December | 2013 | MATTHEW'S ISLAND

So today marks the 4th anniversary of when I created this blog and the 2nd anniversary of when I really started trying to post things every day and visits to the site increased exponentially. This here is the 10,000th post – totally coincidental that it happened on the blog’s anniversary. This blog has been accessed over 440,0000 times by people other than me and there are now something like 600 views per day now on average.

It all started off and, for the most part for the first 2 years, was just being viewed by the one friend of mine whom I had told that I created the blog. To this day she remains one of only like 5 people I know in “real life” that I have told that I operate this blog. This place has been a fun little refuge away from said so called “real life”. Originally it was created just to share images I came across on the internet with that one friend, rather than sending her lots of image-laden emails. Along the way I’ve made the acquaintance of several regular viewers and have learned a lot from your comments – Dan in Guadalajara being one who has been happy to share his big wealth of knowledge about old Hollywood stars and movies and that’s been great.

The fact that this blog is being viewed all around the world (except in China and North Korea, where it is banned) still astounds me, and in non-English speaking nations to boot. This blog has been viewed in every territory and nation on earth with the exception of Turkmenistan (maybe it is banned there too?) and several central African nations. Most of you come from the US, Canada, UK, France, and Germany. But also way up there are Australia, New Zealand, Spain, Mexico, Brazil, Netherlands, Norway, Belguim, Russia, and Poland.

As you know, this blog is all about images. I’ve never meant it to be one of those share-your-feelings blogs, a chronicle of living on a remote island, a political soap box, or an academic site. Though I didn’t start it out this way, I long ago started trying to make images/post segue into each other. I have a huge file of downloaded images from which to draw from. Unfortunately, searching through this “database” of images to find pictures that segue into each other is very time consuming. I’d rather spend time posting more images than searching forever. So… though I think it flows better with that effort to segue and link posts I think this obsessive-compulsive indulgence has run its course. From here on out I post whatever the hell I feel like in whatever order – and post more images per day. Hope you enjoy!

The other thing is that this blog has reached 87% of it’s capacity that WordPress gives you for free. So I either need to 1) Pay WordPress for additional space, 2) Start a new blog for free and have tons of space, or 3) Delete some of the past images. Either way, I’m definitely going to be continuing to post! I’ll let you all know which route I take.

DISCLAIMER REPEATED: Except for a few photos that I took or a few things I own & scanned, I did not create any of the images posted on this blog. If I know who did create an image I definitely put that up. Many places don’t identify pictures. What most blogs do though is post a link to where they found the image. I think that’s just silly since wherever I found an image just reposted it, ad nauseum, from other sites. Besides, I visit so many sites to troll for images that I would have no way to remember where I found them. I certainly do not make any money from this site and if I ever post something that is either copyrighted or is an image that you created/own and either want credit for or want it taken down I would be glad to do so – Just leave a comment.

THANKS FOR VISITING ~ I HOPE YOU ENJOY THE SHOW!