I've been maintaining this site for a while now, about 2 and a half years. At the time, I thought that maintaining my own website would be great for posting links to funny stuff around the web, and ranting and rambling (hence the name) about whatever came to mind. I didn't call it a blog then, because the word "blog" was a dirty word to me, invoking horrible memories of trying to read friends' blogs about their boring daily lives and girlfriend problems and job interviews on sites like livejournal and xanga. Since then, though, I realized that I like reading certain blogs with fairly narrow themes or subjects.
During the early days of writing for this site, I was trying to find a consistent theme or style. Looking back, though, the early entries really really suck in my eyes. Of course, I had a lot more to say back then, because I thought much more highly of my own writing back then than I do now. Back then I thought I could post an essay or something two to three times per week. In fact, my first week on this site I posted 7 entries. The second week I posted 3 more. Now I'm feeling prolific if I post 3 in a month. I don't have that much to write about because I'm not as angry as I used to be, and it's not as fun to write about something that doesn't infuriate you.
'm stuck. I'm not quite as funny as the funny people on the internet. I don't have a Ph.D in political science, or economics, nor am I a legal scholar, so I'm not adding much to any discussion of those topics. I haven't been deployed yet so I don't have any interesting war stories (by the way, if you click on only one link, make it this one. It is by far the finest journalist piece I've seen from the war. And I'd encourage you to donate money to the journalist who wrote it, because I'd like to see more reporting like this). And I don't live an interesting enough lifestyle to compel strangers to care about my day to day life.
So I've decided that I will keep doing what I do - give my opinions on topics I'm not an expert on, and try to make jokes that generally only my friends and family think are funny. Every once in a while, life will present me with something so that I can actually write something with a perspective not really found elsewhere on the internet. Actually, my roommate blog is far more popular than my main site, and I'm ok with that. I think it's better anyway.
I will start writing more frequently, though. I've got a lot of ideas saved up, and I just have to look up stuff and then type a few entries. As things come up, I may launch more separate themed sites (similar to what I did with the roommate one) and experiment with my writing and style. As things change in my life I may find myself uninterested in what I used to love, or be given a new perspective on something, etc.
By the way, I will be posting another essay on race and gender in America, and I'll be touching on hate crimes, affirmative action, and probably Title IX. I'm working on it this weekend, and expect to have it posted by Tuesday (07/18/06). I had an email exchange with someone on hate crime legislation, which he didn't finish with me, but I'll probably be posting the text of what we had, because he made some excellent points.
