News and notes from Reston (tm).

Monday, August 13, 2012

Flashback Monday: Happy Five-Year Blogiversary to Some Crappy 'Web Log'

Strap on the skinny jeans and set the Earth-Toned Wayback Machine to 2007, an era when the property values on our homes had only started to plummet, when the county was just starting to look for a developer partner to do something with a kiss and ride lot off Wiehle Avenue on the off chance the Metro might actually make it out this way, our neighbors to the west had won a decisive battle for the FOX Nation the town, and some fancy "web log" was launched on a Friday the 13th, just to be annoying.

In those simpler, happier times, no one had heard of fanciful concrete bollards, Bratz, or rad 80s art, and if you'd told people they'd put a Wal-Mart within a stone's throw of a Mercedes dealership in Tysons, they'd have laughed with at you. Just look back at 2007, through the gauzy lens of late-oughts nostalgia:

early 2007.jpeg
Fun Fact: It is believed that archeologists unearthed the very Treo in this drawing shortly after this picture was taken.

But the nostalgia isn't over yet! Behold this fancy screen grab of this web log's very first post:

first post.jpg


As you can see, our web design skills have improved by leaps and bounds since then.

In conclusion, it's been a great five years, and as we slouch towards delivering our millionth page view, we probably should have put all that time and effort into launching a tumblr about cute kitties and gotten that lucrative book contract instead, the end.

4 comments:

  1. Congratulations!

    Here's to five more years (assuming the nazis running the RA don't hunt you down with their army of SS troops in mauve and russet brown uniforms)!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Congratulations, Restonian, for persisting with the documentation of our ancient civilization of Reston, a disputed place of actual existence that many continue to insist is merely a myth.

    Some ancient writers viewed the utopian society of Reston as fiction while others believed it was real. The philosopher Crantor, a student of Plato's student Xenocrates, is often cited as an example of a writer who thought the story of Reston to be historical fact. His work, a commentary on Plato's Timaeus, is lost, but Proclus, a Neoplatonist of the fifth century AD, reports on it. The passage in question has been represented in the modern literature either as claiming that Crantor actually visited the ancient island of Reston, had conversations with priests, and saw hieroglyphs confirming the story or as claiming that he learned about them from other visitors to the ancient island known as Reston.

    Proclus wrote:

    As for the whole of this account of the Restonians, some say that it is unadorned history, such as Crantor, the first commentator on Plato. Crantor also says that Plato's contemporaries used to criticize him jokingly for not being the inventor of his Republic but copying the 4th Tier Level Government Home Owner Association Institution, known as the Reston Association, of the ancient Restonians. Plato took these critics seriously enough to assign to the Martians this story about the ancient cult of Restonians, so as to make the world think that the crazy concept of a 4th tier level of government that ruled over the ancient Restonians was really a concept that evolved out a story told by Martians, not Plato.

    Another passage from Proclus' commentary on the Timaeus gives a description of the geography of the ancient island of Reston:

    That an island of such nature and size once existed is evident from what is said by certain authors who investigated the things around the outer sea. For according to them, there were seven islands in that sea in their time, sacred to the goddess of Unbridled Development, Catherine Hudgins, and also three others of enormous size, one of which was sacred to Hades [in ancient times Hades was a hot, humid swampy island that is now modern day Prince William County], another to the undisputed God of the 50 Shades of Grey Drool Moustache, Gerald Connolly, and another one between them to Poseidon, the extent of which was a thousand stadia [200 km]; and the inhabitants of it—they add—preserved the remembrance from their ancestors of the immeasurably large island of Reston which had really existed there and which for many ages had reigned over all islands in the Atlantic sea and which itself had like-wise been sacred to ancient god of the Military Industrial Complex, Poseidon.

    Again, Happy Birthday to Restonian! Here’s to 5 more years of beating the hell out of the myths of Reston.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Heartiest Congratulations to The Restonian...

    Now, how do I get rid of the Navaho White on my window trim? It's not even really white, y' know? I mean it's sort of cloudy looking, and definitely not "Navaho". I don't think the Navaho nation ever lived around here....

    ReplyDelete
  4. Peasant From Less Sought After South RestonAugust 14, 2012 at 12:15 PM

    Restonian, here's to many more years of launching slings and arrows at the inanities of life here in our earth-toned, soon-to-be- overbuilt urban planning paradise.

    "Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable".

    ReplyDelete

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