A Note From The Author One evening back in March, I was sitting in front of my computer chatting in a couple of IRC chatrooms. One of the regulars in one of these rooms was going on and on about absolutely nothing. He was boring me to tears. I couldn't take it anymore, and I just had to vent. Not wanting to hurt his feelings, I started mocking him in the other chatroom so he couldn't see what I was saying.

Yes, that's right, I was making fun of somebody behind their back. You got a problem with that?

Pretending I was making an entry in this dullard's diary, I wrote, "Dear Diary: Today I noticed that my kitchen clock stopped working. I suspected a dead battery was the cause. I put in a new battery. It started working again. I reset the time and hung it back on the wall. Who knows what challenges will face me tomorrow? Good bye for now."

I got a laugh. I posted another couple of short mock diary entries in the chatroom, and somebody suggested that I start posting these boring entries in a blog. I've never been a big fan of blogs, so I liked the idea immediately. It could be a way to make fun of blogs and make fun of this boring guy, and boring people in general, at the same time. We discussed ideas for what this character's name might be, and after a few minutes, Bernie Michaels was born.

Although Bernie was initially based on one person, I changed some of his traits, and added some traits from a couple of other people, and pretty soon, Bernie had taken on a life of his own. I found myself getting caught up in the writing process and had a blast writing about Bernie's daily exploits. A lot of the chatroom regulars who were in on it from the beginning kept making excellent suggestions, and I tried to use as many of these suggestions as possible. While some of Bernie's experiences were pure fiction, many were derived from the real experiences from a number of people, including me (beetles, comics, signing up for digital phone).

Before I go, I have to show my appreciation to the following people, without whom, Bernie's Boring Blog would not have been wasting precious resources on the Information Highway:

Thanks to Derek Rogers, Stephen Weeks, Matt Lilek, Matt Truppe, Derek McCurdy, John Weinheimer, James Thorne, Bill Johnson, Morgan Mai, Michael Weems, David Klein, Ashley Witt, and Jenn Cutter for their inspiration, encouragement, ideas, and spell checks. Thanks to Leo Laporte who played Leon Laponte against his will. Thanks to "random guy," whose picture played the face of Bernie. His picture was the number one search result for the word "fugly" in Google Images. Thanks to Albert's mother, for having the sense to move out into the trailer in Albert's yard. Thanks to all the people who kept coming back to B^3 for their daily dose of boredom. Most of all, thanks to Mike Bernstein, for tolerating a joke.

What started out as a blog parody quickly grew into a complete waste of my time. Thanks for wasting it with me. It was fun while it lasted.



  ¶ 2:22 AM