...and I'm still here.
In 2009, PC launched on September 29th with a post by my now absentee partner, Souldat/Deftig, entitled Kicking Things Off.
Little did I know that the "Hey, would you like to create a blog together?" would turn into 1000 posts (!) and ~462000 views? That sounds like a lot until you realize that you have to divide it by month, and then it becomes a slightly less impressive ~3200 views and almost 7 posts a month. Then, when you consider the "contribution" that bots play in those view numbers, and....
Bah. I'll still have a beer. Twelve years is twelve years.
In those early years, Souldat wanted us to promote the blog as a potential watering hole for WoW fans. I was on board with that idea except that, well, there wasn't a lot of content for us to promote. So we wrote. And wrote.
And wrote.
We expanded to three contributors twice, but both didn't last very long. And I'm not very proud about being more vocal about one or two posts that one of the two wrote, either. But in the end, both moved on to other things, while Soul and I kept on going.
At about the point where I felt we were going to reach a critical mass in terms of eyeballs and commentary, our primary source of links, Righteous Orbs, closed up shop. Then The Pink Pigtail Inn. And WoW Insider stopped promoting blogs and blog posts. I guess we could have moved into using that newfangled Twitter to promote the blog, but I was never very fond of a platform where anything you say is right there in the public square to an extent that Usenet or blogging itself never was. And given my tendency to mouth off from time to time, I could get in some real trouble on Twitter. But despite the lack of direct promotion, we continued on.
Even Soul's declining contribution didn't stop me from just keeping with a (semi) regular schedule of posting 1-2 times a week.
By the time the WoW side of promotions was fading fast, I had already been experimenting with other MMOs, and I soon expanded my posts to include my adventures there. I also included pencil and paper gaming (such as D&D) and board games, aiming to broaden our gaming goals.
***
While I still do pay lip service to our 'About Parallel Context', this blog has effectively become my own for over a half dozen years now. And until this past week, I haven't really acknowledged it. So this week there have been a few small changes here and there that allow me to bow to reality.
Such as finally moving Soul to the "Past Contributors" section.
Or changing the title graphic to something a bit (?) more timely. I'll have to work on keeping that current, I guess.
I always wanted something like Rades did, with a gif of various scenes, but I'd have to pay for a gif builder, as I wanted a longer time between scenes than what the 'free' gif creators had. Or use a random pic selector, like what Ravanel Griffon did for Ravalation.*
That aside, I'll continue to make some tweaks to the blog as I become more comfortable in acknowledging that I'm basically the only contributor left. So like the time I got an entire dorm room to myself my junior year of college, I'll put up a map of Middle-earth, my Dark Side of the Moon poster, and this one:
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| My oldest has my poster now. |
Okay, now it's time for some tunes:
And yes, I hit two birds with one stone by selecting Yes' Roundabout along with the Jojo's endings. There's a great interview that Rick Beato had of Yes' Jon Anderson, and one of the things Rick asked was Jon's opinion of the usage of Roundabout for Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. Jon loved the use of Roundabout in the anime, because it allowed a new generation to get to know Yes' music.
This version of Tank! is from a local con back in 2018. That sax band lead in front? The one with the red tie? He also played in Ohio Wesleyan University's Park Avenue Jazz Ensemble concerts.
And you can't have a set of tunes without dipping into David Arkenstone's vast catalog. My wife and I saw him live at a Winter Solstice concert back in the late 90s, and his band was simply amazing. Twenty years on, he still looks really good.
*Damn, I miss her blog posts. Rav, if you're reading this stop in and say hi.
EtA: Corrected some grammar.
Many many many Congratulations, Red, on reaching such an outstanding milestone of longevity!
ReplyDeleteI am liking the changes to the blog layout, etc. Between the new phase of TBC Classic and the renewed roles of those two characters in the Retail plot, that banner is very timely indeed!
Also, huzzah for John Paul George and Ringo!
PS We need to be Battletag friends, like, years ago; I am Kamaliaetal#1587
Thanks, Kamalia! And yes, I'd sent you a B-Tag request! I'm winding down right now after our Friday night Kara run. "Briganaa the Bookie" needs to chill before bed.
DeleteCongratulations for 12 years! :) I joined along the way and have enjoyed your posts. It's good to see people keep the long form discussions going over the years. Here's to many more years of blog posts.
ReplyDeleteI had a brief exchange with Ravanel on Twitter when Mass Effect Legendary Edition came out, so she's still around. I know Twitter isn't your thing (understandable), but you could always just ping here there.
Thanks!
DeleteAnd yes, I should just ping her there. I do have a Twitter account --I created it to get in touch with someone who was going through some medical issues and she had gone silent on all other forms of communication-- but I never use it. (I get an almost daily "WHY AREN'T YOU USING TWITTER??!!!" email from Twitter about that.)
Grats on a dozen years. I confess I had no idea there had been anyone else involved with this blog other than you.
ReplyDeleteAs for Roundabout... Yes are one of the few bands I liked in my early teens that I still occasionally listen to now. I would have said Roundabout was one of theirs I'd always liked but yet againmy memory seems to be playing tricks. I started listening to the embedded clip and thirty seconds in I thought "What the hell is this? It sounds like two different songs playing at the same time!". I figured it must be a remix for the anime and a really nasty one at that so I went to YouTube to listen to the original to refresh my memory and the original, non-remastered version from Fragile sounded exactly the same! The JoJo version *is* the original.
So then I wondered if it was because the version I knew was the Yessongs live one. I played that album all the time when I was fourteen or fifteen but I never owned Fragile. My friend had it and now I think of it I remember I didn't like it much. I played the Yessongs version and it's nearly identical as it would be because Yes live sound almost exactly like the records.
Finally, I remembered that I never did like Roundabout. I used to avoid it when I played Yessongs. After fifty years I just remembered the big chorus and imagined there was a song I liked to go with it! So thanks for putting me straight on that. That's the value of a blog!
Now I'm going to listen to And You And I. I hope that's as good as I think it was.
Thanks! And yeah, it's understandable since I went back and checked Deftig's posts and discovered that he'd last regularly posted in 2011 (and his last post was in 2012).
DeleteAnd, uh, you're welcome? One of my finest memories back in college was a Friday afternoon my Junior year. I'd just gotten back from classes and decided I was going to take a nap before dinner, but before that I put the CD of Fragile on and cranked up the volume to drown out the other stereos nearby that were playing Bad English and Ozzy Osbourne. When Chris Squire's bass growled its way to the forefront of the music, I lay down on my bed and smiled. It was the weekend, and all was right with the world.
I do have myopia concerning how good music was back then, so you're not alone there. Alice Cooper's Poison was a good example of a song that I thought was good until I heard it again a few years ago; it was only then that I realized that Alice had ventured into hair metal, and average hair metal at that.
Congratulations on twelve years. That's a considerable amount of time in the real world, but it's even more so on the internet.
ReplyDeleteI have to admit I remember very little of your co-writers... as you admit yourself, it's been a long time since either of them posted. It's kind of funny to me that it took you so long to acknowledge the blog as simply yours now, but then I also find it comforting in a way - I often think that I'm slow at accepting change, but looking at you in comparison makes me feel a bit better. ;)
Speaking of posting about more than just WoW though, when are you going to give SWTOR another whirl? I remember you commenting on my blog a few times that you'd have to get back in and catch up at some point, but even that seems long ago now. What was the last bit of story you played through?
Thanks!
DeleteWell, a big part of the reason why refused to acknowledge reality is that Deftig actually created the blog, so a lot of the ultimate rights revert to him. I've taken steps to counter that --just in case something happens-- but I always thought of it as his blog first, and I was just writing here.
As for SWTOR, the last time I was on "current" content was KOTFE, after I'd spent most of the night getting caught up in what became the halfway point in the overall story. I've gone back since then and created about 3-4 new toons and played them through most of the "vanilla" SWTOR zones, but that's it. I still love the original stories that SWTOR has, and I always worry that the game will become unrecognizable to me just like Retail WoW did.
You should take at least one character into the post-KotFE content some time. :) I really feel they've gone back to their roots in terms of storytelling in recent years, even if it's not class-specific anymore. As someone who cares about MMOs telling a coherent tale, it would be interesting to hear your thoughts.
DeleteHi Redbeard, locked out of my atherne gmail acct because we changed routers...happens every time...somehow it always lets this old one by though. So Happy 12th! It's an accomplishment! Nice site changes as well.
ReplyDeleteAtheren
Thanks, Atheren!!! I greatly appreciate it!!!
DeleteHappy blogaversary!
ReplyDeleteSeems you have me beat by 3 weeks. :)
Awesome! So I'll make a point to drop by in a few weeks!!
DeleteHappy blogaversary, Red! I have only really followed your blog in the Classic era but greatly enjoy reading of your adventures.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Blairos!! I appreciate it!!
DeleteAaaaiiiiieee! Big congratulations on 12 years, that's so great. You have no idea how great it is for me when idiotic real life interferes I can always I can always come here to feel better and check on life in Azeroth! TotA
ReplyDeleteAncient, I couldn't have kept going all this time without encouragement from you and all the others. Thank you so much!
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