This site was originally set up in November 1996 in the GeoCities environment as the hang-out of The Global Village Fool.
After 2 years it was removed without any warning and replaced, adding insult to injury, by what looked like a soccer hooligan's page. GeoCities finally let me know (no apologies!) they had made a mistake and that they would restore the site from their back-up tapes. This would take some more time. (They were right there; we still haven't heard from them, except for junk mail). At about the same time they came with their new and now retracted Yahowler! copyright policy, where all rights belonged to Yahoo!
We got Tired of Waiting and switched to another hosting service. Especially since we got rid of stupid banners advertising anything but. In 2003 we had to switch again as search engines and e-mail programs could not handle links to www.thelooniverse.com — more problems.
In the course of 2002 attendance really started humming and by January 2003 the counter showed well over 11,000 visitors. By January 2004 it had clicked to 60,000 with 110,000 visitors in 2004 and 130,000 in 2005. Total on January 1, 2006 was 312,021, which had more than doubled by 2008. This site is the biggest hit I ever had. Record number of daily visitors was 932 (16 May 2006). We largely (and modestly) blame i need hits for that success. And, welcome as you all are, am I glad all you guys, and even dolls, don't come by my house!
We hit the Magical Million Mark in November, 2008.
| On Those Ads |
| You may have noticed, we run Google ads to eke out at least some money from these pages. Get rich quick, it ain't... if enough money came in to pay the costs of hosting alone we've had a good year. I received a reminder from Google: Please reconsider your blocking of ads on the following subjects: "Black Magic, Astrology and Esoteric" - "Drugs & Supplements" - "Get Rich Quick". All these are "standard allowable" unless explicity blocked; Which we did. As from October 2021, we got so sick of Google and their Ads we started to get rid of 'em all—and good riddance, too |
Why all those sites?
Because I keep thinking of what I consider to be funny site names and then figure one more can't possibly harm me. Seriously, they all are different in conception, just check 'em out and you'll (probably, hopefully?) agree.
This site has been called
wonderfully eclectic, for which I'm grateful and, also, relieved; but 'eclectic' is often used abusively, so you'll have to grant that I, at least, try to concentrate.
The general set-up is this:
This Looniverse was originally dedicated to work of Yayoi Kusama and Harrie Verstappen, but grew out of all reasonable proportions to accommodate people and other stuff this guy met in the course of a checkered career.
is a Virtual Reality impression of Curaçao island on discovery in 1499—a lifetime ambition; with info on the work of Ir. Willy Verstappen, architect, urban planning and landscape design. Plus more general info on the island of Curaçao, its discovery, exploration, maritime and aviation history and its political, cultural and economic state of affairs.
mainly serves to amuse you; it also serves to harbor items that do not seem to fit in the framework of the Looniverse or VRCurassow.
to watch and, who knows? maybe even enjoy virtual reality scenes
No prams or laptops, please
This site has been set up for 1024x768 pixels of monitor resolution. I don't relish the prospect of redoing all that image processing work a few years from now. By December 2001 over 75% of visitors used that resolution anyway. I will bide my time until I must adapt...
Copyright
All text and image material on this site copyright © by Harrie "vista" Verstappen
(copyright of "quoted" material produced by others belongs to the original authors)
| disclaimer |
| This site has nothing to do with the Sony Playstation 2 game Defenders of the Loonyverse nor with the Warner Bros Tiny Toon Adventures |
| we resent any possible association with Steven Spielberg |
| Surprise! In February 2008 we discovered iSpace carries a lot of references to the Looniverse - without any links, of course. Just rip-offs by guys desperately trying to seem original, complete with my e-mail signature "the master of the Looniverse." |
| web search engines |
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First upload to 50meg.com September 3 1999
revamp May 13 2000
restructured and material added June 10 2001—minor overhaul April
strips, movies and books sections added April 2002—major restructuring May and September
uploaded many film stills November—"completed" Saul Bass section, December
affiliated with PayPal, February 2003—split up Saul Bass section, June
moved to IVC Web Hosting Service largely rebuilt site, started stereo section, July
major revamp, no restyling - November 2004
Added Japan, May 2006
Added NoRightClick, BabelFish translation, 2006
Started adding South Africa, 2007; Latin America, 2008; Canada Fall Colors, 2009.
Changed server to Omnis in June, 2009.
Re-checked all links, July 2013
amazing how many sites have disappeared, complete with links
and we're still going strong.
this site or the Web
copyright notice
all material on this site, except where noted
copyright © by , curaçao
reproduction in any form for any purpose is prohibited
without prior consent in writing