Second anniversary of dada's dally

The second anniversary of Dada's Dally passed quietly this week. Two years ago I wrote about how it all began in a blog I titled, "The best friend I've never met." It went something like this:

Sunday, June 19, 2005

Just a moment to reflect on the origin of this blog. Most of the credit goes to a person I've known for the last 12 years or more, but whom I've never met. I'm speaking of Nona at Fish Wars on Cars.

We became acquainted on a Prodigy bulletin board called "Earthquakes" back in '92 or '93. (Raised in California, I had taken plenty of razzing from friends and neighbors for the inflated air mattress in the backseat of the car that crossed the Golden Gate and Bay bridges twice each day on my 100 mile roundtrip commute from the northwest to the southeast San Francisco Bay Area. Hence, I had some minor interest in earthquakes.)

But while sitting safely miles east of the San Andreas fault I had once daily tempted, I enjoyed the ambience of those still straddling it from the comfort of the Prodigy discussion group. This was just a couple of years after the big Bay Area quake of '89 struck that saw the very freeway I used to commute on collapse along with part of the upper deck of the Bay Bridge as well.

Between quakes, the EQ group would often drift to discussions of politics and fight like hell to fill the void. That's where Nona and her sharp wit really jumped out at me. Hence, born of common interests, we've nurtured a virtual friendship as good as any real one for the past 15 years now.

But it was in the spring of 2005 Nona asked me to "sit-in" for her on her blog. I found blogging a bit like standing before a firing squad, blind-folded and naked in a stadium packed with curious onlookers (most of them praying to see an execution). And when asked, "Do you have any final words?" rather than wisely say, "No!" and die a mystery, you succumb to temptation, saying instead, "Yes!" begin babbling thus revealing the fool within.

Nona gave me that chance to babble. To expose myself. At times, I don't know whether to thank or curse her. But I must have liked it.