Just for fun...

I'm taking a technology class to clear my teaching credential, and we played with Photoshop for a couple hours this morning. Here's my final product:

What do you think? Should I go for it?

Edit: I guess for any strangers reading this, it's more dramatic if you know what I look like without digital enhancement (and you get to see my lovely wife and daughter, too!):

- "I don't wear a hairpiece!"

Where's the love?

What's up, people?

I was enjoying a Christmas Eve dinner with my mom's family, when several of my relatives let me know that they enjoyed reading my blog.

This was nice to hear, though a bit jarring, since as far as I was able to tell, the only people who ever read my blog were my brother and a fellow named "Anonymous."

Now, if there were only two people reading these entries, that would be fine with me, since I mainly use this blog as a place to talk to myself and sort out my thoughts. If someone else reads it and enjoys it or is provoked to thought, so much the better.

It's a little disheartening, though, to find out that people have been reading it but have not been moved to the point of giving any sort of electronic feedback. If anyone is reading this, then the opportunity exists to enter into a dialogue of sorts with the reader, and it saddens me somewhat to learn that there have been several such opportunities lost over the last year.

I have read other blogs where someone has received 234 responses to an entry that consists entirely of the words, "The Lakers suck!" I do not expect that all of my entries will be worthy of such an effluence of support or derision, but I do harbor some small hope for the occassional "heck yeah!" or "You suck!" or even "V1@gra with no pr3scr1pti0N!"

So, if you find what you're reading compelling, entertaining, or non-boring enough to actually come back to and read more than once, please let me know what you think or at least just say "hi" so I know who's reading. It would be nice to know that my ranting is not such an isolating exercise as I have imagined it to be thus far.

- "When I touch you... I think about myself..."

This is really cool... or really scary.

In case you don't know, I was on Jeopardy in February of '04 (I lost). Anyway, I Google-d my own name, and I came up with this. I can't believe that anyone has the time or inclination to actually maintain this site (not affiliated with Sony Pictures Entertainment, the producers of Jeopardy!). I'm kind of glad this person exists, but curious as to why...

"I run for President... I didn't win, though..."

Why blog now?

All the cool kids are doing it!
Well, at least one is... my brother, Sean. The fact that I consider him to be cool may reflect poorly on me or not... depending on how well you know him.
Anyway, my blog will not be as cool as his, since my music list would consist of U2 and Tchaikovsky, and I watch about 0.6 movies per year.
So, from time to time, I may post something that I think is cool and think you might think is cool, too.
Most of the time, however, I'm going to probably end up using this blog as a place to rant. Every once in a while - actually, several times a day - I hear something that makes me want to yell "Oh, give me a break!" or "Liar!" (my parents brought me up not to use profanity) from advertisers, politicians, or "they."
So, this blog is going to be kind of a form of therapy for me, since I need to yell at the world sometimes just to remind myself what's true when the air is full of attractive lies.
If you happen to be passing under my window and something I yell makes you go, "huh," then I'll be pleased. If you think, "that guy's a nut!," please feel free to engage in a dialogue by commenting, rather than calling the police.
Oh, yeah, I'll be ending my posts with some of my favorite movie quotes. Bonus points if you know the movie. (Bonus points are not redeemable for cash or prizes... sorry)

- "Why is everything so heavy in the future?"