ONE FUCKING THOUSAND

That's right, my friends. 1 year, 3 months, and 2 weeks into the existence of Illogical Contraption, the milestone has arrived. Quadruple digits. 1000 posts. Damn.
I've never been one to pat myself on the back (yeah, right), but that's exactly what we're here to do today. Greatest Hits collection? Sitcom clip show? Yes and no and yes and no. This post will serve the purpose of documenting both the highs and lows we've experienced at this particular corner of the digital universe, and possibly even shed some light on the magical stuff that goes on "behind the scenes" here at ICHQ. This is a big day. Don't act like you're not pumped.

If you're new to IllCon, allow me to direct your attention to the last IC Retrospective, which collected the "greatest hits" from our first 500 posts. It's been a long-ass time (almost 10 months, in fact) since then, and many, many things have changed around here. Shit, at the 500-Post mark, this asshole and this floozy were still writing for IC! Yeesh!

Things have undoubtedly improved around here in the last couple months. Not only did a bunch of awesome new writers sign on, but we learned about Kirk/Spock Femslash (right), gay porn involving the Transformers, and menu items at Alice Cooper's sports bar, and Del Tigre even clued us in to the fact that Avatar was NOT, in fact, James Cameron's finest work. It has been a time for revelation, a time of sick jams and tasty riffs.

We enjoyed a review of Mega Shark Vs. Giant Octopus LIVE on May 26th. We argued about Dethklok and agreed that Rob Cranny is awesome. Nobody wanted to play Metalcore Word Association but all was forgiven when we stumbled accross Clowncore. Epic times.

Perhaps, most importantly, we learned this simple fact:

LATROMMI IS MOST FALSE AND UNGRIM

After the first "retrospective" post, IC jumped right back into the fray with a series of DOOMSDAY predictions in June: One, Two, Three. In fact, the second post in this series inspired RAGE in at least one anonymous reader, due to the fact that I wasn't properly schooled on "supergroup"(?) Tinted Windows. Which, of course, led to this post on June 9th, which led to a mini-flame war, which led to tons of lulzes for everyone.

Hilarious. Here's a little timeline of other posts that made us laugh, cry, and/or hurl:

Left: Peter is kind of a "shitty guy".

Thursday, June 25th, 2009, IC reports the death of Michael Jackson. BEFORE TMZ (not really).

July 12th: Del Tigre uncovers a mind-boggling connection between "scene" haircuts and George Clinton. Speaking of Del Tigre: July 16th -- HOLY SHIT.

August 26: We are introduced to the wonderful world of electro/steampunk/straight-edge/party/black metal by one-man band G.U.T.
Somehow, the Grammy Awards fail to pick up on his genius.

Aug 28: Pushead is PWNT by Nick Blinko in the 1980's Punk Art Challenge. This post also happens to be the most commented-on in IC history (well, besides this one -- which doesn't count).

8/30 to 9/8 2009: The blogosphere is plunged into darkness, fear, and chaos as IllCon goes offline for 9 days. Amongst panic and anger the truth is revealed: Cobras had finally discovered internet pornography and took a brief, unannounced "sabbatical".

9/15/2009: Patrick Swayze is 86'ed by the Big Bouncer In The Sky. More anger, darkness, and fear. R.I.P. to The Master.

ALL MOVIES SHOULD BE BASED ON VIDEO GAMES FROM THE 90'S.


Oct. 6, 2009: Introduction to the world of "Visual Kei". Oct 10, 2009: Introduction to the freakiest Visual Kei band of all time, Psycho le Cému.

Oct. 15th: THE ENEMY rears its ugly head. Said head is summarily severed and fed to wolves.

Oct. 29th: Speaking of severed heads, whatever happened to the frozen head of Ted Williams? This post on cryonics attempts to explain...

11/6: A big day! IC trumps modern quantum physicists by exposing the Higgs boson (see picture below).

Have you met Stallion?

12/1/'09: IllCon 1-year anniversary. Super exciting, right?

Left: Tony Little's "illogical contraption".

Dec. 3rd, 2009 - DEVIL MUSIC: First contribution from our Midwest Bro Jack. IC trivia time - Jack is the only current Staff Writer I've never met face-to-face. Kind of makes me wonder if he's got something to hide...

Dec. 8th: Ode to Art Bell. Not to be confused with The Ballad of Jar Jar Binks.

Lots of work, very little gratification:

'How To Name Your Death Metal Band', Parts ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR, and FIVE.

You would think that I'd have learned my lesson after the last completely useless five-part series. Oh well, at least I'm really good at those MetalSucks 'Completely Unreadable Band Logo' contests now...

Dec 12th: 'Attack of The Lizard Men' exposes the Reptoid conspiracy and what it means to you and me. A brief reference to a hard-to-find book (right) gets me in hot water, as author Mike Magee calls me out personally on his blog. I respond with this: 'Revenge of The Lizard Men'. Everything ends amicably, except that Magee still hasn't informed of me how to get ahold of a copy. What the fuck, Mike?
The Reptoid Phenomenon resultingly blossoms into a full-blown IllCon obsession.

12/16: One final hatchet-swing at the Juggalo "lifestyle". This time it's the good kind: Christian Juggalos.
At this point, IC throws in the towel on Juggaloism. It's just TOO EASY.

1/3/10: First post from Milwaukee's best -- DATHOR. The following equation is established: Milwaukee + Pizza = AWESOME.

1/5/10: First post from L.A.'s worst -- SEANFORD. Dude has become pleasingly prolific over the last few months. Nice.

January 13th: An in-depth interview piece by Jack on little-known Kansas punk pioneers Wolfgang And The Noble Oval. Jack is the Master.

"I'm dressing up as a steampunk juggalo for Halloween."

It has become painfully obvious that you fuckers are fond of super-epic conspiracy-themed posts:

Dec 17: Time travel is very real and has already been accomplished by a guy named John Titor. You can even ask The Bible.

Feb 17: There are Reptoid Nazis controlling the world from a base in the center of the Earth.

Feb 23: The Large Hadron Collider is an interstellar portal for fallen angels.

March 10: The Government is able to control your mind through a mixture of electromagnetic ionosphere manipulation and good, old-fashioned LSD.

March 12: NASA is helping the Illuminati establish a New World Order by projecting religious images on the stratosphere. Wear BluBlockers.

Speaking of conspiracies:

Jan 22: 'The Mellow Gold Prophecies'. Beck is a prophetic seer, and Scientology is the One True Religion.

1/23/10: Camellia sinensis establishes her gore-drenched legacy on I.C. with a post on... Dead Conspiracy's Gore Drenched Legacy. Camellia rules.

1/27/10: The very first entry in the 'Bromantic Interludes' series appears, in which RyGar from (Nobody Knows) I'm New Wave expounds on his love for illicit substances. His love runs SO DEEP, in fact, that he follows up with a Part 2 and a Part 3. (PS: There are lots more of these 'Interludes' on the way...)

1/31/10: Peter writes an epic and complicated post on Minimalism. Ironic?

Speaking of epic, Helm's 'Bromantic Interlude' on Greek black metal is published the very next day.

Dude: THE TRAPPY AWARDS.

February 9th: RENROCK!!! Illogical Contraption has NAMED a musical genre. And it is quite possibly the BEST musical genre.

2/11/10: First post from that dude Cory (left), who introduces us to the baffling shreddery of young Jake.

More Bromantic Interludes: Todd on 2/12 and Asa on 2/14.

Feb 26th: Bromantic Interlude with abdul alhazred. You should be reading HIS BLOG right now.

March 6: Cory documents his visit to Guy Fieri's resaurant. It is, in a word, brutal. It is also established that Guy Fieri and The Guy From Smashmouth are most likely the same person.

Want a whole bunch of killer jams in a hurry? One. Two. Three.

.... Which brings us back to the present.


IC CELEBRITIES:

"Asstits" (see picture, below), Malice of Forethought, THIS CHICK.

TOP 10 MOST DOWNLOADED ALBUMS:

(It would be difficult to say exactly which albums have been downloaded most in the course of the last 500 posts, especially with all the jumping around I've done between file-sharing services. This section is an informed approximation.)

1) Wendy Carlos (+ Journey) - Tron OST
2) Angel Witch - Self-titled
3) Geinoh Yamashirogumi - Akira OST
4) Initial State - Abort The Soul
5) Fabio Frizzi - Zombi 2 OST
6) Fall of the Bastards - Dusk of an Ancient Age
7) Grief - Miserably Ever After
8) Disharmonic Orchestra - Expositionsprophylaxe
9) Liers In Wait - Spiritually Uncontrolled Art EP
10) Philip Glass - Koyaanisqatsi OST

... And on and on and on....

Above: IllCon contributors Seanford (left) and Cobras (right) enjoy some fun in the sun at the 2010 IC Writer's Retreat in Cozumel, Mexico.
Below: Cory and Del Tigre returning home from said event.

All in all, the last 500 posts have been tons of fun, as were the last 500 before them. Here's to 1000 more, and 1000 more after that, and 1000 more after that, and 1000 more after that. But no more after that. We've got to draw the line somewhere.
My sincere thanks goes out to everyone who reads, comments, makes fun of, or in any other way acknowledges the existence of IC. And an extra special thanks goes out to the Contributing Writer's Team as well. Keep up the good work, you guys don't suck!

Sorry, Kirk

PS: We're always hiring. illogicalcontraption@yahoo.com