No, it doesn’t say “Anus Bloggus”. Settle down, Beavis.
What that means, is that I have completed one full year of blogging, which is like seven years in the mainstream media. This blog has been, at best, mildly popular during that time, so I’m not rolling out the cake with strippers inside, exactly. But I did want to reflect just the tiniest bit on where this blog came from and where it’s been. Where it’s going would involve foresight, and I have none.
I actually started this blog as a challenge from a classmate at Old Dominion. We were supposed to be setting out a plan that would help us envision what it would take to become successful writers, and I said “the main thing I need to do is get used to writing every day.” So my partner in the exercise says “You should start a blog”. So you have her to thank, genius that she is. I know I need to track her down and say thanks, for certain.
I started out to just write satire, but my first post happened to be tangentially sports-related:
Can You TiVo This and Save My Leg, Doc?
At the time, though, I tried to be topical with the news as well:
A couple weeks later, I had my first national attention, again for a sports satire, but the link was on College Humor instead of Deadspin. This one related to the big scandal from last year’s world series.
Then, just before the end of my inaugural month, I discovered the joys of Deadspin with this gem, which I’m still kind of proud of:
Open Letter to a Pedantic Killjoy
Tell me that doesn’t stand up today. I also used to make a cottage industry out of joking Peyton Manning’s OCD, until he had to ruin it all by winning the Super Bowl.
Peyton Manning Complicates Everything!
And, the post that by far wins the longevity championship is this one:
Rugby vs. Football = Apples vs. Oranges
No single day of this post’s existence has much exceeded fifty views, but it averages double-digit views every day since I wrote it a couple of months ago. Maybe it was the coincidental timing of the Rugby World Cup, but I still can’t figure out where the views are coming from – no referrer shows up in my stats bar. What I do know, is that I have been chastised for not knowing the rules of rugby (the premise of the piece, I must say), and it has been suggested that perhaps I should get off my skirt and get in the game if I want to know how it works. Whatever – just keep reading and commenting, and we’ll come to an understanding some day.
Since then, there have been a great many posts, and over 200,000 hits, mostly by way of outside sources who were kind enough to loan me their readers for a day. The best thing about that whole time is the collaboration aspect of it all. I’ve been a part of the Awful Announcing Channel Four News Team since it was formed, just before the NCAA tournament. And while that might sound gimmicky, it hasn’t been – our styles really mesh, and we work really well together when such an effort is required.
Shorty and Ted Bauer have both provided me with guest posts from time to time, and I’ve suckered invited sympatico bloggers like TC, Jack Cobra, and Sooze to help me overcome my lack of true baseball knowledge by helping me write Voodoo Sabermetrics and some of the Smells Like Pujols posts. I’ve been quite pleased to make the acquaintance of great sports writers like Jay Busbee and Michael Litos, as well.
I’ve also met some great (as yet) unknown blog writers, and I am loath to name them for fear that my mental sieve will leak at the wrong moment. Suffice to say – if I love your writing, I have tried to work with you at any opportunity, which is my way of saying “you rock”.
Wow, this is far more pedantic than I intended to be. I’ll just conclude by saying thanks for reading, and I’ll see you next week, at the beginning of year two.
(golf claps)
Congratulations.
To steal a line from one of my all time favorite cartoons, Tom Slick, “Yay”…
That’s my kid, shoving cake in his face at his own first birthday. I amused myself mightily searching through the photo archives for those.
Congrats buddy…thanx for letting me grace your pages…I appreciate it!
Ya know… this wouldn’t be a REAL Extrapolater post if someone didn’t leave a comment with an obnoxious and unnecessary correction to something you wrote.
[i]Should I mention the Latin grammar error? No, no, no. It’s his BIRTHDAY, damnit…[/i]
Congrats, my man. Hopefully this is just Year 1 of the young and blossoming Extrapolater Era. A pleasure to read, as always.
I knew I was opening myself up to abuse of my Latin, since I have none. I was thinking “do I copy the Anno Domini construction, or does that make me sound like I have a Jesus complex?”
But the final deciding factor was being able to make the Beavis joke.
Keep doing what you’re doing.
Congrats!
Cake & candles at ya baby! Keep on rockin’!
Woo-hoo! Congrats, Extra P. 200,000 hits–very impressive. Although we both know it’s not just about hits, that’s one measure to know that you’re doing something right with a site.
Those “big hit” days are always more meaningful to me as a gauge of what another writer thinks of what I’ve done that day. If Will or Henry Abbott thinks I wrote something compelling (or, more likely, suggestive) that day, then they anoint me as “safe for reading” that day. For all I know, 100,000 of those people clicked the link, looked for three seconds, and then moved on without reading (or went back to write a smarty-pants comment).
While appreciative, I will have to note that you have clearly violated some Law of Sobriety by naming me a great sports writer. But thanks.
Even more so, congratulations. Call me a sucker, but quality content wins in the end. Keep rolling, as this site oozes quality.
What a relief, Dr. Litos. I knew something was oozing, but I had no idea it was quality. Whew!
[…] Posted by semitough under Blogging Blogman Big E, aka ExtraP, aka The Extrapolater is having a birthday! When I started this enterprise a little over a year ago, his was one of the […]
Congratulations, Extra P, for a great year (or about 6 internet years) of blogging.
Technically, I’m not celebrating my blog anniversary until I officially decided to make it a sports blog, October 28th.
I thought yours had to be coming up soon – I’ll start the countdown.
Congrats Extra P. And you should be proud of all your success. It’s definitely been a fun site to read over the past year, and here’s to another hopefully even more successful year.