SemiConscious Dot Org

So I’m sure all you young, hep kids have already heard of The Wayback Machine, the website that caches and archives web pages for posterity, so that future generations can see how bad your HTML skillz used to be. I have, on occasion, used it to find posts from my old site that would otherwise have been lost in the mists of time. Yesterday, however, I hit upon the idea of checking out the archives from a site started by my good friend Kables way back in the halcyon days of 2003. It was a grand, ultimately failed experiment, one that, if successful, would’ve established a bold new paradigm for the future of the internet and zzzzzzzzz…...

Sorry, drifted off there. No, it was just a group of us crazy kids goofing off. The site was called Bloglists, and the name pretty much describes it: the ten or so regular contributors would make up and posts lists of stuff. The site enjoyed a relatively short run. Its useful lifespan was about two months, March and April 2003. Then, the original contributors ran out of ideas, and our lack of ability to recruit new blood doomed the site. But in those two, glorious months, we posted almost 100 lists. Said posts usually came in the form of a Top 5 or Top 10, after which the poster would describe the rationale for choosing each item. Then people would argue about it. Music was, not surprisingly, a very popular topic, and there were downright hilarious lists posted on the general topic of Religion. Other popular points of discussion and contention included Sports, Booze, and Sex.

But for my money, the best (and usually funniest) category was All-Star Basketball Teams. The premise was very simple: you would take five of any particular person, place, or thing, and assemble them into a basketball team, providing rationale for why one particular person/place/thing should be the Center, another should be the Point Guard, etc. Bonus points were awarded for picking a sixth and seventh thing and making them the Sixth Man and Coach, respectively. The arguments could get rather heated, such as when Kables and I squabbled over his leaving Mayo off the All-Star Condiments Team, or not including The Melvins in his All-Star Indie Rock Old-Timers Team. Of my own teams, my personal favorite was the All Star Pasta Team. My finely reasoned rationale for placing Lasagna at Center, Manicotti Shells Stuffed With Ricotta at Power Forward, Tortellini at Small Forward, Fettucini Alfredo at Shooting Guard, and Linguini With Clam Sauce at the Point was truly a thing of beauty.

Sadly, as previously stated, the sight very quickly ran out of steam. May 2003 saw only three measly posts of dubious quality, and then…nothing. The concept of blogging lists of stuff lives on in Kables’ current collaborative site, but they’re usually straightforward lists related to music or sports, without the zaniness of the classic Bloglists post, and without nearly as much arguing.

Perhaps someone should revive the site and/or concept?