Happy Birthday, Blog!

My blog is getting so old. It's 6! Which in terms of blog years is like 102...so, yeah, getting up there! On November 3, 2004, the blog began. At the time I believe it was called Pat's Rants...and Other Stuff. Which, really, is as interesting a name as one could hope for when you are 21 and really don't know what you are doing. I set this up because the extended profile that I was using for AIM, where I would blog and rant and such, had gone corrupt. I wanted a place to rant and expound on my ideas...so this was born.

Right off the bat, it was riveting. Like, really, really interesting. I did talk about politics quite a bit, as this was just after Bush won his second term. And, I must say, I was really high on the Republican Party at the time. Pretty much everything I speculated would happen was wrong. But, in the post I wrote about "who's next" I was pretty spot on in pointing out who would probably be running again, even if my conclusions on these individual people weren't spot on. That actually really impressed me. But I was actively studying Political Science at the time, so I was paying good attention...and also in a very liberal town, so I was rebelling against that by speaking very far to the right (although, as many of my friends said at the time, I was far more moderate than I appeared to be from my blog). Anyways, very interesting stuff.

As 2004 became 2005, I notice that I was very sporatic in when and what I would write about. I mean, I was in college at the time, so I was busy doing other things. Didn't always want to write about stuff. So it came and went. Most of my writing centered around college, what I was doing, and issues I was having. As always, I was pretty open with people on there. I always have been. But it wasn't a particularly interesting year. The exception being a little run I went on in August of that year talking about relationships and such...theories I have. They have all sense been proven wrong, but it was at least interesting to write at the time!

2005 turned to 2006, and I was still in college. Which meant more sporatic posting. However, there were a few poignant posts that year that really still hit home with me. The first was in February where I described, in detail, when our house in Davis went to war against mice. Freaking epic. Then, at the end of March, I lost my dear friend Chris Piccardo. And I wrote about it. That piece, I don't mean to toot my own horn, but it still brings tears to my eyes. That was a really, really hard thing to go through, but I feel I expressed myself rather well there. Otherwise that year, my posts centered on 3 topics: me and my college shenanigans, sports, and dealing with Chris's passing. There was a really interesting post on death centered around the movie Donnie Darko in May...actually all of May that year was interesting. The rest of the year was boring, until I got into December. That December I graduated (and blogged about it), and also started up what has become an annual tradition, Q's Year in Review.

As 2006 became 2007, I really stopped writing in this blog very often. I was out of college, working, making money, and playing WoW. Life was good, and I really just didn't care to write everything down. I'm sad I didn't, now, because this blog has become a pretty awesome record of my life over the past 6 years...but it is what it is. 2007 was the year I almost died 3 times also. So, yeah, less than ideal. 2007 mostly sucked, so maybe its a good thing I didn't write much. Still did the year in review, though...and, as always, it was awesome.

In 2008, my blogging picked up substantially. The Monday Morning Rant (MMR) was created. We were in an election year. I moved into an apartment with Jason that year. And I travelled a ton. There was a lot to write about! I also introduced guest writers, and started trying to write about specific topics, rather than just general posts about my life or sports. And it turns out, I can be really entertaining when I want to be. There were still posts about me. My favorite part of doing this blog is how open with everyone I am. But there were some interesting posts on Man Laws, Poop, and Alpha Male Syndrome. Lots on the elections, because I tend to know more about politics than everyone else in the country (clearly!). The best post of the year, though, had to be my 200th blog post spectacular. It was epic. Seriously, go back and read it. 2008 was also the first year I broke up the Year in Review, and posted different parts of it on different days.

2009 was the first time I broke 100 posts in a year. Yeah, I write a lot. But a lot more of my life is going into this blog. Also, I'm doing some more interesting things now, because I have the money to do so. Finally, I can blog from work, and it helps fill the down times! 2009 also introduced the short lived Q's Challenge, where I would try to do 3 new things a week. I was somewhat successful at it, but realized through it that I was doing new things often enough that I didn't need to catalogue it. So that died. I also had an epic post about why we need a zombie attack, so that was fun!

And now it's 2010, and not much has changed from 2009 (except the design of the blog...which only changed recently). I still write about myself. I still write crazy random shit from time to time. I still write about sports. I still write on specific topics from time to time. And I still, on occasion, can be funny enough to make people spit their drink all over their monitor (hey now, I've heard reports of that happening!). I really can't believe it's been 6 years since I started this thing, and I'm still writing! Pretty awesome.

Anyways, as always, I hope you continue to enjoy reading this blog as much as I enjoy writing it. If you are a newer comer to this blog, or an old timer who wants to paruse the past, you can find all my old posts in the archive. When writing this I read through some of my old posts, and there's some pretty good ones back there (and a lot of boring ones back there...shit I was emo sometimes). Either way, good times!

Here's to the next 6 years of my thoughts and whims! Happy Birthday, blog!