What’s up with this word “blog?” I know what a blog is, I know what someone means when they are blogging, I even know what the blogosphere is but where does the word blog come from? I had my suspicions, and after some short Googling (another good internet term), I discovered they were right. (I love it when I’m right.)

Blog is an abridgment of the term web log.

To further the definition for those just joining us (via Wiki):

A blog is a website, usually maintained by an individual, with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse chronological order. “Blog” can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.

Many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject; others function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs. Most blogs are primarily textual, although some focus on art (artlog), photographs (photoblog), sketchblog, videos (vlog), music (MP3 blog), audio (podcasting) are part of a wider network of social media. Micro-blogging is another type of blogging which consists of blogs with very short posts. As of December 2007, blog search engine Technorati was tracking more than 112 million blogs.^[1]

Fascinating, so that’s what I’ve gotten myself into here? This being a personal blog I intend to treat it as a sort of public journal, containing not only my day-to-day experiences but also things I’m thinking about, my thoughts on the world around me, and whatever else strikes my mood. Basically a way to document and reflect on my life. Hopefully there will also be some pictures here and there for those with a short attention span.

In closing, it would only be fair to note that in my short Google quest to find the origin of the word blog I ran across this alternate definition:

In a 1953 story entitled “Scrambled Egg Super,” Dr. Seuss wrote:

I went for the kind that were mellow and sweet

And the world’s sweetest eggs are the eggs of the Kweet

Which is due to those very sweet trout which they eat

And those trout… well, they’re sweet ’cause they only eat Blogs

And Blogs, after all, are the world’s sweetest frogs

And the reason they’re sweet is, whenever they lunch

It’s always the world’s sweetest bees that they munch

And the reason no bees can be sweeter than these…

They only eat blossoms off Beezlenut Trees

And those Beezlenut Blossoms are sweeter than sweet

And that’s why I nabbed several eggs from the Kweet.