One year ago today, the first Damn Interesting article was published. We had hoped to use this milestone occasion to announce some our super-spiffy near-future plans, but our monetary and temporal budgets have put us slightly behind schedule. It would be daft for us to prematurely expectorate our intentions, so they must remain secret for now. But nifty stuff is on the way.
While we’re on the subject of improvements, let us know if there’s anything we can do to make your Damn Interesting experience even Damnier. Any such birthday wishes will be thoroughly masticated, then integrated or defenestrated.
Thanks for reading!
Written by
Alan Bellows, posted on 06 September 2006. Alan is the founder, developer, designer, and managing editor of Damn Interesting, and he likes the Oxford comma.
Happy birthday! This is one damn interesting web site. It is one of my daily haunts.
Congratulations! Alan, can you put a link to dictionary.com on the site so I can look up all them big words you use?
My favorite word in there was “Damnier.” Hey don’t they make cars?
Happy Birthday! This is definately one of my favorite websites!
Pie! This comment should taste good, and Happy B-day!
Happy B-Day !!!!!
Happy Birthday, and thanks for giving one damn interesting thing to read with my morning coffee each day! Keep up the good work. I am looking forward to all the damnier things in the future.
“Any such birthday wishes will be thoroughly masticated, then integrated or defenestrated.”
Way to go all fancy.
Don’t go changin’…I love you just the way you arrrrrrre. And while I’m a singing…Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday Damn Interesting
Happy birthday tooo youuuu!
Congrats Mr. Bellows. I look for new “Damn Interesting” articles every morning. Wish you great success for many more Birthday celebrations.
Happy Birthday Damninteresting.com! You are by far one of the more interesting sites on the net that I’ve found so far, and the articles are intriguing every time. Keep up the good work, and many more years!
turd_furgason said: “Congratulations! Alan, can you put a link to dictionary.com on the site so I can look up all them big words you use?”
Turd, perhaps you could consider using a different web browser – for instance, when you double-click a word on a website viewed using Opera browser (www.opera.com/download) you get a menu whereby you can immediately do a dictionary search (among other things)
I am almost certain there will be some firefox ripoff feature that would allow you to do the same thing.
Allan et al, congratulations let’s hope this birthday thing turns in to some sort of annual occasion :-)
Congratulations guys! Keep up the good work. Your site is a great source of common knowledge and thus, for me, a great source of inspiration.
Greetings,
Delphium
The Hague,
The Netherlands
openside said: “Turd, perhaps you could consider using a different web browser – for instance, when you double-click a word on a website viewed using Opera browser (www.opera.com/download) you get a menu whereby you can immediately do a dictionary search (among other things)
Or you could just get something like WordWeb (http://wordweb.info/) and get a dictionary that works in almost all programs, including web browsers.
What about the occasional link to other interesting sites on the internet? Things like sodaconstructor and project gutenberg.
HBD DI!
Co-op with Gullible.info. You guys have the best stuff!
It seems kind of fitting that the one year birthday is right after an article on professional farting. Or am I the only one who noticed that?
Happy Damn Birthday! I love this site, and had no idea it was so young. I visit daily as well. Hope this year bodes well for your site!
As others have wished you (all) – Happy 1st birthday!
Something is either “unique” – or not.
Niether “very unique,” nor “sort of unique” are correct (y’know).
Your site is unique. Very enjoyable – as many of the above replys have pointed out.
My next step is to either “contribute,” (monetarily or with articles) or refer you to a “synergy” with Randy Cassingham’s sites – he seems to be making a living.
(Seriously – your site *is* good – you’ll make it – because it IS Damn Interesting – I’ve forwarded many of your postings to a bunch of e-heads.)
Thanks
Have a damn interesting birthday!
Happy damn birthday and many, many damn more! I absolutely love your site and check it out daily. Thanks for all the useless, yet very interesting articles. Your fart article this weekend was forwarded to many of my dear friends, so rest assured, we’re bringing class to the site. :D
Congratulations!
I had no idea DI was just a baby! Well have a Damn happy birthday!
For those of you, like myself, that needed a dictionary: They’re gonna sit and “chew on it” (think about it, ponder it, mull over it, etc) and either use it or chuck it (defenestration literally means “to throw something out of a window”).
Congrats, DI. You’ve made me late to work several times. :)
Congratulations on your first year! This has become one of my favorite sites, and a great source of crowd impressing trivia at parties.
He might be a little too well-known, but are there any plans on an article about Emperor Norton?
Birthday? Where’s the cake & ice cream?
Have a damn fine birthday celebration!
If I had some money, I might really think about wanting to be motivated to approach temptation to consider making a donation; but I’m damn broke. Damn sorry, guys ’cause this stuff is Damn Interesting. Damn.
well a good b-day to you and glad to see ,the site , will go on. good show to all and thanks for filling my day with info that i want to read. my cash will be sent by a bit
010101
it’s been a year????
wow! and i’ve only known about this site for less than a week. :(
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAMN INTERESTING!
Congratas Damn Interesting!!
I can only hope this site will learn to keep walking for years to come, and long before its potty-trained!
Thank you for using one of my favorite words. I try to say “defenestrate” at least once a day, but you’d be surprised how difficult it is to fit it into a normal conversation.
happy b-day DI!! The only suggestion i have to make DI better is… more articles… of course I know you’re working on it with the new writers and whatnot. As long as there are at least two a week I’ll be satisfied =)
My ancestors are Czech, and defenestration is an often-used method of regime change there. It is such a cool word! Damn good job and happy birthday DI!
Aloha,
SurfJay
Happy Birthday DI, I checkyour RSS every day and have yet to be disappointed by an article.
One thing I would ask, as a wish rather than a request, would be a css version which has styles more suitable for a work enviroment (read:boring) which would allow me to read the articles with both eyes, rather than having one hanging over my shoulder the whole time (most uncomfortable).
Apart from that, just keep up the great work!
Happy Birthday. This is one of my favourite sites, and, while I rarely comment, I am a regular visitor and I enjoy the fascinating articles. Everyone I talk to knows this site exists, just can’t help myself. Thank you for informing and entertaining me.
I’ve been reading vigilantly for some time. Happy Birthday to me! Now I’m a registered user guy. Keep up the excellent stuff.
Fascinating articles– even Cliff Clavin would learn quite a few new things here.
Whoa, this site is only one year old?! Yet the article ID is well over 600, which means you guys managed to push out like two damn interesting things everyday…
Suddenly the world seems much more interesting than I thought. Keep up the great work; and happy birthday!
Hard to believe this site is only a year old! Always great and interesting topics. Will be looking forward to the damnier experience. This site is the bestissimo! (love those supurlative words!)
Let me join the fray and wish a Happy B-Day to Damn Interesting and all its writers. This is one website where you always learn new things. Keep up the good work, fellas!
Happy B-Day. to one of my favourite sites!! An amazing amount of DI articles for a site only a year old.
This site has been awesome…and quite frankly I clichely put Damn Interesting!
Happy Birthday! A great site to help pass time at work :)
Happy Birthday! It’s been a joy to read the articles here ~ always room for more bits and bobbles of esoteric erudition (not that it’s all that bookish…but you know). Always damn interesting, for sure!
Happy birthday DI! A big thanks to all the writers for spending the time on the articles, just so regular schmoes like me can “Oooh” and “Aahh” at the damn interestingness of the world.
Keep it up guys, we love it!
KJ
Happy Birthday! Your site is the quintessential embodiment of everything damned interesting. Chewing, chewing, chewing.
Hope you have one helluva Damn Happy Interesting Birthday! May you and your writers (and anyone else on your staff) stand up and take a bow…you folks really deserve it. You’ve not only put together a series of interesting articles on a variety of subjects, but the idea of “what’s the next article going to be” keeps us all coming back for more…again…again…and again.
Allan, I don’t know how interested you are in learning something your loyal followers, but polling readers to determine their location, background, careers, etc. may yield another Damn Interesting article…or at least, give us all an idea about our fellow responders. Your thoughts?
The only thing I would change would be to ask for a policy by which readers could submit articles or stories of interest that could become articles, if they think is sufficiently damning and interesting enough.
Congratulations, Alan and all the Damn DI people. And may all your defenstrations meet wide open windows and a nice long free fall.
Happy Damn Birthday, indeed! This is one of my favorite haunts, thanks for all the hard work and damn interesting articles.
gg
Love Love Love your site! It keeps me occupied at work…an everyday check!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!
Marius said: “Don’t go changin’…I love you just the way you arrrrrrre. And while I’m a singing…Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday Damn Interesting
Happy birthday tooo youuuu!”
hey diseny holds copyrights on that song you cant sing it lol.
Congrats!
I look forward to the second year.
Happt B-day!
Happy Birthday, I had no idea you were so young, I only discovered Damn Interesting after the Yahoo picks listing.
That’s pretty damn interesting……I have not been to this site in over a month and I happen to come here today (sept. 7th, my birthday) and what do I see??????????
Happy Damn Birthday!
Made me think for a second.
eldergias said: “The only thing I would change would be to ask for a policy by which readers could submit articles or stories of interest that could become articles, if they think is sufficiently damning and interesting enough.”
You can actually suggest a story. Click the “About” icon at the top and there is a place to suggest a story. As far as writing one for submission…haven’t got a clue there.
I’ll pop my head in and say congrats! Top 3 websites in my book
Happy birthday!
Oh, and, BTW…. I found this just now.
Remind you of a certain article?
this is probably one of the only articles that hasn’t caused any arguments in the comments, and that’s always a nice thing. i first heard the word “defenestration” on tv, i’m thinking it was dark angel but don’t quote me on that. i mostly watched it for you-know-who. incidentally, happy birthday.
You have my best wishes for a happiest birthday as well…as do you hero_saku39!
Keep up the good work guys, it IS damn well appreciated!!
Please accept my very belated Happy Birthday. For a present I was going to Make a Donation. But I don’t do PayPal since they completely screwed up my last account.
When you accept credit cards donations, consider it done.
Hap-py birthday DI …
Hap-py birthday DI …
(repeat ad nauseam)
The most interesting thing about this article are the comments, as usual. All the usual suspects have turned up for the party.
And if I hear any more denigrating comments about defenestration or other polysyllabic constructions, there will be a bit of lapidation going on!
radish123 said: “hey diseny holds copyrights on that song you cant sing it lol.”
I think the copyright is still held by the descendents of sisters Patty and Mildred Hill, who wrote it. But yeah, technically you can’t use it without permission! Seems a little silly for such a well-known, short song – but it just goes to show how recent it was, really.
Ditto!
To elucidate: I, too, did not realize you were so young; I visit this site daily; and you do a damn fine job! Keep up the hellacious oeuvre!
And to all you copy-right-mongers, royalties are due only for a public performance of said celebratory ditty.
PS: thesaurus.com also rox
Happy Birthday, to one of my favorite places on the web. Thank you for the interesting and thought provoking articles. Particularly those from the strange and unique.
well, happy late birthday.