Twenty Years!

 I was gonna begin the anniversary post with a photo of Old Steve Rogers sittin' and ruminatin'. 

But Old Blogger wouldn't let me.

Is that because Blogger is itself too old? Or is the Old Steve pic so fresh and new (?) that the lawyers won't let me meme it for my self-promotional purposes?

Still, there has to be an acceptable (legal) way to celebrate that Why Won't You Grow turned 20 years old yesterday. And unlike Steve Rogers, it shows its age.

For one, it still sits on Blogger--the Hammer Tech of blog platforms. But I guess I'm ride or die at this point. I'm pot committed. All of my very important thoughts over the last two decades is here--for better and very much for worse.

It will all evaporate someday. Maybe an EM pulse will shut everything down. (No one will more the loss of WWYG?! but a small spec of individual expression will be gone.  . . . Right?)

How to celebrate 20 years of random flotsam? (Other than the simple acknowledgement that is happening now?) Well, last night I was sitting with Grace, enjoying a few episodes of her first self-directed LOST Rewatch and what episode appeared?

It’s not even my birthday! pic.twitter.com/vMXerghlJx

— David (@dtm1971) August 13, 2024

If only I have reached that point in my own LOST Rewatch/repost.

But anyway . . . Happy Anniversary to me!

Abrams did it to me again . . . for the FIRST time!

 Didn't George Lucas say something about how stories, like poetry, rhyme? (Meaning it as a justification that the repetition in his stories and what some might perceive as a weakness in story telling was actually a feature and not a bug.)

checking . . .

According to this source, he said "Again, it's like poetry, so that they rhyme. Every stanza kind of rhymes with the last one."

Well . . . he is definitely not the only one.

Because tonight I'm minding my own business and watching a rerun of an Alias episode. ("Almost Thirty Years" which aired May 21, 2002.) And at the end of the episode, Sydney blows up a big Rambaldi device that collapses a sphere of red water being suspended in anti-gravity whatsis. This begins a flood within the building. And so Sydney and Vaughn run to escape the rushing wall of liquid. Sydney safely gets on one side of a bulkhead door (which has a window). And Vaughn is trapped on the water side and so Sydney gets to watch as he is surrounded by the water.

DOES THIS SOUND FAMILIAR TO YOU?!

DOES IT RHYME?!!!!!

Maybe it would help if I shared a clip of this episode of LOST ("Through the Looking Glass--season 3, episodes 22 and 23, which aired May 23, 2007)

So . . . as you can see . . . Mr. Abrams's creative partners Lindelof and Cuse were happy to take a bit of Alias lore and hit me with it again almost exactly five years later. 

And I didn't make the connection until over seventeen years after that.

It shocked me, let me tell you.

 via GIPHY

(Yes, Will. It shocked me almost as much as that.)

#HatofSummer 2024 Revealed

 Look. I'm sorry that the #HatofSummer has been official for weeks and I forgot to cross post this video from my other social media feeds over here.

Fifteen-years-ago me would be severely disappointed.

But current me is who he is. And that's just how it goes. I encourage you to get over your disappointment and surf back through the WWYG?! archives and feel better about when this was more vibrant and vital and we all had more pep in our step.

None of that, however, takes away from the very satisfying fact that #OfficialHat2024 is out there and the #HatofSummer project continues--even after all this time.

So not everything slowly withers on the vine.

As much as the hat's simple existence, I am happy with the new style and video elements I added this year. No, I didn't experiment as much as I thought I would. But it gives me confidence that I might make another step next Spring when #OfficialHat2025 approaches.

#HatofSummer (2024) Voting Update Number 3

When I started this project in 2012 I didn't know where it would go. And all these years later, it seems evident by the tone of this video that I still don't.

Such are the defining characteristics of the #HatofSummer.

 

#HatofSummer (2024) Voting Update Number 2

Memorial Day weekend is now only two weeks away, so the time you have left to vote for the #HatofSummer is slipping away!

Perhaps this is surprising to you? If so, that might be because I have not done a great job of reminding everyone about the voting progress this year. Regardless #OfficialHat2024 will be chosen very soon and then no more new hats for me until Labor Day weekend!

Voting is open and ready to accept your choices now!