Category Archives: MySpace Blog Archive

Throwback Sundays…

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If there’s anything you can count on in this world, it’s that when Sunday morning rolls around, I’m going to welcome everyone into my way back machine and tell you stories about what it was like back in the olden days of blogging. In keeping with that tradition, I offer up a five selections from January 2007. I have to say that the January 14th post, Middle Class in Crisis, holds up remarkably well and, to me at least, is as on point now in 2012 as is was five years ago.

The world has changed… but clearly not that much.

Officially settled in…

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After a weekend of furiously breaking down boxes and moving crap from one room to another, I’m please to say I seem to be more or less settled in here. Of course there is the spare bedroom that is crammed full of things I’m not at all sure what to do with and a garage stacked with cardboard boxes that need to be bagged, but for the most part stuff is where it’s going to go.

I also had my first visitor yesterday. The spaghetti seemed to turn out well, confirming that I can still boil water (with only one slightly alarming boil-over). The conversation was pleasant and all-in-all it was nice having someone around… especially when it came time to clean up. Any time I can avoid actually doing dishes, I’m pleased as punch (Thanks for the company, by the way. And come back any time).

One thing that has consistently amazed me over the last two weeks is not so much how much stuff I had actually been living with, but how many things I find I need that I didn’t have. I’m not actually talking about frivolous purchases here, but things like ladders, random hand tools, and a solid grip on basic carpentry. I’ve probably gotten more use out of my old set of Craftsman tools in the last two weeks than I have in the last five years. God help me, I actually spent time on eBay this afternoon looking for one of those big red tool chests for the garage. And after a week of using the kitchen counter as base of operations, I have come to the conclusion that I’m actually going to have to build a workbench in the garage. It can’t be that hard… right?

Yeah, I’m already planning on ordering at least twice the amount of material as I think I’ll need.

Closing out 2006…

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220px-Fondos_archivo 2 With one archive post left from 2006, it’s almost time to close out that eventful year and start looking at the world that was in 2007. Moving halfway across the country. New Job. Buying a house. 2006 was a big year. I think I captured at least some of its flavor. As troublesome as it was, I remember 2006 fondly. It was before things went to hell in a handbag in Memphis – before I realized Uncle Sam sold me a suspect bill of goods and I’d swallowed it hook, line, and sinker. I dare say, I was less jaded, more open, and not nearly as snarky as I am now… or even as snarky as I’d be in 2007. Yeah, 2006 was a big year. Somehow I doubt that anyone out there has enjoyed reading about it (again) as much as I have, but until someone else buys up my domain name and puts me to work writing about what they’re interested in, well, you’re just going to be stuck with me and my seven year old musings on Sunday mornings.

Trust me, there are way worse ways to spend half an hour. With the inevitability of going back to work tomorrow, I think it’s fair to say that there will be plenty of new and interesting stories showing up here in the very near future. Until them, take a look at the drama that went along with buying my house in Tennessee way back in December 2006.

And then there was December…

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money_pitWell, we’re moving right along through the 2006 archive. Today’s posts are from the pivotal period of early December 2006, when I was in the process of buying my money pit… er… I mean house in Memphis. I have to confess that there’s not a lot of drama there, but for at least one of us it’s interesting seeing where things were six years ago around this time and compare them with where we stand now. Whoever said “the more things change, the more they stay the same” was really on to something, there. If you’d have told me what drama the intervening six years would bring, I’d have never believed you. There never seems to be an end to the drama, but if nothing else, I’ve had the good fortune t live in interesting times… Or maybe I’ve just inflicted interesting times on myself. Either way. It’s been a trip.

Click over to the archives to start checking out that month that was, six years ago in 2006.

Even more from the archives…

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MIdlandJust because I’m in the middle of packing, loading the truck, trying to settle the dogs, and make sure the house is locked up tight, is no reason Sunday’s traditional posts from the archive should be interrupted. This week features old gold from November 2006. They’re the random thoughts about Thanksgiving, packing for my it-sounded-like-a-good-idea-at-the-time move to Memphis, and a few other odds from one of the more spastic period of my life. It’s not always the best possible writing, but there’s often some interesting stuff hidden in there. As usual, I’m glad I wrote some of this foolishness down instead of trying to rely on my coffee-soaked brain to keep track of it all. Clearly I’ve forgotten some of the best stories from the old days.

So yeah, enjoy this week’s archive posts. I’ll plan on being back with you just as soon as I get my computer set up at the Historic Jeffrey Tharp Childhood Home, Library, and Gift Shop.

Live…

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Your regularly scheduled Sunday posts from the archives are posted and live now for your reading pleasure. Just looking through these last few posts have reminded me how nervous and jerky I was back in November 2006. Between working to open the new office, taking grad classes, running back and forth between Tennessee and Maryland, and obsessively looking for a house to buy, it’s a little surprising that I wasn’t stark raving mad. I suppose it’s possible that I was, of course. I guess crazy people don’t generally recognize that they’ve lost their minds. At ant rate, we’ll be back with more blasts from the past around this time next week. As always, blogging in real time will be back in your inboxes on Monday.

Another Sunday…

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It’s another SUnday morning and another five gems from the archive have just hit the streets. It feels good feeding my decidedly obsessive desire to gather everything back under one roof. Let’s just hope that WordPress is the last stop, because honestly, I don’t know that I’ve got it in me to try figuring out a way to repost six years of blog on any other platform. I suspect that this place is going to be “home” indefinitely if for no other reason than moving electronically is at least as much of a pain in the ass as moving physically. In any case, feel free to stop by and take a look at the latest news from October 2006.

A year of Sundays…

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If it’s Sunday, you’re obviously stopping by to read whatever goodness popped up from the archive this week. As usual, there are a couple of gems and a couple of throw aways. Sorry about that. No one brings their A-game every time. Still, I think the stories from mid-October 2006 are worth checking out.

Looking at posts I imported from MySpace before imploding that old account, it looks like the rest of the posts cover the period from October 2006 – October 2008. If my memory is to be trusted, I recall that being a pretty interesting couple fo years. I haven’t counted, but assuming 2-3 posts a week for most of that time, I’m guessing there are another 200 or 250 old posts just waiting to get drug kicking and screaming into the new decade… which means I’ve got about a year of Sunday posts covered without putting too much thought into it. Trust me, when you try jotting down something witty five or six times a week, you learn to appreciate one day a week when you can set it on autopilot. I, for one, am very glad to have 87 single spaced pages and 51,000 words just sitting on the shelf waiting for me to do the old copy-and-paste. Sunday is supposed to be a relative day of rest, right?

Now and then…

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Every now and then I stumble across several seriously good blog posts in the archive. If I do say so myself, I was in particularly good form between September 26th and October 5, 2006. If I were going to open a “Best of” section, I think four of the five entries would probably be in the running to be included. It’s hard to believe that six years ago I was just starting my start in Memphis… It’s even more surprising that I actually seemed to be enjoying it. What a difference four years and some keep personnel changes can make. Fortunately, no real damage was done, and I’ll always think of West Tennessee as my cautionary tale.

The place to be…

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In case you’ve missed it, Sundays are special here at jeffreytharp.com. They’re the day I get to mostly turn my brain off and post some of the gems from a bygone era rather than try dredging up new material. I like to think of it as being like a TV show in syndication, except for the part where people get residuals when those old episodes show up again. Here’s it’s mostly just a good way to get all of my posts back under one roof.

While I was tinkering around with a few settings this weekend, I gave my metrics a good hard look and was surprised to see the total number of posts here steadily creeping towards the 1000 mark. After looking at the number of old MySpace posts that still need to make an appearance and doing some back of the napkin math, I’m pretty sure I’m actually already past that milestone. Nevertheless, I don’t feel right about making that official until I see the official WordPress post-counter roll over that third zero. Even with my five-every-Sunday posts, it’s going to be a few months before we cross that bridge. Don’t worry, though, I’ll be sure you let y’all know when we get there.

Like your average nine-year old, I like having something to look forward to almost as much as I enjoy actually experiencing or getting the thing itself. Since it doesn’t seem like there are any exotic trips or new toys in the immediate future, I’m pretty much throwing my lasso around 1000 as the next big thing. I know Thanksgiving and Christmas are coming, but those show up every year around this time, but how many times can you look back at six years of misspent time on the Internet and be truly amazed that you managed to come up with 1000 snarky, petulant, vaguely inappropriate, and occasionally heartfelt things to say. And it all started because MySpace use to be the place to be…