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Monday, April 25, 2005

Birthday

No. It's not my birthday today. It's my blog's birthday today. I'm not big on birthdays, but Pierre Mejlak made a big deal about this, so I decided to play along. Why be a party-pooper?

Towards the end of April last year I felt a strong need to create an outlet for my ideas about Malta's new membership in the EU. A blog seemed like the perfect vehicle. I had been observing blogs, especially in American politics, for over a year before that. Howard Dean's meteoric rise (and fall) in the 2003/04 presidential primaries was often on my course syllabi for the classes I taught on New Information Technologies and Media Criticism at New York University and Adelphi University.

My dear friend Immanuel Mifsud had also urged me to give some attention to blogs at about the same time. So waiting to set up my own blog was just a matter of delaying the inevitable. The first thing I needed to decide was whether I'd go with Blogger or Moveable Type. For some reason I can't really remember I went with Blogger. The first few entries were quite lame. Malta's accession to the EU was nothing to write home about after the pomp and circumstance of the 1st of May 2004. The Eurovision Song Contest was the next thing on most people's mind in Malta, and that's as mentally challenging as eating an ice cream on a hot day. Unfortunately, the MaltaMedia Online Network server system was crippled by a DoS attack in June and that threw me off my original plans for the blog. A fantastic concert by Souad Massi in Central Park gave me a much needed second wind, and by the end of the month I was blogging about my WPW Syndrome.

Life after August changed radically. The heart issue was only part of the change. A job offer in England was the other part of it. Loosing Mario and Maggie didn't help with the sense of loss and impermanence that I became engulfed in as I started my new life in Scarborough. My other life in New York goes on: within me, without me. Before I knew it I found myself blogging about personal things more often than I'd planned to.

When 2005 started it seemed like this was going to be a rough year; with the Asian tsunami, the Safi barracks scandal, and my run-in with the Archbishop's Curia it seemed as if sunny days were only a distant memory. My visit to Malta in March helped change the mood considerably, especially my first (and only, so far) face-to-face meeting with Ġużè Stagno, the author. Incidentally, he has now written an article for Manic magazine about our meeting; I believe it's due at newsagents on Sunday 1st of May. What a great way to mark the first year for the blog and Malta's first full year as a full EU member. (Before you hit the comment button, please note that my tongue is firmly in my cheek.)

This blog has reconnected me with a handful of old friends and acquaintances I hadn't heard from in years. That's something I never expected to happen when I started writing on these pages at least once a week. It seems that having ToniSant.com as a gateway to the blog, aside from the mighty audience at MaltaMedia.com, helps to keep this blog worthwhile.

Please keep your comments and messages coming. Contact me here if you don't want to comment directly on the blog. Yes, we can be heroes...just for one day!

Blogger Owen Cutajar said...

Happy Birthday Blog :) 

10:17 AM, April 25, 2005
Anonymous Anonymous said...

happy birthday 

12:30 PM, April 25, 2005
Blogger MaltaGirl said...

Happy Blog Birthday!

*hands your blog a piece of cake and a party hat* 

4:11 PM, April 25, 2005
Blogger -- said...

Ghax ghandna lil Toni maghna ahna maghqudin.
Ghax ghandna lil Toni maghna ahna maghqudin u maghqudin.
Ghax ghandna lil Toni ma-a-ghna. AAAAhna magh-qu-din. 

4:13 PM, April 25, 2005
Blogger Guze' Stagno said...

you know how they say your whole life flashes before your eyes just before you die, Ton?

will you think of me in that moment?

...just wondering...

/me flutters his eyebrows. 

6:05 PM, April 25, 2005

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