I've decided to start up a blog as a combination social experiment/ bid for financial independence... meaning I'm not only looking to supplement my income by doing what I do anyway (giving my opinion and awful jokes, whether they're wanted or not), but also attempt to make money on it... what's more (and here's the part that really got me going on it), I'm interested to see how it appears from the outside.

On an unrelated note, if you're still stuck in the stone age, it's time to

I was just about to write "this will be a very interactive blog", but then I realized I'll need someone to actually read it and respond for it to be interactive at all, let alone very interactive. That said, I will make it a point to read any comments and respond regularly, as well as update it for content's sake.

As I mentioned, the meta- (or "postmodern") level of blogging is what really interests me. While there are millions of blogs, and even hundreds of blogs about blogs, blogging, bloggers, and bloggers blogging about blogs, I'm interested in not just serving up interesting sludge from the depths of the internet; I'm more interested in seeing how people react to such, and the conversations that take off from this starting point.

That all said, I'm not really starting off with an established format. While I'm sure I'll spend the first couple of weeks promoting this to everyone I know, I have an equal degree of certainty that very few people I know will check it out.

So, for those of you who don't know me at all, this blog will be your way of doing so. I am a male human, currently age 25 (birthdate February 6th, 1982).

My given name is John Clarence Hiroshi Stonebraker, though I go by Stoney to most, and Daddy to my wife Megan, who I've coerced into agreeing to contribute to this thing later on.

I work for a Fortune 500 company who has requested, via employee handbook, that I not blog about my workplace or workplace peers. In the name of fairness, I will respect that as best I can. With that out of the way, let me just say I run a coffeeshop in a bookstore in Baltimore.

In my off-hours, I am an ugly American consumer: I spend most of my time digging my fingers into the corners of the internet, watching DVD's, and playing video games.

My wife and I own two ferrets, Lady and Chester, and I'm sure I'll post about them more very soon.

Outside of working for my 9-to-5'er and watching TV on DVD, I spend my time as a student/freelance graphic designer. Though I have studied/am studying such things as Video Editing, Music Production/Editing, and 3D graphic creation, I mainly focus on web design, with a very minor focus on web development.

That's it for now... now that I have a post, I'm going to go try and find ads to add... Did I mention I'm a wretched abuser of puns?