Welcome, hosers.

Okay. So here's the deal. If you're looking at this page, it means you've been invited to my new blog experiment. It basically goes like this:

1. Over the course of the day, a ton of crap goes through my brain. Whether its current events, movies, tv, video games, or the latest hottie on the cover of SI...whatever - nine times out of ten I can find a web page that relates to it, even if it may not have originated by something I saw on the net.
2. I have friends - or at least I think I do - and I have to assume that they also suffer through random thoughts and musings, or at least find/think of funny things that, if given the opportunity, they might like to share with a larger collective. If forced to do so, they could probably find an internet link or other primer that relates to their thought/issue/idea/find.
3. In many cases one Phillip-friend may not know the next Phillip-friend. That is, a friend I keep up with from high school may have no concept of a friend I've made here in Italy (and otherwise may not even care to know said friend). I think that sucks. You all should know one another, even if its just online, so that I can make fun of you in front of everyone.
4. Finally, I figure that if I think enough of you that I have friends I'd like you to know, maybe - just maybe - you might have friends you'd like me to know.

My solution, as you may have guessed, is this blog. It is not my blog - it is our blog. You each have your own logins, your own passwords, and your own rights to post anything you want on the main page. My only role is who to invite (beginning with you guys, ballooning into whoever else you want me to invite), and a little admin web-upkeep. In terms of topic, I invite you to post anything to it you'd like. ANYTHING. I don't care if it sparks discussion. I don't care if you have a hidden agenda. I pretty much don't care period. Except that it clearly won't work if people don't post something.

So, hopefully you're interested. A few ground rules/points of note to get us started:

• The only people who will be allowed to read the blog will be the contributors (note that I haven't turned this feature on yet, but I will after we get started). I'll post the contributor's list on the side of the page so you can monitor who has access. It won't be open to your grandma or your in-laws, so go ahead and have at it. Of course this means that you'll have to get a blogger.com account if you don't already have one.
• Each post on the main page should be SHORT. I mean it. Short. I thought about instituting like a one-sentence or even a one phrase limit, but that's probably too restrictive. And yes, freaks, I know that this is not a short post, but I'm trying to set it up for pete's sake.
• The bulk of your "point" in the post should be accomplished via a hyperlink connected to a word or phrase in your post. (Go here to see a sample page of what I'm talking about). Blogger makes this easy. When you type something, all you have to do is highlight it, click on a button in their editor, then paste in your hyperlink. Its so easy I think my mom could do it. Well, okay, maybe not my mom.
• Substantive discussion of the post will occur in the comments section of that post. If you have some reaction or something to say about a person's post, say it there. Each post will have its own comments section (note that the sample page above does not enjoy this feature, probably because that guy would have about 10,000 comments a day). The one-sentence rule I layed out above will obviously NOT apply in the comments section. In other words, go ahead and lay-into each other in the comments, but keep the main post screen relatively clean.

These rules are designed to create a quick, easy way to post and view people's thoughts throughout the day, even at work, without spending much time wading through an epistle like this. Bottom line: see the post, read the link, comment if you care. And the comment might even come later, from home.

Oh. And the title? The way I see it is this: 99% of the time, those three words will make up the first word in anyone's reaction to a post. "Anyway...," for those times where you could give a crap about that person or what they just posted; "Yeah," assuming you concur with the contribution; or "Whatever," indicating general disagreement, usually followed by the poster's name, further followed with why the person is a complete idiot. I look forward to seeing lots of "whatever"s in the comment section after my posts.

So there. Come. Post. Enjoy. At the very least, please validate the 90 minutes I spent setting this thing up.