Being That Guy For a Decade

Fancy that, 10 years ago today I debuted The Dignified Rant on the old Geocities platform. I was inspired by James Lileks.  I migrated to Blogger near the end of 2004. I'll always be grateful that Instapundit's example provides a convenient excuse for defying the "comments" trend of blogs.

I've written, say, 12,000 posts in that time. It would be more if I didn't update posts with new thoughts and instead only added new posts.

What was I thinking when I started this?

Oh yeah, I was frustrated that a letter to the editor that I sent to The New York Times to correct some author's major idiocy on military issues related to the war begun on 9/11 didn't make the cut. And others, I'll say. Not just NYT.

And now, this blog is one of the blogs NYT tracks and links to for their subject index categories for related information. Life is funny that way.

Actually, I've fulfilled a childhood goal on this blog. Remember in pre-Internet and pre-cable TV days when there would be a crisis in the world? The network news would put on some guy who would explain the crisis and what might happen. I'd listen attentively to understand what was going on.

I wanted to be that guy. Or one of the three guys, since each network would have one.

Of course, nobody can be that guy these days. And we're better for that, of course. They had authority but they had one point of view. Now we have lots of those guys--and gals--who must compete to have their ideas heard.

Now I'm that guy--or at least one guy--explaining what I think is going on in the world.

Oh well, they say the first 10,000 posts are the most difficult. Thanks for reading them and letting me be that guy.