Introduction (by Way of Rambling)

HERE THERE BE MONSTERS!!

Well, not really, he's only here on the weekends to do the tidying up.  His name's Kevin.*

As I am soldiering through this, my first attempt at blogging in some two years, I am surrounded by furniture that is nearly - but not quite - TARDIS blue.  It's a little too purple in tone, but that does little to dampen my enthusiasm for the idea of turning my wardrobe into a TARDIS.  

Which tells you absolutely nothing, except that I happen to like Doctor Who.

For those of you who may have stumbled across this via a friend or perhaps even a particularly specific Google search that somehow brought you here of all places, this will serve as an introduction.

My name is Sean. I'm currently 25, though mentally I am somewhere between 4 and 97, depending on my access to socialization, coffee, and/or sugar.  I work for a newspaper publisher, assisting the people who make sure that the mom & pop shops get a voice too.  In my free time, I like to write (passably), draw (acceptably), play computer games (predictably), play tin whistle (to my sister's dismay), photograph things (amateurishly), and collect items that, to a varying degree, can best be described as "esoteric".  To save you the trouble of looking up this word if you don't know it, I can tell you that it is, essentially, synonymous with "nerdy".

I'm also a Christian, and a conservative republican.  This WILL affect my viewpoint on certain things that I may or may not choose to post on (though I dislike discussing politics, so there's one thing we can agree on regardless of our party affiliation).

Moving on, the purpose of this blog is threefold.  These purposes are:

1. To entertain.  Whether or not I manage that will largely depend on you... and I'm not going to quote that Russel Crowe film.  When viewed from a broad perspective, he had it fairly easy - Take sword, shove pointy end in other fellow with sword, everyone's happy. I'm just guessing at this point, though I can probably rule out the "stabbing people with swords" thing.  I can't see people lining up for that one and, frankly, it seems a waste of humanity.
2. To placate relatives.  Okay, maybe "placate" isn't the best word choice but it was that or mollify and I can't spend all night deciding which to use.  Anyway, several members of my family have asked me at numerous points if they could see some of what I've written.  I tend to be... a little bit protective of the stories I write. "Little Bit" being defined here as "zealously as the dragon doth guard his gilded hoard".  Admittedly, this isn't the best way to collect constructive criticism, so this is my... attempt to share.
3. To create. Writing long form works such as Teind and Underking (which almost none of you know anything about yet) is rewarding in its way, but they have yet to deliver on that most enjoyable sense of accomplishment that comes from finishing something.  This is meant to rectify that somewhat by providing a less demanding creative outlet.

Ok, now that's done with, it's time to move on to the really really important bit - what to expect from this.

1. Two posts a week, on Tuesday's and Thursday's or Friday's.  This number is both the minimum AND the maximum, barring weekly/monthly challenges.  This isn't replacing anything else, but an addition.  If anything, I'm probably going to cut out time spent on computer games.  This will be the only Wednesday post for the foreseeable future - Wednesday is chill time (if chill time is allowed to mean "trying to catch up my Bible in a Year reading).
2. Less lists.  In trying to get everything I feel needs to be said (HA!) in this first post, there are an inordinate number of lists. I promise this will be the last one in this post that will be a numbered list.
3. Shorter posts. I will probably be writing these over lunch, which is a lot shorter than the time I've been writing this.
4. Content - there will be book reviews, photo posts (with related text, no cop out posts!), thoughts on things I've recently learned, philosophical observations, musical compositions, updates on my life, whatever else I choose to discuss, and maybe some of those Top Ten Tuesday things that my sister does (there will be a link to her blog at some point on this site, if there is not already).

Finally, in conclusion, I offer a warning to my English and Writing major friends - I am fond of parenthetical statements (as you have probably noticed), ending sentences with prepositions, the Oxford comma, and generally writing things as I feel they should be written, regardless of any grammatical rules that might be broken in the process.  This isn't a paper that I'm submitting to a professor, so I will be floating somewhere between conversational and the rambling academic style I sometimes employ when I'm feeling "fancy". Consider yourselves warned.

Ciao!

* Any resemblance to real-world Kevin's is purely coincidental.