---
title: This domain is an oddball
modified: 1665690621000
description: The story of this domain name; thejunkland.com, and how it came to be.
---

The story of this domain name; thejunkland.com, and how it came to be.

The domain wasn't meant to be a personal blog in the first place. I registered
it for a game prototype I was developing at the time.

The main game was much like Monopoly, just more boring. You'd grind a corporate
job in a capitalistic environment where it would be painful to get any extra
money at all. You'd probably be balancing with credit card debt to get the ends
meet.

At some point of the game you'd be given a chance to do something mildly illegal
for a moderate pay – take a step tp the dark side.

The game would then transform completely: You'd try to keep a day job to not raise
suspicions, but go full criminal on your free time. From  a boring corporate job
to avoiding law enforcement and climbing the criminal organization ladder.

And the game's name:<br>
*The Junkland*

And what's the first thing you do when you start a new side project? Of course
you buy the domain!

As many side projects, the game didn't see the light of the day. I've probably
lost the prototype too.

A few months later it was time for me to start my first tech blog. I still had
thejunkland.com laying around, so I thought I'd save a few bucks and
reuse the domain

Fast forward 10 years, and the site has been my best performing blog/portfolio.
I think I got a couple of blog posts to HN front page too.

I also have hundreds of people on my mailing list through that blog.
Unfortunately I've not been an active blogger for a quite a long time.

And now, after 10 years, I'm rebuilding the site from scratch. A lot has changed
(cannot even add new pages anymore since npm packages from 10 years ago have
ceased to work) let's see how it goes.

Edit: **I made it!** The site is up and modernized. [No more
Grunt.js](https://github.com/jehna/thejunkland.com/pull/24), and atomatic
deploys + package updates.
