Please unrec the April Fool's diaries...all of them. The Pootie Prank™ was a success. Time to get back to the real life business of saving the country and the world!
Many folks at DailyKos are aware of the regularly posted diaries by many, the Pooties, Wozzles, Furrbutts, etc. Our reigning queen of these diaries is triciawyse.
But, once upon a time, many eons ago (in blog terms), we had another Pootie Queen: PhillyGal.
I encountered PhillyGal back in 2004. Before the elections, before photos were the norm, and waaay before Cheers & Jeers made it out of the right hand column. I would like to take you all on a trip down memory lane, and the source of our unique name for cats:
Meet Pootie PhillyGal's cat!*
To the best of my searching: Pootie's DailyKos Debut
So let's take a short trip down memory lane. And I can say short trip, because diary comment threads were a lot smaller, back in the day! Now we have over 236,000 registered users, in 2004 just about 50,000.
Bill in Portland Maine was writing C&J and subject to the whims of the recent column and rec list like everyone else. Now we expect to see 300 to 600 comments. Take a look at Wednesday November 3, 2004: 93 comments and only one pic of fabooj's adorable daughter. The day after the 2004 Election: Cheers & Jeers
The first major diary I recall with lots of pictures was Christmas time in 2004. Cheers and Jeers: Happy Holidays! Apparently we had a bunch more pictures by Christmas. Although we must have rearranged them...since most are missing. A BIG diary on comments - up to 393!!
Side note: for those that don't know why the ratings are funky looking, "back in the day" we rated 0-4. And I'll bet at least one of those ratings in C&J was a Carl Nyberg 3. Carl rarely if ever gave a 4.
There are those that would disagree with the idea of cats and other pictures on blogs. However to them I would say pffffffffft! The tradition of cat blogging is well established. Even the NY Times talked about Instapundit and Atrios in October 2004 during the heated presidential campaign. DailyKos took some time to catch up. Then critters came along...first-draft.com did Friday Ferret blogging. Although first-draft.com has changed, you can still periodically find a friday ferret over there.
Just one year later...November of 2005 another great PhillyGal diary! And in this one we start sharing sources for our crazy pictures. One of the earliest we used is Stuff on my Cat. Mostly we just posted pictures of our own cats and shared away! PhillyGal had a picture for every occasion. What was funny for us old timers - this particular diary was dedicated(?) to Armando. Armando was our very own keep us honest, piss us off, annoy the hell out of people, blogger. As PhillyGal and I and others would agree: he was an a**hole, but he was ours. Sometimes I still miss him.
Need some pictures!
One of my earliest pictures in Photobucket...source unknown.
But Kossacks are creative sorts
Meet Eleanor reading DailyKos
This was a post, from PhillyGal to another C&J commenter. Back when there was a small crowd known as the WS&P. Wankers, spankers & Pervs Just a mini flashback for the old timers!
One of my favorites...someone made it for me!
from IrishKorean...a great photoshopper!
Fast forward to present
Over the past year or so things have changed, PhillyGal has slipped away mostly because of personal things, and a void was left. But never fear Pooties have a life of their own. Stepping to the front: triciawyse Triciawyse is the new reigning queen of Pooties and all other critter diaries at DailyKos.
Thanks to Dreaming of Better Days for the gifs!
On this wonderful April Fool's Day...enjoy the history. More links if you want them...I'll add them to the comments.
By request....at least one Ceiling Cat