That's it for today. Good night.

Time is running out and my day of indulgence is almost over, so I'd better get to one more thing I had long been mulling over: the nature of writing.

Yes, "the nature of writing." Just like that. If I've been a pompous semi-intellectual up to this point, this is going to get much worse. And to further display my weak grasp of critical thought, I'll even bullet my arguments, Power Point style:

1. Why write? Not just here on a weblog or the Web in general, but anywhere. For the simple reason that writing is thinking. As long as our minds remain curious and starve for a better understanding of ourselves and our world, we'll need to express our thoughts. Thus, writing. And better writing leads to better thinking.

2. Who do we write for? In the first place, for ourselves. We should strive to first bring forth our thoughts to make them clearer to ourselves, to look for weaknesses in our arguments and build stronger ones or even look for others that may prove more sound. And then, we should write for others. Even if we are writing for no other eyes beside our own. Why? Because assuming an audience can bring our ideas to a further dimension of clarity.

3. What kind of audience should we assume? One whose opinion we respect, whose interest we must sustain, and who we are engaging perhaps for the first time. If we can write for them, we'll achieve clear writing.

Just writing here.

Maybe now is the time to take stock of the degrading quality of the writing in this log. Yes, it has gone to seed since I began posting my first entries here. You just have to take a look at my initial attempts at cultural observation (which prompted a fellow weblogger to say that "clever pop culture dissection is [my] forte") and another to my latest posts to notice the decline. In the last days I've:

• Lazily posted through the Windows clipboard.
• Stealed other people's content.
• Done the job of the spammeisters for them.
• Let others create content for me.
• Indulged in increasing navel gazing.

I fear I can't justify any of these acts. All I can do is admit that when I ran out of ideas of my own, I prostituted myself in order to keep this weblog showing in the Updates page. Have I learned something from this? Only that I'm a cynical slob: I'll do it again anytime I can't come up with anything on my own. There's nothing I hate more than a vacuum on these pages.

But next time, I'll try to make it better.

So I'm not writing this log to tell the personal details of my life. What am I writing it for, then? To be honest, for the links. As others have noted, weblogs greatly influence the results on Google searches. When I signed for the trial period my thinking was, "If I can help Google turn more interesting and timely results, I'll have succeeded." Maybe the description under the name of this log should read "Writing for robots."

But if I'm logging just to link to a bunch of different pages on the Web, why bother adding my own observations and write lenghty entries? Well, why not? For one, it makes this log less dry to the occasional human reader. For another, I'm vain enough to think I deserve to be read; I confess to the sin of loving my own voice.

Besides, since being cached in Google, a lot of traffic to this log has come from web searches. I don't know if those Web browsers who ended here looking for Mr. Showgirls' NY Times op-ed on smoking or the Maxim hair dye ad were able to reach their destination safely; neither do I know if they cared to read the entries linking to them. But if they stopped for a second and read the graffiti I left behind, I have succeeded.

Maybe I should begin by addressing what I'm not doing here at this moment. Which is supressing the first person singular pronoun. From the very beginning, I experimented with avoiding the use of "I" on my posts. Not that I moved away from a first person singular voice; I just didn't want to spray the pages with "I"s like bugs on a Greyhound's windshield. And from the very beginning, I have succeeded sporadically. Damn, it's been hard to write like that.

So why do it? Because the weblog form focuses the content on the weblogger, and I wanted to step out of the way and let the focus be on the words, if not the ideas. Then again, maybe all I was trying to do was supress the ego, drown the self and see what was left instead. In doing so, it seems that what's left is not much. If you compare this weblog to most any other on this community, you'll notice a lack of personality. I posted only two entries where I attempted to tell a personal story in a truthful manner, without any ornamentation or interpretation to stand in the way. Others seem to have a bunch of stories they can tell at the drop of a hat.

But I have to admit that I'm not writing this log to tell the personal details of my life. So I shouldn't attempt to compare myself to those who do. Maybe I should just relax into my writing and use "I" whenever it is needed. That whole "supress the ego" thing might have been a good exercise in style, but it was also an exercise in keeping my ass tight, and I'm kind of sore now.

"Take a break." Sounds like good advice. Yesterday, my 30 day trial was over. I think it says in 7 Habits of Highly Effective People that if you do something every day for 30 days it turns into a habit. Can't really tell, I haven't read the book myself. But I did make an entry into this weblog each day of those 30. So I payed for my Radio license and here I am, still adding to the tide of words on the Web.

Yeah, yesterday was my first month anniversary. (Is it right to say "anniversary" for a single month? Doesn't anniversary come from "year?") So happy anniversary, Driver 8. Excuse me while I break my arm patting myself in the back.

Still, it's been hard work. I think I'll cut loose today, and just rant about what this last month was like, posting to this here thingamabob. So, if you've read so far, thanks. You are now free to stop reading whatever crawls in here during the rest of the day. And if for some reason, creepy or otherwise, you decide to keep reading, reach for the comments link down there and let me know why you keep up with this torture. Dig?