Today, July 27, 2026, this Whirled turns
twenty. Two full decades. That's right: I've been hobby-blogging
on this platform for twenty years, spewing out many hundreds of
thousands of words, as well as a huge gallery of tawdry graphics to accompany
those words. As I noted on last year's blogaversay post,
it's been fun for the most part. At the very least, I'm keeping
myself entertained with it.
I like to think I've been keeping a few other folks entertained
over the years as well. I know I've angered some, which has
earned me quite a few ungrammatical, marginally literate, and
highly amusing verbal assaults, the occasional death threat,
lawsuit threats, and even an actual failed lawsuit (or
"flawsuit" as I like to call it). But for the most part
these days, the larger world ignores the Whirled. And that's fine
with me.
It's worth mentioning how much my little corner of
the Internet has shifted since 2006 -- transitioning from the
early days of lampooning the ludicrous pseudoscience and crassly
materialistic McSpirituality of The Secret, to
tracking real-world tragedies like those caused by the late and
not-lamented James Arthur Ray, to extensive
reporting on serial scammers like Kevin Trudeau (aka K.T., aka
Katie on this blog), to navigating the exhausting, air-sucking
era of modern politics, i.e., the Error of Trump.
It might even be said that this modest little blog encompasses a
massive chunk of Internet history. If I really wanted to wallow
in self-importance I would go so far as to say that I haven't
just been hobby-blogging; I have also witnessed and archived a
major cultural evolution. Or maybe "evolution" isn't
the proper word. Maybe "devolution" or
"regression" would fit better.
In any case, I have observed the Whirled birthday/anniversary/blogaversary every year, sometimes with a brief mention and other times
offering a more extended rumination about the history and purpose
of this endeavor. Regarding said history and purpose, the latter
of which has, as noted above, evolved over the years, I have said
pretty much everything that I think needs to be said, and don't
feel compelled to say it all again. But for anyone who's curious,
this page tells it all.
If this were a 20th wedding anniversary,
the traditional gift would be china, symbolizing the delicate yet
resilient beauty of a marriage that has lasted two decades, while
the modern gift is platinum for ultimate endurance. The
traditional gemstone for the 20th wedding anny is the emerald,
and the flower is the aster. But I don't need fine dinnerware,
precious metals, gemstones, or flowers, and besides, this is a
blogaversary we're celebrating.
The one gift that is appropriate any time for any occasion or
non-occasion is money, and after the year I've had (major move,
major medical crisis) it is needed now more than ever. Here are
some ways to give it:
- Venmo: username @Connie-Schmidt-42. Here is a direct link to the Venmo page.
- PayPal: -- Here is a direct link to my PayPal page.
- Old but still good: You can click on the "Donate" icon that currently appears on the right-hand side of every page of this blog on the Web version. There's also a donation link at the end of many of my older blog posts. In the case of both the icon and the links on the older posts, as well as the link in this sentence, this is also a PayPal link, but it references the email account RevRon -- which is cool, because it all ultimately goes to the same place.
NOTE: If you are donating by PayPal, please
specify that your contribution is for "friends and
family," which will waive PayPal's substantial transaction
fee.
Whether you can donate or not, thank you for visiting this
Whirled. I can't promise (or threaten) another twenty years, but
I'm gonna keep it going as long as I can.
