Tales to Astonish!

I’ve been pumping out blog posts here at Tales to Astonish for quite some time now. Not as long as some of the bloggers that started the craze, but I think a respectable amount of time. There’s been a lot of changes here since I began, both topically and tonally — and, of course, aesthetically. Back when I first started, I just created a blogspot blog to try to figure out what the name of a font was (Trebuchet MS); then I started playing around, and within a half-hour remembered how much I loved writing.

Read on after the jump…

The early posts were by me under my real name, and I started off talking pretty heavily about the way that I was feeling about my life, my worries and whatnot. It was a personal space, with lots of artistic nude photos of myself. Okay, just kidding about that part. No photos whatsoever, nude or appareled.

I’m not even sure when I decided to change my blog name, or even why; I think that it had something to do with my more topical posts about politics and religion. And, boy, those posts were legion. I wanted to be one of those conscientious bloggers that was well-informed and had opinions about things. All of these posts ultimately led me to atheism, and then WOAH — it was all-atheism, all the time here. It was like textual atheism porn. There were endless arguments about God and religion and Republicans, and while entertaining, it got kind of tired. And tiring. Many (if not most) of these posts are hidden or deleted now, and most of the comments were lost anyway after the move to my own domain.

After that period, I just felt like being silly. Disheartened by politics and religion, I only wanted to make myself laugh a bit. Until recently I’ve been purposefully avoiding writing long personal posts; at least personal in the heavy sense, or personal in the “why are you even bothering to use an alias, you dipshit” sense. I feel much more comfortable in my blog skin nowadays, although I’m still uncertain as to the direction it’s taking. There’s always blog-envy to deal with; should I be writing more posts like Danny’s, or aim to capture Neil’s style? Beats me. All I know is that if I ever committed to going in either of those two directions, it would probably prohibit me from expressing my true idiosyncrasies and posting the following picture:

Okay, Danny might’ve posted something like that. Actually, maybe Neil would’ve too.

Anyway, I spent some time over the past week trolling through my own archives, reading the things I’ve written and even leaving some nasty comments to myself. (That was the best part.) What have I learned from this odyssey into the past? That only ten percent of what I write is good, and a lot of what I write is crap. That’s not just some number I made up, either — after six-hundred posts I found exactly sixty that I could make an argument for reposting, for one stupid reason or another. Some of them were heartfelt and sincere; some made good points; many of them just made me laugh again, no matter how sophisticated or stupid the gag was. Or how really stupid the gag was.

So, for old time’s sake, I’ve culled some of my personal favorites from the sixty. This is not to say that they’re the best. I’m not even saying that they’re good, because some of them aren’t good. They’re just the ones that tickle me in some manner, or ones that I feel are important somehow.

Enjoy…

Telling behavior: I am an Agent of Hollywood

The Moxie logo: It Must be Logo Day

Being immortal: Tales from the Laundromat

A rebuttal to a Godfight: I Hate the ‘I Feel’ Argument

Bad jokes get me every time: The Worst Joke I Made Up Today

Same joke, but better: The Worst Followup Joke I Made Up Yesterday

Why David Blaine sucks: Hooked

A modest proposal: Sigh

Sweet slumber: I Sleep with the Strength of Ten Men

The golden years: Ode to a Lady

The sound of silence: Strangers on a Train

Being pissed off at missing a big Sky Captain robot promotion: The Light Sleeper

Walk the Line would’ve been better if I wrote it: Walk This Line

Sex appeal: Sex Appeal

Being sick: Shock and Awe

Coffee Jesus: I Have Seen the Light

Human/Animal hybrids: Terrors of the Night

Potentially saved bloggers: The Rapture of the Blog

The war on Christianity: After the War

That Benchley feeling: Falling

Should’ve seen it coming: Everything Old is New Again

Just for fun: Fun on the Hill

Because it was important: All Good Things

On depression: Unwelcome Guest

And, just so it doesn’t end on a heavy note: The Holy Grail!

and:

Things You Can Do to Cover it up When You Start Laughing Inappropriately

This entry was posted on Friday, June 16th, 2006 at 4:03 pm and is filed under Nostalgia!, Retro!. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.