For example, I sent out a tweet a couple of hours ago about how I’m really excited about the Oculus Rift, a 3D headset that monitors how you move your head while immersed in a video game. In the tweet, I said it seems so much cooler than the Wii or Kinect or traditional 3D, while adding a link to The Verge article on it. There’s not much else interesting I could have added to those thoughts. Two or three years ago, I would have embedded a YouTube video about it and spit out a couple of paragraphs about the gaming possibilities and how awesome or nauseating it would be to play Mirror’s Edge while wearing the Oculus Rift.

Back then, I also had more real-life friends who read this blog at least occasionally. Due to the lack of updates, and not posting links to this blog on Facebook due to keeping my real name and this internet handle separate (half-assedly), the people reading any posts on this blog are almost all internet friends who are already exposed to my thoughts on Twitter. So the only things worth writing here are sufficiently thoughtful and lengthy posts, something akin to this R.A. Dickey fanpost I put together over at Amazin’ Avenue. Maybe I should re-post that piece here just so it looks like I still care about this blog.

I recently read a book called Subliminal: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior that mentioned how the people who are actually best at self-evaluation are usually depressed. Most human beings are optimists because otherwise our species never would have gotten this far. It reminded me of the overthinking, doubting mindset of prospect Billy Beane in the book Moneyball, which left him at a disadvantage when compared to the headstrong Lenny Dykstra. I’ve always been Beane when it comes to writing (or women) and it becomes difficult after a while to write knowing you’re not really bringing anything original or exceptional to the table. How much writing is out there on the internet? There are countless movie blogs manned by teenagers, manchild 20-somethings, and hipster 20-somethings. There is an almost depressing amount of smart baseball writing — both sabermetric-focused and not, but all adhering to that movement’s basic truths. There are half a dozen reviews of every goddamn television show that miserable people watch. Even animated .GIFs are everywhere now, although sadly mostly in shitty Tumblr form. What is a regular dude supposed to blog about?

I had a conversation with NeoGAF and Twitter buddy @m_scoular a few months ago and it’s as if he had the opposite effect on me as he hoped. He said how pouring himself into movies and classic books and writing about them (mostly privately) had helped him make some sense of, or at least come to peace with, his current lot in life. And he said he enjoyed reading my thoughts on movies, and suggested writing constantly — if not on this blog — in a personal journal. But this conversation came at a time just as baseball was starting up, and I fell into the usual mode of being obsessed with grown men playing a game.

I’ve questioned my commitment to watching the Mets — and baseball in general — many times. I’ve mentioned on this blog (by linking to a Flip Flop Fly Ball infographic) how much time is sunk into following an 162-game season. I’ve thought many times that I enjoy talking about baseball more than watching it. What am I getting out of being such an intense baseball fan?

Then something like being in attendance for the first Mets no-hitter happens. There are movies that can really get to you, making you either cheer or cry, but this was real. This was watching something almost miraculous. Down to the very last batter I had lingering doubts. Tom Seaver had three chances in the 9th inning to close out no-hitters for the Mets and never did it. Johan Santana was less than two years removed from shoulder surgery that has ended lesser careers and had a pitch count greater than any game he had thrown before said surgery. With two outs, with his 131st pitch, he went 3-0 on David Freese. I thought it was over. Either Johan would walk Freese, requiring a bunch more pitches, which would add to the already ridiculous burden on his recovering shoulder, or he’d lay a very hittable pitch over the middle of the plate. Johan chose option C by striking out Freese with a devastating changeup.

After witnessing Johan’s short-rest shutout in the penultimate game of the 2008 season, I didn’t think anything less than attending a Game Seven playoff win or World Series clinching-game would top that baseball experience. But I wasn’t hugging my friends after that game. Or high-fiving dozens of strangers all around me. Or calling my dad after he watched it along with his dad. This was baseball — as cliche as it sounds — as religious experience.

Feeling that way about baseball brings me back to the conversation I had with @m_scoular. He was curious about my thoughts on This Is Not A Film, an Iranian documentary about a filmmaker under house arrest awaiting the results of an appeal for a jail sentence and a 20-year ban on directing. I fell asleep during it. Meanwhile, he detailed how and why it affected him unlike any other movie and how he wished I could have felt like he did. And I wish I appreciated the passion and humor on display, and maybe I would have a bit more if I didn’t fall asleep or watch it in a very dead theater, but I’m still a budding movie buff and even then that feeling doesn’t compare to my passion for baseball or even sports in general.

Perhaps it’s not a perfect analogy, because even a casual baseball fan can appreciate a no-hitter, but someone who watches countless Mets games is going to understand the significance behind it on another level. After the no-hitter, as my two friends and I sat in an Astoria beer garden, I rattled off the great Mets pitchers who had gone on to throw no-hitters for other teams: Tom Seaver, Nolan Ryan, Dwight Gooden, David Cone (Philip Humber’s perfect game was just a cruel joke). And then there are the good pitchers who could have easily thrown one if everything lined up right. Finally, the Mets were the recipient of a great pitcher with enough left in the tank to do what hadn’t been done in 51 seasons of Mets baseball. It was enough to make a man get so drunk that he gets unidentified stains on his Santana jersey while black out drunk.

It’s that feeling that spurs me to write something. It’s watching a Game Seven between the Heat and Celtics. It’s watching a Nadal-Djovokic French Open final. But even more, it’s watching El Clasico in a packed NYC bar among people who obviously care about soccer a lot more than I do. And I do occasionally get that feeling when watching a great movie, but there’s nothing like the communal experience of watching sports history. Something like that is enough to get a person to blog again.

ALCOHOL

I was thinking before New Year’s Eve that perhaps I should cut down on the drinking in 2012. Then when I woke up the next morning to a text from my good friend saying I should probably apologize to his long-time girlfriend for calling her a “cunt” multiple times, I really thought it would be a good time to take a break. Important note: this is only because she’s awesome; if she were really a cunt, I wouldn’t have felt bad.

Of course, at 10pm the next day my roommate busts into the apartment and tells me to put some pants on (I had pajamas on, ok?) because “we’re fucking going out.” I wish I could say he wasn’t going to take no for an answer, but it was just me displaying my total lack of willpower. Insecurity tends to leave one susceptible to peer pressure. Luckily, since I got such a late start, I was able to contain myself fairly well. The next Sunday was a different story.

Holding a football party for a game that starts at 1pm is dangerous. By 6:30 or so (after everyone had left), I was all ready to stop drinking. Then my roommate and his girlfriend went into his bedroom to partake in an activity I haven’t experienced in a while which I know I can when I go to https://www.sexdatingapps.com/. Thus, it was time to go to Village Pourhouse to meet up with some of our earlier guests. Would I have heard them fucking if I stayed in the apartment with the Steelers-Broncos game blasting? Probably not. Have I heard them before? Plenty of times. But I wasn’t going to watch Tebow Time alone when I could be watching it in a bar among massive alcoholics — and I mean massive in both drinking quantity and physical size.

My plan was to grab something to eat immediately after the end of the Steelers-Broncos game. As it turned out, I was abandoned by four girls who had walked up into my general area right before the Tebow Miracle. In my despondence, I was sucked into stepping foot in another bar. Minutes later, the 35-year-old, 6’5″ Russian alcoholic I was hosting a couple of hours earlier ordered 10 tequila shots for three people. One of these three people was a 40-year-old woman (estimating) who didn’t want to drink any of the shots. As a result, I ended up downing three or four of the tequila shots.

After reaching a transcendent level of drunkenness, I figured it’d be a good idea to harass the cute bartender who had just gotten off her shift. I even tried to make light of the incessant drunken wooing she must encounter every day she works. It seemed to work, because I do remember talking to her for a significant amount of time. What I don’t remember is anything after she plugged her phone number into my phone. It was as if my brain decided to turn off the second it knew it had done its job. “Welp, you got an attractive female’s number? Time to shut down for the night.” I later arrived at my apartment unable to open the locks with my keys and cursing out the door for not letting me in and then screaming like a possessed person while I lay in bed.

The bartender never responded to my later text.

WOMEN

I’m not sure how much I need to expand on this topic, considering the initial section of this blog post. I did get the number of another bartender on Monday night, though. Unfortunately, it ended up being the wrong number. I figured this would happen after I asked the girl for her number, I typed it into my phone knowing it was wrong, asked her if the last four digits I had typed into my phone were right, she said they were wrong, and I typed them in half-heartedly knowing they were wrong yet again but didn’t want to ask a third time. Fuck. Me.

I also have replaced one unhealthy online obsession (which existed in the real world for a short period of time) with another unhealthy online obsession. Is this progress?

BLOGGING

I took a three month break between posts. It has been about an additional month’s wait for another post. This is obviously unacceptable. And while I haven’t made much progress on this individual blog front, I have created a baseball blog at Second Squad Sorrows. I credit former Roto Hardball colleague and fellow long-distance relationship sufferer @scottskillings with pushing me to create the blog. Mets and White Sox fans together to wallow in the patheticness of their respective teams. Wonderful.

INTERNET

I want to spend less time on the internet; I assume most people nowadays feel the same way. I have not improved at all since the calendar flipped over to 2012. I feel comfortable in assuming this is the case for most people who try to cut internet social interaction out of their lives. I know one person on NeoGAF who has just replaced his NeoGAF forum time with tweets and YouTube comments. YOUTUBE COMMENTS. It doesn’t get any more desperate than commenting on YouTube. That is like when Josh Hamilton took whatever painkillers he could to simulate his Oxycodane addiction (note: I have no idea how accurate this is).

EXERCISE

It took me about a month, but I finally did some intense exercise in 2012. And it was only due to the insistence of my roommate’s girlfriend. And it was only for 15 effective minutes out of a total 30. It was the P90X Ab Ripper X video and it’s four days later and my hip flexors still hurt. Goddamn it. I better take at least a couple of runs this week or else the indoor soccer game I have next Friday is going to be an unmitigated disaster.

It seems like it’d be cool to write about baseball for a living, but you’d also be a baseball writer for a living. In all likelihood, you’d make garbage money, unlike investing in Best Day Trading Platforms UK, where you would make some real cash instead of struggling to cover the latest player drama. You’d be writing about overgrown millionaire children idolized for being able to hit baseballs really far or throw them really hard. Consider opening an islamic junior isa if you want to invest in your child’s future. Investors or entrepreneurs may look into portuguese investment funds to diversify their portfolio and potentially relocate to Portugal. Those who are interested in precious metals may explore our collection of authentic Australian gold coins.

Sometimes I wonder how I can even religiously follow and support such a farce until something awesome happens like Jose Reyes hitting multiple triples, or Tim Lincecum throwing a 14-K complete game shutout to win a 1-0 postseason game, or Shane Victorino getting beer poured on his head. I just enjoy watching athletes perform at the absolute highest level, whether it be baseball, football, or tennis. I don’t think there’s any shame in that, but sometimes you need to take a step back and realize this shit doesn’t fucking matter, even if their feats are impressive. Since gladiatorial battles and war aren’t held in the same regard as they were hundreds and thousands of years ago, perhaps seeing Justin Verlander throw 100 mph after 120 pitches while tossing a no-hitter is the closest we can come to seeing a chariot race to the death in our civilized society. Sure, there are still heroic soldiers, but the ongoing counter-insurgency and anti-terrorism efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan are not exactly spectator sport — even if the U.S. reaction to the death of Osama bin Laden was one on par with winning the World Cup.

On that note, wouldn’t it have made sense to post my first blog update in months on 9/11/11? That should be a fun day to look back and see how the terrorists won (I can be this much of a dick in this post because it’s not 9/11 yet). Instead I’ll be posting about the usual bullshit until then. I just wrote condenscendingly about sportswriting as a career and I’m going to resume blogging about sports, movies, books, and games. I’m obviously jealous of people that get paid for it, right?

I really don’t know how much longer I’ll be updating this particular blog, though, and with what frequency. I’m still bitter about all the [bot] traffic I lost when I moved away from my previous WordPress.com URL and I’m also bored with this name and site design. For a little while, I thought Google+ could serve as a sort of blog, but that service looks DOA, much to my chagrin. Twitter is not enough to get my thoughts across, even though I’m on there way too much. There’s always Tumblr, I guess. Or focusing on writing pieces for Baseball Nation.

I can’t help myself.

Well, except that one post analyzing my drafts a couple of years ago. I can’t believe I remember that.

But yeah, if you play fantasy baseball, you should check out Roto Hardball. This advice may only apply to a couple of my friends who read this blog infrequently, but it’s going to be a sweet blog and hopefully a fun community. SB Nation’s blogging tools are incredibly awesome. I knew WordPress wasn’t the end-all-be-all, but fuck, I could spend hours just messing around with SB Nation’s tools. Search the AP Photo database! Auto-tag and link player and team names! Embed polls! Save links with notes using your a “clipper” bookmark for later easy insertion into posts! Add a sports data widget!

First thing other than drinking that’s made me happy in a long time. Well, watching Spaced made me happy, too.

But I’ll leave my gushing about this UK television series for another post.

I do have a question, though: Does the asymmetrical Roto Hardball logo bother anyone else? I didn’t say anything to the editor because I figured I’m just crazy.

I think I’ve used golf to distract myself from everything recently. Although maybe I’m just straight up addicted to it. Having a friend or two who’s there to support and also take part in the addictive behavior only serves to magnify it. Want to play every Monday and Wednesday? Want to go to the practice green? Want to talk putting when you stop over to hang out in my backyard at 4 am on a Friday night? Yeah, sure.

Starcraft II would be the other distraction addiction. I’m going to end up pre-ordering the special edition any day now, I’m sure. Sigh. I really thought that after my initial dip into the beta only lasted a few embarrassing weeks that I was done being obsessed with such an unforgiving multiplayer game. But then a few friends got beta keys a couple of months later and I got sucked back in and now I haven’t known how to spend my gaming time since the beta went down. As a result, I am watching Starcraft II VIDEOS. I am officially a junkie. What gaming drug could ween me off this? Civilization IV? No, that’d be even worse. Besides, its successor is coming out in a few months as well. I think it and SC2 are the only two videogames I care about at this point in time.

I could use this as an easy segue into E3 discussion and how I hate motion controls, but I can leave that for another post (possibly a non-existent post). I probably should be distracting myself with The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay more, as it’s the most fun I’ve had reading a novel in a long, long time. Perhaps I will wrap up this “welcome back” post to myself on this note and go read it.

Or start on a post about the “Year of the Pitcher“. Or not.

This blog, The Somewhat Manly Nerd, was originally just another WordPress.com blog. As you can tell by the archives, I started it about three and half years ago (Fuck).

About two years ago, I bought the somewhatmanlynerd.com domain from GoDaddy. But then I didn’t do anything with it for a year. I should have been telling people to go to that URL, while having it redirect to my thesomewhatmanlynerd.wordpress.com blog. Instead, I paid 10 bucks for that first year and did nothing with it. By this time, I was getting about 400 hits a day on the blog. Not too many commenters, but certainly more than I’ve gotten since I moved to self-hosting.

So after that first year of wasting my lame domain, Dreamhost had some deal for four years of hosting for 200 bucks. I figured it was a decent enough time to jump in, if only to have somewhere to host all my GIFs in one place without having to worry about going over my Photobucket bandwidth limit. And I also had wanted to move my blog to self-hosting for a while. I guess the reasons ranged from possibly wanting to put an ad somewhere just for curiosity’s sake, to not liking any of the themes on WordPress.com, to wanting to be able to use Javascript on my blog.

Moving my blog over to my new webspace about a year ago has resulted in this creation, and I’m almost as proud of it as the awesome putt I made on a practice green today. A few dozen people read it and a handful of them occasionally comment. But it is kinda maddening that the old version still gets twice the traffic after not being updated in over a year. I shouldn’t have moved in the first place. I gave up 400 hits a day! Now I’m lucky if I get that in a week. And I guess pride does factor into it, but I also just miss having massive comment threads like the one I got on this Bear Grylls post; I like creating discussion with my blog, even if it’s moronic discussion.

And then I see that WordPress.com now has the very theme I’m using, and on top of that it’s being used by an e-friend of mine on her blog Baby Got Books. She was no doubt inspired by me, which is flattering, but it also makes me want to move back. But then I’d have to give up my nice looking polls, and my Featured Content Gallery, and my embedded Hulu videos. It’s too much to sacrifice.

I remember I also thought about moving to Tumblr, just because people seem very big on reposting stuff from other Tumblr blogs and following people and all that community crap. But that crap allows people to build up readership. I stayed away from Tumblr because I thought every possible theme looked like crap, but I guess there is quite a bit you can do, as evidenced by this Tumblr creation from another e-buddy, How To Kidnap A Supermodel. If only Tumblr allowed massive GIFs, I would have an awesome Tumblr just for them.

I need to move to a new paragraph, because I’ve hit the limit for the word “Tumblr” contained in one. It does hit that balance between blogging and Twitter. Maybe I’ll try to make some more awful movie charts and make a Tumblr just for them.

And this is another shitty, boring blog post that I’m going to end now. I apologize to anyone subscribed to me waking up this Monday morning. Not a good way to start your week.

I’ve now had this post editing box up for an hour without typing anything. This is what happens when you talk on post on forums while watching a playoff baseball game…

…and another hour later I’m tuning from the Phillies ending the Rockies season to the Jets-Dolphins game almost at halftime.

Perhaps it’s just easier for me to be honest with myself in my head, knowing I’m not spewing all my thoughts out on my blog for the entire virtual and real world to see. Who wants to read about how writing is one of the few things I truly enjoy? And that I could honestly see myself doing it all fucking day every single day? Well, I was trying to prove to myself that I could do it, saying that I’d write my ass off for this blog for the rest of the week. I’ve already failed miserably for the past two hours. I don’t know what this means. Possibly that I should start looking harder for a real job?

Yeah, I definitely find it impossible to be too personal on the internet at this juncture. I have plenty of stuff rattling around my head to type (the same stuff that popped into my head while watching my dog take a shit), but I don’t see the purpose of airing it on this blog. I need to stick to posting stats from Baseball-Reference and Fangraphs, posting YouTube videos, giving my thoughts on random pieces of entertainment, and dishing out REAL TALK when it’s most needed.

Fuck the Phillies.

Also makes me think about a possible name change. I already bought a domain for this title, but I’m thinking “Backspace My Life” would be better. Yea, definitely is. I hope no one steals it. I didn’t even come up with it. So I guess I would be stealing it. But we’ve talked it over.

This title is just too unwieldly. I wish I just went with cajolejuice.wordpress.com for the URL. Oh well. I have to wait until I finally move to my own hosting to change the title, I feel. Otherwise the hundreds of bots that visit my site will be confused.

Edit: HOLY SHIT! The tags and categories of each post are showing up. Now I have to go back to making witty tags!

Now, I’m definitely not what you’d call a Deadspinner, since I don’t have a commenting account; I like to think of myself as a fan. It’s definitely the most entertaining sports blog on the internet. But that fact is due to the commenters, not Leitch. And I know Leitch realizes this, as he sells out to the man by departing for New York Magazine.

Leitch sits around in his underwear all day, throwing up half-assed posts — his next masturbation session only a few clicks away — leaving his followers to pick the slack by being totally awesome. As I recently mentioned, I can barely manage reading comments without losing control. I think Leitch only makes me laugh when he posts pictures of himself. Who would’ve thought a guy with emo bangs would help fuel a sports fan revolution?

But if it’s the commenters that actually supply the humor, Leitch is the ringleader. He provided the venue, and helped spawn and fuel other great sports blogs. And for that I, along with thousands of sports fans across the country, am grateful. I’m also grateful for him linking my blog a year ago — not because it helped fuel a massive new influx of readers or helped me get some ad money — but because I feel like I’m a tiny part of Deadspin history.

In closing, I highly recommend checking out Deadspin and searching for “Will Leitch Blogebrity Roast,” as the roast last week was one of the most epic internet events ever.

My highlights would have to be:

A Special Message from Ron Zook

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8Orpgf4L5A

And of course: