Oh Those DotCom Days (The Early Online Incarnation of TOYSREVIL)
I was think about my "blog-color" just the other day, about whether or not to alter the red/black/white and orange-highlight combo in lieu of a possible relaunch of the blog (nope, decided I'm not changing nothing). Then the news of "China-Red" hit television (the color of the flag of China, if you need to know) - coincidentally in-lieu of a kind person asking what my blog pantone-color red was (I have zero idea besides "Character Red" ala Gundam paints - yes, I have yet to find my pantone chart from a over a decade ago when I was a design-student LOL). All this, of course, leads me to the origins of this blog you are now reading, and of the near-forgotten cyber-life before it.
[CLICK THRU to reminisce along with me, if you so please]
The TOYSREVIL blogspot is practically 5 years old, that much has been drummed into cyber-consciousness here. What most (if any) folks know, was that TOYSREVIL existed online even before that, but not necessarily as a blog, per se, nearly a decade ago.
There is/was the Multiply account (which shall remain unlinked due to their hasty blocking of my albums due to an unfortunate Wolverine-snafu) which started before the blogspot, with way heightened activity between '04-'05. But even before then, was my dotcom. Yes, TOYSREVIL used to be a toysrevil.com. (Now it is toysrevil.net, if kind folks bother to read the cyber-print).
My early journey online is tied to work. Starting relatively late and discovering the wondrous internet-realms, I had early encounters with Ebay (the result of which bore one of my nicks "TOYSREVIL"), as well as trying to conjure up a website for my work-place, some semi-odd decade ago. Yes, I was a erring student of GoLive, and I have the "How-To" tomes to prove it!
Those overnight FTML-uploads certainly thought me well. I used to be a proud man, arrogant of my skills and abilities, but frankly - the website got me humbled. Feeling lost amongst html and codes, I learnt the hard way how a website needs to be done and how it gets going (I am still wholly unsure if I knew it well enough - but no, this post is not about that ;p). And because of my need to learn making websites, I had actually forgone weblogs ("WTF were they anyways?"). And with the work-website eventually conquered, came the birth of toysrevil.com = the hobby website!
Prior to all of these, I was a part of a semi-regular fraternity / community of 1/6-scaled collectors and hobbyists. And besides meeting up physically to geekout over toys, I had a Yahoo-album, filled to the brim with toy-pics, to share one and all! But it wasn't enough - I had wanted a proper website to showcase my kitbashes and toy-stories - which includes Kubricks as well as 1/6th-creations. And no doubt of course to showcase my mediocre website-making abilities, as ridiculous as it sounds now. And yes, I dabbled it tad in online-selling as well, oh those heady doctcom days!
Ironically, what I did not provide for on my site, was a "site meter" - measuring web-hits, very much unlike the blog now, where the number of average hits denote the "value" of my blog (*tears-out-hair*). But it mattered naught - back then, it was the ability to share your toy-hobby, to whomever enjoyed it. Thinking back, the scene was more "pure" for me, filled with toys I liked and showcased, most times snaps of them "at play" - a real personal geek-fest, coupled with a slight tinge of secrecy (parentals and ex-gilfriends looked at me weird, lemme tells ya!), and admittedly, a whole lot of excitement - something which seems particularly lacking these days, or simply perhaps my spending power and ability is now a shadow if yesteryears. Nevertheless, I remember those to be great personal days in the hobby :)
I no longer have an exact date, but the day my dotcom went live, was a true triumphant day for me. There were specific categories and URLs for various 12" kitbashes, ranging from Military Desert Ops, to WW2 comedy, to urban heroes decked out in streetwear and totting guns while riding scooters! And there was even a "Other Toyz" corner, with snaps of Kubricks and vinyls with wrod-balloon captions (and also a chance to show off my Gasaphon collection). My toy-life became concrete. No longer was I storing my figures in my bag and boxes, I was displaying them online for the whole world to see! Also bear in mind, all this was at the cusp of the new Millennium, where I felt collecting toys was at it's optimum in Singapore (at the very least).
But of course, not the whole world was looking. But it didn't matter. My stuff was already "out there". This is the first time, anywhere else I have posted images of the website screengrabs, on this blog. Do feel free to laugh at the amateuristic quality of what you see, it's okay. I do. And yes, do notice the eye-crushing RED - they are posted as-is.
One thing to note, while I still have individual images of my 1/6-kitbashes (most of them re-posted on my hobby-blog), most of my Kubricks-snaps and even webpage screengrabs, are no longer available to me - lost to the ether of faded memories and crashed hard-drives … a minute's toy-silence might be in order …
Okay - sorted. :p
Then there came a dark time when toys fell by the wayside (aka "overspent until backside tear") and the hobby took a serious backseat to literal self-preservation and ultimately daily survival. The long and short of it was, during that time, the dotcom fell victim to expiration, and eventually the internet-bandits. Toysrevil.com have since becomea health dental website lost in domain-limbo. Then life sorta got better, overdue credit cards got paid, I swore off Ebay, and I begun collecting again - then came the blog, which ironically started out as a whimper-whine angry man-blog, which subsequently developed into the whimper-whine toy-blog you are reading today! Ain't life grand? LOL
I started as a "toy collector" first and foremost (buy-n-buy-n-buy), then became an "enthusiast" (enjoy playtime), and soon an "online advocate" (geekout online over toys), and eventually a "news-desk" (reporting online about what's new and what's hot), and now evolved into what I dare finally call myself "toy-blogger" (who happens geek-on about toys past and present, on a weblog). The evolution of self parallels that of my online journey (kudos to the Stroke, for bringing me to the here and now actually), and perhaps even my economical journey in accessing toys. And the genesis of the blog and what you are reading now, has grown along with me, unconsciously even.
The dotcom happened in what I deem to the the "online advocate" period, while the "news-desk" element developed during the last coupla years for the blog (pre-Stroke). Quite a journey for me, quite a path to have taken, IMHO. It is who I had been before, and lived thru to the now, that makes me the person I am, and have become, and toys played a huge part of it, I will not deny - even sometimes when it is not as obvious in-the-face as the usual calamities and triumphs in life tend to be remembered.
In "life", you win some, you loose plenty. With the then crushing loss of my dotcom, I may well have been forced and able to venture forth and developed online relationships, into the valued friends and supporters of today, innit?
As long gone as the past had been, there never is a day when I do not think / remember about the dotcom which fell out of my grasp, but nevertheless, cyber-life still goes on, as does "life", I suppose. And we look back with a wistful snicker, and still go on ticking for another day - but this time with a dot-net instead, and a passionate "red" to light the way!
"tis oft said about the inherent evil of "influence". but none
so alluring as the all-consuming passion lured and set-upon thee
mortal desires by plastic or vinyl in the form of toys & action figures.
and if influence is evil? then toys-are-evil. in my waking dreams,
they are my masters and i am but a humble servant to serve."
[CLICK THRU to reminisce along with me, if you so please]
The TOYSREVIL blogspot is practically 5 years old, that much has been drummed into cyber-consciousness here. What most (if any) folks know, was that TOYSREVIL existed online even before that, but not necessarily as a blog, per se, nearly a decade ago.
There is/was the Multiply account (which shall remain unlinked due to their hasty blocking of my albums due to an unfortunate Wolverine-snafu) which started before the blogspot, with way heightened activity between '04-'05. But even before then, was my dotcom. Yes, TOYSREVIL used to be a toysrevil.com. (Now it is toysrevil.net, if kind folks bother to read the cyber-print).
My early journey online is tied to work. Starting relatively late and discovering the wondrous internet-realms, I had early encounters with Ebay (the result of which bore one of my nicks "TOYSREVIL"), as well as trying to conjure up a website for my work-place, some semi-odd decade ago. Yes, I was a erring student of GoLive, and I have the "How-To" tomes to prove it!
Those overnight FTML-uploads certainly thought me well. I used to be a proud man, arrogant of my skills and abilities, but frankly - the website got me humbled. Feeling lost amongst html and codes, I learnt the hard way how a website needs to be done and how it gets going (I am still wholly unsure if I knew it well enough - but no, this post is not about that ;p). And because of my need to learn making websites, I had actually forgone weblogs ("WTF were they anyways?"). And with the work-website eventually conquered, came the birth of toysrevil.com = the hobby website!
Prior to all of these, I was a part of a semi-regular fraternity / community of 1/6-scaled collectors and hobbyists. And besides meeting up physically to geekout over toys, I had a Yahoo-album, filled to the brim with toy-pics, to share one and all! But it wasn't enough - I had wanted a proper website to showcase my kitbashes and toy-stories - which includes Kubricks as well as 1/6th-creations. And no doubt of course to showcase my mediocre website-making abilities, as ridiculous as it sounds now. And yes, I dabbled it tad in online-selling as well, oh those heady doctcom days!
Ironically, what I did not provide for on my site, was a "site meter" - measuring web-hits, very much unlike the blog now, where the number of average hits denote the "value" of my blog (*tears-out-hair*). But it mattered naught - back then, it was the ability to share your toy-hobby, to whomever enjoyed it. Thinking back, the scene was more "pure" for me, filled with toys I liked and showcased, most times snaps of them "at play" - a real personal geek-fest, coupled with a slight tinge of secrecy (parentals and ex-gilfriends looked at me weird, lemme tells ya!), and admittedly, a whole lot of excitement - something which seems particularly lacking these days, or simply perhaps my spending power and ability is now a shadow if yesteryears. Nevertheless, I remember those to be great personal days in the hobby :)
I no longer have an exact date, but the day my dotcom went live, was a true triumphant day for me. There were specific categories and URLs for various 12" kitbashes, ranging from Military Desert Ops, to WW2 comedy, to urban heroes decked out in streetwear and totting guns while riding scooters! And there was even a "Other Toyz" corner, with snaps of Kubricks and vinyls with wrod-balloon captions (and also a chance to show off my Gasaphon collection). My toy-life became concrete. No longer was I storing my figures in my bag and boxes, I was displaying them online for the whole world to see! Also bear in mind, all this was at the cusp of the new Millennium, where I felt collecting toys was at it's optimum in Singapore (at the very least).
But of course, not the whole world was looking. But it didn't matter. My stuff was already "out there". This is the first time, anywhere else I have posted images of the website screengrabs, on this blog. Do feel free to laugh at the amateuristic quality of what you see, it's okay. I do. And yes, do notice the eye-crushing RED - they are posted as-is.
One thing to note, while I still have individual images of my 1/6-kitbashes (most of them re-posted on my hobby-blog), most of my Kubricks-snaps and even webpage screengrabs, are no longer available to me - lost to the ether of faded memories and crashed hard-drives … a minute's toy-silence might be in order …
Then there came a dark time when toys fell by the wayside (aka "overspent until backside tear") and the hobby took a serious backseat to literal self-preservation and ultimately daily survival. The long and short of it was, during that time, the dotcom fell victim to expiration, and eventually the internet-bandits. Toysrevil.com have since become
I started as a "toy collector" first and foremost (buy-n-buy-n-buy), then became an "enthusiast" (enjoy playtime), and soon an "online advocate" (geekout online over toys), and eventually a "news-desk" (reporting online about what's new and what's hot), and now evolved into what I dare finally call myself "toy-blogger" (who happens geek-on about toys past and present, on a weblog). The evolution of self parallels that of my online journey (kudos to the Stroke, for bringing me to the here and now actually), and perhaps even my economical journey in accessing toys. And the genesis of the blog and what you are reading now, has grown along with me, unconsciously even.
The dotcom happened in what I deem to the the "online advocate" period, while the "news-desk" element developed during the last coupla years for the blog (pre-Stroke). Quite a journey for me, quite a path to have taken, IMHO. It is who I had been before, and lived thru to the now, that makes me the person I am, and have become, and toys played a huge part of it, I will not deny - even sometimes when it is not as obvious in-the-face as the usual calamities and triumphs in life tend to be remembered.
In "life", you win some, you loose plenty. With the then crushing loss of my dotcom, I may well have been forced and able to venture forth and developed online relationships, into the valued friends and supporters of today, innit?
As long gone as the past had been, there never is a day when I do not think / remember about the dotcom which fell out of my grasp, but nevertheless, cyber-life still goes on, as does "life", I suppose. And we look back with a wistful snicker, and still go on ticking for another day - but this time with a dot-net instead, and a passionate "red" to light the way!
"tis oft said about the inherent evil of "influence". but none
so alluring as the all-consuming passion lured and set-upon thee
mortal desires by plastic or vinyl in the form of toys & action figures.
and if influence is evil? then toys-are-evil. in my waking dreams,
they are my masters and i am but a humble servant to serve."
