The plan, to the extent I had one, was to celebrate the 20th anniversary of this blog by bolstering regular posting here with daily “flashback” posts from the same day earlier in Slacktivist’s history.
That got away from me a bit thanks to our regional economy being as close as it’s ever been to full employment. That is, undeniably, a Good Thing. But the Big Box is a Big Corporation and, like all Big Corporations, it’s slow to respond to supply and demand when the market in question involves labor.
So we’ve been short-handed and short-staffed throughout the Spring. If you’ve been reading this blog for it’s entire 20 years, then you’ll remember that I was first hired at the Box as part of the “seasonal recovery” crew it brings on every year during our busiest season. We didn’t hire anybody for that crew this year. I’d say we’ve been stretched thin, but stretched-thin would be a luxurious improvement over what this Spring was like.
And so most of the time I’d planned on spending here I have, instead, spent there, in a frantic, frazzled sprint from March through Independence Day.
That’s been particularly frustrating given that this has been a rather unpleasantly eventful time in the world beyond the Big Box. I’ve scarcely been able to think about that, let alone write about it here. (Although, of course, writing about things here is usually how I think about them.)
The result of all of this non-blog business has been a lot of non-blogging. Those daily flashback posts turned out to be a substitute, rather than a supplement, to the usual posting here. Apologies for that.
Another thing that got lost in all of that busy-ness was the big 20th-Blogiversary Fundraising Extravaganza I had planned for June 22, 2022 — 20 years to the day from my very first blogspot-hosted post, now long lost to linkrot, discussing the plausibility of Pat Robertson’s “sentergistic milkshakes” which the then-septuagenarian televangelist and milkshake-salesman credited with giving him the ability, he said, to leg-press 2,000 pounds.
I had no idea at the time that I’d still be doing this 20 years later. No idea of the friends and community that I would find in doing so, and come to treasure even long after our new Social Media Overlords chose to strangle blogging. All I remember thinking was that I was either going to have to say something about that snake-oil salesman or else just give up and get into the miracle milkshake business myself. I had no idea what I was beginning or how wonderful and rewarding it would turn out to be.
Then again, at that point, I’d still never cracked the spine of the World’s Worst Books. So.
Anyway, this blog is now 20 years and 14 days old. So this is my two-weeks late 20th-Blogiversary Fundraising Extravaganza. (Should that have an exclamation point? In 20 years of blogging, I’ve only used a few dozen non-ironic exclamation points and it’s probably too late to start using them in earnest now without risking them being perceived as sarcastic. Still, though, 20 years is a big deal — [Jeremy Piven in Grosse Point Blank voice]: “Twenty. Years!” — so maybe just this once.) Welcome to the 20th-Blogiversary Fundraising Extravaganza! (Felt weird. Going back to using exclamation points as infrequently as semi-colons, I think.)
The links there are to my Paypal account. I’ve also got Venmo, but I’ve only used it to transfer money to my wife’s account, so I’m not sure how to link that here. (Twenty years of blogging means I am an old and, therefore, have the right to be befuddled and crotchety when it comes to the latest apps, which probably aren’t even the latest apps any more, but that’s how I think of them because I am now an old.)
I also have a Patreon account, notable for its unforgivable lack of perks and extras for loyal and generous sponsors. I and my family are immeasurably grateful for the support so many of you have shown us through Patreon. If it weren’t for that account, I’d have never been able to Venmo any money to the Slacktivixen and she wouldn’t have been able to use it to pay our bills. Thank you so much.
The plowing-through-20-years-of-archives involved in putting together these 20th-anniversary flashback posts was part of a larger project in which I’m hoping to produce some e-books full of stuff you could otherwise read here for free. (I’ll be releasing those first via Patreon.) That includes updated versions of the Left Behind collections that Amazon spiked and of The Long March of the Koalas, the collection of essays on creationism that’s still available there. Now that the frenzy of mulch-buying has begun to subside here in Chester County, I’ll be getting back to the work of editing myself and hope to have those e-books available sometime before the white-/Christian-nationalist takeover is complete and you’re no longer allowed to read them.
In conclusion: 20 Years! Yay! (Still seems weird.) Please support this blog if you’re willing and able to do so.
And thank you! (That one felt right.)
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