On February 2nd, 2002, a tiny corner blog opened up its doors with this rather piquant entry:

Hello!

FINALLY!!! a new fucking web site!!! Its only been what, 2 years?? BOUT TIME!

~(BlOG-bLoG-BlOg-bLoG!..bloggity blog!!!!)~

I have no clue how to operate this thing, hopefully cat photos will be posted soon.
--Ellen

From such humble beginnings the internet powerhouse soon to be known world-wide as AMCGLTD was born. Well, ok, more like the internet shack in the back yard where you keep the mumbling people who amuse you was born.

Two years, not quite 4000 entries, and more than 5600 comments later, and look at us now. Still the shack where you keep the mumbling yet vaguely amusing people, but with icons!

So what have we managed to do for these two years? Aren't you going to be sorry you asked that question. Quick, director, cue the montage! Music! Sound! Action!

And tell Janet to put her boob back in her dress. Flopsy is not an attractive style!

Well, we scandalized my mom so often we had to put up a special category to warn her, which promptly became the most popular part of the site amongst her nurse friends.

We learned that Scott can cook, eventually, as long as he doesn't try to toast bread on a cast iron skillet.

We explained to the world the true Power of Chocolate, exposing a secret for which the author continues to pay a heavy price (in thin mints).

Ellen made our first deposit into the "Send Damion to Drag-Race School" account when we got her Cruiser done up somethin' special. And no, those are not dinosaurs, they're cat skeletons. Little did we know the last-minute decision to place the URL on the back would result in our advertising the site to perhaps ten thousand surly morning commuters a day once we moved out to the 'burbs. We don't know how many folks read us because of that, but there are definitely a few (poor bastards).

Scott wrote an essay that one of his friends thought was extremely pro-war, and another one thought was extremely anti-war, when all he set out to do was explain why people were sometimes pro-, and sometimes anti-war. This has lead him to decide none of his friends have any idea what they're talking about, and if they'd just listen to him we could end this destructive conflict and Bring Order to the Galaxy. Scott needs to get out more.

Ellen got a tiny trout wanna-be that terrorizes her to this day. Browsing through the archives she even discovered he's secretly plotting to destroy the world.

She also related a cat sitting incident and introduced Scott to the joys of "waxing". He only thought she meant the car.

Now let's see... what else happened....

Wha? Nah, nobody cares about tha--

Ok, ok, ok. Mom, put the pan back in the oven next to the pizza boxes where it belongs. We conclusively proved socially-challenged geeks do in fact know how the 'birds and bees' work.

So ends our little highlight reel. As the credits roll, we'd like to thank:

• WilWheaton.net, who is the popular pretty girl who quite literally does not know we exist but who inspired us to start the whole thing (if an actor can do this...)
• My brother Jeff, who snorted and claimed we'd never get more than a dozen people to read this site a month when Scott told him about it. Now that we've passed 1800 visitors per day (most people call these "hits") and served 160,000 pages last month, I think we can safely say he was inspiringly wrong.
• Mellie, who helped us advertise when we really were getting a dozen visits a day.
• Daphne, who gave us our very first (glowing!) review, letting us know we were not, in fact, total asshats.
• Jim and Maru, our first best friends. It's been so long guys, I can't even remember how we stumbled onto each other.
• Meryl and Laurence, who taught a couple of goyim when to take it seriously and when to fling boogers at it. And, best of all, when to smash!!!
• Bigwig and crew at Silflay, who with this very entry confirmed there were in fact people as silly as we were. Of course, we're not sure if this was heartening or frightening.
• Joanie, JessaJune, Aaron, Lynn S, Misha, Kathy K, and all the others who have linked to our ramblings or placed us on their blogroll. We love all you guys!
• Jeff, Pat, Cindy, Joshua, Battie, Skully, Richie, Nina, and all the other proud no-prize recipients. We'd be a lot less weird and entertaining without your help!
• Tatterdemalian, Robert UK, the yellow-dog peanut gallery (you know who you are), and all the other regular commentors. Your comments, compliments, rants, flames, and notes help make this place twice as much fun!
• All our other readers! Without you guys there wouldn't be any point at all. We hope we've made you laugh, kept you informed, and maybe even touched you once in awhile. Our whole purpose is entertainment, and your continued (and increasing!) visits let us know we're doing the right stuff.

Well, enough weepy thank-you's, the band is playing the "get the hell off" music now. Here's to you all, thanks for taking the time to make our silly little site a part of your day!