Metafilter's 30,000th thread will be posted sometime tomorrow morning

December 3, 2003 7:55 PM

It all started with cats wedged into scanners, and took off from there. Metafilter's 30,000th thread will be posted sometime tomorrow morning. Cat-scan your memory banks: what's your nomination for Best. MeFi. Thread. Ever? And is Woody Harrelson available to host the obligatory awards show...?
posted by PrinceValium to MetaFilter-Related at 7:55 PM (38 comments total)

The Best Ever has not yet been posted.
posted by mischief at 8:00 PM on December 3, 2003

ah, it seems like only yesterday we hit 20,000
posted by amberglow at 8:01 PM on December 3, 2003

Metafilter's 30,000th thread will be posted sometime tomorrow morning.

Quick, everybody stop posting so we can draw out 29,999 as long as possible!!
posted by kaibutsu at 8:18 PM on December 3, 2003

Ah, the golden days of MeFi. Things just ain't what they used to be. Whether that is a good thing or not depends on your point of view.
posted by dg at 8:19 PM on December 3, 2003

One of my all time favs: "Sometimes you just have to make the cats."
posted by ColdChef at 8:24 PM on December 3, 2003

i thought it all started with "so how was the movie?" or something like that.
posted by darainwa at 8:25 PM on December 3, 2003

The best - always has been, always will be.
posted by dg at 8:43 PM on December 3, 2003

Another of ColdChef's favourites is grumblebee's classic October 2001 Magnificent Obsessions post. It very well might be the best post+thread+new links combo ever. There are many great posts and quite a few great threads and certainly a lot of great links in comments, but it's quite rare to get all three in one.
posted by MiguelCardoso at 8:43 PM on December 3, 2003

Holy shit, Miguel. I was just coming here to post that. Creeepy.
posted by ColdChef at 8:44 PM on December 3, 2003

Here are a selection of my favorites (some for the links, some for the discussion, some both)

The New York City that Once Was
Remembering When the BBS Was King
Sam Sloan, Oddball Chess Playing Taxi Driver
1937 Roadtrip
76 Year Old Man Carded For Buying Nonalcoholic Beer
I Explain to Them That They Are In My Restaurant, And They Will Have the Flounder the Way I Make It
Law and Order: Artistic Intent
posted by PrinceValium at 8:47 PM on December 3, 2003

ColdChef: then why did you e-mail me then, dammit? ;)

Btw, it's worth quoting the famous exchange from dg's favourite in full, as it's often reduced to NortonDC's retort. For those who haven't read it, the post referred to a $300 camera Amazon was mistakenly selling for $40, leading a few MeFi members to take advantage. A highly ethical discussion soon developed:

marknau: Astounding. I can't take a moral argument seriously from any of you who jumped at the opportunity to take advantage of an honest mistake. I don't want to hear ever again about greedy corporations or crooked politicians. You people just showed that you're willing to turn a blind eye when it is to your benefit. How does that make you any different from those you rail against?

NortonDC: We have cameras.
posted by MiguelCardoso at 8:56 PM on December 3, 2003

ok, explain that chicken crossing the road joke now, miggy. i don't get that one either. ;-)
posted by quonsar at 9:22 PM on December 3, 2003

Well, see, there was this chicken, right, and it weren't stavros neither, just so as you get my drift, no mistake. Anyroad, this chicken, he wanted to cross the road, see, on account of this being the best way of getting to the other side, according to the admittedly cretinous gallinaceous criteria then extant. At the time, as it were, if you get my jelly. So what's the pitiful dude do? He extends his scrawny leg, see, in order to initiate the crossing, like, and for all intense and porpoises, this is what the critter does, don't he just, the stupid nit-ridden carcass. But blow 'im down with an ass-feather, this great big Cadillac convertible appears, with the quonsar at the wheel, verb-fucked out of his nonce, like out of nowhere like, and fairly runs the poor boiling fowl into his final feckin' pecking ground. Well, if this is right, I just don't want to be wrong.
posted by MiguelCardoso at 11:48 PM on December 3, 2003

This link from the M.O. thread that Migs linked to made me laugh more than I can remember laughing in recent memory.
posted by dobbs at 12:02 AM on December 4, 2003

I don't have a post that I feel is 'best ever', but I've usually enjoyed hama7's posts.
posted by substrate at 5:45 AM on December 4, 2003

Same here, best ever is difficult to pick out, I like folks like plep and hama7 (vintage Asian advertising posters, yay!) - but also many, many others.

Also I would just like to say: Okkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkay! That's 30 k's, btw ;-)
posted by carter at 5:53 AM on December 4, 2003

I wasn't even thinking about it when I posted 29999. Now I guess the heat's on.
posted by moonbird at 5:56 AM on December 4, 2003

BTW, I elect quonsar to make the 30k post. No one makes me laugh more... I've even squirted soymilk out my nose in awe of him/her/etc.
posted by moonbird at 6:01 AM on December 4, 2003

Picking out a best post would be like picking out one's favourite all-time song - impossible. But this thread will be a good place to reminisce, and I'm hoping some of you will mention some really great threads that I would otherwise never have known about.
posted by orange swan at 6:38 AM on December 4, 2003

It's not the funniest or most entertaining or even the most emblematic of what Mefi is supposed to be about, but the Kaycee Nicole thead will always be one of the site's high points.
posted by jpoulos at 6:40 AM on December 4, 2003

I think it sums up the true essence of Metafilter...
posted by adrianhon at 7:16 AM on December 4, 2003

Mostly, even though a forced initative, letters to expressions ruled
posted by bonaldi at 7:25 AM on December 4, 2003

I was searching the other day trying to find the post of the site where the asian guy takes pictures of different and oft humorus facial expressions. It was reposted a few months back. Always one of my favorites.

And I'm not sure favorite is the right word for the 9/11 thread, but it was quite the Metafilter Moment.
posted by Cyrano at 7:34 AM on December 4, 2003

Prince Valium - thanks for linking the "chef" thread, that is one of my favorites...
posted by vito90 at 7:40 AM on December 4, 2003

If the first thread is #19, then #30000 can't be the thirty thousandth thread, can it? Also, there are gaps in the count, like #20.

I bet you guys all celebrated "the new millenium" in 2000, didn't you.
posted by DrJohnEvans at 9:51 AM on December 4, 2003

Some more classics:
the Kottke thread
MeFi cliches
y2karl's Yeats thread
jazz!

Alas, bondcliff's proudest internet moment is no longer available, even via the magic of the lofi.mefi wayback machine. It used to make me laugh till I cried.
posted by languagehat at 12:05 PM on December 4, 2003 [1 favorite]

I've even squirted soymilk out my nose in awe of him/her/etc.

that's *Ms.* Etcetera to you, moonbird. :-)
posted by quonsar at 12:45 PM on December 4, 2003

The Laurie Garrett roast was my favorite.
posted by stbalbach at 1:41 PM on December 4, 2003

I still hate all of you.
posted by eyeballkid at 5:21 PM on December 4, 2003

I hate them more than you do though, eyeballkid.
posted by dg at 7:59 PM on December 4, 2003

The Lying In Ponds post was the one I'll probably remember the most easily, as it was the first post that convinced me Metafilter could dig up things I might find *useful*.
posted by namespan at 9:08 PM on December 4, 2003

I hate myself more than all of you hate me, but just barely.
Where did that come from? Did I take my meds on time?
posted by wendell at 12:56 AM on December 5, 2003

I agree with Cyrano, the 11 September 2001 thread just kind of sums up the value of Mefi. Read it again and you're back there, the whole timeline WTF sensation and horror.
posted by boneybaloney at 2:28 AM on December 5, 2003

Holy shit, I just re-read the September 11 thread, and I have to agree. It literally made my skin crawl; I had to stop reading after a few minutes. All of the uncertainty and horror of that day . . . wow.
posted by vraxoin at 12:44 PM on December 5, 2003

It's cool that these threads close after a short while. Really does kinda capture the essence of the moment.
posted by ph00dz at 5:32 PM on December 5, 2003

I started reading the 9/11 thread for the first time yesterday (was not a member nor even a lurker at the time) and had to stop after six or seven minutes. Some memories never do lose their potency.
posted by orange swan at 11:01 PM on December 5, 2003

The Steam-Powered Drum Machine thread.
posted by crunchburger at 11:46 PM on December 5, 2003

This is kind of like one of those highlight shows for a tv series.

I liked the Steam Powered Drum Machine post myself, although the thread was just OK.
posted by Icky at 12:34 PM on December 8, 2003