I find this blog to be quite TIRE-ing…
There’s still a full day left in the year, and unlike those magazines that publish their year end specials around Thanksgiving and like to pretend December never even happened, I do like to wait until all is said and done before looking back at anything. But there will be no additional surprises… tomorrow you’ll see the number one entries for both countdowns I’ve been running since June, and that’s all. There was little on The Nest this year that stood out from the usual silliness that goes on here…
ZZZZZZZZZZZZ…. oh, another countdown post and Buster death. OK. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ….
And when we weren’t being boring and predictable, The Nest was jumping enough sharks to turn that Discovery Channel flagship into a year long thing.
I’m a manta ray, not a shark! Or maybe I’m one of those robotic vacuum cleaners, I don’t know.
That’s not to say this was a Worst Year Ever or anything like that, but I sure managed to pump up the quantity of my posts while also removing a lot of the quality… particularly when it comes to the variety and hodgepodge of content that used to define The Nest. That is something I aim to work on fixing in 2019 now that all of my special features from this year will be ending…
You’re right Urkel. I need to start writing more Retro TV Ad posts…
So I’ll make the review of this year’s goodies as brief as possible so we can both go back to enjoying our “holidays.” My biggest feature this year was also one that had WordPress reminding me every damned morning I was on some kind of daily posting streak… like that’s necessarily a good thing. I delved into my massive archive of photos I have taken over the years and sorted them into a Top 200 countdown of my favorite photos I’ve ever taken. Every day, starting with #200 on June 15th, I’ve showcased my favorite shots in increasing order. I had to wallow through a lot of meh photos over the summer to make this happen… but finally getting to the good part has paid off, as I was pretty pumped about writing up most of the entries over the final few weeks.
Even trying to explain why I find a picture of a man cornholing to be so fascinating.
Musically, I wrapped up the Top 30 Iconic Songs I Can’t Stand countdown that I began the previous Fall on Wednesdays… and then in June, I pressed the pause button on the Dusty Vinyl Archive to begin my Top 30 Novelty Songs of All Time countdown. The weird, wonderful and truly bizarre selection of songs I have picked so far have largely been a delight to my readers, and this has been maybe my favorite of all three music countdowns I’ve done. Once #1 is revealed tomorrow, the DVA will return on Mondays to introduce you to more of the retro music I enjoy that’s a bit off the beaten path…
I promise none of them will be by Barry Manilow this time…
With this being the first full year without my old comic strip featuring this blog’s first set of characters, the rascals who took over, the Shelf Critter gang, dominated a lot of what went on at The Nest in 2018. The Theatre itself was in full swing with 24 brand new episodes that include some of my very best work (in my own personal opinion, of course). There was Buster getting caught up in Groundhog Day, Troll and Rainy’s blind date from hell, and Ricky the Praying Raccoon’s attempt to avoid sin on The Shelf among many other classics for those of you who enjoy my twisted humor…
Poor Ricky. He deserves to be in a normal household…
There would have been many more than just 24 new SCT episodes had I not spent sixteen weeks in late summer/early Fall creating the shelf critter tribute to The Wizard of Oz. While it got a week bit out of hand near the end (major understatement alert), I was very impressed with how well my gang managed to turn one of the most beloved and wholesome movies ever made into one of our signature fucked up masterpieces.
You never know what you’ll encounter on the Shit Paper Road.
Also hiatussing (Yes, I made that word up) SCT in December was the extremely macabre Buster Death Advent Calendar which involved a daily offing of everyone’s favorite expendable possum each of the 24 days before Christmas. The BDAC really did more to further clog up my blog than anything, as it led to numerous three-post days and had only a few fervent fans who wished to gawk at the train wreck…
And none a bigger fan than Miss Zeeba.
And we’re not done with SCT… as I started off the year by profiling one of the troupe’s members each Thursday for the first five-plus months of the year.
You’d have to be high to write up backgrounds on your fictional friends…
And through it all…. there was the Saturday Squirrel. My blog’s most enduring feature turned six years old in October and is still going strong. Though I don’t get out to take as many squirrel pictures as I used to, I’ve still got a massive treasure trove I can pull from to make your weekends just a little bit cuter and happier!
YAY! That makes me want to walk on air!
The Contest of Whatever returned for its fifth year! The theme this year was to create something inspired by three random images I pulled off of Google. It seemed like there would be no contest, as all eight entries were submitted in the final week… but you all lived up to the hype again with a number of entertaining submissions that got Trisha and Pam some of my Cafepress swag. I don’t know what we’ll be doing for the sixth annual contest this February, but the CoW will be back and hopefully better than ever!
And hopefully this time with no man/pig bathing scenes.
There was little in the way of miscellaneous fun stuff this year, which was largely a result of the photo countdown hijacking my blog the entire last half of the year. But there were some cool surprises… like my attempt to answer 20 reader questions, a nostalgically sarcastic look back at the year I graduated from high school, the crazy and random way Whitman tray puzzles had their pieces cut, and the world’s most grossly misnamed compilation album of punk music…
It’s Anarchy in Frisco, fuckers!!!
And that’s all I’ve got to say about that. Not my best year by far, but hardly a complete waste of mine and your time. I’ll aim to make The Nest an even more fun place to visit in 2019…
Evil Squirrel's Nest 
you have had a very full nest this year, here’s to another year -)
Thank you, and to you as well!
your posts were highlights this year… honestly… it was not the sh*ttiest year but also no good one… and to visit the nest and to grin a little was a good way to come over a day ;O)
Thanks! I get a bit sad when I write this post each year, but I think that has more to do with realizing how many fellow bloggers have faded away in the past year. I miss a lot of people who no longer blog regularly. Thank you for being a part of The Nest for so long!
You have also gained new nesters this year. I have watched it go from 1930s or maybe it was 1950s something( my memory slips sometimes) around the middle of the year to 2056 as of this final day of 2018. So keep your chin up and puff those cheeks with more nuts to share with your new nesters!
I don’t put much stock in follower numbers since the overwhelming majority of them are either spambots or drivebys trying to get me to follow their blogs (with no intention of ever coming back here). I’d estimate I have maybe 10-15 people who read me at least semi-regularly (about half of what I used to have) and another 10-15 who drop by on occasion. Most of the regular gang I had from about 2013-15 is gone, and that was a fun bunch. The comments section definitely has a different feel than it used to… but, the blog goes on!
Looking forward to what the Nest has to offer in 2019. We want more Zeeba!
Zeeba wants more Zeeba. I’ve created a monster with that girl. And I think the others better worry a bit when she gets tired of cutting up Buster…
Hey – if not for the Nest, the blogosphere would have been rather “meh” so don’t shortchange yourself in the “how I impact the world” department. This is a great place for we Nest fans to land for a giggle – and I am sure that will be the case in the coming year. I’m ready – are you? Happy New Year!
Pam
I think I just got tired of writing so many posts because I kinda cornered myself into so many monumental series at once. I’m going to try not to do that next year and hopefully it will let me write a few more oddball pieces that I think are more enjoyable than the same old song sung a different way each day. We’ll see. I am definitely ready to start a new year…. at least here. Age-wise….. geez, can we turn back the clock a bit?
Nonsense…it was a good year of squirrel shenanigans. Thanks for making us smile and keep up impressing WP. Cheers for a pawsome 2019 ❣️