Among the many things that Google is useful for is its ability to serve as a poor man’s spell checker. You can type a single word into the search box and - if spelled correctly - the blue tab bar at the top of the results reads “Searched English pages for .” Clicking on this word will take you to Dictionary.com.
I was posting over at mt.net today and wanted to make sure that I had spelled the word “scourge” correctly, so I used Google to check it out.
The point of all this is that in searching for “scourge” I came across this article entitled “The Scourge of Arial”. It’s essentially an elitist diatribe from some designer about how the Arial font - the bedrock font in all Windows systems - is the white trash of fonts.
Now I know that I write some pretty lengthy rants about stuff that’s pretty stupid, but I think this guy might have me beat. 
Since most respected publications produce a year-in-review article each year, I decided that the fact that the blizzog isn’t respected by anyone shouldn’t stop us from doing the same thing. I thought I’d take a look back at the highs and lows of baby blizzog’s first year. In writing this it became apparent that there was a lot of territory to cover, so I’m splitting this up into a few posts. Today’s post covers the first month of the blizzog’s existence, a very formative and volatile time on the site. Enjoy.
The blizzog officially launched on February 9th with a little intro from me about how hard it was to create the blizzog for myself and a few words about what I hoped the site would become. At this point, there was no Smart Remarks capabilities and you can see from the post that I was still working out my HTML parsing logic. Ahh…those early days.
The first actual non-blizzog post came the next day, when Ben Curtis the Dell Guy got busted for buying some of the wacky. Thus began the blizzog tradition of picking on marginal celebrities who do stupid things.
Also on the 10th, the blizzog reached an important milestone in its development, when the “Smart Remarks Engine” (my fancy title for comment capability) went live on the blizzog. Ironically, no one had any comment about the fact that you could now post comments.
February 11th marked another important moment in blizzog history, as the first Smart Remarks were posted to “Sellout“, a crackback on my boy Jeff of JT.net for pushing me to create the Smart Remarks Engine then not staying up to see the fruits of my labor. “A concerned friend” became the first of many anonymous blizzogers to add their smart remarks to the site.
The content for the rest of February mostly sucked. As I was trying to help the blizzog find its voice we sorta hit to all fields. There was some “sites that I like” posts and some “jt.net sucks” posts and some more “marginal celebrity smack” posts. I was trying a little bit of everything to see what was fun to write about and what wasn’t.
February 17th marked my first real take on something that pissed me off, a theme that would eventually take its coat off and make itself comfortable in the blizzog for the remainder of time. “Hot Stock Tip” was about the unworldly amount of receipts that we are given by places like the grocery store and Blockbuster and how that irritates me to no end. Though, like most of the time, I found my take to be quite insightful and funny, the blizzog readers, like most of the time, didnt’ really have much to say about it. I still felt better after getting that off my chest though.
A week later I wrote my first “diary” post: my personal account of the 2003 Grammy Awards. Though a blatant rip-off of my man, Bill Simmons - The Sports Guy, this post was a lot of fun to write.
Of course what would the blizzog be without a little “NC State Sux” smack thrown in for good measure? For those of you that don’t know by now, some of my really good friends have an unfortunate allegiance to State College in Raleigh, otherwise known as North Carolina State. Part of the fun of living in North Carolina, the heart of ACC country, is the countless opportunities you and your friends have to remind each other about how much their favorite ACC school sucks. Though always good-natured, the smack can run hot and heavy at times. In my opening salvo of anti-State rhetoric, I presented “A Shout-Out To Moo U“. The post essentially described a few derisive songs I’d learned to the tune of the NC State fight songs while I was in college. It was a little good-natured ribbing before a UNC basketball game against State, which we lost…. again.
I normally wouldn’t have mentioned this post specifically in the review were it not for a few things. One, this happened to be the first post my mother ever read on the blizzog. I had been telling my mom for weeks that she should check it out because it was an outlet for my writing and I thought she’d find it enjoyable. Needless to say it was a bit awkward when she called the next day and asked, “What made you think that I would find songs about sodomizing farm animals enjoyable?” Heh. Ooops. Second, in researching this post I noticed some new smart remarks from early this December from Seth Robinson (goncstatepack2580@hotmail.com), an obvious State Fan. Note that I originally made this post in February, and Seth is posting back to me in December. Anyway, Seth (goncstatepack2580@hotmail.com) was kind enough to remind me that….
a.) The words NCU appear in our fight song.
b.) What the real words to the NC State fight song are… and
c.) That State beat us the day I posted this.
Thanks, Seth (goncstatepack2580@hotmail.com). In the spirit of giving this holiday season I thought I would remind you of a few things as well.
a.) You have to be some kind of true loser to find my site and post smack about a State-Carolina game that happened 10 months ago.
b.) I went to Carolina so I know what the words to the fight song and alma mater are. Thanks for the refresher though…. and
c.) Never, ever, ever, post your e-mail address (goncstatepack2580@hotmail.com) in the Email field of Smart Remarks. Here’s a clue. It’s really there for entertainment purposes only. Oh…well it’s also there so that your e-mail address can be harvested by every spambot this side of Seoul. Have fun getting that mortgage/weight loss/penis enlargement problem taken care of.
And, I’m spent. Tune in later this week for more of the blizzog 2k3 in review.
Merry Christmas, everyone! I hope that you all had as good a Christmas morning as I have had. Enjoy your time with family and friends today.
I hope that you all have a wonderful Christmas Eve. Make sure you leave plenty of room for Santa to get in and out tonight! Merry Christmas.
This just in from the Very Bad Ideas Department: Apparently Michael Jackson has been seeking counsel and advice on his legal troubles from none other than Darryl Strawberry. Great idea, Mike.
I’m sure you will get all kinds of great advice on things like how to keep getting second, third, fourth, and fifth chances after getting caught with drugs…err, little boys. You will also learn things about how to run away from your family for days without telling them where you are, only to surface later with a hooker on the wrong side of town and some drugs…scratch that, little boys. Though Straw could also probably give you some great tips on how to have sex with other people in your treatment program in exchange for cigarettes, I’m pretty sure there won’t be anyone around you would like to have sex with in your treatment facility.
After you get the skinny from Darryl, be sure to thank all of your friends and advisors for really looking after your best interests. It seems they are doing a wonderful job on your behalf. While you’re at it you should ask them if they can get Mike Tyson to come and give you advice on how not to look like such a freak when you are talking to the media. I’m sure there is a lot you could learn from Iron Mike.
Best of luck, Jacko, and happy holidays.
I thought I’d decorate for the holidays. 
The producers of reality TV show “The Bachelor” are suing their latest bachelor, Bob Guiney, to keep him from becoming a triple threat. A “triple threat” is usually someone who excels in three arenas in the entertainment industry. You know, like Jennifer Love Hewitt is an actress, dancer, and terrible singer? In this case, it seems Bob is trying to be a mortgage broker, reality TV media whore, and terrible singer.
The show’s producers are suing Guiney and his record label Wind-Up Records to prevent them from promoting Guiney’s new album, 3 Sides. Apparently Guiney signed an exclusivity contract with the show’s producers that allows them to approve any outside endorsements he does. From the sound of things, I’d say they are doing Bob a favor.
By the way, if you still haven’t bought me anything for Christmas - and shame on you if you haven’t - I’ll give you a hint. I don’t want to tell you exactly what to get me, but let’s just say that even though I live in the South it can still get cold around here.
With seven murders in the last week, Greensboro has set a new record for homicides in a single year with 38. This is the highest mark since the city had 37 in 1991. Yikes! I guess we’re not in Cary anymore, Toto.
Yikes! It looks like I have 11 years to find a new profession. What should I do next?
I’d like to welcome the newest member of the blog community, my sister Katie. Katie is using the free Blogger tool to host her blog at the als0-free blogspot.com. I’m very proud of you, little sis.
I would also encourage you blizzog readers out there to take advantage of this neat little program. I know that there are those of you that have cool things to say and I’d love to read them. After all, you can only look at the same post on jt.net for a week before you want to stab your own eyes out.
