This is a blog.

Welcome! Er, well, not really. See, I can't welcome you, because you aren't here. Eventually you might be here, and then that won't be true, but for now, you are... not? Maybe?

Anyway.

This is a blog. There. I said it. I detest that vile portmanteau, blog, but it's become indelibly engraved on the modern lexicon, and so I must adopt it over my own shudders of revulsion. Is that out of the way, now? Good.

I'm some guy from Texas, living in Seattle, looking for work. I have done too little and allowed myself to become indolent and complacent over the last few months. I cannot abide this situation. I must exercise my brain. I must think; and since I think best by writing, here I am. I will be honing my wits on you. You will probably hear most often about the following things:

• Evolutionary biology. I am not a political partisan; I am a student of science. I am not interested in inane creation debates, so do not expect internet-typical anti-religion screeds. If I discuss science, it will be something interesting, fresh, thought-provoking. You will learn, peons!
• Politics. I hate politics. They make me angry. There is nothing more aggravating than watching sniveling power-brokers take good ideas and good people and turn them into politics. When there is something I want you to do - and that will be more or less the only time I will write about politics - I will tell you why I think you should do it, and it will be a damn good reason.
• My life. What? This is a blog. You think I'm some kind of robot? Of course I'm going to talk about myself now and then. I'll try to keep it short and sweet, but come on... you know you're curious. Who doesn't like a few juicy tidbits of somebody else's business?

I will be going by the pseudonym of John Marshall, which is not actually much of a pseudonym at all; for this reason I considered titling this blog something like "The Literalist Papers" or "The Evolutionist Papers" or something even more vile like "The Literal-est Papers," but I decided that you, my audience, almost Heisenbergian in your uncertain existence, deserve better.

Let's just make that a permanent deal right now, okay? I will strive to the utmost not to make old, busted jokes, and you will love me for it. Good? Good.

This "blog" (shudder) will have topics and entries. Often they will be important. Sometimes they will be interesting. Sometimes they will be the sort of things to which you devote no more time and attention than it takes to skim the title and first eight words, and that's okay. I will tag posts. A word of warning: you will probably rarely see the "politics" tag unaccompanied by the "rage" tag.

I'll bring this to a close now, because this introduction is terrifically inane. I'm sure you want to read something of substance as much as I want to write it, so rather than wasting any more time here breaking this thing in and leaving a trail of drivel, I'll get on that.