I think I started reading not long after that - I'm guessing October/November.

What do I win?

A free cat picture! Just come back on Friday to collect.....

Congrats!

In a little 5,000 watt station in.....er, no, that was someone else.

It would be interesting to see a retrospective on how you have become more "radicalized," you used to be just a shade to the left of David Brooks. And like the whole country, you have gotten angrier and more partisan. I mean that in a good way. It certainly is a good time to be angry.

And Charlie and T-Broz immediately responded.

Well, anyway, Congratulations.

As someone who started reading CalPundit back in the day (probably that September), congrats on your anniversary, and thanks for the continued effort.

And I still owe you a jar of my barbecue sauce!

Happy blogiversary, Calpundit!

Congratulations Kev. Keep it up.

I miss the palm tree....

The Wayback Machine means never having to say "The memory hole."

Enjoy Kevin's first post, about the NYC smoking ban.

To the Blogger Formerly Known as Calpundit:

Kudos for five thought provoking years, Kevin.

Congrats, Kevin, and thanks for your efforts!

Don't forget the kitties. Your blog would be nuttin' if it weren't for the Friday Cat Blogging. Maybe a little catnip before dinner...

Happy Blogoversary Kevin!

Here's to longevity. Thanks for keeping it up.

Ah, Kevin.

So it's Kevin's birthday, today? Not everyone celebrates today.

Somewhere, I think a child in Iran is crying. I just hope he realizes most Americans don't want to confine him to a lifetime of living under tyranny and dictatorship. Just the loudest bloggers.

You're awesome, Kevin, and I've been reading/lurking since the beginning of Calpundit. Congratulations!

Happy Anniversary, Kevin! And may I say I'm quite glad you gave up the extremely long (and elliptical) headline style you initially seemed enamored of.

You're clearly the best in this business. I've been mostly lurking here for years and I look forward to years more of it. Thanks!

Internet Wayback Archive of Calpundit ...

http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.calpundit.com

Congrats, Kevin.

Congratulations! This is my favorite blog because you are sensible in addition to knowing how to make full use of blogging as a literary form. Good work and we look forward to many years in the future!

Owe Kevin darling, I still carefully print out, and tuck each of your posts in your baby book.

You still look so cute in your jammies with the feet.

I do wish you would go to medical school though and do something with your life.

Thanks, CalPundit.

You've gone stale.

Suggestion:

Find your ire again.

Right now you remind me of Pat Leahy in search of some subpoena papers.
All dry, gray, overly fair-minded intellect:
A bland brand... not a firebrand.

Yawn. Not Yippee!
Milquetoast. Not toasting.

I guess the W.Monthly imprimatur finally wore your edge off.

Because there is not a hint of a passionate political animal in sight.

Sorry.
But someone has to tell you the truth.

Meow.

I think I started reading in late 2003 or early 2004, after the Drum change of heart re Iraq and before Fahrenheit 911. I have yet to find another mega-blogger who does as good a job setting up his posts to provoke comments (even when the comments are mostly of the "beat up Kevin" variety.) That takes skill as well as a thick skin!

We would all cheerfully sign a card for you if someone in "the office" sent it around! My entry would read "Thanks for the years of good work! I hope the celebratory lunch today includes a celebratory glass of wine."

August 22, 2002. A new force enters the blogosphere! Kevin's first post!

SN'T SMOKING IN BARS PROTECTED BY THE, UM, INTERSTATE COMMERCE CLAUSE OF THE CONSTITUTION?....CALIFORNIA LEADS THE NATION AGAIN....Lots of hoopla in New York City about hizzoner's proposal to ban smoking in bars and restaurants. This is old news here in California, where smoking has been banned almost everywhere for years, and the arguments coming from restaurant owners and tobacco flacks are old news too. Think what you will about whether smoking in bars is a reasonable thing for the state to regulate, but it didn't have any impact on the restaurant and bar business here on the Left Coast and it won't in NYC either.

Of course, this is just common sense. After all, how many people are going to schlep through the scenic Holland Tunnel to visit a bar in Jersey City just because they can't smoke at their favorite watering hole in Manhattan? Approximately none.

Kev's original heading:

CalPundit
Sunny thoughts from sunny Orange County

Tongue-in-cheek from the start!

Here is my manuscript-revision haiku (Im finishing something long and technical)

Working on my text
ABBA on the iTunes net
My guilty pleasure

Congrats, Kevin. Couldn't live without it.

Now, if you could just have someone re-enable the "Remember personal info" bit for Mac.

Yes, well, you rock.

happy father's day, kevin. keep up the good work. this is the first blog i read every day, so you're literally at the top of my list.

your pal,
blake

Countless hours here and on CalPundit, you're one of the top three blogs in the biz IMO. You, Atrios and Josh Marshall are like the liberal triple threat. Thanks for all the great writing, Kevin, keep it up.

Remember it's true: You always hurt the ones you love.

Congrats!

Aw, Kevin, you're the best.

Happy Blogiversary :

http://web.archive.org/web/20021106231842/http://calpundit.blogspot.com/2002_08_18_calpundit_archive.html#80583070

This is the place. Thanks.

Congratulations. Toughing it out five years is impressive.

Congrats,
I am 66 yrs young and you were the first political blog I ever read when you were calpundit. Now I spend several hours a day reading yours and many others. Thanks a bunch for keeping me from doing my office work and my housework. Keep it up!

Congratulations, Kevin. I agree it's an accomplishment to celebrate. I also agree with those here who have suggested (I think in a constructive way, at least that's how I mean it) to take the occasion of this milestone to examine how you may have changed over time and ask if the changes are improvements or steps backward. For example, how many censors did you have policing comments then?; you seem to have an awful lot now. How many IP addresses did you block then?; you block a lot now, and for no apparent reason other than whim. Why have the posts dropped so significantly lately? What has changed? Is it the posters or is it you? Are you just phoning it in? Does it mean anything? Really?

Congratulations, Kevin. Can't remember when I first started reading Calpundit--maybe December 2003? You were fave then and remain so now. Thanks for all the great writing.

It was Calpundit when I started reading, too. Oddly enough, I got diverted here on the way to Instapundit! I sent several scathing comments to the Perfesser condemning his ideological vacillation before I figgered it out.
Congratulations!
BTW, we won't have to go through the same ball of confusion over Iran as Iraq, will we?

I've now been doing this for five years.

Really? Seems more like 10 years.
Ah, just funnin' with ya Kevin.

Linked to here back in the legacy days of the Great Orange Satan(tm).

Calpundit cat blogging-those were the days!

Heck. Have a soda with lunch. You Deserve It!

That seems like forever ago in internet years. Good work

I think I read that first post, though maybe a couple of weeks later. I've been reading regularly ever since. I don't think anyone I've read, on the internet or otherwise, has been more consistently right on what's going to happen in politics over the last five years. You've got impressive judgment, Kevin. Thanks for sharing it.

I have yet to find another mega-blogger who does as good a job setting up his posts to provoke comments (even when the comments are mostly of the "beat up Kevin" variety.) That takes skill as well as a thick skin!

I agree. This also is my favorite blog...

...because I have been banned everywhere else....

So Kevin, your favorite new movies of 1997 were Private Parts and Boogie Nights?

What would the serious people say????

Congrats Kevin...

dear kevin:

congratulations and many happy returns on your 5th anniv.

i don't go back to your first post on calpundit
but i do go back to month two (or month three). visiting your website over the years (first as a lurker and then much later as a poster) has provided
me with a lot of pleasure, useful information
and insights (from both you and your readers)---
you are doing an excellent job, really excellent
---keep up the good work.

wschneid25

Yup: my warmest thanks and congrats too, Kevin. I started reading at least three years ago, and it's always been worth it. Except for the damn cats, of course.

Congrats Kevin, a 5 year anniversary for any enterprise is a very big deal, but most especially a blog, and even more especially a blog by an individual.

You manage to keep a real audience while restricting the portions of red meat. That's not an easy thing to do in the blogosphere, which tends in politics to eat like Texans.

And I've even come to appreciate the cats. I did not know I was even capable of that.

I have been reading faihfully since calpundit days. Thank You, and please keep it up!

Belated blogiversary wishes Kevin, it is really wonderful achievement to keep the good work for five years. Frankly, I couldn't able to update my blog regularly for even six months.Congrats!!!
Desiccants

Happy belated blogiversary, Kevin! I started blogging about two weeks after you did, so my 5th blogiversary's coming up soon...