Something I know about myself that I will now share with the world.

I'm generally a fairly passive fellow. And maybe even a little passive aggressive. Anyone who has ever dealt with passive people of either type can tell you that there are going to be some problems. And even though its problematic for everyone, its virtually impossible to change.

I offer this as a prelude to a related concern. I have also realized that I'm a dickhead. Normally, I just go around thinking "Oh, I'm not a dickhead. That guy is a dickhead, but I'm not a dickhead, blah, blah, blah...". But I'm wrong. All of the people that I think of as "dickheads" are in fact, people with much more assertiveness than me. Hell, sometimes they may even be some hostile fuckers, but it doesn't matter. The reason why they aren't REAL dickheads is because they dole out their dickhead-ish-ness in small doses. A beating here or a yelling there or a well placed "go fuck yourself" in tiny increments is like a little too much salt in your potatoes. See, you can still eat the potatoes - they're just a little salty.

You will hear these folks described as "dickheads", but that is really just a short hand way of saying "He/she does a lot of really stupid or insensitive things, but deep down he/she's a really nice guy. You just have to get to know him/her". Their actual words are even dismissed and rationalized away as "Oh, he doesn't really mean that". Even individual acts of shittyness can be ascribed in terms of severity. "Oh that's nothing. Last week he took a shit in the sink". Sometimes, it comes down to "He's retarded. I mean he's literally retarded".

And now for the reason why those people ARE NOT dickheads, and I AM. It all comes down to my comments about passivity. See, someone like myself doesn't say shit. I think a lot of things, but I keep my mouth shut. Hell, I don't even DO anything. I usually just lie back and take it in. Except I'm also frequently building up an terrible anger. Most people will look at me, or think of me, and think that I'm a nice guy. And for the most part it will be true. And the less they know me, the longer it will be true.

What will eventually happen is that I totally lose it. I get fed up, or simply lose my temper. And then I say what I've been thinking, or maybe I say only some of what I've been thinking. And thats when people realize that I'm a dickhead. And...? There are no handy excuses. It doesn't get dismissed. I don't get any do-overs. Why? Because I have no dick headroom! Regular dickheads are dickheads so much of the time that they have pushed the normal social boundaries so far that they actually have different standards than other people. Consequently, they have a lot of room to do some seriously shitty things and totally get away with it. Me? I have no room for this sort of thing. When I fuck up, I have nowhere to manuever. I haven't built up a wonderful history of dickishness to buffer my occasional individual acts of dickishness. No dick headroom. Back to my potatoes analogy: you can't eat the potatoes I'm serving up because I didn't give just a little too much salt. I emptied the whole salt container on your damn potatoes. Try to eat them now!

This leaves me with a predicament that I'm unlikely to solve soon. I could try to build a reserve of dickish behavior in order to protect myself from later recrimination. But thats just not in my nature. And I'd probably only further be seen as a dickhead. It takes a lifetime to build a reserve of "good" will to offset dickhead behavior. And I'm pretty sure you can't consciously do it. It has to seem innocent. So, I guess I'm screwed.

Some of you may wonder why I have Adsense on my page. My reasoning is both insane and ridiculous. Both! You see, I wanted the page to have a more "official" look. So, in a way, putting that Adsense thing up was like painting with Crimson Blue. It was a design choice, you see. It may also wind up blowing a few dollars my way, and I can really use those dollars. So, there it is.

Now the concept of Adsense, if I understand it correctly (and I may not), is that based on the content of this blog, ads will be displayed. So if I write a post about shit sandwiches, then you should see an ad for a site that sells a good shit sandwich. Or if I write about Burt Bacharach, you should see ads about Burt. Will it work? Who knows? The only ads right now are blog related. I presume that is because my first post was all about blogs, and my second post didn't have any useful key words. Now this post has a few key words (like "Burt Bacharach" and "shit sandwich"), so let the ads fly and watch the dollars blow to me.

Of course, I can't NOT have a problem with this in some way. And that problem may eventually lead to getting rid of Adsense. See, if I start getting ads for stores and products that I find reprehensible (morally or otherwise), then I'm going to have an ethical dilemma on my hands. While I may enjoy the money I receive because of my ads for cock rings, do I really want to be associated with cock rings? The answer, I guess, is that I do. On the other hand I may have a problem later when I wish to criticize shady advertising practices. Who am I? I have advertising on my page. Better not to thing about it for now.

So much has changed in the world of blogs since I last spent time on this stuff. I'll discuss those changes and my feelings in this grump post.

When I started the old blog back in October 2003, things were different. At that time blogs were basically a joke. They were beyond passé. The cutting edge of blogs happened in the late 90s before anyone knew what "Blogger" was. So, when I endeavored in this world, I realized it was more than a tad foolish, but okay as a pasttime.

Since then blogs really caught on. A new word called blogosphere came in to popular use in the media to describe any form of writing on the internet that was not done by someone with a journalism degree. Then blogs somehow became news sources. Bloggers determined that CBS's documents about George Bush's Nation Guard duty were forged. John Kerry had a blog somehow. Blog writers were showing up on tv as commentators. Radio shows had bloggers in as guests.

Not only were blogs not a joke, but they were considered serious. Right? The opposite of joke. In the meantime, I had a baby, and got inundated with a shitload of the shittiest work ever done by a highly paid professional, and I let my blog fall to pieces. Just when blogs were getting big, I was getting out.

In some ways, it seems fitting. I didn't like the high volume public hoo-hah about blogs what with MSNBC's blogosphere temperature readings and so on... I was getting barraged with spam and hate mail. And for what? So I could NOT be a guest on "This Week With George Stephanopolous". Screw that.

It seems that in recent months, "blogs" have lost their lustre and I can't help but think its a good thing. Its like this folks.... remember when R.E.M. was the coolest band around? Then they got huge and starting playing at Presidential Inauguaral balls and having #1 hits? It sucked, didn't it. Then they made a couple so-so albums, Bill Berry quit, and now they're back to being a quiet little band. And that is roughly how I see blogs nows. I simply bowed out while blogs were having their "Everybody Hurts" moment.

Thus, with over a year's worth of pent up stupid opinions, and only a little more time on my hands, I figured that now was the time to re-enter the fray. Yes, some may see this as my first steps to declaring a presidential candidacy. Think what you wish.

Now that a little bit of sanity has been restored to my life, I have started to think about my blog again. However, when I visited the much neglected blog, it was filled with spam and pop-ups. It also had tons of old posts to manage. So I decided it was time to permanently archive the old blog and start V2. Click the Archives link at the top of this page. Or click here: the old site.

More to come later...