Minor anniversary

Ten years ago today, my first weblog went live. ¹ It was called “Mixolydian Mode.” My gimmick was that I would post a MIDI arrangement of a public-domain tune every day, such as the “Celtic Society Quickstep.”

CelticSocietyQuickstep

It worked. Before long my weblog was getting 400 or more hits a day ² and was on numerous blogrolls, notably Terry Teachout’s. However, cranking out a tune a day got to be more of a chore than a pleasure. I cut the frequency back to three or four times a week for a while, and then stopped entirely. There are over 600 of these MIDI files here if you want to hear more.

Meanwhile, I had discovered Serial Experiments Lain and Martian Successor Nadesico. Rather than let anime overwhelm Mixolydian Mode, I started a second weblog specifically for animation and Japanese topics, “Beware the Kawaii.” Before long, there was much more traffic on the latter than the former, though never as much as the former received during its first two years.

Eventually there was more comment spam than the blogging platform I was using could handle, and I decided to switch to WordPress on a different host. My general-purpose weblog was now “Scuffulans hirsutus” (the name is from John Bellairs’ The Pedant and the Shuffly), and my anime weblog became “The Kawaii Menace.”

Not quite two years ago, the server hosting my website suddenly became very sluggish, requiring up to 45 minutes to process a simple post. Shortly thereafter, I received a note from the web host asking if my website had been running slow and announcing “a more powerful hosting solution for your website,” exclamation point. That was my cue to find a new host. Moving the two weblogs gave me an opportunity to combine them back into one.

So after ten years ³ of desultory, spasmodic posting, here I am with possibly the least-read active weblog its age. I might allow myself a small celebration with ice cream later this evening, or I might just go to bed early. Thanks for stopping by.

1. It was not the first blog I was involved with, though. I had earlier been part of the long-defunct group blog “The Catholic Bookshelf.” I’ve had some kind of website since at least 1998.
2. Yeah, I know Glenn Reynolds gets that many per second, but still, 400 is more than I can easily count on my fingers.
3. If that sounds impressive to you, note that Charles G. Hill has been blogging for 17 years.