Things What I Think #1 – In The Beginning…

by Daniel Drumm

I am currently sat on my bed next to my girlfriend, in our holiday bedroom , trying to think of ways to ease you, the reader, into the concept of me blogging. My girlfriend, an accomplished blogger1 herself, is guiding me through the process like some sort of Internet bound seeing-eye-dog2, a comparison which I obviously intend as a compliment, but one which will most likely provoke the following reaction. Firstly, she will instantly look past all of the positive things a seeing-eye-dog brings to the world (being adorable, as dogs with jobs always are, keeping yellow in season, and of course stopping blind people getting hit by cars), then she will proceed to processing ONLY the word “dog”, and finally, she will turn to me saying “Are you calling me a bitch!? How could you!? I can’t take this any more! I’M LEAVING YOU!!!”3. She redeems this psychotic4 element of her personality, by knowing her way around the world of blogging, particularly Word Press (which to me looks like web designer sneezed out some menus), and she5 is helping me get the ball rolling here.

1. audreywilsen.wordpress.com

2. An iDog?

3. I jest, she’s actually very normal (most of the time). Having said that though, I am writing this foot-note before actually posting the blog, so said event may have happened and, as you read this, I may be sitting alone, in my pants, eating cold beans again.

4. She’s not! I already said, totally normal. God I hope she has the patience for footnotes.

5. My totally normal, not-insane girlfriend

It’s not that I am in anyway phobic of the Internet or technology. In fact, if there is any golden rule you should know about me, it is that I am hopelessly dependant on both of those things in the day-to-day. I used to stare in wonder at the world around me; now I update my Facebook status, and post pictures of the world around me, in wonder at the world around me, even though I know that doing so dilutes their wonderousness. It’s sad but true, and I’m too far in to do anything about it now – unfortunately smack addicts are getting all the rehab and there’s no room for technoholics6. I’ll just have to lie back and accept it. But in all seriousness I love the Internet, and the weird and wonderful new avenues it opens up every day. What I don’t love (or rather until now simply haven’t understood) is blogging. I have a lot to say (anyone who knows me will tell you that7, I’m always ranting, and they’re always saying “you should write a blog” presumably because they think a keyboard would be a better outlet for my words than their ears), I’m well into most of the main contemporary forms of entertainment (music, movies, video games and books…sort of), and I love the internet, so the world of blogging should be the perfect place for me let people know thoughts right?

6. I would have said “technophile” but I wanted to take this opportunity to express my distain for the use of “oholic” as a suffix to mean “an addict of”. There are no such things as workohol, chocohol or technohol! Using “oholic” for these things is non-sensical. Now kindly take your willy out of the English language that you have been so eagerly fucking, zip up your fly, and go home 

7. Opinionated cunt I think is the actual term they use.

Well now, hold on a minute. From the outside (and I think I should be forgiven for thinking this), the uncensored and seemingly never-ending cholera stream of what is largely people’s own personal newspapers that populates “Blogland”, could cause the concept of blogging to be easily misinterpreted as forum for people to get of their chest all the pressing issues of what shoes they wear on different occasions and/or what they like about their dog and/or what celebrity is fat/thin. In concept these things are fine, and as an avid Facebook user I frequently find, and occasionally even produce, mundane8, vague9, and inane10 status updates. It’s normal. These however, are rarely more than a sentence long. Blogs are not. Blogs are far too usually status updates that have been put in a petri dish, placed in a moist, dark drawer and allowed to flourish and evolve into something that is infectious, disturbing and will most likely make you ill if you come into contact with it.

8.

Me at my best here. Contains “green” and “bean”, two of the most mundane words in the English language, and is only prevented from being the MOST BORING THING EVER by the fact that it rhymes.

9.

Is it indeed…? I wonder.

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Nuff said…

Now of course there are bloggers who actually say things of worth, and are successful as a result, but more often than not these are actual journalists that are blogging off the back of a successful career in journalism (Roger Ebert, the people at Empire Magazine for example) and I don’t think that’s really the same. When they aren’t that (a good example of this that I have read is 27b/6), they simply don’t make up the numbers to outshine the tidal wave of bullshit that’s out there.

So, until recently I looked with a certain level of distaste, and a lack of understanding at the world of blogging. Given the stream of bollocks I outlined in the previous paragraph, I really wasn’t sure whether the “blogosphere”11 was the place for my opinions. I have held off on putting my thoughts out there through fear of them being misinterpreted or misplaced, through an aversion to being socially outcast (albeit being on the internet) as a result of my beliefs. And I’m incredibly lazy.

11. This word is another reason blogging is easy to hate.  ANYTHING would have sounded less nerdy. The Blogiverse, Blogland, The Blogsmos, The Bloginarium of Dr. Blognassus…

So I have begun! I will be writing as regularly as I can in each of 4 catagories:

  • Things What I Think – Posts about things that I observe and find confusing/annoying/fascinating/amusing.
  • Things What I’ve Seen – Movie/TV Show posts.
  • Things What I’ve Heard – Music posts.
  • Things What I’ve Played – Video games posts.

Posts will probably come more regularly in some categories, than in others; I may schedule them when I start noticing a pattern. For now though, just keep an eye out for the contents of my brain on this page; I’ll begin adding things soon. Ish.

Mush Luff

Dan12

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