My Nexus Feature Five

Excuse me while I get a bit meta for a moment, with a strange piece of self-referential commentary on the regular features we've seen here over the past six years. Some did better than others, but there will always be a few that stood out for me as a blogger and a reader. In case anybody ever wondered for some inconceivable reason, these were My Five favorite features:

5) My Fives:
So of course #5 in my fives is My Fives. It started with Five Bill Murray movies, and over the course of 45 posts covered music, movies, television, beer, candy, video games, and in more than one instance comic books. I tend to ramble on about the things I love, and this format helped me break those things into bite-sized portions that were hopefully a little easier for my readers to digest.

4) Blogroll Villains:
Here's the one inclusion that took me by surprise, but looking through these, I'm remembering how much fun I had. Basically I took what I knew about my fellow bloggers, their likes, personality, and rough physical traits, and used HeroMachine to transform them into super-villains. There was a fun interactive aspect to these posts too, as people tried to guess who was who. I had actually done something similar a year prior with heroes, but the villains were definitely more fun. And if that wasn't enough to sate my subconscious frustration at never working in the comic book industry, a few months after the villains I turned my graphic design skills to designing comic book logos for my blogroll(many of whom actually put them on their blogs; including The Bayer Family and Swanshadow, who still have theirs up as of this writing). I miss the good old days of having that much free time....

3) Phantasmic Links:
On 2.6.05, Phantasmic Links were born, in a much rougher state than they are today. Inspired by the weekly links my friend Curt would post at his blog, it was basically an excuse to do an “easy” post on a Sunday night when my brain was shot. At a whopping 292 posts, it was my longest running feature, and wasn't always so easy. Sometimes I had a lot to say about my weekend, whether there was some major family event, holiday, or music story to share. Other times all I could manage was a “Wow the weekend went fast; here's some links” style short introductory paragraph. As for the links themselves, since I'd spend time reading each article and watching each video, they sometimes took hours longer than a regular prose post. And the worst would be the games, which I had to beat before posting. Anyone who clicked all or most of the links really had insight into what surfing the net was like for MCF.

2) PBW: Photo Blog Wednesday:
While I never reached the level of photography as friends like B13, it was definitely a fun hobby that gave me an excuse to turn off the computer and get out of my room on weekends. It started as with a few shots from a cheap digital camera, and by the time I reach 287 posts, it will be rivaled only by my P-Links. Over time, with practice, I got better, and by the time I went to my first NYComicCon, I realized I might need a better camera. I got one just in time for my friend Rey's Star Wars®-themed going-away party, and the transition to better equipment was great to see. Over the last five years I feel like I've explored every inch of Long Island, and a few inches of Manhattan, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. I've definitely revisited places, sometimes finding new sights and compositions. It's one hobby that I might grow tired of sometimes, but hopefully not one I'd ever give up completely.

1) Blog Party:
Sometimes, when a person moves to a new neighborhood, he or she might throw a little shindig to socialize and meet the neighbors. When I'd been doing this for a few months, I came up with a pretty good virtual equivalent, and my first party was a success! I didn't know about “carnivals” yet, or that bloggers were already gathering together to write about one topic from various perspectives. I just asked everyone for their top five(hey, five!) villains and the rest is history. Of course as the host, I found a way to bend the rules and write about 25 characters, though I did have a definitive top five among those. Other bloggers hosted parties over the years, while I hosted 8 of my own, and all total I had 30 posts in this category. After a while though, a person settles in to a neighborhood, and parties and socializing dwindles. Things become routine and familiar, but the memories of those early parties are eternal.

I won't ask what your favorites were, but in true Blog Party fashion I am going to cheat and give honorable mentions here to a few that didn't make the list: The M.C.F.A.T., my version of a meme in which I provided my own questions before getting answers from myself and my readers, and various games I came up with, including Perilous! and MCF's COMMON. Also T.I.L.T., Poll of Randomosity, Words About Bond, WWW; Weekend Wrental Wreviews, Answer in Song, Bracket Blogs and A Movie Thing were also things.

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