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Never too late to put
your life into a blog

These days, it seems everyone and their virtual cousin has a blog. Like ant colonies, it's difficult to estimate the number of these online journals (unless you're willing to get dirt under your fingernails and welts all over your arm), but some say there are more than 50 million.

This has conventional writers, journalists and publishers who attend all those media-elite parties worried that soon there won't be enough finger food to go around.

But bloggers have figured it out -- if 90 percent of life is showing up, 90 percent of writing is typing. And even if no one ever reads your blog, theoretically everyone could, and that's more than enough to feed an ego, if not a family.

It's also enough to keep traditional journalists with traditional journalism standards and traditional mortgages tossing and turning well past deadline.

I tried to join the html hullabaloo, only to find I had blogger's block. Sadly, most everything even marginally interesting in my life so far occurred before there was a blogosphere to contain it.

So, I've created a retro-blog, hiking back in time along my stream of consciousness and then floating back down. You'll find it updated irregularly on my Web site, www.digitalslob .com. Here's a sample:

Late January, 1968, noonish (prenatal): Achieved consciousness, finally -- kinda bored, groggy. Using this time to think up familiar, easy-to-remember passwords and PIN codes that I might need later. Right now I'm liking "umbilical cord," assuming I learn how to spell it, or for that matter develop the brain functioning to comprehend things as abstract as language or an alphabet.

April 1, 1969 (2 months old): OK, I've figured it out. When I'm hungry, I cry and get fed. When I'm dirty, I cry and someone changes my diapers. I can sleep as much as I want, whenever I want, and anyone who accidentally wakes me up is severely punished. Apparently, the whole world revolves around me. This is going to be SWEET!

Feb. 19, 1972 (4 years old): Today I finally made a public stand against Mom taking me into the women's restroom when I have to pee. "Why can't we go into the men's room sometimes?" I asked.

"Because I'm not a man," she said.

"But I'm not a woman, and I always go in there with you!" I said. "All I'm asking for here is 50-50."

I lost this battle but -- mark my words -- I will win the war.

July 1, 1976 (8 years old): My 26-year-old sister and eldest, 20-year-old brother fought bitterly today about the coming presidential election between Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford. Every time she yelled "Tim, you're an idiot not to vote for Carter! Shut up!" I backed her up with a "Yeah, Tim, shut up!"

I've decided I'm a staunch liberal, and by liberal I mean siding with the eligible voter most likely to make me Macaroni & Cheese for dinner.

Aug. 5, 1982 (14 years old): My brother-in-law, with my 18-year-old brother Chris cheer-leading, talked Mom into buying a $5,000 pre-Windows Texas Instruments computer because he wanted one and could get a discount buying two. I bet Chris will get more use out of the parachute pants he bought last Friday for the disco. I've figured out how to use it like a 95-pound legal pad that I can password-protect.

That reminds me, I still need to look up "umbilical cord."