Going through a recently-discovered batch of “really” old files, I stumbled upon one in particular. It was eye-opening, to say the least.

It’s dated Monday, November 5th, 2001, in case you can’t read the little image here.

oldiceberglandia

If anything, I guess it explains why I was reluctant to celebrate three years of WordPress not going out of business. The whole concept of “Iceberglandia” has existed since, at least, then. Or even before.

What’s even weirder is the text itself, which to an extent still reflects my writing. Look:

Day one. I’m going to start this site off by describing myself a little. I am, or at least I think I am, in one word, intense. That means, among other things, that when I love, I love. When I hate, I hate. When I eat, I eat (that explains the huge gut you’ll be seeing in my pictures). When I drink, I drink. When I shit, well, you get the point. I’m not your average guy. This is actually version 109 of this site. The other 108 were done in the same fashion, but in Spanish. Then I thought, the only people who read this already speak english, so why not do it in a language where I can come in contact with other people? So, here it is. Another one in the already long and boring list of “personal” sites. I hear they call them E/N sites now. But anyway, let’s ramble on with the introductions. So, I’m a fat metal fan living in a tiny hellhole just south of the Texas border. Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas, Mexico. I’m married, but in case I have at least one female fan, if you stalk me long enough, I’m yours. See, I’m also funny. But hey, so are 70’s clothes, and people still wear them, so I just might get lucky. I have a daughter, she’s one year old and she’s a great kid. So far, at least. Let’s see how well she does with me as a father. Anyway, let’s continue. I like, among other things, metal music (LOUD), soccer, baseball, hockey, fast food, slow food, anything edible, alcohol, tobacco, beautiful women (no porn, I hate seeing what I’d rather be doing), cars, movies, TV, designing, complaining, the internet and my MP3 collection. I hate stupid people, dealing with stupid people, putting up with crap, waking up, getting hit by stupid furniture, and trying to get my computer to work properly. In a nutshell, that’s me. As time does it’s thing, you’ll get to know me a bit better. Hopefully, so will I. Now, a little bit about this site.
It all started when my wife was expecting my daughter, and I started sending a bunch of e-mails to the people I knew, including friends, relatives, in-laws, etc. Then, the right side of my brain took over and I decided to create a site “instead” of sending mails. The mails never ceased to be sent, though. Then, after my daughter was born, I had nothing to inform anyone anymore, and my number of “constant readers” (as Stephen King calls us) started to decrease. So, I started to do something different. I started to rant about everything, until everyone who read my crap was sick and tired of me, and it started to show. The site took another twist when, instead of just ranting about everything, I started to talk just about anything. Well, in almost a year, I had 40 hits. over 3/4 of those were me, clicking into my site. Not very good numbers, I know. So I started to reconsider having a website. After all, what I had to say, no one gave a shit about, and starting to make a “Yankees Website”, or a “Heavy Metal Site” was about as unappealing and unfulfilling as posting pictures of my ass. After all, what can I say about the Yankees that you don’t know already, if you’re a Yankees fan? And, if you’re not a Yankees fan, you wouldn’t be visiting my site, right? So, I was just about to call it quits, when I said to myself, “Myself, why don’t you just go on with what you want to do, and stop caring if your “friends” visit your website?” At the same time, I came across a couple of websites that seemed to be exactly what I had always wanted to do. You’ll soon find out who I’m talking about. Besides, my mind has always been outside of this craphole I live in, and way up north, so starting to write in English was a natural move for me.
OK, well, this has taken on forever, so I’ll stop for now. I hope if someone reads this, they’ll be interested enough to keep coming back. More to come tomorrow.
Oh, and I’ll be including pictures and links in my posts. And, before I start getting into trouble, thanks to BigDarkCloud for the inspiration, and to a certain extent, for the layout. I’m not copying, it’s just what I’ve always wanted to do. You rule.

Let’s comment on this.

“The Iceberglandia Times”? Yeah, that made me laugh too. Yet at the time I went so far as to create a logo using one of those deutsch gothic fonts real newspapers use.

I’m still “intense”, whatever I meant by that. The “fat gut” I was referencing is now gone, blessed be, but I still indulge in the loving and the hating and the eating and the drinking and yes, the shitting.

The numbers “108″ and “109″ are an exaggeration, obviously, but a clear indication that the whole “Iceberglandia” concept dates back to maybe the Cretacean Period.

Funny I thought at the time that only english-speaking people were interested in my shit, since nowadays my spanish blog gets at least twice the hits this one gets. Often, three times the hits.

“E/N sites”? That’s 2001-speak, right there. I guess the word “blog” hadn’t entered the lexicon.

I’m not married anymore, but the idea remains: If you stalk me long enough, I’m yours. (This would pertain only to female stalkers, of course)

My daughter’s 8, going on 9 now. And since 2003, things could have been better worded as “let’s see how well she does without me as a father”. I had no idea at the time I’d lose her.

I still like the same shit, hate the same things, and sometimes still get hit by furniture. The “pinky toe on the foot of the table” thing never gets old.

BigDarkCloud was a “E/N site” I used to visit a lot back in the day. I still follow the guy, athough he’s now going under the blog “RobotMustDestroy”. It’s one of my everyday visits I’ve talked about when discussing my morning routine. The other ones might have been SomethingAwful, WeAin’tCool ( I still follow Jacky as well, on findingi.com) and a bunch of others. I-Mockery, X-Entertainment, RetroCrush, CockEyed.com and the long departed whatever-dude.com, seanbaby.com, and poprocksandcoke.com.
Those were some of my early influences. There, I said it.

While I expressed on my spanish blog how things change, it’s surprising to have to say here that I haven’t changed that much. Well, I have, but this text I wrote 8 years ago just kicked me in the head.

It would be cheap of me to phrase that “the more things change the more they stay the same” thing. Instead, I’ll limit myself to 3 letters and a question mark.

WTF?

The Iceberg