This blog is this many...

That's right, Monkey Muck turns one year old today!  

It was one year ago that I sat down and started writing this little blog.  It took me a few months to find my groove but find it I finally did.  I started this blog by writing almost exclusively about politics and the warwithoutendAmen in Iraq, but I came to realize that no one, especially me, wanted to read the constant anti Bush/Republicans/conservative/libertarian anti war screeds of a fat bastard like me.  So I began also writing about pop culture, doing movie reviews, writing about cooking, making bad jokes, making good jokes, pissing off some, making friends with others, and generally just having fun in between posts about how much I fucking hate all the Bush/Cheney/ExxonMobil/KBR/Halliburton/Microsoft/Wal-Mart/corporate media/Murdoch bastards.

It took me a little over a week to get my first commenter, who happened to be one the people who inspired me to start blogging in the first place, Dr. Zaius (the other person who inspired me to blog was Becca).  Then little by little people started trickling in to find me.  Getting linked by Blue Gal in my early days helped.  Her kind linkage brought me many an early reader.  Also getting linked on Crooks and Liars helped my numbers as well, I'll never forget the thrill of seeing a post I did linked on there.  I got so excited that I emailed everyone in all my address books and I told them I got linked.

Soon after that I found D Cup, the axis of Midwestern goodness bloggers, Samurai Frog, Splotchy, Johnny Yen, Kim, Bubs and his brood, Missy, Chris, Evil Dictator, and Ubermilf.  

I found some of you through the comments you left on other's blogs.  That's how I found Barbara, Captain Karen, Wandering Coyote, Tanya Espanya, Jew Girl, and more.  I also found my evil twin, or maybe he's the good twin I'm not sure, blog brother Matty Boy through the comments he left on Princess Sparkle Pony's blog.  And others of you who I started reading most every day I found you through your comments here, that includes people such as Jess Wundrun, Fran, Liberality, Beth, Gifted Typist, the lovely GetKristiLove and a few others.

And finally some of you I found through my friend Sean.  He sent me a link to some crazy gal in Minnesota's blog.  It was a good thing I clicked on the link or I would have never found Whiskeymarie or MNMom or Cheesecake Maven, and some others.

I'm glad I found each and every one of you and I'm glad you read me and I'm glad I read you because you are all such nice funny smart people with interesting takes on life and politics.  I'm grateful to be your peer in the blogosphere.  Like so many other things they portray inaccurately, the corporate media has it all wrong when it comes to bloggers, we're not the pimply faced anti social dweebs they like to think we are, we're smart funny people who happen to use our blogs to entertain and inform each other and our readers about the things the corporate media ignores.

In one year I went from having maybe 15 readers a day if I was lucky to averaging over almost 500 a day.  Over 85,000 people have visited my blog this year and I'm grateful for each and every one of them, yes I'm even grateful for the Reichwingers and the people who disagree with me because even if they don't agree with my point of view then at least they were exposed to it for a moment or two.  

Thank you to all of you who read me, who link me, and who have me listed on your blogroll or in your favorites.  It's a pleasure for me to write this stuff knowing that so many of you will read it.  And I will continue to write this blog because I plan on blogging until they pry my keyboard from my cold dead hands.