If you are observant you'll notice that there is a new name on top of some of these stories. No they didn't finally fire that hack Rincewind (you'd think they would, wouldn't you). I just decided to go to using my real name. Why? Well....
When I first joined as a member here at Bluebird Banter it asked for a 'screen name'. Being new to the site and having no idea that I'd write for it at some point I used my kind of default screen name that I had used several places that asked for screen names. Rincewind is a character's name in a series of very funny, fantasy books I like, Terry Prachett's Discworld. Being as I have no imagination, I've used the same name a number of places.
After being a member for awhile, I found I really liked the site, I liked Hugo's writing, I liked being able to use the fan post area when I had something I felt like share or if I wanted to rant about something, I liked the level of discussion here, very little flaming. Most places on the web seemed filled with comments from kids or people that never matured past being a kid. And I liked the game threads.
After being a member for a little bit, Hugo was going to be for a month and needed someone to keep the site going while he was gone. I volunteered. When I did I had no clue how much writing was going to be involved. The first day I put up a game thread and we were invaded by members of the Seattle Mariner site. The game thread was fun, but I shouldn't have mentioned that I didn't know how to ban people (I still haven't banned anyone, our members our great). After the game I got a note from Eric, who runs the baseball sites (as well as Amazing Avenue, the terrific Met's site) saying now I should write a game recap. I was thinking I wrote everything I wanted to say about the Jays in the thread, but wrote a recap. A day or two later he send me a note saying it is a good idea to put up a post in the morning.
So I was writing a fair bit and for the first while I didn't figure anyone was reading any of it. So I kept the Rincewind name, mostly because I was too busy to worry about it and I didn't think there was anyone reading it anyway.
Slowly the numbers were coming up. And we get the odd mention somewhere else, but I I thought I was only doing this till Hugo came back. But when he did we decided that this place is too much work for one guy and it is more fun with two. With Hugo back, the numbers have continued to improve. He is terrific isn't he, it has been great fun playing in this sandbox with him. But I was still using the Rincewind name.
I've always been a little bothered by 'hiding' behind that name. I give opinions on here often and I've always felt that a person ought to put his name on his opinions. Stating opinions without using your name always seemed, I don't know, cowardly to me I guess. So if I say 'Kevin Millar shouldn't be a Blue Jay', I should sign it. Even though you could find my name if you wanted I thought it should be where I opin.
Being occasionally asked to write things for other sites, I'd kind of like to see my name on them. Now I still don't consider myself a writer or, you know, an expert. I'm quite willing to admit when I'm wrong. In fact I was likely wrong on the Gary Sheffield thing today. He'd likely not be much of an improvement over Kevin Millar. Maybe.
Add in that I'm pretty proud of what we are doing....I want my name on it.