Introduction: Friendly Handshake

Greetings. Welcome to a blog. "Blog" is a rather unfortunate word, but it's the one that's stuck. Short for "weblog," it came about one day when famed computer columnist and masturbation enthusiast Anand Lal Shimpi, attending on the basis of a misunderstanding an event for those who owned and enjoyed Hummers, attempted to pronounce the full word but, busy as he was scarfing down the C-grade salmon caviar and reprocessed toast points on offer, choked before he could complete the first syllable. Thus, confused and aroused onlookers merely heard "kblog," followed by a moist spray of toast point crumbs and salmon egg bits. While the habit of spitting food on interlocutors did not catch on, the neat syllabic truncation did, and a phenomenon was born (or "phenom," in keeping with the theme of this post).

For most of us, then, the word "blog" simply refers to the online journals that certain members of our community keep. They range from the very stupid to the very not-stupid. People in professions which require interacting with the public are virtually required to keep blogs, lest their fans miss their up-to-the-moment thoughts on Obama underwear sales and the American trade imbalance vis-a-vis Chinese lamp oil. For instance, Winnipeg Free Press reporter James Turner keeps a blog where, in the absence of fact checkers and those who know the English language,he informs us, without a hint of irony, that a prosecutor "literally blew through a number of key witnesses." Would that I lived in such a state of blessed innocence! Imagine typing that sentence fragment. Imagine thinking it's very good. You're satisfied. You've done a great job today. You've kept up to the minute, down to the wire, socks up, pants down. You've informed the public. Your career is going nowhere but up. You can smell the Pulitzer. You can almost taste the binding glue of that book you're about to write, the one about the no-nonsense crime beat reporter who "literally smokes a thousand cigarettes a day" and regularly defiles his blooming young secretary. Your vision blurs at the edges as you try to take in the seething crowds of adoring fans and well-wishers. We love you James Turner. Continue writing. Do not stop writing blog articles. But, soon enough, the dream dissolves and you're back in your cubicle at a low-tier local newspaper, where even the tubby, acne-bespeckled teenage interns spurn your clumsy advances. At least you have that blog, you think to yourself, munching on some minced pork.

This too is a blog. I've given it a Latin title. Because I am better than you, I can do this. While most of you have wasted your time "making money," "saving the world," and "buying clothes that fit," I have pursued an education suited for only the most refined aesthetes. With the melodious aid of illa lingua Latina, I can raise condescension to never before seen heights, unde James Turner appears little more than a mus.

Now I've run out of words. Goodbye, gentle reader. May the eyes of Greta Van Susteren follow you eerily wherever you go.