Millennial Post

Happy 1000th post to me!

I've been a long time blogging and now it's time to mark this milestone! Herewith, HKC proudly presents a compendium of features selected or saved especially for this occasion!

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ANIMANIAHKCS!

We kick things off with an example of that perennial favorite, the animated gif! This fine example was made by Lizzie in The Couv after she read the announcement that this benchmark was nigh:

I think that captures the spirit of this blog completely!

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Current Events

Did anyone catch the Olympics opening ceremonies on Friday night? This photograph of one of the dancers in the artistic presentation has become my new desktop wallpaper:

Click the image for more wonderful photos.

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Photorama

Speaking of photos and computers, since I bought this MacBook laptop at the end of last year and began using the built-in camera and the Photo Booth feature to take pictures, a copy of every photo has been automatically saved to a special file. I wanted to make an animated gif that riffed though all 99 of them really quick, but my skillz were not mad enough, so here's a slide show that's a bit more laid-back.



(Note: the quality of this video is really crappy, and I blame You Tube - I've uploaded it three times now. If you just can't live without seeing a nice, crisp, clean version, ask me the next time you see me.)

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HKC Top Ten Posts

In honor of this 1,000 post, here are the top ten posts from the past three and a half years, ranked by number of comments generated:

#10: This invitation to attend the Fremont Solstice Parade was the first post to break double-digit comments back in June of 2005. (10 comments)

#9: My announcement of my tenure-track position in May '07 drew a lot of support. (10 comments)

#8: This "What're Your Politics" test generated a bit of discussion in November '05. (11 comments)

#7: The discussion following this Movie Round-Up created more heat than light in January '06. (11 comments)

#6: This collection of photos and links led to an unusually high number of responses for no discernible reason in May 2006. (11 comments)

#5: A post from January 2006 makes the top ten for the second time with this call for de-lurking. (12 comments)

#4: The most recent high-response post was the cannibalism quiz from January of this year. (12 comments)

#3 A third entry from the chatty month of January 2006 was the Find your Daemon quiz. (16 comments)

#2 Just two weeks later, in February 2006, this discussion of Google ethics tied the daemons' comment total. (16 comments)

And the number one comment-getting post in the history of HKC is....

This one!

C'mon, don't make a liar out of me now! Leave a pithy remark (or two)!

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Random Image

I've been looking to post this image for a while: it's a depiction of all the main female characters from DC Comics - it was poster they used at the NYC ComicCon. How many can you name? (Hint: the central figure is Wonder Woman.) Even if you can't name any, it's still a great picture.

(Oh yeah - there are some artistic/symbolic clues in the picture, too.)

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The Surprise Ending

So, I guess the big news on the occasion of this 1,000th post is that I am shutting down HKC.

I have had a real ball keeping up this blog. Over three and a half years, I have averaged more than five posts per week, and lately I have been posting every day. I have enjoyed playing with words in my own small way, I have enjoyed building a continuity of community, and I have enjoyed sharing links that might have been illuminating, fun, or otherwise engaging. What I have liked most of all, however, was when I got to list who did what and what fun we had together in real life; putting down those silly aliases in bold face, making someone "almost famous" for a brief moment and documenting my friendships, was the best part of all. But I think I am done now; my friendships are still as important as ever, but this particular expression of them seems less so.

Fear not, if you really want to keep reading my deathless prose: I have started another blog. Walakanet is my new site over in the WordPress universe. I imagine it will be a place for a different kind of writing; no more diary posts and funny links, a bit more exploration and contemplation. And no more daily entries; I need to get back to writing some more complex pieces, which will, by their nature, take more time, so posting will be an occasional thing. I'm still not quite sure of my audience (an awful admission for a writing teacher to make); perhaps I am more interested in the process than the product right now. Still, I hope you drop by and check it out from time to time.

I'll keep this site up, for a while anyway, but perhaps not all the ancillary sites that it has spawned. (On a related note, I Summer Humpdays may also go on hiatus for a bit; more on that via email.) I'll try to keep the links updated, too.

So, thank you, dear readers and fellow bloggers, for all the support over the past few years. When we started building this little corner of the blogosphere, it was new and exciting and we really didn't know what we were doing; now it seems blogs and blogging have become routine parts of our daily lives. I love the connections we have built, particularly with friends who are not local to us, and I hope never to lose that; nonetheless, the time has come to cover the furniture with sheets, turn off the utilities, fasten the shutters, and lock the doors of this particular structure.

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The Last Post, for the record

The highlight of yesterday (besides tea with Dingo) was a visit from The Goddess and DeeDee, in town from The Couv. It was great catching up with them again and talking higher ed gossip and gamer geekishness. Before taking a walk around Fremont and coming to the RD to see the townhouse, we went to Silence Heart Nest for lunch. I had the Neat Loaf sandwich (hold the mayo), with a side of cashew gravy for my home fries.

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Bye-bye

And to send us off in style, here's none other than that Swedish songbird, Miss Ann-Margaret Olsson:

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Cheers, all.