A Tribute To A Tribute To Dan Quayle

The internet is now a slightly more intelligent place.  In order to alleviate the burden of its embarrassing presence, I have finally taken down my old blog, A Tribute to Dan Quayle.  Actually, it hasn't actually been taken off the internet yet, but currently it's set so that only I can view it.  And although it was, well, pretty awful, I feel that I should at least give it a decent wake.

About five years ago I started A Tribute to Dan Quayle, which was then originally entitled "Nate's Naterrific Blog," for really no apparent reason.  This would be the medium through which I discovered my voice as a writer.  (You could say that this actually happened when I wrote No Time for the Meek, but you have to be really special to know what that is.  Still, I think the first 30 or so pages of that are the highest quality of work I have ever produced.)  Now, as I said, the writing is abysmal, there is no focus or coherence to most of the posts, and until you get to the Processing Cycle, it's not really going anywhere.  Then it ends with a long, overwrought post where I try to sum up everything I had learned in the past three and a half years and then it dies and then the Ozone Shack was born two months later.

Sad that you missed out on A Tribute to Dan Quayle?  Don't be.  I can summarize it all right here.

"Here Comes the Food Pyramid" through "Hi"

I have a lot of things to say, and I will say them in a semi-coherent manner.  There are many amusing incidents that I wish to share with you, and I think you will be interested by them.  The food pyramid is a bad invention. I run a lot.

"Big Week" through "Legit"

I am passionate about running.  I want to be really good, but it is frustrating.  I have some more observations to make, but they make even less sense than before.  You want to hear about my track meets? No?  Well too bad, you have to!

"Speeches, Wreaths, Babies, Old People, and Running Man '06" through "Sim City"

I am slowly coming to terms with the world, and beginning to observe it critically rather than just accepting it and making snarky yet humorously disarming remarks about it.  I am growing up, but I am not maturing.  Or maybe I am maturing but not growing up.  It's kind of hard to tell.

"The Adventures of Emo Foot" through " Apple Jacks Were a Good Choice"

My foot is broken, I am sad, I am useless, I have nothing to contribute.  I am going to play some more Sim City.  The best thing I can do with my life right now is probably waste it.

"Well, I Guess this is Growing Up..." through "cell ph0n3d"

I am trying to form coherent observations about the world but I just don't have the brain power.  However, please read these long and rambling posts as I try to make sense of the world around me and offer some quality insight into the world.  I think I am deep, but I am not.

"Ice Cold Tecate" through "A Bit of Nostalgia"

So guess what guys, I want to be a writer, now look at me try to do writerly things and come up with stunning, thoughtful, and entertaining posts.  Unfortunately, they're actually probably worse than before becasue now I'm actually trying harder than before.  Things I like: running (still), Pearl Jam, writing, the word "hella," Chuck Klosterman, irreverent humor, silence.  Things I dislike: traffic school, Michael Phelps, Radiohead, Blink 182, the sound of my own voice.

"A High Level Discourse on the Subject of Beards" through "Reading"

Quality has improved.  I can write semi-goodly, I have good observations, and I don't really write about myself anymore, and when I do, it is because there is actually a good story to tell.  You like beards?  Here's a post about beards!  You like Obama?  Here's three fucking posts about Obama!  You like Christmas?  Here's a post about Christmas!  You like music?  Here's a couple posts about music!  You like March Madness?  Here's a post about March Madness!  Aren't I leveling up!

"Processing" through "Processing, Part VII: A Long Song About Nothing (and Epilogue)"

I have finally found my niche in the universe and the most awesome people that anyone could ever know.  I have interpreted every incident that has happened to me over the last four years, and I am now wiser, partially because my car has a brain that allows me to talk to it.  But now I have to leave.  Here is a very long goodbye.  Also, I like making posts that sound like Coheed & Cambria album titles.

And that was basically A Tribute to Dan Quayle in eight paragraphs.  I could have saved 160 posts and three and a half years of my life.  Instead it took me twenty minutes.  

All five or six of you who read that debauchery of a project, I thank you for your devotion and your support.  Without you guys I would probably not have realized my passion for writing.  And as Dan Quayle said, "I stand by all the misstatements I have made."  Likewise, I stand by all the pointless, inane, and unstructured posts I made.  They were a step on getting where I am now.  And some day, I will look back on these early years of the Ozone Shack and think "this needs to be taken of the internet immediately!"