Hey, guys! I'm here! What'd I miss?

I'm what you might charitably call a "late adopter."

Look up my name in the dictionary and you won't exactly find the word "trendy" listed next to it. Of course, you probably won't find my name in the dictionary either, since that's not really how dictionaries work. They tend to be more about words, meanings, pronunciations, etymologies, inflected forms--

I digress.

(Though if you do happen upon a dictionary with my name in it, I'll totally buy it off you. My mom would love that.)

In any case, the point is, I'm not the guy you look to if you want to see what's fresh, cool and cutting-edge. Never have been. And, unless the world suddenly starts spinning backward, never will be.

Hell, I didn't get a drivers' license till I was in my 20's. Didn't get my first cell phone till just a few years ago. And I'm just now thinking of purchasing my first pair of Hammer Pants.

Me. A visual approximation.

So it should be a surprise to exactly nobody that I'm about a decade behind this particular "blogging" wave.

It's not that I've had nothing to say all this time. On the contrary, ask anyone. I'm full of nothing if not opinions. Long, often tedious, opinions. (Also organ meat. A great deal of organ meat. And fat. But again, I digress.)

It just takes me a little while to warm up to new technologies. (I'm still casting a wary eye toward that Nintendo 64 in the corner.)

But, hey! I'm here now! And that means it's a PAR-TAY!! Am I right?!

Right?

Hello?

Blogosphere?

Anyone?


Hmm.

Well, complete and utter lack of interest certainly won't stop me. Never has. Quite the opposite, pontificating into the void is something of a specialty of mine. An audience isn't expressly necessary once I crank up my bloviating engine.

So what should you expect in the entries to come? Well, I envision this blog as being equal parts entertaining, informative and maybe even a little redemptive.

"What the hell are you talking about," you ask?

Well, I see myself doing some of the usual bloggy things: opining pompously on deep truths of human nature ... pronouncing my learned and considered judgments on the latest Hollywood offerings ... and presenting, from time to time, short films that I've cobbled together myself with my own two little hands.

And occasionally, I'm thinking perhaps monthly, I'm also planning to offer apologies.

See, the thing is, for the first ... say ... 30 to 35 years of my life, I was pretty much a raging asshole.

As a result, I've kinda left a swath of sorrow, anger, outrage and hurt feelings in my wake for more than three decades. Though perhaps I'm thinking a little too highly of myself. More likely, it's a trail of people who vaguely remember me as that one guy ... the short one ... with the hair ... you know ... the one who was kind of a raging asshole.

Either way, I'm going to start apologizing.

It's not a 12-step kind of thing. To my knowledge, I'm not addicted to anything. (Unless fine meats and cheeses count.) Nor have I had any kind of spiritual awakening or suffered any recent traumatic blows to the head.

I've just kind of grown a conscience. That happens with age, I guess. But for me it just happened about 30 years too late.

To be clear, I have absolutely no illusions that apology recipients will be eagerly following this blog awaiting their turns. I won't pretend that the various folks I've abused over the years still care, or even remember. It just seems like the decent thing to do.

Hey, don't knock me for having a conscience ... I haven't had it very long.

Anyhow, I look forward to clogging the Interwebs with lots of prattle, a fair amount of blather, and the occasional heartfelt mea culpa.

Till next we meet