Hwæt! The Blog Begins

So, here it is. I've been wanting to do this for some time, get some things off my chest, and just generally shout at the virtual ether knowing full well that most people won't give a damn and even fewer will actually read whatever it is I'll end up posting here.

This is actually my second attempt at starting a blog. The first ended in complete failure because Blogger couldn't get past my ISP's firewall in order to upload my blog to my website. I tried fiddling with the settings, couldn't get it to work, ended up just deleting the damn thing and created a new one, and then let Blogger host it. I suppose this means I should get around to posting a link to this from my regular web site. Yet another thing I need to get to.

So, here are the basics: Male, just turned 40 (egad!), married for (almost) 13 years with three great children (one girl and a pair of twin boys), living in Chicago, IL. Interests include science fiction & fantasy, literature, classical music, history, traveling. Big, long-time anime/manga fan. Also a big fan of the British SF series Doctor Who (I'll probably touch on these issues at some point or another, so be forewarned.) Current book I am reading is Berserker Blue Death, by Fred Saberhagen. Favorite composer, at the moment probably Aaron Copland; favorite musical group, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (of course!). Favorite place to visit: just about anywhere west of the Mississippi River, especially around the Four Corners region of Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico.

Politically, I like to describe myself as a pragmatic libertarian, which basically means that I think meat inspectors are a good idea (among other things). I am virulantly anti-marxist, and pretty much think that Stalin and Mao were two of the three most evil men of the 20th Century (the third, of course, being Hitler). And to give you a better idea of where I am in the socio-political scheme of things, here are some other beliefs of mine:

• A woman should have the right to an abortion but the god damn good sense not to do it.
• John Wayne Gacy, Timothy McVeigh, and Ted Bundy all got exactly the punishment they deserved.
• Lee Harvey Oswald was a nutcase who acted alone.
• You have the right to be stupid. Smoking dope is stupid. Drinking yourself into the gutter is stupid. Jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge is stupid.
• Don't expect me to have to pay for your stupidity. You are responsible for the consequences of your actions. Deal with it.
• Anyone who started smoking after about 1975 and now wants to sue a tobacco company because they are dieing of cancer should have their lawsuit laughed out of court. Ditto anyone trying to sue McDonalds because they got fat from eating their food.
• Mumia is guilty.
• Castro is a dictator. Cuba is a totalitarian state.
• Kenneth Lay is guilty.
• The only group of people it is perfectly OK to be prejudiced or to discriminate against are Green Bay Packers fans.
• O.J. is guilty, guilty, guilty, GUILTY!

Bloody hell, time to go to bed. More rants later.