12 Years of Blogging!

Well, another year has passed, and considering I like to keep things as upbeat as possible, let’s start with the positives.  One of the biggest things that happened this year was reaching 1,000 subscribers on our Virtual Bastion YouTube channel, which qualifies us to join the YouTube Partner Program!  This opens up various benefits, including the ability to monetize our videos with ads!  We’re keeping ads to a minimum right now because the channel is still small, but it’s a pretty neat milestone, nonetheless!

11 Years of Blogging!

Behold, I have reached 11 glorious years of blogging!  Because I’m a weirdo who likes statistics, I’ll start this post off with a few.  There has been a general downward trend in viewership over the years, which is odd because my subscribers have been growing faster than ever.  This year, I grew by 76 subscribers!  Sweet!  I also finally beat my previous best day for views.  Originally, my most successful day was December 9, 2012 with 208 views.  This year, I have bested this score with 647 views on February 18, 2021, with the month itself getting over 1000 views!

A Decade of Blogging Well Spent

It suddenly occurred to me that my blog’s anniversary was coming up.  As I do every year, I sat down to write up my usual post on the topic.  And this is when I realized that this is a mighty big occasion indeed.  Ten years ago, on this very day, I started this blog here on WordPress!  Yes, the one you’re reading right now!  And today, on this most special of days, I’d like you to join me as we reminisce on what has taken place in all that time.

The Duck’s Disneyland Dessert Tour 2019

In my last post, I ranked the foods we ate at Disneyland, and this time, we get to the good stuff, the desserts.  I’m going to rank some things we had in previous years (in italics), as well, but if you want to read my 2017 post and 2018 post, here they be.  Now, without further ado…

The Duck’s Disneyland Food Tour 2019

As I’ve done for the last two years, I wanted to rank every food and dessert (in the next post) that we ate at Disneyland, with the ones that we didn’t actually have this time being in italics.  If you’re interested in reading my food rankings from previous years, you can find 2017 here and 2018 here.  So let’s waste no time!

Disneyland 2019 Part 3: Haunted Mansion Foods and Unexpected Scoldings

At last, we have arrived at the second and final day at Disneyland.  I’d like to start by saying that, with the exception of about 1-2 hours of sleep after the Haunted Mansion Anniversary, we ended up staying awake for around 44 hours straight over the course of our trip.  How we managed to stem the tide of sleepiness, I have no idea.  But we did, so let’s get on with the post.

Disneyland 2019 Part 2: Haunted Mansion 50th Anniversary

Mother Duck and I arrived back outside Disneyland at 11:30 PM on August 8, a mere half hour before the Haunted Mansion’s 50th anniversary.  The space between Disneyland and DCA was practically packed with row after row of people, many in attire ranging from Haunted Mansion t-shirts to full costumes and face paint and all of them wearing their purple lanyards signifying them as attendees of the event to come.  Waiting outside the park many hours after sundown as a half-moon shone down on us, while a variety of Disney songs played over the speakers, including the Pirates of the Caribbean theme song (both the movie and the ride version) and the theme from the Electrical Parade, was a truly surreal experience indeed.

Disneyland 2019 Part 1: Before the Event

In a recent post, I mentioned that there was something special I wanted to share with you all concerning the Haunted Mansion’s 50th anniversary.  Well, Mother Duck and I recently took a trip to Disneyland!  We originally had no intention of going this year, but once I heard they were having a special event planned celebrating the Haunted Mansion turning half a century old, I couldn’t resist!  We had a two-day trip, and I’m going to be talking about both of our days in a 3-part post, after which I’ll discuss food and rides, just as I did last year and the year before that!

Celebrating 50 Years of Happy Haunts!

Greetings, foolish mortals.  Today is a very special day for Disney fans, for Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion has just turned 50!  Being my very favorite Disney attraction, I decided I simply had to celebrate this ghoulishly delightful occasion with something of the artistic variety.  Along with something else quite special that I will be sharing with you all in the near future….

Nine Years of Blogging!

For the first time in nine years, the Duck has missed my blog’s birthday.  On July 13 of this year, it turned nine years old.  In the hopes that my blog won’t be holding a grudge for my thoughtlessness, I thought I’d write a quick, if late, post about my ninth year of blogging goodness.