No! You’ve robbed me of my goofy borderline-alcoholic pirate cynicism! I can almost hear the outcry. Yes, the new title, appearance, theme, etc. give that impression, but fear not… there’s plenty of cynicism, bitterness, piss, vinegar, and sarcasm left to dish out. It’s going to take me a few weeks to find the right tone for this blog. It won’t be totally stuffy and portentous like a position paper, but it probably won’t be as goofy and vulgar as the last one either. Here was the explanation I wrote for ending Yaaarr, tis me blog! that never actually got posted because the servers just died without warning one dreary day.

Cap'n BrickliverCap’n Brickliver is rumored to be sailing somewhere off the coast of Costa Rica

Given the troubles of Bloghosts, the company which hosts this website, a decision had to be made about how much longer I wanted to continue my blog under this format. Rather than let it wither on the vine until it rotted and fell off, the timing seemed right to move on to something new. So, when Bloghosts dies in January, so will this blog.

An experience I had at a recent Halloween party was in part the inspiration for my decision. Everyone except me and a couple of others dressed for the occasion. It’s not that I wouldn’t have, it’s that I simply forgot. There was a distinct Rocky Horror Picture Show vibe in the room that night. We were shooting saki, the elixir of choice for angry Japanese men. My friend Aaron was looking pretty queer as some sort of vampire syth lord thing, topped off with dark lipstick and no fangs. A large bearded man who was a friend of a friend showed up wearing a red dress, looking like Little Orphan Annie injected with a lethal dose of testosterone and the growth hormones used in chicken feed. The absurdity of the moment hit me when he and I were standing on the porch having a serious discussion about… something. It doesn’t really matter what, and I don’t remember.

That, my friends, is this blog in a nutshell: a serious discussion with a large bearded man in a dress.

If I forgot to say it earlier, thanks to everyone who read me at my old place, and I hope you’ll keep reading what I have to say here. Further, while I primarily think of this as my blog, I am open to the idea of guest posts. I’d like for the discussion here to resemble a marketplace of ideas more so than a purely liberal or conservative or other viewpoint. A lot of the problem with the “blogosphere” as I see it is it’s segregated itself into partisan camps that blindly push one ideology to solve all problems. I was as much a part of that problem as anyone else, and I’m hoping to change that somewhat here.

It shouldn’t surprise you given the title that I plan to write a lot about politics, but it’d be pretty boring if that was all I wrote about. We’ll still have NCAA football picks (starting with the bowl games in late December), and I’m still planning an NCAA basketball tournament contest. I’ll still cry into my beer when the Tennessee Volunteers football squad puts up another lackluster bowl performance under Phil Fulmer. I might write some actual movie reviews. We’ll just have to see what else. The beauty of blogs is they often seem to evolve into something other than what they were originally intended for.