Who, What, When, Where, WHY.

18 August, 2013

    It's not just you, by the way. I keep asking myself the same question--why another blog? And why this one with the the strange title--500 Opinions? The Fisher Remodelers blog-site is obvious--it's related to my job. So is the Love and War Among Young Zombies blog--it's an attempt to find a readership for a book Linda and I wrote. But why write a blog about a bunch of opinions?
    What was it Richard Ferguson e-mailed me? "Don't blog me, bro!" Hah. That was pretty cool, Richard. The sentence has a wonderful consonant repetition, blog and bro, as well as an onomatopoeic rhythm to it--"Don't blog me, bro." Why do I think it's onomatopoeic, which means a word or words that have a sound that imitates what they mean? It's the word blog. If one heard the word, and didn't know what it meant, the similar words block, blot, or bludgeon might come to mind. If I blog Poor Richard, it could be I'm not being very nice to him. So, I won't.
    This blog is for me, to me, and about me. You and Richard are welcome to read it. I hope you do. But my expectations of a vast readership are non-existent. Maybe my kids or grand-kids will read it one day and learn more about me than they would have if I hadn't written it. I wish my own dad had written one. This blog is my diary, of sorts. The difference is that it's open to the world.
    The "500 Opinions" part of the blog refers to the lists I plan to include--my 100 top books, songs, TV shows, meals, comics, and movies--of all time. I guess this is because I believe we are what we read, dance to, watch, eat, laugh at, and pay money to watch. I doubt my lists will be anywhere close to ones you would come up with. My lists are me. These are the influences that have molded me into what I am. For instance, more than five of my top 100 books are self-help books. At first I wasn't going to include the Bible on my list, because I felt it was an attempt to push my religion on others. I've re-thought that. It'll be there. It won't be the King James version, though. It won't be number one, either. Number one, I thought, will be easy to pick. It'll be my favorite. Here is the problem--is my favorite the one I enjoyed the most, the one I opened and read the most, or the one I learned the most from?
    Nothing is easy in this old world. Not even writing a blog.