It's times like these that I wonder if I've been at this blogging thing a bit too long. I ask that question because I've done it again. I've done the same thing in 2007 that I did a year ago in 2006.
I missed my own blogiversary.
Yes, believe it or not, yesterday was the third anniversary of a cold and dreary Saturday when, more or less on a whim, I sat down in front of my computer and wondered if I could do this blogging thing that had been written about in the media so much over the preceding few months. After all, I had had several years' experience sparring with Holocaust deniers, creationists, and alternative medicine advocates on Usenet, but that had grown a bit stale. I wondered if blogging might be a better outlet for the wonder that is Orac. Firing up Blogger, I created an account, and the very first incarnation of Respectful Insolence was born. It took a few weeks, but other skeptical bloggers started to notice me and, with judicious links by the likes of P. Z. Myers and others plus the exposure due to my hosting the Second Meeting of the Skeptics' Circle (little suspecting that I would end up organizing the this blog carnival less than six months later) and an edition of Grand Rounds, the blog was off and running. Finally, in late 2005, I was invited to join the ScienceBlogs collective (my entry into which, due to forces beyond my control and some dithering on my part, didn't happen, alas, until February 2006, making me miss being part of the first wave of bloggers), and things really took off after that.
I haven't looked back since.
Of course, three continuous years in the blogosphere makes me pretty long-lived as bloggers go. Assuming I make it to a fourth blogiversary (and, given how much I enjoy blogging, I see no reason right now why I wouldn't, although I can see how life circumstances could force me to cut back on my usual excessively manic blogging pace next year), I have to wonder if I'll even notice next time that the anniversary has arrived.
Traditionally, this is your leather anniversary. I hope you like the feel of leather and the smell of boots.
Congratulations on another year! Hope you have many more.
Congratulations!
Congrats to one of the big dogs out there.
Got my next blogaversary coming up on the 15th, and I'd better not be late to my own party, like I was last year.
So your the one with the carrot coming out of the top of your head?
Congrats - here's to another year of stomping out ignorance :) Keep up the good work!!
Congrats! It's incredibly hard to blog often and well, and I have no idea how people like you and PZ do it with demanding jobs and even families.
I started a blog long before blogging existed, and didn't even know it: I even wrote a bunch of blogging software to run my site and let other people blog... but never had the bright idea to try and distribute or sell it. As such, it's taken long and bitter years to swallow my pride and actually start blogging for real.
Ahoy, Orac! May 2008 bring no abatement to your feverish blogging pace!
Uncle Dave, that is not a carrot.
Also, Orac's picture is to the left of the page title. He's the plastic box with wires and lights.
Congrats on another year of blogging.
You do good work.
Congrats!
There is something deeply disturbing about that picture but I can't quite put my finger on it.
I can, but will refrain from making it explicit.
Impressive, indeed.
Congrats on the anniversary!
You are one of my daily reads, always interesting.
Fake!!!!
Congrats on another fine year.
Now, crank up your Mac and use the computer's calendar program to remind you next year.
I think I started reading you regularly just after you first began blogging, and you've always been consistently interesting. Alternative quackery, conspiracy theories, medical discussions, holocaust denial, a dose of woo every Friday, and a giant enema with a cute little face. What more could one ask?
How about putting your own cute little face in place of the mechanical box?
HCN wrote;
"He's the plastic box with wires and lights."
Theres a white lab rat in that box.
It can't be? These Antivacc and Woomeister's have been matching wits with a lab rat for three years?
Okay, I can't really see the white rat. But if there is one, I am sure it is being digested. A bigger picture here:
http://www.sdc.org/~ragan/Orac.jpg
In the tiny photo I had only assumed there was a rat inside.
If I was going to make an assumption that there was something alive in the box, it should have been Schrodinger's cat?