Does anyone else miss…

Have you tried the Mobile Theme on your phone?

For those of you who weren't around before 2009, we used to have a feature where the name of the person who made the newest comment was visible at the bottom of each post. Having the newest comment on all the posts on the front page was called "running the gauntlet," and sometimes involved fierce competitions. If you tried to run the gauntlet, inevitably someone would attempt to "thwart" your run.

When we redesigned in 2009, we decided to replace the names at the bottom of each post with the "recent comments" feature on the left sidebar   to help reduce clutter.

There was also the "Drunklet," which was the same as the Gauntlet, but with booze.

I can't remember if we ever acknowledged it in writing, or if it was just a term I came up with and never shared, but there was also (at least in my mind) the "pure gauntlet" vs. the "lazy man's gauntlet." The pure gauntlet meant that you commented on each post on the home page in a meaningful and reasonably pertinent way, rather than just commenting with the word "gauntlet" or some other one-word throwaway like "awesome!"

Anyway, the gauntlet was a strange thing to do and be proud of, but none the less I did it and maybe I am.

Pure gauntlets were sometimes attempted, but rarely accomplished unthwarted. Drunklets often worked simply because they were attempted at 3 am when there were fewer people online.

Whatever happened to the Midnight Blogger Who Blogs at Midnight?

Hah, I was just thinking about him/her the other day!

I'm not certain, but I think evil_midnight_blogger_what_blogs_at_midnight gave it up after accidentally posting at 12:01.

Oh yeah ... thwart ... the only thing that could break the filibuster like gauntlet.

Quite dangerous in the hands of someone like Vicarious who could wield it with a verbal panache that was quite unmatched.

Good times.

I am humbled by the praise, Z.