Dude, you have a blog now?

Yes. I do. This might be a little surprising if you've heard me ranting about blogging and all the "user provided content" that's slowly taking over the net. So, why am I doing it myself now? Well, I realised something. A few things actually.

First, I came across a few blogs I actually enjoyed (and enjoy) reading. Now, this is as such no big deal. I'm easily hooked up, especially if the subject at hand are eloquently written texts (heck, I'll read a manual for kitchen scissors if the command of language exposed is impressive enough). It's more that I began to accept that this specific form of writing is hardly possible in anything but the loose "notes of the day" blog scheme. The tripping point was, I guess, when I found myself interested not only in the blogger's writing, but also in what the commenters might have to say on the matter. Which brings us to...

The Revelation. The moment I finally understood what blogging is all about. No-no, this wasn't yesterday. As a matter of fact, it was more than half a year ago, and I still regard it as the moment of revelation. I was watching TV - an activity I don't pursue very often these days - when they brought a report on something, or had someone say something, complain about something ... I really don't remember anymore. What I do remember quite clearly however, is my own reaction of thinking "Hey, that's a pretty flawed view on the subject, and it's also pretty ironic for you of all people to state it, for the following reasons...". Now that in itself isn't that revealing, but something someone watching TV probably experiences every 10-15 minutes or so. The remarkable thing was, that I caught myself mentally reaching for the post comment button to "reply" to that report, inwardly celebrating that it's just been "posted" and thus my comment with the well reasoned criticism would be up top (also known as: "First!") thus gaining the attention it'd need to disclaim the unfounded statements. It's somewhere along those thinking lines that my mind stopped short and realised that I am watching TV.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not someone who tends to leave a comment on every piece of stuff he finds on the net. Not at all. But, this way or other, most topical input from the outside tends to reach me in interactive form these days, be it via internet or, old fashioned, via people telling me something (in other words, I just really don't watch much TV, since that's pretty much the only non-interactive topical medium still pretending to be alive). And it was that moment when I realised just now much I am used to having a reply button attached to everything I consume (or, you know, the ability to open my mouth and reply). And also realised that those are exactly the cases when people just log into their blog accounts and post their thought of the day. Screenplays life writes.

So, here we go. Blog. Expect all sorts of random thoughts of the day on all sorts of subjects that might be interesting to me. You've been warned.

Oh, and, no, don't expect to find any instructions on dangerous stunts you should not try at home - the title is yet another example of me being really uncreative when it comes to names and titles. That, and maybe, just maybe, my recently having watched this. As for the URL? That's supposed to be rm -rf /, a Linux/UNIX command you really should not try at home. Oh ... maybe there is some consistency in my naming scheme after all!