Published 21 JULY 2015
THIS blog has been in continuous online existence since 1995/96 in one way, shape or form on various hosting platforms.
We all know who created the world’s first website on 6 August 1992 (info.cern.ch). Someone somewhere obviously created the world’s first-ever weblog — just not quite sure who.
In itself this might not be a grand achievement, yet there are serious bragging rights for whoever can verifiably prove to have first keyboarded in the by-now-familiar bloggy way.
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ORIGINS
Before this blog became a blog, it started out as a single pocket notebook for me to write down interesting bits of conversations that I overhear.
That brick-shatting, thought-stopping stuff turned out to be a sewer flood over the years.
It led to many pocket notebooks — each volume 200 leaves thick and entirely handwritten — resulting in 35 volumes eating up valuable home and office space.
In terms of finely sliced dead trees, the notebooks equalled 5½ reams (or 2,700 sheets) of letter paper, weighing a total 30¼ lbs (13.72 kg)!
That same weight in terms of spot gold would be priced around US$740,000 at the COMEX division of the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Not suggesting that this blog is New York-based or the reams were gold, but just sayin’.
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PREVIOUS INCARNATIONS
‘The Naked Listener’ went through three births before the present one, and that was some growing pains.
Mark 1 (1995–96)
The idea of having a homepage came months before the actual homepage, so I gave it a job number (B96319).
The first version of this blog was created on 17 January 1996, and released three days later on (of all things) Netscape Navigator 3.0.
That was only two or three years after the world’s first website — and a time when practically nobody knew what the Internet was, never mind a weblog.
It was a personal homepage on http://www.ibm.net when IBM was in the ISP business. The blog just ‘manifested’ when I put some passages from the notebooks online there. When IBM pulled out of ISP racket, I switched to another ISP.
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Mark 2 (1996–2005)
The second version survived for a mind-blowing nine years (1996–2005) at GeoCities — the ‘Facebook’ of that time — as an online personal journal (blog?).
Being that* the notebooks were starting to pile up (and costing a pretty penny each too), the whole paper version went fully online in 2001/02 as “The Naked Listener.” It lived on GeoShitties till 2005, when Yahoo announced it was pulling out of the homepage business by 2009. I moved the blog four years ahead of eviction notice.
* ‘Being that’ (and also ‘being this’) is grammatically correct (contrary to the beliefs of the SAT providers and other usage criticasters). It is generally regarded (especially by Americans) as non-standard usage (a groundless assertion). But here’s the rub — is it better to start a sentence with ‘being that’ or with ‘because’? Wherez yur god nao, buddy boie?
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Mark 3 (2005–2008)
The third version took over for the next three years (2005 to 2008) at Windows Live Spaces — which provided true blog formatting for free.
Just when things looked like it’s on the up and up, Microsoft decided to chicken out of the homepage business by 2011. So I moved again, four years ahead of schedule.
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PRESENT MANIFESTATION
Mark 4 (since 2008)
First customised masthead on WordPress
What you see now on WordPress.com is the 4th version.
It was born during a Force 8 gale on 19 August 2008 on migration from Windows Live Spaces — becoming a true blog-format site read by thousands each day from all over the world.
The blog theme has been Ambiru since day one here.
In other words, The Naked Listener’s Weblog is now in its 7th year with WordPress.
Altogether, it’s been 20 years of blogging (as at 2015), with a batting average of 20 posts a month.
Antisocial networking
It’s been mirrored at Tumblr since 21 December 2010 — in the highly unlikely event of being pistol-whipped and ass-wiped here.
It joined Facebook on 8 January 2011 because of pure narcissism.
And it first tweeted on Twitter at 10.04am GMT on 18 September 2011 because of shameless delusions of self-grandeur.
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LEAVE OF ABSENCE (AND SANITY)
(15 March – 30 June 2012)
The blog went on furlough for 108 days (15 weeks, or 3½ months) in protest at various personages — not necessarily readers of the blog — for their vicious, insane, invasive and/or irrelevant behaviour against me. [FIND OUT WHY HERE]
The furlough ended in the middle of the night, also during a Force 8 gale. [FULL STORY]
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Blog’s worth
The Technorati rating was from back in 2009. Hoped that the value has appreciated even marginally since then.
On the other hand, 30¼ lbs (13.72 kg) worth of handwritten notebooks means this blog could be priced US$740,179 as spot gold at the COMEX.
Yer pays yer price, yer picks yer goods.
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© The Naked Listener’s Weblog, [1996–2008], 2008–2015. (B15238)
Images: A Little Book of Rubbish via A Little History Project • Facebook embryo via sync-blog.com • All others and logo screencaps by the author.
CHANGELOG: Created 21 July 2015 with parts originally from the About page.
The Naked Listener's Weblog 