21 years

Bored and Drunk by Oliver Perry Rauch
(click image to enlarge)

Today is my blogiversary. Flares into Darkness turns 21 years old. It occurs to me the blog is now old enough to drink, so I assume it will be off on a bender tonight. Hopefully it will have a designated driver, so it doesn't end up on the side of the road making a fool out of itself doing a field sobriety test. And, if that should happen, we can only hope the body cam footage doesn't end up on the internet.

As for Flares, it started out as a group blog, but gradually, one by one, the other posters drifted away. At one time it was largely dormant with me posting very erratically, only once every couple of months. Eventually, for reasons even I can't fathom, I started posting more regularly. It also used to be more focused on politics and current events, but I think other sites do a much better job than I of covering such matters, so I just focus on whatever amuses me: art on Sunday, music on Friday, and whatever catches my eye on Wednesday. 

That's the state of this blog today. I thank my small cadre of regulars that drop by, and I hope that the visitors who wander in are at least momentarily entertained by my nonsense. Have a good one all.

 

Still here

A tastefully decorated Mackenzie-Childs bench

Today is the 17th Anniversary of the first post to this blog. I always wonder what newer visitors think when they see the contributor list when me, and The Robotolizer, are the only ones who ever post here. It started out as a group blog, but all the others have moved on to greener pastures. I'm left as sort of a caretaker -- keeping the lights on by posting bits of nonsense, deleting spam comments, and doing other highly important blog managerial tasks. Still, 17 years is a long time in the blogverse and so I'll pop a bottle and celebrate a bit.

As for the picture that accompanies this post, the gift for a 17th anniversary is supposed to be furniture and I figured that the Mackenzie-Childs bench would fit in nicely with the decor of this place. 

 

Fifteen years

Celebrating 15 years together with our dear readers

Today is the 15th anniversary of the first post on Flares into Darkness, hence the beautiful crystal (the recommended gift for a 15th anniversary) pictured above. Flares started as a group blog by people who were regular commenters on Roger Simon's pre PJ Media blog. Gradually the other contributors drifted away to more fruitful pastimes leaving only me. 

This will be the 6,321st post on this blog. The most popular post is Opening Act by Charles Martin (you may recognize his name from elsewhere) with ~52.5k views. My most popular post is The secret life of booth babes with ~21.2k views. However, this is not a high traffic blog, most posts draw from 100 to 500 views. Since well thought out opinion posts are a bridge too far for me, I guess I should do more cheesecake picture posts if I want more traffic.

I do enjoy my time here. I pretty much ignore the issues of the day, they are covered much better elsewhere, and instead I just make cheesy jokes and fixate on whatever odd corners of the universe I stumble upon. Enjoy.

  

An auspicious day

Due to the importance of this date, this post needs to be reflective, engaging and thought provoking. 

Alas I'm writing it, and me being me, it will veer off into silliness instead. Sorry about that.

To the left is a photo of a person dressed up like a pinata, who has given his girl friend a baseball bat. That strikes me as being an extraordinarily bad idea, what with the natural urge to whack pinatas. Better safe than sorry, if you ever feel the urge to dress in that costume -- don't.

At any rate, why am I claiming this date is so important? On this date five years ago MeaninglessHotAir posted the very first post to this blog. The blog was a group blog started by people who commented at Roger Simon's pre-Pajamas Media blog. Since then some people have joined it and others have moved on.

So to all our post authors over the years, Roger who inspired us, our commenters, lurkers and one time visitors -- heck even to the Chinese spambots who inflate our modest traffic --  I hope you'll join me in wishing a Happy Fifth Birthday to our little corner of the internet.