I spent over two hours last night setting up this blog. An hour and forty-five minutes of that time was spent trying to shrink that damn picture down to a reasonable size. For those of you who haven't set up a blog and are thinking of doing so, keep in mind that when they say "a few minutes", "a few" could be 133. Suffice to say, by the time I gave up on the exercise of shrinking down my overinflated head, I was no longer in any mood to contribute anything worthwhile to the page. Some foul language, no doubt, but nothing anyone would care to read. I had grand plans to get into an in-depth discussion of my thoughts on the development of religion (specifically Christianity) within our culture over the past fifty years or so through the prism of a Johnny Cash song. It was going to be brilliant and witty and thought-provoking and controversial and most likely would really piss you off, but now it may never be, and we can thank my technological inadequacies. I may come back to it, but it will lack the fire of spontenaity with which the original would have burned.

To be honest, I sort of took the inflated picture problem as a sign that maybe blogging isn't the sport for me. I've been on the fence about it, thinking I probably don't have anything noteworthy to contribute to the blogosphere at large. But over the past few weeks, I've become increasingly aware of the fact that I have way too many ideas strolling through my head and bones rattling in my closet for my own good. That, and popular demand (and by that I mean two people said that I should start a blog) has led me to take this step. So now, don't think for a minute that I really give a flying fig whether what I have to say means anything to you or anyone. This is for me to let the flying monkeys out and blow the dust off my craw. It's not for you, the reader. It's for me, the writer. I'm just cleaning the pipes. You're welcome to watch if you want. Just so we're straight.

And I can't think of anything more egotistical than that. The whole blog community, as far as I've been able to ascertain, is made up of people who think they have something to say. Maybe they do, maybe they don't. But you need a fair share of ego if you're going to put it out there under the assumption that someone's going to give a damn. And that's why I'm gonna say fuck it and leave that big-ass version of myself at the top of this page. It's the Druids building Stonehenge. It's the Greeks building the Acropolis. It's Eiffel erecting his gigantic phallus in the middle of Paris. It's Hitchcock's inflated belly wandering through the scene of one of his movies. It's Sting's thirteen-hour erection. Hell, it may even be the people of Babel building their tower for all I know (and we saw how that turned out, right?). That picture you scrolled past to get here is yet another example of simple human egotism run amok. It's me telling you that what I have to say is important enough for you to take the time out of your busy life to read it. This, this blog, this is me writ large. Give me time and I'll blaze my face across the Goodyear blimp and stare down at you during the Superbowl. I'll put it on the giant screen at Times Square, so Japanese tourists can point at it and snap pictures. Maybe I'll have it printed on a t-shirt and wear it everywhere I go. And you'll have to look at it. Or don't. I don't really give a crap. This is for me. It's not for you.

So if you do stop by, sit down and shut up. And feel free to get offended.