MilkmanDan

I've decided to start a blog.

OK, let me rephrase that.

I've decided to start a blog. Again. This, in fact, would be number four. I've tried three others, which amassed two, possibly ten, and two entries total. To be fair, the middle blog had a high spike of entries because I was at the time laying on my back recovering from ankle ligament reconstruction surgery, and having to spend a minimum of 23 hours a day with your foot elevated for ten days leaves you, shall we say, with a reasonably significant excess of time. It becomes "watch TV", "update blog", or "try to figure out ways to off yourself when you can't, you know, move".

It is, in fact, hard to do the latter.

So, anyways, again with the blog thing. This leads to two questions:

1. Why have you never been good about updating blogs?

2. Why start another one.

The first is easy. I am, to give a quick summary, 37. I am married, live in the suburbs, have two children, three cats, and drive a minivan. I am, in every possible sense of the word, boring. I am a white male whose parents met in homeroom on their first day of their freshman year of high school, because mom's name started with "H" and dad's name started with "I", and he thought she was cute. They dated throughout high school, and married when she was just 20 and he was just about to turn 20. They have, at the time of this writing, been married for almost 45 years. I live in the Midwest and have one sister.

In short, if you were, for some reason, to go on a rampage and cut me with a machete, blood would not flow out. Instead, rich, pure vanilla would exude from my veins. I am, in every possible sense of the word, boring. And that, simply put, is why I don't update blogs regularly.

The great benefit of the internet, as I see it, is that it gives everybody a chance to speak their mind. The great failing of the internet, as I see it, is that it gives everybody a chance to speak their mind. These two things are not contradictory; everybody should be able to speak their mind. The problem arises with the second half of that; it's not that everybody doesn't have the right to speak their mind. It's just that, out of some kind of sense of general politeness or just plain logic, they should recognize that nobody really gives a crap about what's in your mind. Blogs, in general, are a waste of time because, frankly, people just aren't that interesting. All people, really. I mean, I'm spectacularly boring and all, but I at least recognize that and don't feel a need to tell people what kind of shoes I just bought or what I had for dinner or why my parents just didn't love me enough. Problematically, significant sections of the world population seem to think that shoes or dinner or what is in every possible circumstance perfectly normal teen angst is unique and special enough to tell the entire damn world about it.

Nobody cares. Really. If they tell you they care, they're absolutely lying. In the end, they know either subconsciously or consciously that, scrabbling for something to write about, they're going to write about the exact same crap you just wrote about, and your pithy comment or just plain upping their hit count by one will make it all worthwhile.

And #2, to come round full-circle after a reasonably expansive tangent, because, as you look on your little profile header-thing or whatever you want to call it on the discussion boards, have a set of information listed with each post that contains your avatar, username, location, post count, rep count and . . . number of blog entries. Why post here? Because when I post on blogspot I have no guarantee anybody else is going to read it. Sure, I could send a link to my blog to dozens of people but, well, that seems to overtly vain. So, instead, I rely on passive vanity, assuming that at least some people will see the post count jump up one and read it if for no other reason than they're stunningly bored at work.

So, again, blog. At least theoretically it will be about gaming and general geekiness, but, to be fair, I'm going to hold off on excitement until I hit, you know, post #3. Based on my past track record that does in some way count as an accomplishment.