Happy Blogiversary To Me!

Sunday, July 26th, 2009. 1:00 p.m. central time (that's right, I even remember the time)...

It was a much more simpler and innocent time back then. In the wide world of sports, Chicago White Sox pitcher Mark Buehlre was still celebrating his perfect game thrown three days before and Ben Roethlesberger was accused of rape for the very first time. In television, a young red-head by the name of Conan O'Brien was into month two of what was sure to be a long career as the host of "The Tonight Show." A little device called the iPod was continuing to revolutionize the way people listened to music. Six twenty-somethings were filming a show from the Jersey Shore that would become an overnight situation really soon. And in a film studio in Los Angeles, Academy Award winning director James Cameron was working on the finishing touches of a movie that would soon capture the world's attention, imagination and wallets.

It was also the same time when a young white male from the south side of Chicago began working on his first post for a blog in which he announced the creation of three days earlier. The blog, named after one of his various AOL usernames, was created for three purposes: to share the young man's thoughts on various of topics ranging from television to sports to his hatred of the state of Minnesota, to entertain the people reading his posts, to cure his summer vacation boredom and to become a overnight sensation on MySpace and the entire blogging world (fact: only one of these things came true). Then, five hours later, it happened. The young man posted his first blog post centered mostly around predictions of that year's upcoming Emmy awards, and "The mj15 Blog" began.

Now, just over one year, 150 posts, 1,000 views (1,000!) on both MySpace and Blogger combined and several misspellings, this site is still going strong! So, to celebrate this one year blogiversary, we're going to spend the entire week honoring the top people, places and things that highlighted the blog's first twelve months. In other words, it's the first Hall of Fame Week on The mj15 Blog.

So, here's how it's all going to go down: starting this Monday and continuing every day through Friday, I will announce five of this year's Hall of Fame class to you, the reader. Each of the selected "Hall of Famers" will be selected after they have met all three of the criterias:

- The "Hall of Famers" must have been written about in at least two separate posts on this site and mentioned at least once in either "End of the Week," "End of the Month" or the 2009 edition of "End of the Year" (if you appear in all three, chances are that it will probably be one of the five selected).

Examples include: Brett Favre, John Terry, Jon Stewart, The 2010 Winter Olympics and this year's World Cup.

- The person, place or thing must have done something so big or was so interesting to watch unfold, read about or hear about to mj15 that he just had to write about on this site.

Examples include: Ron Artest's postgame speech in game seven of the NBA Finals, Lebron James making his decision on July 8th, Chicago's failed bid for the 2016 Olympics, everything Tiger Woods did in the winter and the New Orleans Saints

- The "Hall of Famers" must have been fun for mj15 to write about. This is kind of like the second criteria, except it involves me finishing writing about the person, place or thing and feeling satisfied doing so.

Examples include: "Avatar," the season finale of "Mad Men," NFL Network Red Zone, Bill Simmons's dumb thoughts and columns and Cubs fans

And there you go. It's as simple as that. Now, because obvious reasons, The National Football League, The Primetime Emmy Awards and the Golden Globe Awards cannot be included in the Hall of Fame. Otherwise, almost anyone or anything that I wrote my thoughts on the past 364 days is up for a nomination. Now, since you have been such a loyal reader to this site, I'm open to any nominees that you might have. Just make sure it at least meets one of the three requirements, and you're good to go. You should already know my e-mail address by now. I write it at the end of every freakin' post!

So, be sure to come back tomorrow and find out who was lucky enough (or unlucky enough) be selected as the first inductee into The mj15 Blog Hall of Fame, though I'm pretty sure most of you loyal already know who or what it will be. Otherwise, enjoy the rest of your weekend! If you don't mind, I'm gonna get myself ready for the season 4 premiere of "Mad Men." It's been nine months too long since the season finale last year.

Sincerely,

The man who's still your pal after all these months (I think): mj15

If you have any opinions on today's post, or if you want to suggest anything to mj15 for his next blog entry (tips, perhaps?), e-mail him at: mj1599@aol.com. Your e-mails are greatly appreciated.