Landmarks, Challenges and Ze Future

Okay, I missed it.

As in, I wrote my 150th post on this blog, back on Tuesday, and didn't even realise I was doing it.  In my webcomic Cylinder and Miserable it's a long-standing joke that the characters stop to comment on the passage of strip numbers every 50th episode, or more recently they make a point of complaining about the long-standing joke, or just make a point of refusing to comment altogether.  But over here on A White Horizon, I didn't even know I was doing #150 until after I'd hit the 'publish' button.

Still, you could argue that 150 is only a half-landmark, and the next 'proper' one is #200 (which I'll try and make a point of doing something special for, although I'd probably be hard-pushed to do anything as impressive as Sam's 200th post back in June), so I'm not too upset about my failure to spot it.

That, and Tim said he nearly died laughing at what turned out to be my 150th, and I guess a blog post that almost kills your best friend is fairly momentous, even if not quite in the right way, so you could say the landmark didn't quite go unmarked after all...


That was the Landmarks bit.  Now for a comment on Challenges.

As you may have noticed, my first blog post of 2011 was my first of 11 submissions in the "First 11 for '11" challenge against Hannah, and my first blog post of 2012 was my announcement of the free-for-all "First 12 for '12" challenge, which I ended up losing pretty badly to Hannah, Sam and Tim.

As you may also have noticed, this is my third post of 2013, Sam and Tim have also been blogging since the Auld Lang Syne was sung, and none of us have mentioned any "First 13 for '13".  Which is because it isn't happening.  I'd forgotten about the whole thing, Sam had opined that a speed-based challenge probably isn't the best approach (and I've been thinking he's right), and Tim said he's too busy to take part in any blog challenges this winter.  So all things considered, we decided not to bother.

It's also worth noting that Hannah hasn't blogged once since the 24th of last February (almost 11 months ago, do the math), and sad as it may be, it rather seems that the world's greatest sheep-obsessive blog is dead.  Particularly poignant and stuff for me, as hannahlikessheepbaa was really the blog which inspired this one in the first place.  It's largely her fault I blog, and largely my fault Tim blogs, so A White Horizon and OpenCGDA have lost their spiritual parent and spiritual grandparent respectively.


And that leads me on to the last of my three points: Ze Future, or Ze Lack of Future, for a certain other blog.

In light of the impact made by hannahlikessheepbaa.blogspot.com, I think it would be fitting for the blog's surviving friends and relations to give it a dignified send-off, and to that purpose I intend to arrange a virtual funeral.  I was thinking that everyone who has appreciated Hannah's blog over the years could join together on the anniversary of its last known sign of life (i.e. on the 24th of this February) to pay their respects by writing about the general significance of Hannah's blog to them and about which of her posts they liked best and why.  I thought we could also propose a selection of music which would embody the memory of the departed and express our feelings at their departure, and round the whole thing off with a virtual post-funeral lunch comprising food items chosen for their relevance to Hannah's blog.  I'm nominating This Is Gallifrey and fish-custard in the latter two categories...

I seem to remember discussing the funeral idea with somebody already, but I can't remember who it was.  Anybody who has any fondness for Hannah's blog will of course be welcome to attend / participate.

Obviously, if the corpse suddenly comes back to life then that would radically change the funeral plans (maybe rework them as a resurrection party?), but until that happens, I'm planning to proceed on the assumption that the funeral is a thing.


- The Colclough