well, here we are: unrequited narcissism's 1,000th post! let's get self-congratulatory, shall we? this little corner of the internet started out 999 posts ago on august 28th, 2002, with a post by tommy about a week after i had headed off for a year in milan. for quite a long time, almost my entire year in italy, i was the only author of the blog, posting pictures of my heeelarious expat adventures with little commentary, except to say enlightened things as "that pizza was bigger than my head!" or "france really sucks." incredible that from those humble beginnings, this blog has turned into the TOTAL MEDIA POWERHOUSE that you see before you today, eh? according to our rather unreliable stats, we get around 300 visitors, or hits, or page views, or whatever, per day, and we've got over 3,000 comments. and we love it all! we are saps, but we are really completely in love with blogging, this blog, and the ways in which it has enriched our lives. *wipes away tear* so, thanks to the academy, and all our fans - this one goes out to you!

TOM SAYS: At just over 514,000 words, I think this blog is serving its purpose as a compromise between Catherine and my desire to write and our pathetic attention spans. Of course, many of those words are readers', left in comments. So thanks for talking to us, indulging us and providing some motivation to keep writing. It's better than working.