versus Blogs

Welcome friends and family, tangental acquaintences and mortal enemies, to my blog.  Yes, I'm sure most of you knew that sooner or later I would in fact create my own internet based forum for thoughts, musings, and my personal brand of ponderings (read as: stupidity) because I am nothing if not a follower.  Which is actually how I came to own a grizzly bear, 3 acres of air-space above the Bermuda Triangle, and a leotard; other people were doing it and suggested I should as well - though it turns out they were just joking about the leotard.  Anyway, here I am, putting my wild and whimsical thoughts (read as: insane ideas) to digital paper. Boy, are you guys in trouble. So, what can be expected from this blog o' mine?  I'm thinking you'll probably get a smattering of social commentary (such as me wondering what shows like "My Super Sweet 16" and Shark Week says about us as a culture) a handful of movie reviews (such as me wondering who the hell green lit 4 "Fast and Furious" movies...4!!!) and a whole buttload of me making stuff up!  Which I tend to do alot.  Watch, I'll do it right now by making up a new word!  "Infoplode  - verb - to learn something about which you neither needed nor cared to know.  Example Usage: By reading the above sentence you just infoploded."  Um...sorry.  Very few things I make up are beneficial to mankind or the universe in general. Someone once told me I shouldn't refer to it as "making stuff up" but rather that I "create" because, quite simply, it is classier that way.  I couldn't agree more.  But, lets face it, I'm a guy who once thought of a new full-contact sport that revolves primarily around going up to random females at the mall, pointing at them and shouting "Wow, do those jeans make your ass look huge!" and then trying to make it to the exits before they and/or their boyfriends catch you.  It's great for the cardio-vascular system, but absolutely horrible for your karma.  So, I really don't have any right to the term classy at all. Besides, I own a T-shirt that says "I make stuff up," so I'm kind of stuck with it.

Now that I'm actually writing a blog I realized I have no idea what the hell a blog is.  I mean, it sounds like a word that my niece use to say before she was old enough to know that the noises she makes can be used for communication.  Just say the word: blog.  Weird, huh? So, I decided I better figure out precisely what I'm attempting to do before I do it.  I don't want to look like an ass, afterall.  Countless hours of research later (0.016 actual hours) I found out some pretty astounding information.

The very first blog was actually created by none other than King Louis the XIVth of France in 1673 at the Palace of Versailles.  The Franco-Dutch War had been raging for a little over a year and the Sun King was growing weary of managing the war, putting up with sycophantic toadies of the aristocracy, and eating nothing but french food.  His was a gentle soul and liked nothing better than to write his royal thoughts in his royal diary bedecked, as it was, with royal unicorns.  But he never had time!  Despite the sign he hung on his door that read, "Lou's Room! Keep out!  This means you!" people would constantly interrupt him for silly things like the burning of another French controlled city.

Finally, one day Mr. the XIVth just needed a break and stole away to le salle de baines (or le bathroom) and hid from all his courtiers.  With his eminent bottom firmly in place atop his favorite loo just off the Hall of Mirrors, he saw a pile of neatly stacked papier toilette (do I really need to translate this one for you?).  It is important to note that as advanced as they were in the seventeenth century, people had yet to discover how to roll thin paper around small cardboard tubes; instead next to each stall was a large tome of parchment with which occupants could tear out pages and use to clean themselves.  (Due to the coarseness of vellum on their "personal space", the French consequently invented the bidet in 1710 which shoots a jet of water up their butts...then dried themselves off with the vellum still sitting in their stalls. (Odd fact: bidet is the french word for "pony."  Why did they name their genetalia-cleansing water spout after tiny horses?  Because they are French.))

Wait...where were we?

Oh yes, the "ordained by God" King Louis sitting on his "throne", desperate to get his auspicious thoughts down on paper...and there just happens to be a nice stack of it sitting on the floor not really doing anything.  So, seized by a fit of imperial inspiration, the King whips out his quill (not a euphemistic quill, by the way) and jots down the following, potentially accurate, message, "L'Espagne est un pays plein de Dweebs stupide!!" (Spain is a country of stupid dweebs!!) and leaves, feeling satisfied on many levels.

The next day when he returned to his favorite stall he found the following note scrawled beneath his own stately hand-writing, "Dood, U R 2 funE!"  Bouyed by this poorly written and mostly empty adulation, the King wrote another message - this time perhaps offering base comments on the relationships of British sailors and their mothers.  And again, people responded to the note with fervor!

Within a few days, the King found that more and more courtiers were leaving his regal presence to "powder their nose" or "visit the pool" or "take a dump."  Soon he heard whispers near the water fountain about how excited people were to see the latest post of "le salle de baines log," because it was so clever and funny and insightful. It didn't take long for its name to be shortened to "le baines log," and finally abbreviated all the way down to "blog."

Then other monarchs took up the fast growing fad, such as Charles II of England and William III the Prince of Orange, who incidentally was the first man to write the timeless poem, "Here I sit all broken hearted...," on the wall of his stall.  More historical persons to continue the tradition of "blogging" include Queen Elizabeth II, Abraham Lincoln, Marcell Marceau, Dianna Ross and Alf, thus paving the way for countless of thousands of billions of people across the globe to create their own.

Wow, isn't history amazing!  Blogs were originally created while the august and supreme Sun King was bored sitting on the crapper...

Which, I guess, explains why this blog is so full of shit.  C'est la vie!