Continuing our annual aroundmaine.com tradition of rehashing old stuff to create anew, we’re taking a look back at some of our best work, the Top 20 of 2003. These are the features you clicked on the most in the last twelve months.

20 Dave Rossignol’s camera captured the spirit of this year’s La Kermesse Parade

19 The Way Way Store is an institution in Saco. We’re just glad we got the chance to visit before they finally closed it down.

18 Battle of the Bridge - One of our favorites, this online companion to the Saco Museum’s exhibit on the football rivalry between Biddeford and Saco wound up in the exhibit itself, as the video we created for the web ran constantly in the museum for the duration.

17 Auburn Constellations - At the corner of the Auburn Airport sit two beautiful old airliners. Among the last of the piston-powered propeller-driven airliners, the Constellations are a treasured link to another time.

Just because we really like a particular story doesn't always mean that it makes our annual Top 20. Here are recommended features that missed the cut: * When Houdini Came to Portland includes some never before published pictures of Houdini’s stunt in Portland Harbor. Scott managed to finally nail down the true date of Houdini’s Portland visit in 1908. * WLOB - In the sixties, all the kids were listening to top-40 WLOB AM. Radio has changed and the kids have grown up, but they all still remember WLOB. * The Casino/Racino debate has been one of the hottest topics of the year, but behind the debate are the people who raise and race the standardbred horses. We visited Cranberry Meadow Farm and later Scarborough Downs for this video on Raising Racers. And then there’s Squirrel. A two-minute video of a squirrel at a bird feeder in a snowstorm. It’s a Zen thing.

16 The Miss Portland Diner - Where we explore the history and possible future of this eatery and work of art...and sample the corned beef hash.

15 Boats Ashore - It surprised me how many people clicked to see what happened to three sailboats that slipped their moorings and went ashore during an October windstorm.

14 Portland Magazine: Dream Islands - These islands are for sale…cheap. OK, well they are for sale.

13 Hadlock's Green Monster - Scott went to check out the big wall at Hadlock Field. In addition to being a tribute to Fenway, it’s also a functional training feature.

12 Genealogy has grown significantly as a hobby, largely because tools now available on the Internet make it easier than ever to research your family roots. We offer some advice and point you to some of those tools in our Genealogy feature. Plus, I got to use some cool pictures of my relatives.

11 Every year we do a big story on The Flower Show and every year it gets clicked on a lot. This year we took it to a new level with a video of one group working behind the scenes to create their presentation as well as the traditional photo gallery.

10 Portland Magazine: Rich Man/ Poor Man - Includes interviews with a wealthy, successful business owner and a resident of a homeless shelter. Read it and draw your own conclusions.

9 Portland Magazine: Kelly Preston - An interview with actress Kelly Preston on her career and her home in Maine.

8 Portland Magazine: Paradise FOUND - Actor Parker Stevenson’s home on Islesborough home was up for sale. Portland Magazine spoke with Stephenson about the home, its history, his family and career.

7 & 6 Wacky Websites and Wacky Websites 2 The odd creativity of the Internet community is a wonder to behold, and Scott Baker, who edits one of our most popular pages, the Site of the Day, collects some of the strangest, funniest and most creative oddities on the web.

5 TLC's While You Were Out came to Maine this summer and we interviewed carpenter Leslie Segrete, about the show and her experience visiting Maine.

4 Splashtown’s New Attraction - Back in June, we took our video camera to Splashtown to learn more about their new Pirates Paradise attraction. We saw how it works and how it was put together. We were also quite pleased with the way it all came together in an interesting presentation.

3 Memories and Dreams at the Goldenrod Garage - This is hands down my favorite feature of the year. Up in Freeport, Neil Martin sells antique automobiles. His garage is packed with beautiful vintage Detroit Iron that is a wonder to behold and he has a lot of great stories about the business too. Scott created some wonderful video, the cars looked great. Everything came together in this piece, despite the fact I nearly froze my toes off.

2 Pictures of Aurora Borealis by Mike Leonard - Just a few weeks ago, we were treated to an amazing display of Northern Lights, which Time Warner Cable video production engineer Mike Leonard captured on film.

1 The two most common complaints we hear about the Internet are too much Spam and Too Many Pop-Ups Ads. One of those is easy to deal with, and so many people clicked on this piece on the various varieties of pop-up ads and how to stop them that we actually ran it twice, boosting it into the number one position for the year.

There you go, your favorite features for 2003. Thanks for looking at our stuff and remember: if you have a suggestion, comment, complaint or correction, you can always e-mail us at content@maine.rr.com.

by Chad Gilley aroundmaine.com December 11, 2003