Gauges Unbroken, Stupid Unfucked, Work Unfinished: The Lemon Party Retrospective Part Two
You might have gathered from this piece's title that it is a continuation of Friday's update. You might have gathered from this piece's title that bananas are an excellent source of protein. It is also possible that you might have gathered from this piece's title that turtle_07 is a leper and a hermaphrodite. Unfortunately only one of those is fully accurate. The accurate statement is the third one, for reasons I don't think I really have to go into at this point.

Speaking of hermaphroditic lepers, let's give turtle_07 credit for pioneering the term "E-Internet celebrity" on February 16, 2004.* Let's also take a look at turtle_07's seminal article on Surviving the Future. This piece enlightened literally trillions of web surfers, most of whom were, by their perspectives, already in the very future he was helping them survive! If that wasn't enough he produced a follow-up shortly thereafter and a third before the end of the month.

Friday, March 12, 2004: turtle_07 posts the first image in a Lemon Party update. Our readership is shocked and awed.

As you can see turtle_07 had a very strong March, but he was fading fast. It was time for something remarkable to happen, so I wrote this piece on segues and outsourcing. It was not a bad piece, but it was not, in and of itself, the remarkable happening that very much happened at just the right time. That remarkable happening was named David, but it used the pseudonym "Penguininja" on the interwebnation superhighway. Technically David was not so much a remarkable happening, but actually a wholly unremarkable human being who was never quite clear on his country of origin. He was, however, the fifth person to gain posting rights on our distinguished corner of Internet, and the only one to use angry red text. At first many of our regulars did not believe in him, but he, much like the narwhal, turned out to be very real.* Penguininja never really settled into the Party formula and faded away quickly and quietly.

Later that week I published the first of several unfinished pieces by dfjawioed. Why did I grant that much to a disgraced poster? Well I didn't feel like updating myself, so I made fun of him. This formula has been repeated, and I've still got some of his stuff and some unfinished Penguininja pieces stored away in case of rainy day.

April First, 2004: The only unannounced Lemon Party poster ever takes the stage. His name, if you can't guess, is Frank Caltrozen. Frank has had a longstanding association with this site, but had never before appeared on the blog. He has never again graced our pages with his presence.


4/29/04: the end of an era. Perhaps that is an overestimation of CarverBuns' career as a Lemon Jockey, but regardless, this is the last of his seven entries. To be perfectly honest, very few people actually cared. Readers did, however, care about comments, so, on May 21, 2004 I restarted my long-running, but as yet unfinished mini-series on commenting. Specifically I was to be concentrating on gimmick comments this time around. Soon this petered out as well, however. Perhaps one day soon I'll pick up where I left off. If you care one way or the other leave a comment or email me at Odovaucer (at) gmail (dot) com.

Why did this series drop off so suddenly? The answer is the same one I give to any question about the dearth of updates of any type during that particular time region: summer vacation. No school meant a relaxation of our already admittedly haphazard work ethic, so the updates were noticeably sparse in early June. We managed to get back on track though, when I returned from my European adventure on Friday, June 18. I announced to the world the limp-wristed shame of the German people, and jumped back into the gimmick comment discussion with a real world experiment before letting the subject sink once again into the murky depths of anonymity.

Something very important had replaced blogging as the most pressing topic of Lemon Party: the raging pants vs. hosues debate. You see I have been a long time supporter of pants; you can look through the archives and find numerous references to this purely platonic but nonetheless extremly deep love. I would toss out links now, but I'm in the moment.*** However on June 29 I discovered hosues, the clothing craze sweeping the nation. That week was mostly consumed by hosue frenzy, but something interesting showed up on Friday.

Go on, click the link. Recognize the format? That's right, you're looking at the proto-Nudeist Colony. If you don't know what the Nudeist Colony is, well you certainly will in a moment. The Nudeist Colony is my weekly update listing our most interesting hits from the past week. Generally the most interesting hits are from Google or Yahoo searches for peculiar items that vaguely resemble things we've written over the past year. For some reason this included an inordinate number searches for the misspelling "nudeist." That's right, as in CarverBuns, the Nudeist Poster. This, incidentally was the first of two referrer log updates before the weekly series began in earnest and one of four before the name "Nudeist Colony" was used.

July 14: I reveal the "Who Wants to Be a Lemon Jockey?" contest.
Incidentally this was both the coining of the phrase "Lemon Jockey" and the first time I referred to lewis "dfjawioed" brandt as the Lemon Intern. Yes, this contest is rather derivative of a certain MTV-run competition. This is a far better contest however because of the promotional icon and posting rights on the most prestigious blog on Internet.

7/20/04: turtle_07 begin our epic clash over the nature of that endlessly derided pursuit Dungeons & Dragons. I put forth the postulate that D&D is neither a game nor even an entertainment. turtle_07 sprang forth to defend his geekiness outlet of choice and the battle was on. Of course most of the comments from that epic clash are missing, but we finally begin to see some surviving comments.

The first week in August we took a relaxing, somewhat homoerotic, and well-earned vacation in the "San Francisco of the East Coast," Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. turtle_07 was not aware of that reputation at teh time and will probably not be repeating the experience in the near future. Such is life. We returned with a renewed fervor for life and a rather irregular series of updates.

A week after our return we introduced the winner of our WWTBALJ contest and the spiffy art accompanying said contest. OctipudIV, the winner, let loose a veritable torrent of posts, which eased the burden on the premier posters like never before. Her presence also loosened up a steady stream of comments, if only banter among the Lemon Jockeys.

Friday, August, 27. Scholastic pursuits are about start again. For this reason or perhaps for another, more insidious reason I write a lengthy piece about suicide. The sudden pressure of schoolwork leaves us with several weeks of substandard update density. In honor of the election I began to work over political blogs. On the eve of the election we posted our endorsements, and you went out to vote. You were so busy voting that November 2 was the only day we have ever received zero hits. My choice triumphed over turtle_07's, and with any luck the end times are upon us.

Understandably upset over his crushing loss, turtle_07 launched a personal attack. We have since traded further blows, and the conflict appears to be steadily building.

And that, dear reader, is the first year of Lemon Party in review. Notice that we've steadily drifted away from our original mission of improving your blogging and into more experimental subjects. I tihnk you can expect us to return to our roots in the coming year, but also to expand on our growing portfolio. Here's to another year of Lemony Justice!



And remember the guiding light, lest we forget the glory that be Lemon Party.
Because your blog sucks.

*That's in addition to his previous ÜBER-popular catchphrase "interwebnation superhighway," which makes a grand total of two, for those keeping score at home. I myself have an equal number.

**Yes, once again the loss of early comments is an unfortunate reminder of our human frailty.

***Expect the links to show up here in a day or two.
- posted by Odovaucer @ 7:30 PM