Up to 11.

What can you say about 11? The 10th anniversary of this blog was marked last year:

So this is it. The big milestone of the blog. I've made it to the last time-related goal that matters. It was all, always, done for the sheer intrinsic pleasure of it — to live freely in writing, in real time, daily — even the time-related parts, like noticing the annual anniversary on January 14th, 2 days after my birthday, feeling like it's more important than the birthday.

I can say, once again, that I have blogged every single day of the past year. I have blogged for 11 years, every day, never ONE day without sitting down and seriously looking for some things to blog. Maybe there are a handful of days in the archive with only one post — none from the past year — but these were never posts written in advance and scheduled to make it look as though I'm blogging. I've been here every day, sometimes — like right now — before 5 a.m.

But last year was 10, the big one. Now, we are 11. But this is America, and in America, we think 11 is special too, because we like say "up to 11." There's a Wikipedia article for "Up to 11."

"Up to eleven" or "these go to eleven" is an idiom from popular culture, coined in the movie This Is Spinal Tap, where guitarist Nigel Tufnel proudly demonstrates an amplifier whose volume knob is marked from zero to eleven, instead of the usual zero to ten. The phrase has come to refer to anything being exploited to its utmost abilities, or apparently exceeding them. Similarly, the expression "turning it up to eleven" refers to the act of taking something to an extreme.

So... extreme blogging... nonstop for 11 years. The 11th bloggiversary, here on the Althouse blog.