So I'm a blogger now. I think.....

Welcome to my blog. If you found your way here through some sort of connection to tabletop gaming I'm very glad that you've found me. If you've found my blog by some other random connection to me or my life then I'm glad you're here. If I owe you money, this is not the Chris Chipley you're looking for.

Let's start by discussing the name of my blog. "So Here's the Thing....." is a bit of an awkward name for a blog but I think its rather fitting because it's something I say quite often. You see, I'm rather prone to ranting and raving and talking at length about almost anything that I can be passionate about. If you know me or have listened to me on the pod cast I was a part of you know that I can rant and rave and be passionate about almost anything. When I'm preparing for my rants I listen very closely to the person speaking and then formulate my thoughts and almost invariably begin by saying; "So here's the thing....." or its slightly shorter cousin; "Here's the thing....". Since that is the segue to most of my passionate outpourings I thought that would be a nifty name for the blog that will probably contain a lot of rants and raves and passionate outpourings.

Here's the thing about my blog(see, its looking like a good choice already): This blog will be sporadic at best and downright neglected at worst. I may post like crazy for a week and then not even stop by to dust off the keyboard and say "hi" for weeks. I may write 1000 words some random afternoon and then drop by with nothing more than "Wow, what a shitty day." on some other occassion. If you are looking for commitment, I suggest you look elsewhere. Or get a puppy. Puppies are nice and they love you all the time and rarely let you forget about them for more than a day or so. If blogs were like puppies I would probably take much better care of the blog because it would beg to be fed and played with and have its poop scooped and all those things that cute little puppies do to make you love them and think they're a pain in the ass all at the same time. Blogs, on the other hand, just sit there on the internet waiting for you to do something with them. I'm sure there is some limit to their patience(or that of the nice folks who provide this space for free) so if you let your blog go without a pat on the head and a bowl of food for too long, it will probably be moved to some dungeonlike archive section never to be seen again. What the Hell is my point? My point is that if you want to read a blog that's treated like a cute puppy, you've come to the wrong place. If you want to read a blog that may be mildly entertaining or occassionally enlightening but not at all dependable in the areas of regular updates and consistent material, then this may be just the blog you're looking for.

You have been warned!

What kind of things can you expect me to discuss in this blog? That's a damn good question. I will probably talk about tabletop gaming, paintball, motorcycles, movies, music, books. popular culture and maybe a little bit of my personal life. I know, I know. Blogs are supposed to be little windows into the minds and lives of the bloggers so that they can vent all of their frustrations and tell everyone how great and or horrible their life is on that particular day. Here's the thing, though(See how that works? I'm fucking brilliant, aren't I?), I'm sort of a private person. That may seem a little crazy coming from a person who spent 15 months of his life on a weekly, or bi-weekly or whenever the Hell it got recorded pod cast that he spent quite a bit of time talking about his personal life on but its true. I don't really like people in my business. When I'm home I want to be home. Home is a safe and quiet place where I recharge and refresh and get my shit together so I can go out and do it all again the next day. If I get too personal on my blog, my business is everyone's business and that really doesn't sound that good to me. I may have my moments where I spill my guts and wear my heart on my sleeve for the world to see but I'll also have those times where I grab my life and scream "MINE!" as I run off to some place that I can be alone with my life and the important things in it. If you want intimacy and complete life regurgitation from a blogger you are also in the wrong place.

Once again, you have been warned!

This blog was created mostly because I really enjoyed being on 40K Radio because it gave me an outlet. Its cool to know that there are people out there who are interested in what I think and have to say about stuff. I miss talking to those people. Don't get me wrong, I know there are plenty of you that think I'm an idiot or an asshole. But quite possibly there are a few out there who think I'm the most amazing person on Earth right now. I think that most people pretty much see me for what I am because I rarely try to be anything that I'm not. I try to be honest and only talk about stuff that I know about. Talking mostly about stuff I know about really saves me a lot of being informed that I'm full of shit or completely wrong. I've been out on that talking about stuff I don't know about limb quite a few times in my life and although the view is spectacular, waiting for the fall after that limb snaps can be excruciating. I've learned to stick the the stuff I know or learn about the stuff I don't know about before I open my big stupid mouth about it.

Thanks for taking the time to read this mess. I sure as Hell hope this blogging thing gets easier as I go because I'm pretty sure this sucks.

I will leave you with one valuable thing that I read recently and then I won't have to feel guilty about you spending your time reading this and realizing afterwards that you could have been doing something so much better with your time and hating me just a little for leaving this trail of Reese's Pieces that led you away from that so much better thing. Anyway, here's that valuable bit I mentioned quite a few words ago:

"Experience is the cruelest teacher. She gives the test before she gives the lesson."

Is that frickin' great, or what?

Chris