I know you marked the moment on your calendars.  That particular moment, one year ago today, when you said to yourself, "Jesus Christ, that's the blandest, most god-awful first post I've ever read.  Fuck if I'm ever coming back."  You held true to your word.  You never came back.

So this is for the six of you who stumbled onto some other infrequent offering of mine.  Especially for those two who joined the Commented On Five Stim Posts Club (your certificates and decoder rings are in the mail).

With a blogiversary post, a certain amount of self-reflection is involved:  what have I learned, how has my writing developed, why do the editors hate me.  The short of it is -- I turned 50 last January.  I overdosed on self-reflection already.  But a few random observations on my entries:

• Most read post:  "30 by 30."  A list of 30 movies every American should see before turning 30.  By "most read" I mean more than 10 readers.
• Least read post:  nearly everything else.
• Post that should've been read, but wasn't:  "Mother Cheetah and Her Cubs."  It had two adorable photos and a heart-wrenching story.  What more could you ask?  However, as an early post, I'd already lost most of my potential audience (see first paragraph).  But it was my first EP.
• Most self-satisfying post:  Over the course of a long afternoon, I came up with the Overthinking Method to predicting the winner of Dancing With The Stars Season 8; researched past DWTS seasons to back up my Method; and posted my prediction of the eventual winner, Shawn Johnson.
• Most "Pushing One's Luck" Post - I made a prediction for the current Season 9.

I'd rather reflect on My Favorites list.  It's not an all-inclusive list of OSers whom I read.  I've been pretty lousy of late at adding more names.  But following the names on the list from back to front is the path I wandered over this year.  The path began with Sally Swift, my first Favorite (then "Friend")  (Hi, Sally.  Ryan Howard will be delivering your faux-brass "I was Stim's first"  trophy sometime before spring training), and currently ends with TheHideousTruth, who was just added yesterday.  Each writer on my list has given me reason to return.  To all of you, I am truly grateful.  You've made me think, feel, laugh and have reinforced what those grade school aptitude tests told me years ago:  "Stim, there are a whole lot of people who can write a whole lot better than you ever will."

I invite you to take a look at the list.  You'll see many familiar names, along with others who unfortunately took their leave of OS.  But you might find someone new.  And maybe that person wrote something that speaks to you.  And you'll have a new Favorite.  And your own path will be that much more enjoyable.