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!”