300

Yesterday Blogger told me that I had reached my 300th post. That wasn't quite true, as they had included a draft post in that count that had been written, but not yet published. This is my 300th post, and I've edited yesterday's post accordingly.

So, 300 posts of (more or less) pvp related hijinks, mishaps, and shenanigans. Hitting this milestone (or rather, tripping over it, seeing as it took me completely by surprise) has given me pause. Why am I still doing this, after all these years?

This blog started as pvp learning journal. But that hasn't really been true for quite some time. Obviously, I still pvp, and I still post kill reports, but the 'lessons' tend to be run of the mill mistakes or fitting tweaks. I'm well past the point where every fight brings new insight.

Thinking about it, I suppose I still blog for two main reasons.

First, I like Eve, and I like thinking about Eve. Blogging forces me to organize my thoughts. I have written many posts that I have deleted without publication, simply because - once forced to put my ideas into a coherent form - I realized that I was wrong, or that my point wasn't as good as I had first believed it was.

This has the side benefit of providing concrete examples for future reference. Being able to link some of my PI posts on the Eve forums, for example, has saved me having to type out the same thing in half a dozen different threads.

Second, blogging makes me a part of the Eve community in a way that I would not otherwise be. Professionally, I have a certain niche expertise, and a large part of my job involves explaining to non-experts how my subject area affects them. So you could validly argue that I talk for a living.

This means that when I log on to Eve, I'm quite happy to stay quiet. I monitor corp chat, and I log into voice comms, but mostly I let other people do the bantering while I enjoy the experience of not having to say anything for a change. But that's not actually a great way to be part of the Eve community, and being a primarily solo pilot exacerbates the problem, so I suppose that blogging is what I do to compensate.

But whatever my current reasons, I wouldn't be blogging with the inspiration of the other great Eve blogs out there, past and present. You can find some of the current ones in my sidebar, and I have been forced to prune a wide range of once fantastic, but now defunct blogs, such as Eve FNG and Fiddler's Edge.

Three blogs from days gone by deserve special mention, though. Both Eve Altruist and Jester's Trek were so hugely influential that I cannot bring myself to remove them from my sidebar. Nobody did technical pvp writing like Azual Skoll, and Ripard Teg brought the politics and meta of New Eden to the little guy like no one else. Both were truly great, iconic blogs in their day.

But the blog that influenced me the most on a personal level was Ka Jolo's long abandoned blog. Although he stopped updating months before I even logged on for the first time, it was his blog that made me want to play Eve, and made me want to be a Tusker. What he started still echoes through New Eden today.

Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and auld lang syne?