Play One on TV

So what’s with the web page, Joe?

I’m celebrating that inalienable American right known as “freedom of speech,” a concept you may have heard of betwixt debates on the merits of the Patriot Act. This website is a monument to my God-given gift of written expressiveness (although there are those that will take issue with my calling this a “gift”). I want to be a bigshot know-it-all like real grown-up bloggers, expounding at length on the density of dust bunnies or the effect of “Teletubbies-on-demand” on today’s preschoolers.

Most blogs are windows into the soul of their authors, spilling the deep angst we all feel while feeding our cats. Not me, bub. The intensely personal stuff I save for times that I want to scare off unwelcome dinner guests. What you’ll end up seeing here is a carefully filtered peek into the things in life that manage to amuse me. This means that you aren’t going to be able to obtain a reliable psychoanalysis from reading my stuff. However, it is said that humor is really an interrupted defense mechanism, so a careful perusal of my site might teach you how to scare the bejesus out of me, but that’s about it.

I like to think that I’m a well-adjusted fellow, of reasonable intelligence, suitably informed of current events, and that my CD collection has all the best music not approved by Rolling Stone magazine. I watch all the best television programs, which is to say I watch less than three hours in a given week. I work in computers, which is akin to witchcraft in some circles. And me, an Evangelical Christian to boot.

I read everything. If I don’t know how to do something (examples: household plumbing repair, sushi rolling, ant farming) I think nothing of hopping over to the public library and checking out 20 or 30 books on the subject. If it ain’t written down, it ain’t worth knowing, sez me.

All of this combines to give me an enormous sense of “I know everything and you don’t,” otherwise known as “Joe is an arrogant sonavabitch.” I have an opinion, and I’m not afraid to give it. And here I am at the dawn of the so-called Information Age, with cheap webspace, bandwidth, and content tools within easy reach. The real question should be, “Why not a web page, Joe?”

Truth be told, I’m a really nice guy. I’d give you the shirt off my back if it wouldn’t get me indicted for sexual harassment. So people who get annoyed with me don’t stay that way for long (I hope). Keep that in mind if end up writing something that ticks you off.

However, I have one deep, dark secret. One hidden shame. One big regret in a life surprisingly devoid of petty regrets. I lack a college education. Party through bad luck, partly through bad planning, mostly through bad studying, I possess enough credit hours to be called a sophomore in most venues of higher education. Through sheer bloody-mindedness, I have managed to forge a successful career in the field of corporate information technologies, although my lack of formal education has cost me more than one promotion through the years.

I have to admit to having a small chip on my shoulder regarding my educational non-status. I constantly fight the illogical fear of being “exposed”. You know how some people have nightmares about giving speeches while standing in their underwear? Me, I worry about giving speeches while standing in my grade-point average, which is almost high enough to outweigh a bucket of feathers.

Of course, here I am writing about it to you, an absolute stranger (hopefully). Now my “secret” is out on the Web for people to read and Google to index. Oh, well. I’m going to fly in the face of conventional wisdom that says “keep your mouth shut in front of your betters.” Conviction, hard work, and a severe lack of conversational judgement have taken me far in life, so I’m not going clam up now just because I’m on the Internet.

Just do me a favor - if I misspell Pelleponesian or incorrectly attribute “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” to the Bee-Gees, cut me some slack. As the saying goes, I’m not a real college graduate, but I can play one on TV.