May 12, 2011
Although WordPress says this is my 500th blog that may not be quite true. Like many of the Jewish High Holy Days, the exact date of my 500th post is not certain.
To be sure, this is my 500th post on WordPress. However, Mr. Blog’s Tepid Ride started on MySpace in 2006 and in 2009 I moved all of my old posts here. Actually, I moved most of my old posts here. Here is where the trouble starts.
Out of about 247 blogs I only moved around 200 of them. The others I left behind because they were too personal, too serious, or more often than not, just not funny. (What didn’t make the cut? Well, a list of the songs in my iPod for one. Hey, they can’t all be winners.) I still have them on my hard drive and a huge printout so they still exist, just not on WordPress. And they count because they were published and read under the Mr. Blog’s Tepid Ride banner. Simple enough, right?
Wrong. When I moved the old blogs I split some of them in two. For example, my reviews of Terminator: Salvation and Star Trek originally appeared together in the same post. Other blogs I didn’t republish in full and only excerpted, sometimes, again, in separate blogs. So I wrote more posts than appear here, but I also wrote less than appear here.
Further confusing the issue is the fact that I printed some posts that already appeared here a second time as either a Flashback! classic or a Classic Repost. So the number of blog posts went up but the number of actual posts stayed the same.
I’ll make it worse. I did a series of reposts from Skinner.fm, now Flash Pulp and those contained no original work from me at all. I also did two features on the art of Michael Mongello. While I did make an original header image and just a touch of writing, by and large I can’t take credit for those, so blog post count goes up, actual blog number stays the same. Again.
And to makes more confusing, there is one blog counted that was read grand total of three times before I made it private, never to be seen again. Except by me. That blog caused me enough trouble, thank you very much. Since I never deleted it and it still exists on WordPress it is part of the 500.
So there you go. With the blogs that drive the number up and the blogs that drive the number down more or less balancing each other out, I say to Hell with it, let’s go with the number I see when I look at the stats.
500 it is.
If you do the math you must wonder way a blog that started in 2006 is just now hitting 500 posts. In the beginning this was a once a week blog, then it slowly grew and grew to become the monster that takes up too much of my time that you see today. This blog is and always was a one-man show. Everything from the background image to the posts are all mine. The exception is the wonderful Mike Monge header you see atop for the 500th post.
I could get silly and all “what does 500 mean to me?” but I won’t. I could bore you with stats and tell you that the word “unexpurgated” never appeared in my blog but “shit” clocks in at 135. I could go behind the scenes and tell you that all The Tepid Zombie blogs more or less do the same “voodoo man” and “eat brain” jokes or I could tell you that out of the original five readers of this blog in 2006 only one still has a subscription.
I won’t go down that road.
I simply want to take the time to thank a few people with the only thanks that count- plugs.
First, Jim and Relic Radio. Jim is master of OTR, old time radio. You can find his fantastic collection of vintage radio shows on iTunes, and it was on the amazing Relic Radio forum that a casual mention of “I once had a blog on MySpace” burgeoned into the mess I run today. (But don’t hold that against him.) Jim is a great guy and all of the forum members bring something special to his site.
There are some fantastic people on those forums, like Janece, whose quote graces the “raves” sidebar of Mr. Blog’s Tepid Ride, and Peter (Jello Again!) Church, actor extraordinaire who dabbles in his own Radio’s Revenge podcast.
They are not the only creative types you’ll meet there. People like Matt Cowen of Vintage Horror (which has expanded my reading list to no end) and Mac, musician extraordinaire hang out there. “Musician extraordinaire” doesn’t scratch the surface of Mac. Meet him the forum and see for yourself, and read the bio of me on this very site. Mac generously wrote it.
JRD Skinner needs more eloquent words than I have to describe. I am not sure if I admire more his Flash Pulp fiction or his ability to post up to five or six times each day. As he’d be the first to tell you, he can’t do it alone, and his partners in pulp Jessica May and Opoponax deserve thanks and praise from me as well. In all honestly, I’ve always secretly believed that they are the power behind the throne.
If you’ve peeked at the header above you’ve seen the amazing work of the bacon-loving . Mike Mongello. I’ve dedicated a couple of pages to his work here and never fail to wonder how the heck he does it. He doesn’t swipe, that’s for sure.
I need to thank those who frequently comment here as well. They keep the conversation going and keep it interesting as well. The well-travelled TEStazyk and Allen Keyes get my grateful thanks.
The Hook has a site that needs to be read to be believed. The things he puts up with on his job may test his patience but they make great reading.
And last of all, thank you.
Facebook links
Mike Mongello
Jessica May
The Savage Opoponax
JRD Skinner (CEO of Skinner Co.)
Flash Pulp
Relic Radio
Jim Paul
Matt Cowen
Peter Church
Twitter links
Jessica May
Opoponax
JRD Skinner
Relic Radio
Jim Paul (RetroJims)
Peter Church (Radio’s Revenge)
Websites
Relic Radio
Flash Pulp
Radio’s Revenge
Vintage Horror
Mac of BIOnight
Mr. Blog's Tepid Ride 
It is possible- no, probable- no, likely- make that extremely likely- that I made an egreagious error and left out someone I absolutely shouldn’t have. Despite knowing for about 499 posts that this one was coming up I didn’t write this until, like, a couple of hours ago, so feel free to let me know by throwing something at my head and I will fix the omission ASAP. (Unless you threw a brick and knocked me out. In that case give me time to get out of the hospital and fix it.)
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Lots of fun as usual, you’re 500, but it doesn’t show! And I’m blushing all over – thanks for the kind words #O__O# 🙂
500 of these days!! (which means, lemme see… 250,000 posts – you’d better start jotting down some ides, man 😉
(I’m ashamed to ask, but where do I find the bio (it’s quite embarrassing, I’ll never learn to move around in blogs)?)
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You can click “The Author” just above the header, or click the link I just now added in the paragraph where I mention it in the 500 post.
And as for the next blogs, I am in the enviable position of knowing what my next six blogs will be but in the unenviable position of having to write them.
And THANKS!
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Oops, I told you I’m dumb – just use a different word and my brain won’t compute ;-P By the way, have you ever tried those voice recognition programs? I’ve never tried any, but I’ve always thought they might make the writing process (pretty painful for a horrifyingly inept typer like me) easier and faster…
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Never tried it. I wonder how that would work with formatting? How does it know about paragraphing, punctuation, etc? Just something else on my long list of things to try.
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I believe you have to just tell it when you want a comma or anything else by just saying the corresponding word (unless it is like some of my students when we’re having a dictation – I say “comma” and they write “comma” in letters…
)
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This bears looking into. (Bad translation- “I want to look into a bear.”)
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:-DDD Believe it or not, I hear worse… A couple of examples? French fries is “patate fritte” in Italian.
During a translation to English, one of them translated “French fries” as… patates frittes.
Sure, add an S at the end of the words and they will magically turn into English… after all, it’s an easy language
😀
Original English sentence: “An experience I was very afraid of”. Translation: “They experienced a lot of cold weather”. Pretty close, yeah… >__>’
Grammar question: – “What’s the difference between ‘a little’ and ‘little’?”
– “One has the article while the other doesn’t”
Undeniably true ;-D
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Original English sentence: “An experience I was very afraid of”. Translation: “They experienced a lot of cold weather”. Pretty close, yeah… >__>’
I guess it depends on how you feel about the cold! Was this in reference to the Shackleton Expedition? 😉
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😀 Actually, it’s just that “cold” in Italian is “freddo,” which very, very vaguely sounds and looks like “afraid of” >__>’
After an hour of stuff like that, I usually start considering an arctic expedition myself… 😉
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Many a good joke has been ruined by logic and reason. 😉
I am woefully undereducated in Italian but I am passingly familiar with Spanish which is just similar enough to allow me to make a correct guess now and then about Italian meanings.
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Congratulations however you count–I hope I have the same perseverance and longevity.
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Thanks but be careful what you wish for and never put your blogging on any kind of schedule. Never.
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Congrats on nailing 500!
The new bio is great, and I’m still digging Monge’s banner.
Thanks, too, for the kind words – not only are the ladies the true power behind the site, they’re also largely responsible for yahoo.com and a couple of ebay knock offs.
Great job, looking forward to the next 500.
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I think you qualify for the 401k now!
Congratulations on 500(ish) posts. I’ve not read every one yet, but I’ve enjoyed every one I’ve read!
Thank you for the kind words as well.
A credit roll at the end of a post? That may catch on.
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Congrats! Here’s to 500 more, or so!
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