So, TDR is Nine Years Old Today

I never imagined nine years ago when I started The Dignified Rant on Geocities (you can still see it here at Reocities which resurrected old Geocities sites) that I'd still be blogging. My first post was on the coming war with Iraq. (I started moving Geocities stuff to Blogger, which is why that first post is on this site, but ran out of steam.)

I was inspired by James Lileks, so like to think of his site as my site's blogfather. I'd read his columns for years, then discovered his site long after newspapers had fallen away from my reading habits. I aspired to his many categories of writing. But I've never really tried to emulate him, in the end. This was and remains a war site at its heart. Lileks had his moments with screeds, but that has fallen out of favor on his site. I read The Bleat regularly, of course.

I didn't have hyperlinks to individual posts on my first site. Eventually, with anchors I made sort-of hyperlinks to posts and jury rigged a system of posting and archiving with those links. It was like hooking up a manual typewriter to the Internet with a dial-up modem.

In November 2004, I migrated to Blogger. I've liked it here. I regret that the site can't be searched for more than a few years of material when logged in, however; so I often have to rely on memory or hope that I referenced an old post in a more recent post if I need to find a really old post. (Although what does it mean to "need to" find an old post? This is blogging--not research into curing Cancer that rests on finding that 4-year-old insight on the problem you just discovered.)

I still don't allow comments. I don't want to police them--have you seen the Yahoo News comments? There are lots of idiots out there. I have an email available if you really want to comment. And if you really, really want to comment, you can set up your own blog (it is free to do so), link to my post, and blast away (or heartily agree). But mostly, rather than not wanting to deal with hostile or idiotic comments, I don't want to get ensnared by comments. I think that there can be long-term pressure to conform posts to what your fans like. I want to offer my thoughts--for what they're worth--and not your thoughts.

In many ways, I'm writing this blog for me and not for readers. Which is good if you've seen my statistics! They ebb and flow, but I seem to average around 150 hits per day over the long run, based on internal statistics (I've noted the divergence of internal Blogger stats from public Sitemeter stats). But it is fun to see where traffic comes from. Sometimes it is disturbing to see the search words used to arrive here (Sometimes I shudder. Sometimes I clean and service my arsenal.). I've gotten darned little hate mail and sometimes I get emails that make my small presence on the web seem worthwhile after all. But I can honestly say I don't suffer from any of the blogging disorders that are apparently common.

Anyway, I like to think I know what I'm talking about when it comes to foreign policy and war. So why not put my money where my mouth is? Anyone can say they knew what would happen in the Great Kerfluffle of '05, but I have archives that demonstrate whether that is so. Now, let's not even explore the question of why in the world that might be important to anyone. Just accept it as a given here, please. In my defense, when wrong I at least can say it well-informed error rather than just spouting off an opinion!

So I've been blogging for nine years and I'm not tired of it. I still think I add value to the blogosphere. I regret I don't make more of an effort to again start working on actual publications. I hope to correct that deficiency.

Thanks for reading.

UPDATE: And a thank you to Instapundit for a mention on this bloggiversary. He's been kind enough to link to my site every once in a while when I mention a post that might be of interest. I don't have a blog roll, but if I did his blog would be at or very near the top as a site I visit several times a day.

UPDATE: Thanks to Legal Insurrection on his best wishes for disorder-free blogging. Knock on wood, and all that.