Introductions!

Bonjour, mes enfants!

Since I've been invited by the gracious Comrade Bazarov to contribute to this blog, I suppose a short introduction is in order. It seems that every new blogger starts off by saying precisely that - that he is fresh off the boat, so to speak, with no experience, no expectations, and no guidance on what direction he should take in his foray into the wide wild world of the internet. This is exactly the way I feel about this first post - the big blank whiteness of the "New Post" blogger page is both intimidating and freeing.

So, at least at times, my posts will be characterized by unadorned and unoriginal straightforwardness. Other times, they won't, and the lame jokes will fly thicker than yellow jackets crawling out of the pitcher of Kool-Aid! (eeeeeew)

Of course, Comrade Bazarov has burdened me with unspeakable constraints by requiring that Universal Gravitation be theme-free. I had a whole sequence of posts planned out, all following in a logical progression and weaving a whole slew of themes into a beautiful blogging tapestry. Alas! The wasted hours!

The new plan is to post on all sorts of random topics, with anything approaching a theme carefully expunged from the record. In all honesty, you'll probably see a lot of posts detailing my glacially slow progress assembling and painting toy soldiers, or miniatures as we like to call them. We, of course, being the wargaming community. What, you weren't aware a wargaming community existed? Well, now you are! Lock your doors at night, and don't talk to strangers - the next grown man you meet might secretly spend his time pretending his toy soldiers (guys, as I've always called them) are waging war!



So, while you're being tormented by my incredibly slow progress putting together a platoon of French Revolutionary infantry, what do you have to look forward to? Well, to go along with the, um, toy soldier motif (not a theme), I've been reading books on the Napoleonic wars, so you'll probably see a bit about that. And my school gives me access to all sorts of neat e-archive material, so I might have to plaster this site with scans of the 1805 London Times. See, it's not so bad!

You'll see a bit of history in general, reviews of books or summaries of articles with points I find interesting or think that you, the unwashed masses, need to have hammered into your thick skulls. And you'll get plenty of grumpy tidbits on politics, religion, and the Great Pumpkin. But if that doesn't alienate you, I also enjoy normal stuff like anime and campus drama, so you'll get to hear my perspectives on that. There might even be posts on sports - I'm no expert, but I enjoy me some World Series drama, provided the Dodgers are in it, of course!

So, when it comes down to it my faithful accolytes, we'll have to see where this blog takes us. Writing this post has already been something of a journey, and I sure as heck don't know where this blog will go from here. The road goes ever on. Probably in a big circle. I swear I've seen that log before!

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If you're interested in learning more about the wargaming community, let me direct you to The Miniatures Page, a wretched hive of scum and villainy. Particularly, check out the Napoleonics Message Boards if you want to serve yourself a real slice of life. Search for "bricoles." Most controversial topic you didn't know existed! In all seriousness, they've been nothing but helpful to me and my novice gamer questions, and I appreciate the depth of military knowledge there. Well worth the look!