What is a blog?

         Well now, I've read a few times about blogs, and blogging, but I have no idea what a blog is. It sounded vulgar to me. A couple of guys standing around the office and one of them just out in the open says, "I went to my blog site last night..." Whoa... Too Much Information, going a little bit too public for me slinging that four letter word around like a teenager just drafted into the Navy. I ducked back around the corner and hoped no-one had seen me near the conversation.

         Curiosity had the best of me though; after I made it back to my cubicle, I looked in my favorite dictionaries for the little four letter word and it was in none of them. Then, I looked in my electronic dictionary that I purchased in 2005 and it wasn't there either. Now... I did find the word blurb, which isn't too very far from where the word blog would be, and near the word blurb was the word blurt, which was even closer to where blog would be if it were there. But in the end they were five letter words, and the little four letter word was not.

         I have heard a few blurbs that were blurts in my days. I have also heard a few blurts that were blurbs, but right now I'm up a creek without a blog, or at least any idea of what a blog is. Yet, here I am (I am told) "blogging" within a website?

         If someone would've told me that a blog was posting an electronic muse on the Internet that anyone in the world could read, I would have thought them crazy. Why would someone want everyone else to know what they are thinking? Then again... why not? Maybe it's an impersonal way to share the personal things we need to share but are afraid to say out-loud? Is this a "blow-off-steam" medium? Or, is it cold and fake? Are we really saying in print what we really intend, or are we covering up what we would say to a person face to face; or would the face to face encounter be the cover-up? After all, once it's typed and saved it's hard to retract, but if it's said face to face, and in haste, apologies might be accepted more readily. They might even be laughed off depending on the facial expression and body language used at the time. I don't see a real means of conveying body language in a blog, as I lift my hand wiping sweat from my brow with a twinkle in the eye. No, no, no... too dramatic for sure.

         Or maybe a blog is a "slip" of the brain, a fleeting thought escaping the cyberspace of grey-matter, rebooting at a time of the day when we sit idly facing a blank screen pondering, Who am I?... Where am I?... Why are my fingers moving around on this contraption with little square keys? What on God's green orb did I do today? Did I go to work? I did? Did I accomplish anything? No! Why in the world would I bring up that question or even think of that?... Let's get back to the useless ponder about blogging please.

         Yes... one last thing about the "blog." Every single time I type any form of this little four letter word, my 2007 word processor underlines it in red and asks me if I want to add it to the dictionary. So friends, Americans, countrymen, lend me your ears umm... or eyes, so you can read this garbage, I still question whether or not the little word even exists. If I add it to my dictionary, then it might exist. If I don't add it, maybe it won't. I think I'll watch the little red underlines for a while. I still don't want to be convinced there is any such thing as a... blog? It sounds too vulgar... sitting around blogging?... gross... gimme a break guys, go get some coffee... NOW!