So, We’re Going to Take This to Eleven

It’s time once again for a self-referential post as 11 years ago today, I relaunched my personal website. Neither I nor Nigel Tufnel thought we’d get here, but Nigel at least had a plan. (Incidentally, in searching for the appropriate graphic, I learned that Spinal Tap was not the first to go to 11, which I feel should be better known).

Yes, it’s time for a:

The 11th Anniversary is apparently the “Steel” anniversary. So now, I must ask you to steel yourselves for the usual look at what are last year’s most visited posts (in what will quickly be recognized as the two main categories) as well as some other reflections.

Star Trek

Thanks to my pandemic response being to rank every episode of every Star Trek series, a huge amount of site traffic comes from my Star Trek posts. As of earlier this year, I now have viewing guides for all the Trek series from the original through 2005 (that’s TOS, TAS, TNG, DS9, VOY, and ENT for those trying to remember). Were I to do a strict top 11 of the most visited posts of the past year, it’s now no longer only Star Trek, but we’ll get to that in a minute.

This year’s Star Trek rankings are:

1. Every Episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Ranked (2)
2. A Viewing Guide for Star Trek: Voyager (1)
3. Every Episode of Star Trek: Voyager, Ranked (4)
4. Every Episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Ranked (3)
5. A Viewing Guide for Star Trek: The Next Generation (5)
6. Every Episode of Star Trek, the original series, Ranked (7)
7. A Viewing Guide for Star Trek: Enterprise (6)
8. Every Episode of Star Trek: Enterprise, Ranked (9)
9. Every Episode of Every Star Trek Series, Ranked (8)
10. Every Episode of Every Star Trek Series, Ranked: The Whole Enchilada (10)
11. Every Episode of Star Trek, the animated series, Ranked (with comments) (New)

Last year’s rankings are in parenthesis, so you can see trends. For example, the viewing guide for Voyager warped up to the top this time last year, but thousands more wanted to know the rankings for TNG. In fact the top four Trek posts above were the top four visited posts overall. What non-Trek posts were visitors more interested, you ask? Read on!

Most Visited Posts (apart from Trek)

The 11 most visited posts in the past year (whether they were from 2025 or no) were:

1. Kurt Vonnegut: “I am very real” (2024) – 3
2. A Viewing Guide for Babylon 5 (2023) – 1
3. Film Genre Popularity Over the Decades (2022) – 4
4. The Hildebrandt Viewing Guide for Babylon 5 (2025) – New
5. 2024 Additions to the National Film Registry (2024) – New
6. TCM Remembers 2025 (2025) – New
7. How I Sort My Favorite Films (2016) – 4
8. Carl Sagan & “The Age of Exploration” (2025) – New
9. The 11 Laws of Showrunning by Javier Grillo-Marxuach (2024) – 6
10. Public Domain Day 2026 (2026) – New
11. Fast. Cheap. Good. Pick Two. (2022) – New

Thanks to the titular Hildebrandt take on Babylon 5, I now have two B5 viewing guides on the site, which are both getting decent traffic. I’m still at a loss to explain why my Banned Books Week post about Kurt Vonnegut has so pleased the algorithm gods, though I’m sure Mr. Vonnegut would have a pithy comment on the subject (and it is a good letter to read). Finally, I’m glad so many entries are new, meaning my seven or nine usual readers are not alone.

Posts I’d Like to Get More Views

These are posts on any topic that have stuck with me or I’ve revisited. Since I’ve now been doing this for a few years, I now start adding to this list a few months out and so I find a lot of these are more recent. Do with that tidbit what you will, but hopefully that means some posts are a bit more topical. The 11 posts are in the reverse order of when I noted them as ones for inclusion:

• Out of the Madhouse: R.I.P. Bob Newhart (2024)
  • Many of my remembrances are an appreciation, but this one has a particular anecdote about how I became a Newhart fan… and I thought of including it with this list since I finally got around to watching Elf as part of my 2026 Favorite Films sorting (due this December)
• “Happiness is equilibrium. Shift your weight.” – Tom Stoppard (2025)
  • In the same remembrance vein, I have told the anecdote of my para-social connection to Tom Stoppard for years, but documented here upon his passing.
• Just Loose Your Arrows & Dig Another Ditch: A Guide to Ancient Warfare (2025)
  • I’ve become quite the fan of the “expert in a particular field reacts to films that demonstrate less-than-expert understandings of said field” videos, because (a) I always learn something, and (b) it’s often fun. Roel Konijnendijk is invariably fun even when he’s enormously frustrated at historical inaccuracy.
• The Cult of Overproductivity (2025)
  • A lot of my posts are, let’s be honest, just a link to an article or a video, and some thoughts about why I think people may want to read or watch it. For me, that’s the low-key epitome of a personal blog — which I realize flies in the face of some modern notions of social media posting and “becoming a thought leader in X.” This post started as that, but then I realized it connected back to other posts I’d had about jobs and purpose and ikigai.
• Hey Kids! Let’s Fix the Federal Budget! (2025)
  • I can’t be alone in this timeline in wanting some wish fulfillment, so go ahead and check out how you’d change the federal budget with assorted online simulators.
• Costco’s Gamble with Kirkland, its Store Brand (2025)
  • This is an example of just a video that I link to with a few comments, but I find it very interesting.
• Kickstarting Your 2026 (2026)
  • This uses a format I occasionally do where I link to a list/countdown and ‘annotate’ the bejeezus out of it. And hey, we’re not done with the first quarter of the year, so if you need an excuse to kickstart yourself or break out of the usual, check it out.
• Writing Rules to Know and Vigorously Ignore as Needed (2026)
  • Similar to the post immediately above, who doesn’t need focus and re-energizing about their writing?
• Your Mid-Life Meta-Physical (2025)
  • Kind of like the kickstarting above, I found this a useful check of the motivation/ikigai boxes.
• The Oatmeal on Creativity (2025)
  • And similar to above, Matthew Inman’s irreverent take on creativity my be a good place for someone to reflect on their own artistic efforts.
• Lonnie Johnson and the Super Soaking of Summer (2025)
  • And let’s end on something that isn’t all about art, but really does involve creativity and more than a little nostalgia for some of us of a certain age who saw the old guard of water pistols give away to a whole new means of water-based warfare.

So, there it is. Ideally, this will give you some new posts to check out and give you inspiration or at least a diversion as you make your way through the year.