Yesterday, I posted my 300th Snarkout entry. I don't think it was particularly good, but it was a chance to sneak in "300" at the end. I'd estimate that I've written somewhere north of 120,000 words since I started doing this in April 2001; that's a good-sized book. I also posted my 200th entry to the sidelog. I've only been doing that for a few months, but it's awfully addictive; I see why Graham and Anil are so hipped on the form. My two hundredth link was to the Wayback Machine archives of the weekly "Work" column of the late Word.com; Word was an okay web magazine before it sold out to fish oil producer turned dot-com meteor Zapata (aka Zap.com), but "Work" was absolutely brilliant: a series of interviews with people about their jobs, from the mundane (garbage collectors, waitresses, and truck driver) to the titillating (dominatrices, pornography writers, and strippers). They interviewed Lawrence Block, Wendy Day, and the Mayor of Los Angeles. They interviewed Lauren Wacht, a shockingly articulate model; they interviewed Bob Braine, who showed what salesmen sound like when they're not being asked to serve as great metaphors for America. (Answer: Like you and me, mostly, only a bit more disillusioned about cameras.) I looked forward to its arrival every week. Then Word went to a hideous pay model, and then Zap.com (and Word) went away. And the Wayback Machine only got a few of the entries. (If anyone has the complete set, please email me.)
What a grand, fragile medium this is. I hope I've done my part.
Posted by steve at April 13, 2004 11:27 PMCongratulations, and I hope we can look forward to another 300!
Posted by: sennoma at April 14, 2004 11:59 AMSnarkout's a must-read. Thanks, and joy, and all that jazz. (And hey, you didn't go mad about 186 to get back at your ex-wife! Bonus!)
Posted by: Kip Manley at April 14, 2004 06:01 PMSnarkout's a must-read. Thanks, and joy, and all that jazz. (And hey, you didn't go mad about 186 to get back at your ex-wife! Bonus!)
Only a homosexual or a feminist would have written that. J'accuse!
Posted by: Steve at April 14, 2004 07:23 PMAnd happy birth!
Posted by: Grabam at April 28, 2004 04:56 PMThere's a book available of nearly every Work column, plus some that were never published on Word. Gig: Americans Talk About Their Jobs, ed. John Bowe et al.
I'd been working at Word a few years when it shut down -- there was never a pay model or any kind of restricted access, but there was a whole lot of weirdness radiating from zap.com before the end.
Posted by: ranjit at May 24, 2005 05:12 PM