History

Ok, ok, granted there are probably heaps of you who are absolutely not interested in the least. Or the most. So if you're not, why on earth are you in here? lol. Frankly, this page is more for my benefit. Y'know, so that I can come back one day and laugh :)

Hmm.. where to begin. Well it all started with my introduction to Hanfic in 1998. The same year I became a fan (hee hee, it took me a year to decide I liked them, but that's another story altogether). At any rate, I went surfing the internet and I accidently came across a hanfic. Who knows what happened to it, I certainly haven't come across it again :) If I ever do, I'll be certain to write in it's summary "the first hanfic I ever read", lol, j/k... maybe.

Anyway, after that, I started looking for more. And more. And I began to notice that a lot of stories I read involved them getting girlfriends and ppl moving to Tulsa and stuff. And the more I read the more curious I became as to how often it actually happened. Cos it felt like it happened a jolly lot of times!

And so, I made up a list of about... 10 things. And I had a simple tally system and I wrote down the titles, but not the links. As time went by, I added more things until the list grew to like, 20-odd. In other words, it more than doubled!

When I reached 100 stories, I posted it on my site, http://www.oocities.org/dumbjoke and then started on the next 200. And I must say that I was shocked that Taylor only got a gf like, 45% of the time instead of 95% of the time :) 'cause that's what it felt like! (all those agree enthusiastically shout 'aye', and all those who actually do that, 'whoo hoo!' lol)

I'm not sure when it was exactly, but at around there I think, I posted all the titles, and it was then that I decided to remember links and take note of the last chapter I read or if it was completed. It was not efficient at all.

At any rate, after a few months of this, I got a little tired of it. And so didn't end up reading hanfics as often and pretty much didn't do a thing for it all of 1999.

Some time early 2000 I found all my old notes and decided to take it up again. From scratch. I decided I needed a much more effecient system than my tally one. And it just so happened that my computer studies teacher had introduced us to MS Access :)

I created a table, and then located some of my old links. And thus, it began a seocnd time.

After I finished 100 stories, I moved the site here, deciding to use the previous address for my hanfics. Since I had been keeping track of the links this time, when I put up the story list, I was able to provide links to them as well. I shortened my 101 lists into Top 10 lists and stuck 'em on this site too.

Also, I found while I was reading more stories that there were some other events I thought I could add. So, after I finished 100 stories I added the new events. I made a point of making sure that I knew which ones were the new events, this way I could keep the stats as accurate as possible.

The smae thing happen. Reading the next 100 stories inspired more events, and so on, until I had reach 400 stories. I added some more events, saying that I was not going to add any more. Then I started rereading all the stories I had already read.

However, this time I decided to do something else as well. See, I'd noticed that in different occasiosn ppl would want a particular story (i.e. one just about Zac), also sometimes I found it hard to remember all the stories I really liked. So this time I wrote down little comments on what the story was about and a little rating out of 10 of what I thought of it.

And then of course, I would come across links that wouldn't work or stories sent via e-mail that hadn't been updated for 6 months or more. That's frustrating. i simply decided to delete them, but I started up a 'deleted stories' page so that I might still be able to find them again, or so that maybe someone who visited here might be able to tell me what happened to them. That was also the time I put up this page and started the 'cheesy pickup lines' page.

And that would bring us to about the present, cos I'm still going thru them!