What to expect…kinda

Hello everyone.

I wanted to take a moment and thank everyone who helped me come to the decision recently about getting back into the blog game. I had discussed the ups and downs of doing this with a number of people. For various reasons, many of which may or may not become evident as time goes on, having a blog is a potentially dangerous thing for me professionally. Obviously I made my decision and here we are.

I was not 100% certain what I wanted to do with this initially. I didn’t want to commit myself to simply a sports blog or a video game blog. I didn’t want to just do one thing or another, but being spread out is hard, too. I have a lot of things I like to discuss. I have many (strong) opinions, but I also like to hear what others have to say. I am hopeful that this adventure will be as fulfilling for everyone else as it is for me.

To lay out some general expectations, there will likely be a number of posts about the aforementioned sports and video games. I have been involved in “New Media Journalism” for about a decade (before it was ever called “new media journalism”) as a video game writer. Regrettably, those days came to a halt a number of years ago because of technical issues and some, erm, staffing problems. By the time things had gotten back on their proverbial feet, the season had passed and I was involved in some other things. I want to get back into that some because of how much I enjoyed writing about the things in the world I liked. Video games have been a huge part of my life and I want them to stay that way.

Sports. Boy howdy. This is always an area where people tend to get bent out of shape. I will lay it out there for everyone – I am a hockey and football type of person. My teams in their respective sports are the teams from Pittsburgh, the Penguins and the Steelers. The usual internet protocol of “haters gonna hate” pretty much applies here. I will write about them. I will write about things going on in general. Even though the blog is named after a fantastic baseball film reference, there will likely be very little baseball talk.

I will try to stay away from politics, but it always finds a way in. That, my friends, is a bridge to cross at a later date.

Personal life blogging will be a recurring event, too. Names and events will be modified to protect people’s identities, but you can expect some stories from my personal world. This is, after all, the blog I created in the hopes of providing an outlet for my thoughts, feelings, etc.

I will also talk about music. Jesus, God in Heaven, there will be music talk. Music talk will basically be this:

Yeah, I’m a music snob (with debatable snobby tastes).

There will also be baby animals. Oh, yes, there will be baby animals.

You can also follow the blog on Twitter. It can be accessed at http://www.twitter.com/AvoidingTheClap or, simply, @AvoidingTheClap

I hope this experiment works out. Hopefully everyone enjoys what I throw against the wall. Hopefully this can, in fact, live up to the billing of “a blog of (good) advice.”

Here goes nothing.

-Walt