Trixieland

When I made my most recent blog post, I saw this:

Yeah, NINE HUNDRED posts. Crazy, right? I guess not so crazy when you consider that I started blogging on Windows Live Spaces on December 2, 2004. Back then I started the blog for one reason: Windows Live Spaces was about to get Xbox Live integration and somebody on the team had to start a public blog to show off the capabilities. That someone was me.

This is what my Space looked like way back then:

I realize this image looks like shit, but I was sort of shocked to find it in my old old OLD files so we’re *ahem* lucky to have even this. The text is unreadable–don’t even bother.

Here is the entirety of my inaugural blog post:

Dec 2, 2004

Gamers write in about their Halo 2 launch parties

When we published our fourth and final Halo 2 Readiness Guide, we asked gamers to tell us about their own Halo 2 launch parties. We got great responses and awesome photos. Look for the article on Xbox.com next week. I’ll post a link when it’s live.

If you sent me your party info and I sent you email requesting your mailing address–you’ll be getting a copy of the Halo 2 soundtrack, courtesy of our buddy Chuck B.

Yes, I wrote a series of Halo 2 Readiness Guides. During the course of writing the series I got an angry email from the Bungie studio boss pissed off at me for ‘bothering’ his team. Lulz.

My blog has had its share of highlights and lowlights. A highlight was my post from May 6, 2005 when I attended the taping of the MTV reveal of the Xbox 360 starring Elijah Wood. Apparently, I was the first ‘outlet’ to post red carpet photos, and my blog got 80,000 hits in less than 24 hours. FYI I missed the reveal because I couldn’t tear my eyes away from CC DeVille’s attempt to fellate Major Nelson in the lobby of the Spider Club. Sadly, the photos have been lost, but the post with my snarktastic celeb observations remains. Here.

The lowlight was a post that I was forced to delete. See, I got in pretty big trouble back in the early days of Xbox Live microtransactions. First there was the Oblivion Horse Armor. And then there was some shit where EA was charging for some Need For Speed Carbon content that pissed people off in some way that I can’t remember. ANYWAY the gaming community was shitting their pants and saying EA was raping gamers etc. Cause you know how they like to throw the “R” word around. So…I made some joke likening a news story about a man that admitted to raping his mother to…EA. Not very funny, but whatevs. No one read my blog, right? Except that Aeropause picked it up and went with this headline: “Trixie to EA: You’re Raping Gamers”

Well, I was fucked. The kind of fucked where the Microsoft dude who handles the EA relationship had a closed-door meeting with my boss. The kind of fucked where you bookmark Monster.com because you might not have a job the next day. Anyway, I kept my job, but I had to delete the post and apologize to EA etc etc.  The only upside was that suddenly I was on the radar. Trixie tells it like it is. Trixie isn’t some corporate shill that blows MS kool-aid flavored smoke up your ass. I’d link to that post, but…  you know, it’s gone. (I think)

When I discovered Twitter I stopped blogging for a very long time and lost my readers. That was the lowest of the low. Eventually I picked it back up and when Spaces went the way of the Wooly Mammoth, I migrated to WordPress, where I’m very happy.

Thanks to those of you have stuck around the whole time and thanks even more to the new folks who are reading for me, and not for my employer. Who, now, is also me 🙂