There is no doubt about it. I have the laziest and most reprehensible blog in all of Internetia.

The last post was last year at this time. I suppose it's just a seasonal thing to want to publicly vent about something inane for me. This from someone who used to compulsively keep journals back in the day when everything was pen and paper -- charming little notebooks that I carried about with me.

I guess it's just an example of being born too early, in a rare instance for me. My daughter tells me if I was a teenager in the days of YouTube and Facebook, I would be a "total Facebook whore," plastering my kisser and my lame opinions everywhere in cyberspace.

I'm sure she's right. As it is, however, my lame forays into Web 2.0 consist of a brief stab at MySpace (hell, everyone is there, from Ron Paul to Svengoolie) and Facebook (where I did enjoy linking in to book and film reviews, but soon got bored).

The irony is, I'm actually going to school for this sort of thing starting in January -- I'll be taking courses at DePaul in the New Media graduate program.

It's not like I don't have things on my mind. I do. I guess I don't think it's worth the time to post my meanderings. Somehow it was OK to vent in those cute little Hallmark notebooks. Nobody saw them, and there was no expectation that one's writing had to be stellar, one's opinions politically correct, one's very existence was being judged on something dashed off in the few grabbed minutes between getting home from work and falling into bed (or in this case, lying in bed on a Saturday morning and waiting for the plumber. Wait, that came out all wrong). 

The stakes are higher today. People I don't even know could weigh in on the sort of half-baked drivel I'm writing now. Back in the day, what you showed to the public was edited, polished, thought about, plucked, tweezed and bikini-waxed into perfection. Now everybody and his brother gets to see you in your skivvies with your legs unshaved, just rolled out of bed. I don't know if I'm ready for that.

But I also know I'm too lazy (bottom line for everything) to put any real effort into blogging which by its very nature seems to me an off-the-cuff activity, sort of like doodling stupid cartoons on a telephone pad while you're on hold for something bigger.

I'm sure not all bloggers feel that way. But I do, so what you see is what you get.

Off subject (whatever the hell that subject is):

Tracy from Work introduced me to the wonderful work of James Lileks, author of such tomes as The Gallery of Regrettable Food and other delights. James is a journalist of a certain age who is in love with popular culture ranging from the turn of the last century to the '70s. I've spent hours at his wonderful Web page, which is filled with great photos from the past and present, featuring such delights as the long-gone Gobbler restaurant/motel in Wisconsin and other delights. He is my new inspiration.

Visit his site at www.lileks.com.