Bloggers

When I first considered writing a blog as a way to vent, I tried to register several names on this Google-run ("blogspot.com") host. Most of the names I thought of had already been taken.

"Politicallyincorrect" was taken by a fellow who wrote in a foreign language (I couldn't even tell you which). He had four entries, all from 2002.

"UNPC" had exactly zero entries. The author had put in a little heading at the top, "A view of pop culture with the reality that pop culture doesn't recognize," but then never wrote anything. I guess it will exist in cyberspace that way forever.

"Realist" had the same number of entries, zero.

"Afterthoughts," ditto.

There was another name I looked up at the time, I can't remember what it was, that had exactly one entry: "School sucked today." That was it.

(If that was the one time the blogger was moved enough to post, school must have really sucked that day.)

Having seen a number of other blogs, I'm struck by how much so many of them resemble diaries. What the blogger had for breakfast that morning, how his day at work went, how his workout went. As an inveterate navel-gazer, I understand that temptation. I try not to succumb. Unfortunately, not entirely successfully.

It used to be said, pre-internet, that writing letters to the editor was the first sign of incipient insanity. The same could easily be said of blogging since it pretty much consists of the same activity: screaming into the wilderness. Maybe even more so, since a letter to the editor which was actually published would undoubtedly get far more eyeballs than the average blog.

All of which proves that the above mentioned bloggers, all of whom wrote little, are all saner than me.

Perhaps the ultimate proof of blogging-as-a-sign-of-maladjustment came last week, when it emerged that Phillip Garrido, the kidnapper of 11 year old Jaycee Dugard, had his own blog.

Maybe Garrido can use his blog as the centerpiece of his insanity defense.

I know I have mine lined up -- 190 entries worth -- for when I finally run amok.