house or on our lawn.
Sometimes the bikes would be out there for a few minutes and sometimes for the whole day.
We didn’t have to worry about them getting stolen – not just because crime was very low – but because the community I lived in meant everyone knew each other so if someone saw someone on a bike they knew wasn’t there’s, they’d get a smack round the earhole and be told to return it.
Social interaction was different back then.
We would turn up at each others houses unannounced just to see if you wanted to come out and play.
We could have used our home telephones to see if our mates were in – and we occasionally did – but the whole attitude to life was much more spontaneous.
Nowadays, if a mate turned up at my house unannounced, my initial reaction would either be mild irritation or concern for their mental state.
Anyway, I digress.
While my parents loved the house being full of noise, my Dad hated it when we left our bikes on the drive because it meant he couldn’t easily get the car in or out of the garage.
One day – during the big school holidays of the 1980’s – Paul was at my house and we’d left our bikes on my drive.
We’d been playing happily for a few hours when my Dad came home and wanted to see how we were.
After chatting with him for a while, Paul and I decided to go out so we left the house only to discover OUR BIKES WEREN’T ON THE DRIVE.
We looked on the grass.
Nothing.
We looked down the side of the house.
Nothing.
We looked on the pavement.
Nothing.
We started to panic and ran back into the house to ask my Dad if he’d moved them.
“No”, he said.
We started getting upset, not just because Paul had an expensive posers BMX Mongoose, but because our bikes were our independence … so my Dad told us the only thing to do is walk to the local police station and either report the crime or see if someone had handed them in.
Upset, we set off to report the loss of our beloved bikes.
We had only gone a few minutes when we heard my Dad shouting at us to come back.
We ran home and he led us to the garage.
He pulled open the door but instead of seeing his car in there, we saw our bikes.
As we were trying to work out what the hell was going on, my Dad turned to us and said,
“Don’t leave your bikes in the driveway again”.
We never did.
I miss his lessons.
And I hope Otis gets to enjoy the same sort of childhood I had.
Filed under: Attitude & Aptitude, Comment, History, Unplanned
Ten years ago today, I started this blog.
TEN YEARS.
That’s longer that 99% of Hollywood marriages!!!
Now while I’ve experienced a huge amount of things in that time …
I’ve lived in 4 countries.
I got married.
I got a cat.
I had a baby.
My mum passed away.
I sold both my companies.
I got to travel the World.
I qualified as a bloody teacher.
I bought countless amounts of tech rubbish.
I managed to still stay employed.
Got to do some of the best work I’ve ever done.
I had the best holiday of my entire life.
I had the most needed holiday of my entire life.
… and so has the World …
Global economic collapse.
Olympic Games in China and London.
The re-emergence of global terrorism.
The first black President.
[Yes, I know there’s a ton more, but my memory isn’t what it used to be]
… the fact is, the standard of my writing and my posts subject matter have remained pretty much the same.
Want proof?
Here’s the very first post I wrote.
Now you might think that I’m dissing myself by highlighting this fact, but when you take into account I’ve written TWO THOUSAND SEVEN HUNDRED POSTS [I know, mad eh!] I think it shows a level of consistency and reliability than Volkswagen would be jealous of.
According to the stats, there’s literally been millions of idiots who have supposedly visited this blog – but the fact is, the majority of comments have come from pretty much the same small group of people as it always did.
Sure, some have come, some have gone … some have even gone and then come back … and even this blog supposedly closed down only to start up again because I’m a sad, sadomasochistic fool … but the fact is I have to admire their commitment and industriousness because they’ve managed to write over SIXTY FOUR THOUSAND comments between them.
Or should I say 64,000 insults.
OK, of that 64,000 … at least half are by me trying to protect my honour, but that’s still impressive.
Of course, it could be argued that the reason so many people now check out my rubbish is because there’s less blogs now than there used to be.
Back in 2006, every man and his dog had one … but in the past 10 years, it appears people have grown up and decided it’s better to live a life rather than write about one. Or they simply moved all their complaining over to Twitter.
While some may say the reason I have continued writing when everyone else has left is because I am always a few years behind the times, I prefer to think of it as me winning the ultimate game of [blog] survivor.
Except by me winning, it means humanity has lost.
But despite everything … despite all the good, bad and indifferent stuff that has happened on this blog … I feel this blog has made a powerful difference in my life.
Not because of the rubbish I write – though it has been interesting to debate and learn from people as well as see how my viewpoints have evolved/changed in the past decade – but because it’s introduced me to a whole host of wonderful and interesting people.
The reality is there’s now a bunch of people in my life that are here because of this blog.
Sure, some of them I knew already.
In fact some of them I worked for – or with.
However there’s a bunch that I only know because of this thing I write every day.
I’ve been fortunate to meet many of them – but there’s still a few who have managed to stay away [well done Northern and Marcus] – but the fact is I’m super grateful to have them in my life and despite their cheek and mischief, I know that when the shit hits the fan [as it did last year when Mum passed away], they are watching out for me.
That’s pretty wonderful for anyone, even more so when it’s the byproduct of starting something simple because I wanted a place where I could release – or store – my brainfarts.
God knows if this blog will have another 10 years in it – I know you hope it doesn’t – but the first decade of it ended up being pretty damn awesome. At least for me. So thank you.