Why Blog?

Blogging has always seemed like a colossal waste of time to me.  Either that, or self-involved, or egomaniacal way to make yourself feel more interesting.  Do funny people really blog?  Do interesting people take the time out of their fascinating lives to blog?  And if so, why?

A friend of mine is a consultant and was considering working for an internet ad company.  I asked him what a good ad rate was.  $20 per 1000 referals.  That's 2c for every person that looks at your page AND happens to click on an ad.  I'm not self-involved or egomaniacal enough to think that that would make a blog worth my while, and I know that I'm not funny or interesting enough for it to be profitable, either.  

So once again, what the hell am I doing?  For some reason, several people I know seem to think that I should blog.  I'm not sure why.  In fact, I'm a bit suspicious.  Do they think I'm self-involved?  Egomaniacal?  Stop nodding.  Oh, maybe they think I'm funny and interesting.  Slim chance there.  Maybe they're trying to set me up for failure!  Maybe, they'll mock my crappy blog and show their friends--not enough friends to make that 2c per referral add up to anything, mind you, because my friends don't have that many friends.  Losers.  No, just enough people to form a consensus that I'm not funny but boring, and therefore self-involved for doing this in the first place.  And certainly egomaniacal.  See why a blog is a terrible idea?  

Me too.

My wife points out that I could parlay it into a book deal if people actually read it.  Unfortunately, I think she is one of the few people who still read books.  Or maybe a newspaper column, she suggests.  Also not the hottest plan, since not even she buys a newspaper anymore.  

Another set of problems with a blog is that for me being entertaining often goes hand-in-hand with being offensive.  Now, most of my friends are aware of this and accept it, and maybe if I were less offensive I'd have more friends--but I digress.  The point of this paragraph is my wife's parents.  They're well aware that I'm offensive, but I worry that a blog where I chronicle my thousand favorite yo' mama jokes--all carefully personalized to my mother-in-law--could hurt some feelings.  Don't worry, I won't dwell on your truck-stop prostitution or your real money online poker addiction.  Okay, okay, one of those is totally not true.  Both are felonies.  And let's be honest, how many southern women in their fifties play Texas Hold 'Em?

And yet in spite of all these pretty solid reasons to not write a blog, I think I'll give it a try.  Fatherhood is funny shit.  Ridiculous things happen all day.  Poop is always the topic du jour in our house.  Rather than poker, I play diaper-roulette;  yellow, brown or green?  Place your bets.  I get sent to the baby store to buy contraptions with names like "My Brest Friend" and am expected to do it with a straight face.  My wife suggests I read books with titles like "The Diaper-less Baby".  I point out that that book has a sequel in development--"The Fatherless Baby" --and thus I don't have to read it.  

So armed with my 11 pound muse and lack of gainful employment, here we go...

But don't worry, having a child hasn't stripped me of opinions, so prepare for the occasional rant about sports, wine, politics, taxes (God, I fucking hate taxes!) and whatever else I feel like.