Blog History 101

In the beginning there was the blog, and many looked upon the face of the blog and found it good. But way back before the blog was even a vague glimmer in the mind of the Lord of Sword himself, there wasn't much in the way of hard information on space toys to be had.

When I first ventured online, courtesy of an Internet cafe, one of the first things I looked for was Spacex and SWORD toys. Needless to say, I didn't find any. It was 1998 and the internet was in its infancy, with ebay just another tiny site tucked away in the vast reaches of cyberspace, waiting for its moment of triumph. It would be a good two years before I would dip my toe into that water.

So in the meanwhile, I contented myself with noseying about on the periphery, looking at home made web pages and message boards and in doing so, I eventually stumbled on the Project SWORD checklist. Finally, I had a lead and a quite comprehensive one too. The only problem was the list did not have any photographs on it and It was a tantalising read. But even so, it did have a contact, for one Paul Woods, an apparently eager devotee of the SWORD line. Success! A fellow collector! There was another! So I eagerly emailed Mr Woods to see if he fancied a chat. 

No response. So I gave it a day or so, to see if anything came back. Nothing. A week. Nada. 

A month - and finally a response! So as an opening gambit, I collected all my Spacex and similar toys together, put them on the bedroom windowsill and took a couple of snaps, with a digital camera i'd borrowed from work. Hastily attached them to a brief email - something to the effect of " Have you got any of these ?", sent it off and waited for a response.

Nothing. A day later. Nowt. Another week, nothing.

Then out of the blue, the phone rings late one evening and a very pleasant and engaging chap named Paul introduces himself and before long we are chatting away about Spacex and all kinds of cool stuff.

"So how come you didn't answer my email and how did you find my number ?" I ask.

Its then that I realise that the chap I am speaking to is not the enigmatic Paul Woods, but Paul Vreede, who is calling from Belgium! Suddenly, realisation dawns, as Paul explains that Paul had forwarded my email on to an acquaintance of his who was interested in Spacex. Mr Vreede, being an extremely resourceful sort and a master of research and investigation, tracked down my telephone number, by virtue of me having a weird surname and cut to the chase - "So, have you got any other spacex toys ?".

And so began a very lasting friendship between the three of us, once I had figured out which Paul was which after Mr Paul W finally responded to my email! Since then, we have been in almost constant contact and the basis of the network which would ultimately become the blog, came into being.

Looking back on the meagre assortment of space toys left over from my childhood, its hard to imagine that almost 20 years later, my collection, knowledge and circle of friends would have expanded so exponentially and rewardingly. And all from a quick email!