by Jeff Richardson
Blogging is hard. But it's something I used to do all the time. Long before I was a ridiculous funny guy, I was a writer. I wrote all kinds of crazy things: video game ideas, roleplaying campaigns, nerdy genre stories, half-baked novels, you name it.
And then I discovered blogging. It was 2005. The war in Iraq had been going nonstop for two blood-soaked years. The siege of Fallujah had begun and the country was on fire with sectarian violence. Meanwhile, back in the States, the anti-war movement was just starting to get on its feet. I'd seen the Kucinich campaign rise and fall, John Kerry taken out through dirty tricks and rigged voting machines, and Bush and Cheney tightening their hold on freedom here and abroad.
I'd believed that blogging was nothing more than boring journals of ordinary people talking about their cats. I was mistaken. I found several blogs using hyperlinks to connect words and phrases to other websites, including legitimate news sources. Suddenly I had a tool I could use to assist the anti-war effort. I'd taken part in numerous protests, and I was on the board of a volunteer group trying to raise awareness, but here was something I could do every day. As someone who'd been writing since he was five years old, this was an opportunity to flex those muscles and gain some level of notoriety in the process. A fun way to feed my narcissistic impulse, and maybe, just maybe, to change the world.
Now I'm back. This new blog is unlikely to stop any wars or help any left-wing politicians get elected, but with enough effort, and a little luck, perhaps it will feed my need to be heard. And, if I do it right, make a few thousand people see the world in a slightly different way.
And if I really nail it, maybe I can make a few of you snort PBR through your nose. A boy can dream, can't he?