Dismantling the blank page

To begin. A daunting task for many writers. Words more eloquent than mine have related the intimidation that a single piece of blank paper can instill on those who feel compelled to translate the contents of their hearts and minds into text. I have to admit to a bit of that feeling myself. But what the hell, I'm just gonna jump in the ocean and hope the water isn't cold enough to cause my nuts to retreat into my abdomen. Hey, it can't be that bad. Right?

So welcome to my blog. This is my first attempt at a blog. In fact, I'd never even read a blog until a few days ago. From a technical standpoint, I expect my blog to improve over time as I become more familiar and comfortable with the tools at my disposal. I'm starting with one of the default Blogger templates, unmodified. I may eventually customize the look of my blog to make it a little more distinct, but right now I'd rather focus on getting some content up. (I spent way too much time yesterday figuring out how to add a photo to my profile with Hello, eventually stumbling onto the right support document after much head scratching.) I know nothing of HTML and have never designed a web site (not counting the 10 minutes I spent typing text and adding images in Netscape Composer about three years ago), so this will be a learning experience. I hope you enjoy the content enough to stick with me as I learn.

What should you expect from this blog? Well, like many blogs what you're going to see here is whatever the blogmeister (in this case, me) feels like writing about. I have no intentions of sticking to a unified theme apart from that. Like the tag line says, reports from the life of the mind. (Yes, I know I'm combining Bill Lee and Barton Fink, a dangerous thing to do considering how much literary misery each character is weighted down with.) If something gets stuck in my mental filter, odds are it'll show up here. Aren't you lucky?! But before I get too far into what, let me tell you why...

I am starting this blog for a pretty simple reason: I am often compelled to write. My long-time friends know that I'm quite capable of going off on a rant. Many times I've emailed a friend, intending to send off a quick message stating, "You know, I tried this new thing, and guess what? It sucks!", only to find myself still sitting there an hour later, fleshing it out into a miniature essay. (I sometimes do the same with things that don't suck.) So why limit myself to an audience of one when there might well be three times that many people the world over who might care to read what I have to say? And it's free, so shit, why not? Wouldn't you?

So now I come back to what. Although this will not be a rigidly thematic blog, I do have an idea of what I'll likely be posting. You can expect to eventually see the following: movie reviews, music reviews, PC hardware reviews, PC software and game reviews, review reviews ("Dude, I read your review, and it sucks!"), snide self-serving comments on news articles and current events, essays of varying length and topic, random quotes-of-the-day (although not necessarilly every day), Universal Truths, angry rants, happy rants, a fake toe, a real toe, naked pictures of Kirstie Alley, and, of course, The Lurking Unknown.

I guess that's enough of a primer. Now I'm gonna grab a little breakfast and some ibuprofin for the lingering backache that drove me out of bed at 4:30am on a Sunday. Nothing quite like pain to get you going in the morning, huh? Enjoy the blog!

Your illustrious host,

Yomper