The other day I was thinking about how I haven’t posted on my blog in a long time. Blog. It sounds funny to say it.
Blog.
It’s short for “web log”, a thing I forget and then remember every time Iook it up, kind of like how I have to remind myself that the Dakotas are east of Montana, not below Montana (just double-checked, yup that’s where they are alright!).
Side note: Blog is not, apparently, short for “blogosphere” — at least not any more than ATM is short for “atmosphere.”
And for those more than a year-and-a-half older than me or a year-and-a-half younger than me, blogging was all the rage… for about three years. Anyone blogging before that was updating their unread GoDaddy webpage. Anyone doing it after that was just stalling while they waited for one of their East Coast college friends to gift them an unused Facebook invite. Was I the only one whose friends kept sending them expired Facebook invites? Anyway…
For a brief, shining three years, give or take :D, from 2004 to 2006, blogs certainly sort of definitely maybe existed. I guess I have my doubts because accessing my old Live Journal account is like requesting a home loan while wearing an overcoat and being three babies on each others’ shoulders… there are a lot of security questions, proving who you are, and peering.
But after several attempts, I got in and was able to see my very first blog post. Here is it in all it’s unedited glory:
“Currently moving over to LiveJournal. Pardon the construction. In the meantime… your results: You are Spider-Man. You are intelligent, witty, a bit geeky and have great power and responsibility.” (click to take the test again!)
I guess I was moving over from maybe Blogspot? Blogger? I seem to recall that my previous content — prior to this beauty of a first post — was mostly game related. Perhaps some of my best material, but lost to the sands of time. And before that my content was comprised of pretentious ramblings on AOL. Like you do.
And, perhaps we should be thankful that social media is limited to 40 or 140 characters… or to a six second video. Although a staged reading of my pre-2000 AOL Hometown pages would be must-see community theater if I do say so myself. And all of it does exist on a thumb drive somewhere.
Side note: Does anyone know if you can just give those VHS & DVD converter services — the ones you see on fliers taped to telephone poles — an, I don’t know, ziplock bag full of USB drives and tell them to throw it all up on Google Drive? Asking for a friend.
Or better yet, can we make our first, embarrassing blog posts into a game?
Introducing the “Predictive First Blog Post Game”…
- Guess at what platform you first blogged on.
- Remember the name of your first girlfriend or first car you owned.
- Log into the oldest email service you can recall using.
- Fat-finger a few wrong passwords, then give up and reset it.
- Scroll way Way WAY back to your first blog post.
- Read it. Laugh. (Grammarly doesn’t sound so stupid now, does it!)
- Open a new text doc.
- Type the first few words of your nascent post and then let predictive text complete the post for you.
Yup. I didn’t invent the predictive text game, but I sure may have discovered what it was meant for. Here’s what mine turned into (original post’s first words in CAPS):
CURRENTLY MOVING OVER TO theater is a great place for kids and family and we can wine or dinner and the food was good but we had a great experience and the service is excellent game to play like this app facebook or facebook facebook or facebook facebook facebook or…
Cool. I like facebook and food. Checks out. But what happens if I try it with a slightly older device that has several years rather than just a couple months of predictive content to go off of.
CURRENTLY MOVING OVER TO a new home next week and I’ll probably go to the store to get some stuff for my moms house and then I’ll drop off the kids and I can do them a few times before…
Okay, that went south pretty quick. Here. Let’s try it again but this time using my grandmother’s 10 years old old first generation iPad.
CURRENTLY MOVING OVER TO the best of the day and I love you so much after a long time ago when he said a thing better about myself and friends.
Aw. So sweet! We make a good team. But let’s throw a curveball at this predictive text by looking at Trump’s first post on twitter which was back in 2009:
“Be sure to tune in and watch Donald Trump on Late Night with David Letterman as he presents the Top Ten List tonight!”
Using my iPad’s predictive test that becomes:
BE SURE TO TUNE IN AND WATCH DONALD TRUMP card is a great idea and we had a good time and it’s the day you were thinking of going back into a game of a game and a couple days of fun.
Harmless. I like a good trump card game it would seem! Now, let’s see what my grandmother’s sweet words have to say:
BE SURE TO TUNE IN AND WATCH DONALD TRUMP is the best thing ever to have happened in my life and I love it so hard…
And it went south again. Some things are better left unknown.
But I would definitely love to know what YOUR first blog post was and I would especially love to see what your post turns into when you predictive text it. Share them on your own blog or on FB or wherever (as of this moment I don’t have comments turned on for this site).
As a special reward for getting this far, I have included below my predictive text for first blog posts of Katy Perry, Billie Eilish, John Green, and Gary Gygax.
– – –
My version of Katy Perry’s first blog post:
NOT BATTERY OPERATED I was a great game a good app to play the games on the way home from my local theatre people and the other people who have a lot to choose.
The original:
NOT BATTERY OPERATED! I am a real person! HA!
Me and my little kittehnnnz first video blog about UR SO GAY! 😛
– – –
Teen lit author John Green:
THE REINVIGORATED JOHN GREEN BOOKS has always been the perfect way to share your beautiful face and memories and your doorstep and your address and your name on the table.
Original:
THE REINVIGORATED JOHN GREEN BOOKS-dot-com contains all of the questions and answers you need for your book report, trivia night, or recreational dossier.
– – –
My version of Gary Gygax’s first column in TSR newsletter, 1975:
THE STRATEGIC REVIEW is the best way to get to the q&a app and the new one place to get the best of experience with a great game and it would totally make the best game of all time the games i have been the most interesting thing to do this is amazing and it’s fun.
The original:
THE STRATEGIC REVIEW is the newsletter of Tactical Studies Rules which will quite naturally be used to carry advertisements for all of TSR’s product line.
– – –
Billie Eilish’s first tweet:
THIS IS THE ARTWORK FOR BILLIE’S debut album “WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO?”. The new single is out tomorrow at 9am PT.
My version:
THIS IS THE ARTWORK FOR BILLIE’S we are both in love with the new fabric choices and we are making them look like they are all together for the best ones.
– – –
So it appears I like games, theater, food, fabric, doorsteps and beautiful faces. Again, it checks out!
Gamurgy 
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