The date was 3 December, 1981, the movie was entitled An American Werewolf in London, the setting, a grubby little theatre at Northtown Mall, a place which had certainly seen better days. My date was a bright and eccentric young woman whom I’d met at school.

Twenty-five years later, she and I rented An American Werewolf in London on DVD and JP, DL, Ben and JCP came over to watch it with us. The next day, Suzi and I paid a visit to Texas de Brazil, a Brazilian-style steakhouse. Men in crisp, white uniforms brought around skewers heavily laden with steak, chops, bacon-wrapped chicken breasts and picana – garlic-marinated beef roast. It was magnificent and extremely filling!

All this is really just a rather sneaky attempt to introduce you to my group’s (utterly absurd):

THREE LEVELS of FULLNESS

You see, when you eat, you will eventually reach a level of satiety – when you feel just full enough to happy and contented. This level of fullness is called the “Rundly-Trundly Kitten” phase (also known as the “Roly Poly Kitten” stage). You’ve eaten enough, your parasympathetic nervous system kicks in and you feel like it might be time for a nap.

Now, perhaps the food is better than all that. Perhaps you can’t quite stop yourself in time and you find yourself just a tiny bit over full … Afrah Mediterranean Restaurant anyone? You may not be in pain, but you are a little bit past that cute little kitten. This level of fullness is called Plump Mary (a/k/a Plump Merry). This name comes from a T-Shirt that Dave Barry saw when he was visiting Japan.

Okay, got that? Now – it gets a little bit weird from here out.

Now you had a bit too much food. You’re in trouble. You’re huge, bloated, uncomfortable …

The many creators of Dungeons and Dragons came up with a LOT of monsters. They went from the sublime to the ridiculous, and sometimes the ridiculous was pretty sublime. One of the silliest things they came up with was a ghastly and powerful giant frog called (aptly enough) the froghemoth. It seemed funny, until your D&D characters encounter a two-story amphibian with a really nasty attitude.

How humiliating is it to have your characters eaten by something like that?

So, when you get to that stage beyond the adorable, fuzzy kitten, beyond the oddly named and merry Ms. Mary. You’ve reached a challenging pinnacle of gourmanditry (just made that word up! Like it? Feel free to use it as often as possible!)! Congratulations my friend, you have reached the FROGHEMOTH LEVEL.

Nasty customers, those froghemoths (but what a great name “frog+behemoth=froghemoth … say it with me “frog-HEEEEE-moth”). As a parenthetical note, after I hit forty, I resolved that I’d swear off being a froghemoth ever again. It’s just too obnoxious of a feeling.

After Texas de Brazil, I was plump, quite merry, not unlike our friend Mary. Suzi said she felt the first traces of amphibian characteristics sneaking in. Perhaps her arms were waving around (just a tiny bit) like the tentacles of some huge frog-monster. I think she called it Tentacle Mary.

Wherefore the blog?

“Gentlemen, I have been BLOGGING!” --- Supervillain The Monarch, to his henchmen (from the Venture Brothers)

Kyle was one of a kind – a wildly creative, intelligent and highly silly young man at my high school. He had the enviable combination of looks, brains and friendliness that made him popular and academically successful. Every high school in the world probably has a Kyle or two, and yet Kyle was one of a kind.

Kyle could make up stuff of such exceeding silly strangeness that we would be paralyzed with laughter, simultaneously wanting to scratch our heads and say “What the HECK???” On time, Kyle talked our friend Jon, good-looking, popular athlete, into playing Dungeons and Dragons with our gang. Jon wanted a caveman character – the dungeon master (me) allowed it. Jon looked to Kyle for a suitably Stone Age name.

“Throgg Blogg!” Kyle exclaimed. The name stuck. And we were stuck with a caveman named Throgg Blogg (at least until some ogres cut his career tragically short).

The first time I ever heard about blogging, it brought my mind back to our friendly (but doomed) caveman with the silly name. Despite the odd name, I love the idea of the blog. It’s like one of those family newsletters that people send around on the holidays, but frequently updated and voluntary. It doesn’t get thrust in my face, I can go to it whenever I please.

It seems so recent that I first heard of blogs, and now EVERYone seems to be keeping an online journal: grandparents, kids, families – there are so many of them it is hard to know where to start. There are political ones (galore), ones based around online games, ones related to hobbies … one day I fully expect to find that my cats have been blogging (and how aggressively CUTE would “Kenny’s Corner” be?)

If our ferrets had a blog, every entry would go something like this:

“I just ate a snack!!!!

Snack! Snack! Snack!!!!!”

And that would be all.

A couple of my dear friends keep blogs – Wendy shares adorable pics of her little girl and cracks me up with her offbeat observations on everyday life. JB offers his own sort of News of the Weird and best of the web alongside his own notes. And Ben – a guy I’ve known since we were both teen-agers, provides his readers with remarkably wry and well-written slices of life and succinct, wonderfully interesting factual pieces. A couple of my editors from Everything2 have online journals too – is it any wonder that I’m reading fewer books than I used to???

With as much as I love talking about myself, can it possibly surprise anyone who could conceivably be reading this that I am starting a blog?

So, this will be a space for my musings, mutterings, and all manner of missives. The general populace of E2 doesn’t necessarily want to hear the story of Throgg Blogg, but I’m betting that my friends will. I’ll probably update weekly or fortnightly, in between work, E2, and, of course, the ever-important Kingdom of Loathing.

So, as my favourite waiter at Besa’s Italian Café always says:

“…aaaaaand …. ENJOY!”