Before blogging and the web, there was email and Usenet and FTP sites.
Just over 29 years ago I started writing online, sending out literal undergraduate humour to mates at Monash University and beyond mostly via email, under the truly ridiculous name “Toxic Custard“.
It got into the student newspaper, then in 1996 it went onto the web and became the early version of this blog. Along the way the content has continued to morph, to more autobiographical material, and more recently a concentration on transport.
The email list still exists… and to my surprise it’s still got about 600 people on it.
But I’m shutting it down – because it requires manual intervention to crank it up and send it out, which I rarely get around to doing, and because it relies on YahooGroups, which recently announced most of its features are being shut down. Emails to lists will be the only thing left, but it’s probably pretty safe to say these won’t last much longer. It’s obviously not a business Yahoo wants to be in anymore.
Edit: In classic Yahoo style, the final email to the list took almost 24 hours to be delivered.
The blog will keep going. Those wanting to receive posts by email have a couple of options:
Subscribe to all posts – I’ll be sending out invitations to this to those on the old list.
…or you can subscribe to just transport posts (via MailChimp):
There are also options to get new posts via RSS feeders (just add this URL), and I promote most of them via Twitter and Facebook. Edit: Of course you can just read it on the web.
I also occasionally blog on technology and various geeky tidbits at geekrant.org
Thanks to all who stayed on the email list over the years.
9 replies on “The end of Toxic Custard”
It was Toxic Custard (I expect the Tim and Debbie reference like Chunky Custard appealed to me) when I began reading your blog back in the early 2000s. I have an rss feed that costs me US$3 per month and your blog posts arrive promptly. If I want to comment, I click on the headline and your blog opens. I think I have backread your blog to about 2000 and missed a couple of years until I started reading it in the early 2000s. I may get around to it as I missed how you were married and then single.
What, I’m still on this list?
:)
Thanks for your effort over the last 29 years.
I first found you on a newsgroup in the late 90s. I was living overseas and desperately homesick. Then I found this bloke that was writing about Melbourne, my home town. What a saviour!!!!
Thanks again
Sorry, at the risk of boring all other readers but just to be clear, what you are closing is a Yahoo! Groups email list (which I’m not on)? I will still get messages from danielbowen.com ?
Thanks for all the effort and emails I received over the years Daniel. I have been following Toxic Custard since the late 1990s and all the adage that all good things must come to end now includes Toxic Custard.
@Peter, that’s correct.
Daniel, I can’t even remember when I found the TCWF, but it would have to be in 92/93 whilst I was still at Uni. I got several others hooked on your quirky humour. I’ve seen it change over the years to be less of the funny stuff and more of the serious adult stuff which has also happened to all of us (I think) but that’s just how adulting works. Keep up the good work!.
Thanks Daniel, as a subscriber since the mid to late 90’s when I was at uni in country NSW, I have enjoyed your posts and efforts. Thank you!
?
I started reading it on newsgroups around 95 I guess, and was a subscriber for ages. I think it lapsed when I got my Gmail account though :(