Komikero Comics Journal

Doing The Journal Thing

I've just uncovered the earliest journal entry I've ever made that's still available to me, dated January 1999. If you scroll down and look at the archives on the left column, you can click it there. I've had to remove some pics that were no longer available, and modify links that have since changed. Reading through it, I thought wow, I was pretty angry back then.

I found this page using the Wayback Machine of the Internet Archive. It's a site that seemed to have archived the ENTIRE Internet since 1996. I'm both impressed and disappointed.

Impressed because it's a gigantic ambitious task which I myself may run screaming from if I were asked to do it. I also found parts of my old Laguna.net site that I thought I'd never see again.

Disappointed because the archive is not as fully searchable the way I want it. Using their Recall Beta, I find that their search results are far fewer than what is actually available in the archive. Perhaps after they finish with their Beta phase they may have worked it out. I also feel a little bad because they claim to have archives going back to 1996, but the very first site I had in August of 1997 is not there, as well as a couple of sites I've had since then.

The earliest journal entry I've seen is the one that I've added to own personal archive, which, as I mentioned above, dates back to 5 years ago, in January 1999. But I've been doing the Journal thing as far back as 1998, maybe even 1997. I can still remember specific posts I had. One time I was ranting about this chicken place that did not have change inspite of the multitude of banks nearby. Another time I was ranting about McDonald's and how it's become a landmark in this sleepy Filipino town.

Maybe I feel bad at myself too for not saving those files myself in some form. It may have been difficult for me to do so because my first computer, a 486 33megahertz with a 500MB drive completely broke down and I had to buy a totally new one. I had a lot of files in that old computer and I'm not sure I can still recover its contents. Not only do I have a complete archive there of my old journals, I would also have a record of my old websites, even perhaps my very first.

One of the articles I have written during that time which I desperately want back is my account of my first Convention in San Diego, which was also my first time in America, back in 1997.