That’s the day I registered this domain. A little over 22 years ago! Is that not crazy? For the record I wanted wvsr.com, which was taken, even back in those early internet days. And not by a radio station, either. Those guys are still chugging right along too. Godspeed, split rail folk! So, I had to put “the” in front of it. It’s not ideal, but it worked out OK. I guess. People get confused by it and the letters get all jumbled. It’s not perfect, that’s for sure. If I had to do it all over, I might’ve put a little more thought into it. …The story of my life.
Somehow I registered jeffkay.com exactly one year later, to the day. I’ve never done anything with that domain, except tie it up so some other Jeff Kay can’t have it. Years ago I received occasional inquiries from random Jeff Kays around the world, asking if I’d be interested in selling it. But that hasn’t happened in a long time. I guess the collective Jeff Kay realized it’s a lost cause?
I have some other domains, but those two are the oldest by far. I mentioned on the podcast that I recently secured adsvsreality.com. I’d been trying to get that thing for years, maybe a decade. It was owned by some company that was trying to flip it for profit. But eventually they dumped it, and I swooped in. I have a few others I’m watching, and hoping to do some more swooping in the near future. Oh, I’m out there… lurking. Always lurking.
The early days of this website was maintained with a program called Microsoft FrontPage. It was good for its day, but was eventually outdated. And yet I kept using it, way past the outdated date. In August of 2008 I finally started using WordPress, which is what I’m still using. Here are some stats covering the WordPress era:
Akismet is a so-called plugin that does a great job of filtering out comment spam. Without it, the site would be inundated with “comments” about making money at home, boner meds, etc. Over three million of them blocked, and counting. Also, we’re coming up on 100,000 legit comments. Pretty cool, huh? And 1426 posts. That’s a lot of nonsense, right there.
In any case, do you know what you were doing around March 9, 1999? I don’t expect you to know anything about that specific date, but just in general.
We didn’t know it yet, but were nearing the end of our run in California. During the second half of ’99 I was approached by Warner Home Video about possibly moving to Pennsylvania and taking the Field Operations Manager position. But in March none of that was happening yet. We were just living in the desert out there with the spiders and snakes and bees, and scary-ass swooping birds. And I was working in Burbank at WEA home office (RIP). We now had two boys: the older was about to turn three years old, and the younger was about four months. Money was tight, but we were getting by. Toney was running a fully-licensed and registered in-home daycare. Which sucked it with gusto. I think I was hanging around with Mark Maynard around that time, and he probably inspired me to register the website name. It looks like his was registered in May of 1999, so that makes sense.
What about you? What were you up to in March of 1999, or thereabouts? Please tell us about it in the comments.
Before I call it a day here I’d like to invite you to sign up for the resurrected mailing list, if you’re so inclined. Every Friday I send out a recap email to subscribers, and I think it’s pretty good. If you’d like to get in on that deal, sign up here. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. And if you are? Just unsubscribe.
And I hope we all have a great weekend! I’m going to include myself this time. Is that so terrible?!
I’ll see you guys again soon.
Support the Surf Report with a monthly $4 donation at Patreon, and get an extra podcast episode every week! We’re also at Venmo (@thewvsr) and PayPal (jeff@thewvsr.com). In Canada? Do your shopping at Amazon! Thank you, guys!
I wish I could recall how I found your site. But I can not recall. I know it was in the early days.
almost first
March 9th 1999 I was employed by a big tech company. Assuming I wasn’t on vacation (I don’t think I was) I would been in San Jose, Tucson or the UK. For most of 1999 I was spending 2 or 3 weeks in each place working on an oh-so critical tech project that will by now have all been replaced, ripped out, and chucked into landfills.
Limey, were you with Big Blue? Was it Y2K related? Shudder..I was in the midst of that bs
Yes but the project wasn’t Y2K stuff. Although I got paid a ridiculous bonus to be on call and sober NYE 1999 – and then nothing much happened 🙂 Hate NYE anyway.
I believe I have followed this site religiously since about 2004. May have been later. I found it using an old web plugin called StumbleUpon. Wonder if those guys are still around? Anyway, I “Stumbled Upon” the Macoroni and Beef article and began browsing the site. Realizing Jeff was originally from Dunbar, just up I64 from my humble abode, I have followed along ever since. I would love to read the old front page archives again (all of them… in order). There was some really good stuff tucked away in those archives.
Good Afternoon Surf Reporters!
I heard about the WVSR through the Bob and Tom radio show sometime in the very early 2000’s and have been reading here ever since.
On an unrelated side note: JK, I read about the searing pain you’re experiencing in your leg. I’m going through the same thing and I have no doubt you’re having sciatic nerve pain. I’ve had it off an on for years and it’s a real bitch. There’s really not much you can do about it except try and stretch it out and eat ibuprofen like tic-tacs. Oh, a chiropractor might be able to help alleviate the pain somewhat too.
Yes Jeff, I also have gone through bouts of sciatica. If the pain is coming from the same side as you carry your wallet (assuming it’s in a rear pocket) you could try switching to the other side for a short time to see if it helps. I did a thorough cleaning-out of all the unnecessary junk in my wallet and switched sides and the pain started going away within days. I was sitting at a desk for long periods of the day at work and that constant pressure is not great for nerves.
Mike
Mike, you’re carrying entirely too much cash. If you sciatica-crash again, empty your wallet and send the contents to me. I’ll take care of them. I’m talking as a former serious sciatica victim; mine ended in a couple surgeries. Avoid those nurses plugging a piss catcher into your wiener and send cash immediately. I feel so much better now that I’m broke. You will too.
love as always,
John
i don’t know what i did 2 hours ago let alone 22 years ago, but i’ll give it a shot.
i was 25, living in GVegas, NC at the time & working at the gateway to hell for Satan himself. according to Google, it was a Tuesday so i’m sure i was at work til 5, then home. i didn’t get into party mode until a few years later. which is a 10 year blur.
I joined the fun sometime between 2001 and 2004 when I was working in East Bridgewater MA. Some other website published a list of the “10 most” whatever websites and the WVSR made that list. Laughed my ass off and have been trying to pay attention ever since.
I wonder if I got a “you might like” in my FaceBook newsfeed about 9 years ago when I moved to West Virginia.
1999 I was married to the first one and in upstate New York. Not sure if the move to Maryland was in the works yet but I do remember being worried un NY about the Y2K thing. I should have been more worried about the first one.
I was a kid then, and likely waiting for the new Star Wars movie to come out (younger people will never experience the immense hype of The Phantom Menace.) I was using the internet but it wouldn’t be for another six or seven years until I would discover the WVSR.
I was preparing to move my wife and boy out of this cesspool (Florida). We evetually went to Boone, NC and I loved it there. 4 years later,, wife became homesick, but not before we had our beloved daughter, or mine, which ex ignores now.. .
I had just started dating the dude who is my husband now. Like, just. I was working for a niche magazine publishing company on the West coast. I found your site through an old vegan message board called vegan porn (no porn, lots of vegans) that linked to your ads vs. reality page. I thought it was hilarious, so here I am now. Sheesh!
Oddly, my husband has finally (godamnit!) started listening to your podcasts (no hope for blog reading) and is straight hooked. It took me 19 years to convince him that this site his Hi-larious.
I was here through all of the Mumbles, Sunshine, Translucents, Nancy, and Nostrils days. Ahh, the halcyon days of yore!
Just got employed by Big Blue and worked for two of the most miserable fucks. Got transferred shortly after and enjoyed most of my career.
I got here through the side effects of alli post. My now deceased brother in law and I had so much fun with that gem. Great memory of Don for that of which I am truly thankful, Jeff. Funny how something so old can have lasting memories. And sonovagun if I’m not tearing up!
In March 1999, I was working with Jeff’s lifelong friend, Bill. Bill and I became friends when I moved to Cross Lanes from Colorado Springs in 1987. He introduced me to The Surf Report way back when Jeff had a bulletin board and posted as Sam Gasaway, who is also A friend of mine. Bill and I are still great friends, and we both ended up leaving the law firm we worked for. Me in 2000 and Bill shortly after. Anyway, that’s my story. Still here reading this ridiculousness 34 years later.
I was working for the Italians in SE Michigan back then. To paraphrase Steve Earle, I had a two pack habit and a laptop tan.
OT—I noticed your complaint about leg pain and I hope you get it checked; could possibly be a blood clot and that is a bad thing—BEST REGARDS—///JW///
Agreed. My sister has the same thing. On blood thinners but coming off it soon.
I’ve been trying to figure out how I made my way to this site for years. I’ve asked all of my friends if they were the one who sent me a link or anything but so far everyone has taken plausible deniability. I’d like to think that’s not a reflection on the site. Been enjoying the content for over 15 years now!
Mike
In March of 1999, I was working for a Energy Company that was telling the street we were just like Enron. A year later we were trying to tell the street we were NOT like Enron. Good Times. I stumbled on WVSR when searching the internet for something to do when I took some clients to Myrtle Beach for Golf. Weird that it popped up but I thought it was funny as hell and have been visiting site ever since. Podcasts are great too.
It was, as is it every year, my birthday…I was drinking. Didn’t find the site till a few years later. I was lured here by “The Number of Fucks in Deadwood” or by “Fast Food Ads vs. Reality”, not exactly sure which, but I’ve been a regular reader and lurker ever since…
I stumbled across the site sometime in 2003, forgot about it, and rediscovered it in September of 2004 when I was scrambling to get away from work for a five day trip to the Oregon coast. I searched for “Oregon Surf Cams” to see how windy it was and the WVSR popped up on the first or second page. I had no idea that I had just caught a wave that would last for ten years.
From 2004 through 2013, Jeff wrote fairly long entries five days a week and occasionally updated on Saturday. The writing was solid and funny. It wasn’t unusual to get a hundred comments, and in any month there were, perhaps, 400 separate commenters. There was music in the cafes at night and revolution in the air. Everything was pull technology, including the blog, “now playing in the bunker”, the WVSR t-shirts, a bowl of corn, and the side projects — suggestaholic and a couple more. No push technologies: no paying for content (although Jeff would accept a beer [pull technology]), no subscribing to push-out emails which are easily converted to pay content, no taking 25% of a short update to advertise subscription offerings.
Very few people are both good writers and good speakers. I subscribe to about 20 podcasts (none of them charge, although a few have brief commercials) and exactly 1: “Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History” is presented by only one person (and Mr. Carlin writes all his podcasts word for word and drops four or five times a year). For some reason, podcasts are dynamically better when there are two or more voices.
I’m not noting this stuff to be critical. We all grow old and our needs change. I think it’s a remarkable thing that Jeff wrote outstanding and funny daily blogs for at least ten years and built a community of Reporters who interacted, sometimes hilariously, with Jeff and other Reporters. There was a wedding of two people who met on the WVSR and a couple of romances. There were in-person friendships built from digital friendships. That’s at least part of the definition of community.
As for Jeff, writing quality material daily for ten years is a supreme accomplishment. It doesn’t pay like Letterman, but you avoid the sexual harassment. He brought joy and laughter to thousands of Reporters and lurkers, men and women, Democrats and Republicans, young people and codgers. He managed to stay slightly obscenely tasteful and made me laugh out loud more times than I can remember. He obviously loves his family, loves music, loved his dog, and loved humor writing. Being surrounded by people and things you love and getting to do daily what you love doing is something not all people achieve. If the creative person doesn’t OD on beer or gerunds and end it quickly, there’s bound to be a ramp-up and a ramp-down. I consider myself very fortunate to have been there for the ten years of glory, and I’m staying for the party cleanup: the washing of the dishes and the mopping of the bodily fluids. It’s a little sad, but the good times were so goddamn good.
John
I came in via the Gargoyle Letters and have been lurking ever since.
I most miss the stories about Nancy, Nostrils and the Translucents. I guess you wanted to avoid libel suits and harsh feelings at Thanksgiving, but most of those tales are gems.
I am happy to know my letters brought a few people here.
The Translucents have to be in their 20’s by now. We really need an update on the whole crew!
Oh hell yes! I want to know if the oldest is on the Needlepoint Olympics Team.
I came here by way of “The Mountain”. My best guess on how long I’ve been here is 15 years.
In March of 1999, I was then employed by the world’s largest retailer at one of their many distribution centers. We had just had our fourth child and I was not yet working at my ‘extra job’ to help pay for things (which would come later that August). Little did I know that my ‘extra job’ would eventually become my ‘main job’ as it has been for the past 22 years!
I found this site quite by accident years ago by reading Fast Food “Ads vs. Reality”. I dug a little deeper and found the “Macaroni and Beef” story, followed by “Alli Side-Effects”. I was totally hooked after those and have thoroughly enjoyed JK’s hilarious life-observations ever since! I know the Translucents were mentioned upstream earlier–and an update about them and the whole gang would be terrific! They’ve probably swung around a full 180 from their parents by now and no longer eat “tofu pups” slathered in mayonnaise! They probably eat meat, own firearms and vote Republican!