Happy 5th Birthday, TAM

Please join me in wishing fellow Wisconsin blogger Sean Hackbarth a happy 5th birthday for his blog, The American Mind. And to his credit, he's only bragging a little bit:

Before Power Line helped take down Dan Rather, before James Lileks showed people beyond the Twin Cities how funny he was, before Michele made lists, before Kos said, "Screw 'em," before Andrew Sullivan begged his readers for money, and before Glenn Reynolds first wrote, "Indeed" on Instapundit, there was The American Mind.

Except, I think he's wrong about Lileks. I seem to recall Lileks started his Daily Bleat (as it was originally called) back in February 1997. Inspired by Lileks, I started my own daily web column in June of that year which I called "Drew's Daily Dispatch." I made myself write a column a day as a writing exercise. I went three months before giving up. Then in 1998 I tried again. I made it from February to August before again throwing in the towel. Sometimes I wonder how long I'll last this time, but at least with blogs you can just link and make short pithy comments. Trying to write a daily column and be consistently entertaining is hard work. (I don't know how Lileks does it, but I'm glad he does.)

Congrats, Sean. I don't know if I'll still be doing this (or something like this) in 5 years, but I kinda hope so.