The Year in Review: 2008

Okay, so we appear to have survived another one. Our tenth year was a big one, so let’s pause and reflect, shall we?

Well, on the good side of things, Weekend Justice was relaunched with the entire Needcoffee crew instead of just my boring ass and I think can actually be listened to without psychotropic assistance. For those who like podcasts that become only comprehensible through the use of chemicals, Ken and I started Nuts on the Road, a desperate attempt to make our phone calls productive. You can find all of that mess in our Podcasts category.

Nuts on the Road was also the title of our revamped and revived Gonzo Film Fest at DragonCon, where we brought in not just cool films, but also Paul and Storm and “Howling Mad” Dana Snyder performed. Also there for the weekend were Jackson Publick and Doc Hammer of The Venture Bros., and of course, Trace Beaulieu, Frank Conniff and Joel Hodgson of Cinematic Titanic. There was also Nuts on the Road: The Mother of All Panel Shows at DragonCon (known in the UK as “Goddammit, Doc!”) which was a triumph of surrealistic performance art. Special thanks to Robert Llewellyn of Red Dwarf for joining in and putting up with us.

Our two satellite sites, Daily Kicksplode and Colors Are Overrated, I put into dormant mode simply because I learned what a bunch of other sites are apparently trying now and will probably learn later: don’t open new sites. I mean, sure, if you’ve got a URL you’ve been sitting on for years and it has some history, fine. But why split your resources? I mean, unless you’re a mega-corp, then you’ve got enough money to override sense. But I’m just saying. One day when with your support we become a mega-corp and can stop making sense, I promise to bring them back.

I revived my Something Odd webcomic, which has now over 70 strips of silliness online. We also launched 700 Bands, our project to come up with usable band names and offer them up for whoever wants them. We’ve gotten more than halfway through, and I’ve expanded the scope of the project to include existing bands with unique names.

And we also implemented a translation plugin that puts this website out there in seven languages besides English. Thus we’ve been able to see some really cool stuff, like a huge surge in our Brazilian readership. We’re talking huge. I hope one day to be able to upgrade this box to the point where we can increase that amount of languages. We’re based in the U.S., but I’ve never wanted this to be a strictly-American website. In fact, any good writers outside the country? Ping me. I want to chat with you.

2008 was an improvement over 2007, but we’re looking to do even more craziness in 2009. Seriously, thanks to everybody who came out, read the site, linked to us (the cheapest way to help us out), and bought stuff through the site. Seriously, we started this site ten years ago as a lark and I have no idea where all you people came from, but may the Flying Spaghetti Monster bless you all.

And now, let’s take a look at the year that was. Starting with the Most Popular Non-Contest Posts of Each Month.

January:

February:

March:

April:

May:

June:

July:

August:

September:

October:

November:

December:

Image from Damon Hart-Davis.

The Year in Review: 2008

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