H I T
M E ! ! !

I first got the idea for this when I visited some Japanese sites in 1997 and saw that they had pictures which said "10,000 Hit gift!", so I knew I wanted to do something like that. CastleVania III Dracula's Curse THE PAGE!!! had just gotten its counter working in July that year, and you can't imagine my excitement when I read the thing saying 80 one day and 101 another day.

I had planned to make a cool group picture featuring Slogra, Grant and other CVIII characters for a 10,000 hit gift, but that didn't happen. Had to focus on school, plus it was too soon when I learned that the counter had reached 9955 on February 4th, 1998. The next day, Scott Kessler nailed it at 10,000.

On August 14th of that year, tick 20,000 approached. This one I was ready for, and created The 20,000 Visits Commemoration Pseudo CG! ahead of time, and can you guess who nailed it for the 2nd time in a row around August 30?

The counter read 29990 at 7:12PM on March 3rd, 1999. No one reported 30,000. It was also at this point that Brant and I were investigating a counter glitch. Apparently, the html code that provided me with a simple AOL counter kicked at 30,001, as I found out when I hit reload and saw a row of zeroes. I then got a trashy new counter from some trashy old service.

I'm noticing a pattern here; the 10,000 increments occur every February/March and summer/August each year. Interesting.

Around August 24 a few months later, 40,000 was coming in hot. Much to my surprise, two CastleVania III fans named Dee and Maria presented to me their brilliant 40,000 hit gift! I printed it out and hung it in my room, first thing. No one could report 40,000 on August 27.

Around March of 2000, I got another counter because the previous was also acting special-educated. 50,000 came and went, I forget when, but I made no such scene of neither its arrival nor passing, as I was too busy with college work. The site work blackout which lasted from January 9th to June 28th didn't help, either.

55,000 was set as the next goal. No one reported it, but Dee did come in close at 55,005 on August 13th. On the 24th, I hit 55,556, and Dee and Maria hit me off with another excellent hit gift for 55,555.

How busy was I then, that I didn't make 60,000 the magic number for the twenty-oh-one?

On April 13th, 2001, long time DCTP fan and friend Rory submitted his 65,000 hit gift, which, in light of the tension between Trav the Impaler and my acidic wit, he noted as more of a "pic of the moment".

And that's how it goes. As the counter climbs...CREEPS, rather, in this strange period where attendance is at an all time LOW, who'll set the 70,000 hit milestone? And who'll grace this gallery with their 70,000 hit gift? Find out as year four of Dracula's Curse THE PAGE!!! continues...