This writer two days ago, buffeted by winds on the fourth floor of De Zwaan, the titular centerpiece of Windmill Island Gardens in Holland, Michigan — this year’s birthday outing!
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: we have annual traditions ’round these parts! Two such occasions fall three weeks apart each year, often but not always receiving separate entries of incredulous self-congratulation. In this attention-deficit economy, though, we once again offer two for the bandwidth of one, a pretty sweet deal.
The view from our Chicago hotel under cover of darkness, where none might find us among the millions in the big city. Kinda like loners on the internet.
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: I launched this wee blog on April 28, 2012, three weeks before my 40th birthday as a means of charting the effects of the aging process on my opinions of, enthusiasm for, offense at, and/or detailed nitpicking of various works of art, expression, humanity, inhumanity, glory, love, idolatry, inspiration, hollowness, geek lifestyles, food, and Deep Thoughts. MCC has also served as a digital scrapbook for our annual road trips, comic cons, birthday expeditions, and other modest travels. It’s a general repository for any other content that comes to mind and feels worth the time and effort to type up, proofread, and release unto a world-at-large that rarely visits websites anymore unless social media points them there.
I commemorate MCC’s every anniversary here, but this year my wife Anne and I were busy that weekend, preoccupied by the geek gala that was C2E2 2024. We spent the site’s 12th anniversary not really thinking about it — much like the rest of the world, really. Rather than dwell on my dozen years of toiling in obscure hermitage on this tiny, mostly unpaid quasi-boutique hobby-job, we can instead center our closet-sized soiree on two of our favorite topics that come up whenever time and experience permit: travel and food.
Portrait of the author having brunch with his wife/photographer Anne at Pizza di Tito, an outtake from our Indiana Comic Con 2023 experience.
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: we have annual traditions ’round these parts! Two of them recently came up for renewal and passed without mention. Let’s kill two birds with one stone here, or at least whiz a pebble past their beaks just to get their attention.
I launched this tiny personal blog on April 28, 2012, three weeks before my 40th birthday as a means of charting the effects of the aging process on my opinions of, enthusiasm for, offense at, and/or detailed nitpicking of various works of art, expression, humanity, inhumanity, glory, love, idolatry, inspiration, hollowness, geek lifestyles, food, and Deep Thoughts. MCC has also served as a digital scrapbook for our annual road trips, comic cons, birthday expeditions, and other modest travels. It’s a general repository for any other content that comes to mind and feels worth the time and effort to type up, proofread, and release unto a world-at-large that rarely visits websites anymore unless social media points them there. MCC entries are rarely shared with others in that manner; when it happens, it’s extremely noticeable in our dashboard stats and sincerely appreciated with all my heart.
Last month MCC reached its 11th birthday. As usual the WordPress software congratulated me as an auto-courtesy. Preprogrammed niceties aren’t quite the same as flesh-and-blood acknowledgment, but they help break the silence of what might otherwise have reminded me of that time Peter Brady overdosed on teenage smugness and was flabbergasted when no one attended his birthday party. I think about that episode a lot as I watch site traffic dwindle and wonder if I should bother mentioning my blog anniversaries anymore.
I kept this in my files for over a year and let it simmer to just the right level of finely aged irrelevance.
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: I launched this wee blog on April 28, 2012, three weeks before my 40th birthday as a means of charting the effects of the aging process on my opinions of, enthusiasm for, offense at, and/or detailed nitpicking of various works of art, expression, humanity, inhumanity, glory, love, idolatry, inspiration, hollowness, geek lifestyles, food, and Deep Thoughts. MCC has also served as a digital scrapbook for our annual road trips, comic cons, birthday expeditions, and other modest travels. It’s a general repository for any other content that comes to mind and feels worth the time and effort to type up, proofread, and release unto a world-at-large that rarely visits websites anymore unless social media points them there.
Basically it’s me me me me me, plus special appearances and other invaluable contributions from Anne, my wife of 17 years and #1 fan. This unpaid quasi-boutique hobby-job was built on a thin foundation with no claim to fame, virtually no preexisting fandom, no networking skills, no books to sell, no merch with my face on it to hawk, no funding from the Chubb Group, no patience for marketing (and pretty please never ever offer to provide me some for a price, because if you think I’m worth it, then by all means go share my works with your social pals for free, same as you do with anything else you genuinely like), and no educated grasp of “SEO” except to know that it rhymes with Vern Tessio, the Stand by Me kid played by Jerry O’Connell, who grew up to costar in Star Trek: Lower Decks, of which Anne and I have six episodes left to watch as of this writing, and watching those might be a more productive use of my time than registering my thoughts online for whomever to see, but it’s late and she’s asleep, which is the general household ambiance during my prime posting hours, so here I am.
“TREAT YO’SELF!” one of the voices in my head yelled as I threw myself a cupcake party.
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: I launched this li’l site on April 28, 2012, three weeks before my 40th birthday as a means of charting the effects of the aging process on my opinions of, enthusiasm for, offense at, and/or detailed nitpicking of various works of art, expression, humanity, inhumanity, glory, love, idolatry, inspiration, hollowness, geek lifestyles, food, and Deep Thoughts. MCC has also served as a digital scrapbook for our annual road trips, entertainment conventions, and other modest travels. It’s a general repository for any other content that strikes my fancy and inspires thoughts more than one tweet long.
Basically it’s me me me me me, plus special appearances and other invaluable contributions from Anne, my wife of 16 years and #1 fan. When the most tedious entries yield the poorest traffic figures, she still thinks I’m cool.
Author file photo, taken at an uncertain theme park circa 2006-2008, the years I used the Kodak EasyShare you see dangling from my lanyard. I ultimately decided not to buy the crown.
Welcome to Midlife Crisis Crossover’s 1200th entry! In the grand tradition of 20th century comic books and sitcoms that ran five seasons too long, every 100 entries we mark the occasion as a sort of accomplishment and sometimes celebrate it. Not all those 1200 moments have been winners, but they’re integral components in the comprehensive mosaic of the last few years inside my head — the distractions, the fancies, the traumas, the endless parade of lists.
Before I launched MCC on April 28, 2012, I’d already been writing here and there online for years. My early efforts at self-expression and public entertainment comprise a couple thousand Usenet posts (a few longform pieces in the bunch, mostly irretrievable and irrelevant now), several thousand message-board posts (much easier to sort through, a few of them previously transferred and preserved here), and a LiveJournal I kept for a few years but can barely stand to skim now. In 2006 the longtime message board that Anne and I call home received a software upgrade that added blogging functionality for any member who wanted their own little playground contained within the site itself. Between April 2006 and March 2012 I penned 110 intermittent entries before I decided to stake my own separate claim here among the WordPress territories. That virtually invisible blog was good practice in a number of ways, most of them involving some balance of creativity and humility in the face of a mostly empty studio, so to speak.
As part of this MCC celebration that I just realized could technically double as a “Throwback Thursday” nod, we present the following flashback to an essay originally published May 16, 2006. This oddity, which I’ve lightly edited for a broader audience, represents my very first “meta” post about the odd act of blogging. It was written within and for the confines of the internet equivalent of a shed with a single skylight, but I’m a little surprised how much of my nascent impressions still ring a bell today. Please enjoy, and thanks for being here.
Happy New Year, internet! Here’s hoping everyone’s 2016 is a vast improvement over the unbelievably tragicomic 2015, just like the genetically superior Star Wars: The Force Awakens helped everyone put Revenge of the Sith behind them for good.
As in years past, those all-knowing stats overseers at WordPress.com have compiled an automated 2015 Annual Report for each and every blogger on their roster, complete with vaguely art-deco New Year’s fireworks that you can use for Twitter Profile wallpaper or whatever.
In addition to revealing the 148 countries that visited us last year, as well as the identities of MCC’s five greatest commenters of the year who deserve cash awards, there’s also this sample statistic that you can use for comparing where we stand against millions of other, actually popular sites:
The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 49,000 times in 2015. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 18 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
If you’re pressed for time, please feel free to pretend this photo of our dog Lucky wearing a bandanna is today’s entire MCC entry, toss him a happy “Like”, and read no further. He’s used to that kind of fleeting attention from strangers.
Welcome to Midlife Crisis Crossover’s 1100th entry! In the grand tradition of comic books and The Simpsons, every 100 entries we mark the occasion as a sort of accomplishment and sometimes celebrate it. Those 1100 moments have been an interesting way to spend the last 3½ years of my internet time, but odds are it’ll take another two or three hundred years of consistent blogging before I stand a chance at becoming a household name. By then I’ll be more renowned for my refusal to die than for any paragraph I’ve ever written.
Every blogger who somehow makes a living off it has their official list of blogging tips that you’re supposed to follow in order to achieve fame, success, impact, and/or income. I’m happy for them and I wish them well as they make lasting contributions to the world at large and change the course of mighty rivers. Meanwhile at the other end of the spectrum, stubborn folks like me keep plugging away at their sites without regard for conventional wisdom, official procedures, or dime-a-dozen “Blogging for Dummies” articles. My approach to the game can be summed up in two words: “low-key” and “counterintuitive”.
Wanna blog like me? Here’s ten tips for how it works in my world, through happy times or blah:
An outtake from our Awesome Con 2014 lunch at Dick’s Last Resort. Our waitress made us each a hat. The last words you can’t read are “BACK HAIR”. And that’s why Nikola Tesla (probably) invented the concept of the “outtake”.
April 28, 2015, marked Midlife Crisis Crossover’s third birthday. Our preceding nine-episode C2E2 miniseries comprised MCC entries #991-999. Here we are, two blogging milestones in a single week, and no celebrity endorsements or twelve-book contracts or “Participant” ribbons to show for it.
Three years of personal expression, idea-vetting, photo-sharing, “think” pieces, geek-outs, lists, outbursts, road trips, memories, punchlines, political eye-rolling, awestruck husbandry, pop-culture references, faith-based exploration attempts, movie trailers, movie “reviews”, MS Paint doodles, old man’s pains, middle-age tantrums, family gatherings, home improvement disasters, live-tweeting jags, oddly colored scans, Kickstarter grudges, late-night mood swings, holiday cheer, overlong miniseries, zeitgeist misdiagnoses, gratuitous mentions of The Wire, and more, more, more, more, more.
1,000 ways to be me.
To those I thanked at the previous MCC milestones, consider your thanks hereby extended — doubly so if you’re my saintly, patient wife and put up with a heck of a lot from me for such a questionable return on your investment.
To those I’ve never thanked before, or to those I already thanked but insist I owe them even more gratitude: if you’ve ever genuinely read and enjoyed an MCC entry, and provided sincere feedback in a detectable method, even if it was just the one time and you think I’ve been going downhill ever since…thank you from the bottom of my heart for being part of the solution.
As always, thanks for reading. Here’s to the next 1000 entries and all the goofy hats yet to come.
Happy New Year, internet! Here’s hoping 2015 personally comes to your house, pushes 2014 down a staircase, pushes a piano down the stairs after it, blames it on 2013, and works double overtime to be a vastly better year for you. I won’t tell on 2015 if you won’t.
As in years past, those all-knowing stats overseers at WordPress.com have compiled an automated 2014 Annual Report for each and every blogger on their roster, complete with New Year’s fireworks that you can pretend is a handy screensaver by leaving your computer on and your browser open 24/7.
I had no idea how to illustrate this entry. After 28 months I still have no site branding to showcase. I’m not in the mood for anything prideful. Please randomly enjoy this outtake from our 2013 road trip — me eating a sundae at the Witch’s Brew Cafe in Salem, MA. Why not.
We interrupt our Wizard World Chicago 2014 galleries to bring you this brief intermission noting the occasion of Midlife Crisis Crossover’s 800th post!
Neither writer’s block nor Hollywood’s siren call nor reckless abandon nor typing-finger tumors have stayed me from my appointed fixation yet. If and when MCC crashes and burns someday, I hope I can think of reasons to blame anyone and everything except myself.
From the Home Office in Indianapolis, IN: Top 10 Ways I’ll Be Celebrating MCC’s 800th Entry:
10. 10,000-word all-star salute to me, myself, and I
9. Have a WordPress “Freshly Pressed” banner tattooed across my chest
8. Reprint a past entry no one else liked except me; grovel for pity-Likes
7. Eight-hour scenes-after-end-credits marathon
6. Saccharine love letter to my wife that makes all other readers nauseous
5. Write epic fanfic crossover “Bunheads Go to Sleepy Hollow”
4. Buy a PS4 and one game; play until my gamer-cred upticks; then go settle every Quinn/Sarkeesian rage-war single-handedly
3. Prize drawing to get rid of all my unwanted DC New 52 comics
2. Live-tweet a Dog with a Blog rerun
And the number one Way I’ll Be Celebrating MCC’s 800th Entry:
Your official 2nd-anniversary notification from WordPress looks like this. Printing, framing, embossing, and/or enlarging to poster size are optional at the writer’s expense.
It’s that time again! Through the grace of God and the stubbornness of me, Midlife Crisis Crossover reached and surpassed its second anniversary on April 28, 2014. I postponed the party because I didn’t want to interrupt my annual C2E2 photo journal marathon at its height, and I fancied the idea of coinciding with this, MCC’s 700th entry. That’s two milestones nailed at one time, both highlighted without passing on the extra costs to You, the Viewers at Home!
For those interested in reliving the creation of MCC and/or time-traveling to key points in its distant past, the following moments are recommended for historical purposes:
* The first official MCC entry, basically a satire of the Indianapolis majority’s unseemly, senseless hatred of mass transit. I spent a full week writing and refining this launch post, researching blogging platforms, and experimenting with the control panel once I’d made my decision. After going live on April 28th, it had maybe seven whole views in its first week of existence. With almost no promotion and nothing in mind resembling a quote-unquote “marketing strategy”, I like to think that’s seven more views than I had any right to expect.
Happy New Year, readers and skimmers alike! Here’s hoping 2014 proves to be the Greatest Year of All Time. At the very least, maybe it’ll help us forget the parts where 2013 let us down and still has a lot to answer for.
For MCC’s second New Year, the happy-go-lucky stats wranglers at WordPress.com have compiled an automated 2013 Annual Report for each and every blogger on their roster, complete with fireworks and eye-popping design work and a world map in case you prefer practical gifts. In addition to the facts and figures I already reported yesterday with my own manually culled year-end review, this report also helpfully confirms which WordPress bloggers left me the most comments last year and therefore deserve innumerable treasures in Heaven and possibly also baked goods. You should subscribe to all of them so they can rise to fame and I can write entries about how I’m one of the Little People who knew them way back when.
For the intensely curious, WordPress’ report also reveals which of my 2012 entries absolutely refuses to die. It didn’t exactly go viral or receive attention from any major online sources I’m aware of, but passersby just keep clicking it and clicking it and clicking it and now the report thinks I ought to consider churning out more daily posts exactly like it, despite how impractical this would be on multiple levels.
Have some sample artwork as an additional incentive. Ya like colors? It has colors.
The weirdest statistic it reveals:
The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed about 80,000 times in 2013. If it were an exhibit at the Louvre Museum, it would take about 3 days for that many people to see it.
On April 28, 2013, the blog you’re presently skimming celebrated its very first birthday. Strange but true! I would’ve marked the occasion sooner and in a timelier fashion, but longtime readers might’ve noticed I had a hard time shutting up about that blasted C2E2 event for a few minutes. Even though our official six-part photo gallery is completed, I still have at least three posts’ worth of C2E2-related material in store from a different angle. Out of respect to my readers who might not be as enthralled as I am by local comics conventions, a broader, general-audience digression seemed in order. Also, I’d like to mark the occasion sometime before next New Year’s.
It was a singular event that inspired me to launch this humble site out of a combination of frustration and curiosity. (Expect the story behind said event in an upcoming entry. Enough time has passed, I think, that I can share it with fewer sour grapes.) I set forth on this strange journey to discover the answers to a long list of questions for myself, including but not limited to:
1. How many consecutive evenings in a row can I find a reason/excuse to write about something before I stumble and fail?
2. How much am I willing to sacrifice for the sake of writing?
3. Can I start such a project without a preexisting audience?
4. Is it possible to build an audience from the ground up? Not counting spammers?
5. What sorts of writing will I like best? And what kinds might become a dreary chore?
6. Is there a question #6?
7. Can I enjoy myself without being jealous of those who do this regularly for money?
8. Will anyone I know even care?
9. Am I alone in this?
10. Do I really like writing? If not, what am I supposed to be doing with my life?
Important part first: Happy New Year’s to one and all!
Here’s hoping 2013 will be Best Year Ever for all of you, whether you’re planning to expand on your 2012 achievements and victories, secretly wishing for a complete do-over, or were born within the past hour and have no basis for comparison.
Since most readers are either partying or recovering (depending on how soon this is being read), I’ve allowed myself to relax a little more than usual tonight, spending more time with family than with keyboard. It’s my understanding that correcting this imbalance at least three or four days per year is strongly recommended by most of my relatives, biased though they are. That meant less time for writing and more for board games, but in my mind it’s an exchange more than fair, even though my wife and son refused to let me unleash our Scrabble set and trounce them both just once.
In lieu of an overlong piece about New Year’s resolutions (expect something along those lines tomorrow, because of worldwide mandatory blogging bylaws), the following Very Special Report is provided as a treat for my fellow blog stat junkies, or for fans of cute animated fireworks.
When I inaugurated this open-ended project as an excuse to exercise my brain on a daily basis, I figured I was good for ten or fifteen posts, tops. Burnout was/is inevitable. 100 posts later, one per day and with three double-shots, it hasn’t happened yet. Setting aside a few short entries (so I’m a sucker for new movie trailers — I do try to offer something beyond HERE IS NEW MOVIE IT IS COOL AM I RITE), I’m surprised at how much processing capacity exists when I’m not just reading, lurking, passively consuming, and living vicariously in various corners of the Internet while other people enjoy themselves actively and sometimes even make a living at it.
I’m marking the occasion in the best way I know how: with a list. Stuff about me, around me, in my head, or otherwise tangential to my existence, all somehow surfacing at once and dying to make the Top 100 Me Factoids of the Month to commemorate this subjective mathematical milestone.
Super-lengthy special-occasion list is GO:
1. I’ve lived in Indianapolis all my life.
2. I’ve been an Internet user/dweller since 1999.
3. I’ve been reading comics for roughly 34 years.
4. My favorite class in high school was a senior-year single-semester creative writing course. Easy A.
5. My entries are usually posted late at night because I’m an evening person.
6. My favorite color is purple, because it’s pretty and less common.
7. My first job was at McDonald’s. I stayed with the company for twelve years, which were worth it in many ways I wasn’t aware of at the time.
8. I don’t care for sports. Mind you, it’s apathy, not antipathy. In Indiana this complicates most attempts at friendship with other males.
9. In my previous blog, 110 entries took me six years to amass.
10. I prefer mayo to ketchup.
11. If you care about astrology more than I do, I’m a Taurus.
12. I don’t do any amusement park rides that turn upside-down or spin at cyclonic speeds.
13. My first comic book convention that utilized more than one conference room was Wizard World Chicago 1999.
14. I spend every Wednesday evening hanging out with my son. Friends and family know better than to interrupt our schedule.
15. Between July 2004 and July 2005 I lost 98 pounds. I’ve gained some back since then.
16. My favorite movie has always been Die Hard, though it’s become difficult in my later years to recommend it to others in good conscience.
17. I’ve seen every single film that’s ever won an Academy Award for Best Picture, from Wings to The Artist. Some of them weren’t worth it.
18. My first car was a 1986 Grand Am lemon.
19. If you want to see me at my worst, put me in a leadership position.
20. My first rock concert was the 1992 Guns ‘n’ Roses/Metallica twofer at the Hoosier Dome. I was more interested in the opening act, Faith No More, who only played for 45 unenthusiastic minutes.
21. In high school my original plan was to become an artist. That changed during my junior year when I realized how impatient I was with my drawing.
22. My car repair skills rank Very Poor for my gender.
23. My most-Liked post to date is part 1 of the two part “Road Trip Clip Show“.
24. I don’t drink. Not even in moderation for recreation among oenophiles. Not even wine coolers or wedding champagne. In America this complicates most attempts at friendship with other humans.
25. I’ve never played any MMORPGs because I know how carried away I would get. If these had existed in my youth, I could’ve easily spent 40+ hours a week on one without remorse.
26. I’ve been divorced once. I filed for bankruptcy the following year. The divorce lawyer was cheaper than the bankruptcy lawyer.
27. My favorite food group is breakfast.
28. I learned to tie a necktie at age 19.
29. My first Internet writing piece was a turn taken in a Usenet round-robin story when I was still a newbie to the newsgroup.
30. I took German in junior high, high school, and college. I remember more of it than I think, and at the oddest times.
31. My favorite Disney movie is Aladdin.
32. Since this blog began, I’ve received two Facebook Friend requests from complete strangers, up from zero strangers for the twelve previous months. I have no idea if that’s coincidental.
33. I still cry at an occasional movie. Examples from recent years include Up and Serenity.
34. So far I’ve visited 26 of the 50 states, plus the District of Columbia and Niagara Falls, Ontario.
35. I saw four of the Friday the 13th movies in my youth, but no longer have any need or desire to complete the set.
36. Have I mentioned my wife’s awesomeness here yet? Consider it mentioned.
37. My nervous habits include chewing on my lip and gnawing on the thumb knuckle where there once was a wart.
38. I’ve read the Bible from Genesis to Revelations a few times, but several more times definitely won’t hurt.
39. A Green Arrow show without Justin Hartley is no Green Arrow show of mine.
40. I prefer “geek” to “nerd” because its consonants can beat up those other consonants.
41. My first entry into a writing contest was a high-school short story called “The Cybernetic Wilderness”, which was sabotaged by a lousy typist whose clumsiness managed to spell “variation” with twelve letters.
42. I once cryptically wrote on a Post-It Note, “Tow Mater / Tow Maine / Tow Backy”. I’m afraid to find out what I plan to do with these thoughts.
43. The first Bible verse I ever memorized was Matthew 11:28 — “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.” It’s still my favorite.
44. The Valiant/First C2E2-panels two-parter resulted from a brief nanosecond when comics journalism became an infinitesimally possible option.
45. I met my (second/current) wife in 1987 in high school German class.
46. My son and I have played 11 of the 13 Final Fantasy games. FFII was the indisputably worst; I can’t decide which was best between FFVII and FFXII.
47. I’m terrible at memorizing Scripture because English classes spent years successfully beating the moral “Put it in your own words” into my head.
48. My favorite album is Hüsker Dü’s Zen Arcade.
49. I’ve never touched an illegal drug in my life. The strongest substance I’ve ever taken was arguably Vivarin, once when I stayed up overnight to write a term paper about satire in popular music.
50. My highest-traffic post to date is the complete list of what’s not after the Brave end credits.
51. I had my very first taste of alcohol on my 21st birthday, and not one second before.
52. I had a brief stint as a co-writer of a few Star Wars fanfics, some of which are still online.
53. I’ve attended GenCon twice even though I haven’t played a tabletop RPG since junior high, and have never played a CCG, unless you count Triple Triad or Tetra Master.
54. My first date was at age 19.
55. Persuading family and friends to read this blog seems a Sisyphean task. I expect that’s for the best anyway.
56. I’m not too great with tools or home improvement. In Indiana this complicates most attempts at friendship with other males.
57. The first video I ever saw on MTV was “Since You’re Gone” by the Cars.
58. I’m not surprised Trust Us With Your Life was cancelled. I blame Ryan Stiles for not saving the day. 59. Our dog’s name is Lucky. His previous owners named him before they decided they’d rather have a hamster.
60. I once made a fanfic writers’ email list cry by being too candid about my opinion of their “columns”.
61. My first known comic book was Marvel’s Scooby-Doo #9 by Mark Evanier and Dan Spiegle. The Scooby Gang teamed up with Cap’n Caveman and the Teen Angels against the threat of a surfer ghost.
62. If my TV schedule ever eases up, I’ve been meaning to start The Wire season 4 next.
63. My second entry here, “The Train Job”, was a satirical labor of love that took days to fine-tune before I launched this blog. Unfortunately all the Hoosiers in my life don’t venture into the Internet beyond the boundaries of Facebook, so its target audience will never read it, let alone get it.
64. Last night my wife brought home Chik-Fil-A for supper. She was nearly two hours late because of the lines.
65. When I’m bored in a grocery line, I use the cart’s leg hole closure as a makeshift drum and tap the intro to Primus’ “John the Fisherman”.
66. The first Star Trek actor I ever met was Garrett Wang from Voyager.
67. I refused to touch soft drinks from ages 5 to 16.
68. I dropped out of college. Twice.
69. My mom used to buy me subscriptions to kids’ magazines without even asking me. What kid ever asked for a year’s worth of Cricket or Cobblestone?
70. My favorite pop song is John Mellencamp’s “Small Town”, and not just because he’s from Indiana.
71. Sometimes I worry that if I take a single night off from writing here, the whole thing will collapse and I’ll wake up the next morning to find my writing talent has vanished forever.
72. People are always surprised when I struggle to break it to them gently that I absolutely cannot stand The Big Bang Theory.
73. When my brain is firing on all cylinders, my writing voice tries to find a happy medium between George Will and Dave Barry.
74. Post-Modern MTV and 120 Minutes permanently altered the course of my musical tastes.
75. In 1992 I registered to vote as a Democrat because gas prices had skyrocketed to $1.29 per gallon and the incumbent President was a Republican.
76. On Sundays after church service, I’m on a one-man independent Bible study in which I’m going through Oswald Chambers’ My Utmost for His Highest.
77. In junior high I wrote and drew my own comics. I still have them, but show them to no one.
78. People compliment my reading voice, which I built up by necessity during the years I spent working in a fast-food drive-thru with a terrible speaker.
79. I’ve seen every Best Picture Oscar nominee from 1997 to the present, including a few truly awful ones. I plan to work backward to 1996 and beyond if Secrets and Lies is ever granted an affordable re-release.
80. My Free Comic Book Day 2012 reviews inexplicably attract more spam than any other entries.
81. My Google+ feed is a wasteland where DC and Marvel PR reps battle daily for void supremacy.
82. I thought Ernest Borgnine pretty much ruled the four-hour Jesus of Nazareth.
83. The list of classic books I’ve never read is shamefully not short.
84. I once took second place in a college poetry contest that my poetry professor entered me into, without my knowledge and some weeks after I’d already dropped out.
85. I’m pleased as punch that the Bunheads clip of Sasha dancing to They Might Be Giants’ “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)” is online once again. FOR NOW.
86. I’ve been drunk exactly once, New Year’s Eve 1993. Once was enough.
87. As a child, the only pet I ever owned was a carnival goldfish who lived two weeks.
88. I had no idea which of my high school acquaintances were Christian or gay until long after graduation.
89. I don’t get Pink Floyd. At all. On Earth this complicates most attempts at friendship with other males.
90. This year I subscribed to Forbes on a lark, and now the mailman won’t stop stuffing the mailbox with Republican fundraiser ads.
91. I can’t remember if the first comic book professional I ever met was Tony Isabella or Don Rosa.
92. “Aurora.” was one of the painstaking things I’ve written in years, and is my most widely shared entry to date.
93. I’ve never flown before. Ever.
94. I accept and welcome suggestions, questions, and recommendations that don’t come from spammers.
95. Sometimes I like to think of every purchase as a donation of sorts.
96. In my combined three years of college, I made exactly zero (0) friends.
97. I’m currently reading Chris Hardwick’s The Nerdist Way. It’s funny, constructive, creative, crude, and irksome at the same time.
98. The last time someone recommended something to me, it was Rob Liefeld’s Grifter. I stand by #94 anyway.
99. I’d like to pause here for a little game we like to call “Hoedown”! We’ll call this one “The 100th Post Hoedown”. Take it away, me:
[cue Laura Hall/Linda Taylor intro]
o/~ Thank you if you’re reading, I appreciate your time
I know the ‘Net is busy and this hardly is sublime
I’m sorry that my subject matter sometimes seems so random
Some nights I’m lucky if one reader can understand ’em…
Nerd or geek or in-between, and sometimes both and neither
I can’t believe I’ve kept it up without a single breather
Will I do a hundred more? Forgive me if I fail
Can I dare hit 200 without quoting Holy Grail? o/~
100. I reserve the privilege to expand or repurpose some, all, or none of these as subjects for future entries. Hopefully none of them is a thousand-word paean to the color purple.
59. Our dog’s name is Lucky. His previous owners named him before they decided they’d rather have a hamster.
Midlife Crisis Crossover! 