Cake, candles and (hopefully) presents: Preliator turns one

First Birthday [source: Psychology Today]

In the midst of July of 2009, I was already growing weary with my then-blog, Respectful Defiance. (Yes, I know I ought to be stoned for that title; please have mercy). The template had incrementally progressed further and further away from what I desired, and my months of hackneyed tinkering with the HTML had rendered it just about unsalvageable. Add in some other multitudes of minor issues, and I just really needed to scrap it and get myself a new outlet.

And so, on July 25 of 2009, Preliator pro Causa saw the light.^[1]

I figured the best way to commemorate this milestone – how many blogs, in all, stay online and active with several posts each day for a year and more? – was with another traditional Top Posts list. (Because who can ever get enough of those?) For the sake of refreshing memories, awakening nostalgia and increasing pageviews, here’s what the fantastic tool that is Google Analytics informs me are the 12 most visited posts in the past year since Preliator’s inception. Why 12? Because 13 is just too much.

All figures and statistics taken at today (07/24/10) at 8:50 PM EST.

#12) Christian bigots resort to their usual dirty tricks
Published: Sunday, February 07, 2010 | Pageviews: 101
A Florida judge granted a lesbian couple the right to formally adopt an infant son. So, naturally, the Religious Right has its usual little freakout and does its best to smear the loving and caring couple as grotesque, carpet-munching lezzies and so on.

#11) Another rant on how not all animal sex is animal abuse
Published: Saturday, December 19, 2009 | Pageviews: 101
In light of a case of bestiality where a man had sex with horses on several occasions during summer nights, Goshen, NY Police Chief James Watt actually compared the harmless activity to convicted fighter and killer of dogs Michael Vick. Also includes a sorta-rant of mine on how bestiality is not animal abuse in and of itself and those who engage in it ought to be left the hell alone unless they commit some actual and verifiable harm to animals.

#10) Meet Glenn Moon, candidate for Supreme Kook City Council of Livonia, Michigan
Published: Sunday, August 23, 2009 | Pageviews: 120
Über-nut Glenn Moon’s ad for his campaign for City Council of Livonia, Michigan. He sounds about as loony as that other Glenn we all know of. Or possibly even more (quite a feat). Be thankful for his quick defeat, at least.

#09) When you need to see a movie just to believe how bad it is
Published: Wednesday, July 14, 2010 (reposted Tuesday, July 20, 2010) | Pageviews: 151
What was originally merely a post sharing the Nostalgia Critic’s hilarious ass-kicking of that 2003-era wretch known as The Room has now turned into a quiet protest against censorship when the movie’s director/producer/lead actor Tommy Wiseau got his panties in a twist and forced the NC to yank his negative review. Which, of course, was followed by a great parody of the censorship.

#08) Desiree Jennings and the great “flu shot = dystonia” hoax
Published: Tuesday, February 16, 2010 | Pageviews: 168
Former cheerleader Desiree Jennings claimed (and, I believe, still does so) to have developed dystonia as a result of receiving her flu vaccinations. In a rare moment of criticism of woo in the media, Inside Edition ran a piece where they clearly caught Jennings walking and acting quite normally (despite having been grievously “affected” previously) … that is, until she caught sight of the cameras, at which point her “symptoms” mysteriously “reappeared”.

#07) Vox Day tells us what women really want in a man ^[updated]
Published: Monday, May 03, 2010 | Pageviews: 249
Our favorite misogynistic crank, Vox Day, responds to a sensible column by Marianne Murciano about “training” men (ie. teaching them how to understand women better) by asserting that women just want to submit to males and that any uppity wimmen should be physically abused or beaten (or something; he uses the less-than-charming example of a tiger mauling its handler). This post got linked to in Vox’s comments and attracted a couple of amusingly and typically lame knuckle-draggers.

#06) Please note: Creating a “Photos of sexy women” post does not make one a skeevy sexist creep
Published: Sunday, July 18, 2010 | Pageviews: 268
Luke at Common Sense Atheism posted a list of 15 female scientists that he qualified as “sexy” – no additional commentary of any kind and nothing that could be reasonably construed as objectification, merely already-public portraits and basic identifying information. So, as usual, he was widely decried as a skeevy sexist creep (amongst other less pleasant catcalls). I detail my views of how and why he and his post are none of those and that posting images of people you find pretty or sexy or whatever, male or female, is not sexism or objectification except to the paranoid or oversensitive.

#05) The five top arguments for and against evolution and Creationism
Published: Thursday, September 10, 2009 | Pageviews: 302
The Telegraph ran a piece on the supposed Top 5 arguments for and against the Theory of Evolution and Creationism. I couldn’t really tell whether the arguments were the journalist’s or whether he was just repeating the more common claims; either way, the results are as expected: The arguments against Evolution are utter nonsense, the ones for Evolution are (mostly) dead on.

#04) Another atheist billboard defaced, another revelatory act
Published: Thursday, October 29, 2009 | Pageviews: 347
As usual, a pro-secular billboard is vandalized; as usual, the vandalism is both unoriginal and painfully juvenile.

#03) What happens when a little antelope is captured by three mature cheetahs …?
Published: Monday, February 01, 2010 | Pageviews: 454
A heartwarmingly cute photo series of adult cheetahs harmlessly playing with a juvenile antelope, then apparently letting it go. … Or not.

#02) Best “(de)motivational poster” ever? (NSFW)
Published: Saturday, October 03, 2009 | Pageviews: 723
I really sorta regret this one. Because when you get tons and tons of pageviews that turn out to only exist because of a stupid funny poster with a naked girl – cute though she may be – one gets slightly peeved. Might as well just post naked chicks and forgo the whole “making an effort” thing altogether.

#01) Saying that labeling children is wrong = FASCISM!!!1!!
Published: Friday, November 20, 2009 | Pageviews: 1,968
Of course, the post most of you probably found this blog through. From my Top 10 Posts of 2009 round-up: “It all started as a casual dissection of columnist Ed West’s “FASCISM!!!” nonsense in the Telegraph regarding the British Humanist Association’s “Please Don’t Label Me” bus ad campaign which told people not to label children along religious or political ideologies until they’re old enough to choose for themselves. A perfectly reasonable message. Ed West didn’t think so. So, I tore into his silly article … and my little post was tweeted. Which truly kicked the ball down the snowy mountain and started a hell of an avalanche.”

Total Pageviews: 34,948 | Total Unique Pageviews: 26,316

Now that I’ve spent most of my evening typing this up, I think I’ll go fetch myself some McDonald’s. In the mean time, you just keep reading and commenting and I’ll keep heartily appreciating every one of your pageviews and comments. (Especially comments.) I certainly have no intention to stop blogging anytime soon, so here’s to another year of commenting, analyzing, ranting and snarking. Hope to have you along for the ride.

^[1] You are hereby forbidden from nagging me for the faulty links, cruddy styling and other signs of juvenalia present in that post.

Tags: blogging