Article Cheerleading
When I applied for this job... well, I didn't really expect I'd get it, first of all. I mean, I've applied for pretty much every open Starmen.Net position since the dawn of time; when A.L. Holby and Chris were named as new mods of the EarthBound.Net forums back in 1999 I seethed with jealousy and figured I had been there just as long as them. If I've done my calculations correctly, I've been jealous over more site luminaries than anybody this side of Buzz Buzz. Always the psychotic, angry bridesmaid, never the bride. Which is good, I guess, since I'm a guy.
So anyway, I applied, as usual, and made a bunch of outlandish promises; my background in arguing politics, apparently, had seeped through into my psyche. I'd hold regular contests! I'd write an article a week! I'd feed the homeless! I figured somebody else would get the position, and then I could make cutting remarks about whoever got it in #earthbound. It was a locktight plan.
Right up until I got the e-mail.
This... well, it was a problem. The website I run on my own time--I won't publish the name here, because I'm above that kind of base, self-aggrandizing peddling at getupbaby.net, your source for St. Louis Cardinals information since 2003--is founded upon the cutting edge principles of web design, as seen in 1998. Frames, tables everywhere; I'd throw a few Dancing Baby animations and Netscape NOW! buttons in, too, if I had the chance. That's because the last time I took a web design class, I was eleven; this was heady stuff.
Fast forward to 2005, where a site with exponentially more visitors hands me the keys to one of its oldest, most popular original sections. A site that just launched a redesign based on enough 2005 cutting-edge acronyms to choke a Physics major. You wouldn't have noticed, because I did it all behind the scenes, but the week following that e-mail was one of scrambling, worrying, and the kind of neurotic questioning you typically only see in Woody Allen films.
What if I blew up the site? What if nobody cares about articles? What if I accidentally reverted to my old ways and enclosed an article in blink tags, leading to Starmen.Net's extermination at the hands of the Common Decency Police? The second one was what scared me the most; after all, the section had been dormant for a year, and even when it was around it was kind of... spartan. What if articles had been passed by? Who could possibly stand reading nothing but articles from me?
Thankfully, however, I haven't had to worry about that; thanks to those of you who have thrown your hats into the article ring and helped me resurrect this venerable section, because I think we know what would happen if I had tried it alone: utter mayhem. Thanks, most of all, for relegating me to a role I'm qualified to play: Articles cheerleader. S-U-B! M-I-T! Send all of your stuff to me! See, I'm all over it.
When I applied for this job... well, I didn't really expect I'd get it, first of all. I mean, I've applied for pretty much every open Starmen.Net position since the dawn of time; when A.L. Holby and Chris were named as new mods of the EarthBound.Net forums back in 1999 I seethed with jealousy and figured I had been there just as long as them. If I've done my calculations correctly, I've been jealous over more site luminaries than anybody this side of Buzz Buzz. Always the psychotic, angry bridesmaid, never the bride. Which is good, I guess, since I'm a guy.
So anyway, I applied, as usual, and made a bunch of outlandish promises; my background in arguing politics, apparently, had seeped through into my psyche. I'd hold regular contests! I'd write an article a week! I'd feed the homeless! I figured somebody else would get the position, and then I could make cutting remarks about whoever got it in #earthbound. It was a locktight plan.
Right up until I got the e-mail.
This... well, it was a problem. The website I run on my own time--I won't publish the name here, because I'm above that kind of base, self-aggrandizing peddling at getupbaby.net, your source for St. Louis Cardinals information since 2003--is founded upon the cutting edge principles of web design, as seen in 1998. Frames, tables everywhere; I'd throw a few Dancing Baby animations and Netscape NOW! buttons in, too, if I had the chance. That's because the last time I took a web design class, I was eleven; this was heady stuff.
Fast forward to 2005, where a site with exponentially more visitors hands me the keys to one of its oldest, most popular original sections. A site that just launched a redesign based on enough 2005 cutting-edge acronyms to choke a Physics major. You wouldn't have noticed, because I did it all behind the scenes, but the week following that e-mail was one of scrambling, worrying, and the kind of neurotic questioning you typically only see in Woody Allen films.
What if I blew up the site? What if nobody cares about articles? What if I accidentally reverted to my old ways and enclosed an article in blink tags, leading to Starmen.Net's extermination at the hands of the Common Decency Police? The second one was what scared me the most; after all, the section had been dormant for a year, and even when it was around it was kind of... spartan. What if articles had been passed by? Who could possibly stand reading nothing but articles from me?
Thankfully, however, I haven't had to worry about that; thanks to those of you who have thrown your hats into the article ring and helped me resurrect this venerable section, because I think we know what would happen if I had tried it alone: utter mayhem. Thanks, most of all, for relegating me to a role I'm qualified to play: Articles cheerleader. S-U-B! M-I-T! Send all of your stuff to me! See, I'm all over it.
