Let me tell you about doug.com

And gail.com and lisa.com and suzanne.com!

It’s me, Annie (“Depths of Wikipedia girl”, “stew girl” are fine too)

Wikipedia’s almost 23! Happy birthday you crazy girl!

I’m giving a talk this weekend for Wikipedia Day (It’s at Columbia on Sunday, if you want to come!). To prepare, I’ve been reading a lot of the early emails and comments from its first month of existence, and I find it oddly inspirational that no one, literally no one, not one soul, though it would succeed. It was more of a “here’s this idea that’s probably awful, but we’re going to try it because it seems kind of interesting” situation. Perhaps you should follow through with your questionable ideas

Are you in the doldrums? Here are some things that might snap you out of the doldrums!

You can vote on the hottest member of the Senate (and see the rankings). List of unusual anniversaries on Wikipedia. Database of jump scares in horror movies. Listen To The Cloud, a site which lets you listen in to the chatter of airport communications over ambient beats! The CIA’s map collection on Flickr is full of cartographical curiosities like a map of Africa’s administrations in 1950, which I could stare at for a very long time (I don’t know nearly enough about the colonization). Vampire bats ‘French kiss with blood’ to form lasting bonds. In 1986, McDonalds released a 10-minute scat cassette called “Takin' Breakfast By The Hand” and it’s finally digitized! You need to see the flag of Brown County, Nebraska, you really really do. Who decides which countries get which Lays flavors? by the always-great Amelia Tait in The Guardian. Dogs of Geocities, which is is one of those videos that I only really use when I need something to project on the wall at my house party. Geoguessr but for NYC Subway stations. Glorious Trainwrecks is an online community collecting videogames that are extremely janky but somehow work.

I livestream myself reading now lol

I’ve always meant to read The Power Broker, and since the podcast 99% Invisible is teaming up with Conan O’Brien to do a series about it soon, I’ve resolved to finally read all 1161 pages and 3.55 pounds of it. This month, I’ve been live streaming myself reading aloud on YouTube every morning at 10am and I’ve been having the time of my life!!!!!!!!!!! I cannot recommend livestreaming reading enough. I’m about seven bazillion times worse at reading than professional audiobook narrators and I apologize in advance for the appalling sound quality. But sometimes my cat comes in the shot!

In other news, I wish I had annie.com

I am so incredibly obsessed with the 1990s technorati who snatched up perfect domains for their 1990s personal websites, and clicking through their old musings and grainy photo uploads itched scratches in my brain that I didn’t even know I had. The best is gail.com, owned and maintained by a former NASA employee named Gail who got the domain for her birthday in 1996 and refuses to sell it. The other ones, like peter.com and paul.com and jason.net and randy.com have been bought by big dumb companies and their glory days are over. But they live on on the Wayback Machine, of course!

doug.com (1999) — every website should be more like this

greg.com (1997)

vicky.com (1996)

lisa.com (1997)

suzanne.com (1996)

I love them! An old, lovingly-crafted personal website is like a perfect little pearl on the ocean floor. It’s fun to email you guys again. I missed you! Tell me what you’re up to these days in the comments? And send me good Wikipedia articles? I’ve been running a bit low.

Love,

Annie

P.S. I kinda want to revive the perpetual stew for a one-night-only stew bash! I’ve kept a container of it in my freezer. Maybe I could team up with an actual chef to make stew that’s actually tasty…….. (if you know someone or somewhere in NYC that’s down for a donation-based stew night, let me know)

P.P.S. I’ve turned off the option to pay for these emails since I hardly update it anymore. If you’re like, “ughhh but I wanted to give you $5 for your unfocused musings and pointless rambling,” might I suggest spending your money on delightful things with more value, such this candle that smells like the map division at New York Public Library ($30) or Strega Nona stamps from USPS ($13.20)?