Before I would inevitably go on to write about how awesome I am as a way to mask my many insecurities, it seems like I used to begin all of my blog entries by apologizing to the Trillion Man March for taking a long time off in between posts (kind of like I’m doing now). In the past, I would take a break from writing because I was too busy either trying to pass my classes, antagonizing Evan “The Villain” Turner, or spending hours on pointless, yet entertaining websites like this (why would I write when I can make pelvic thrusts while hitting the “N” key on that site all day?). This time around, though, my sabbatical was different. I didn’t take a break from writing in May because I found more strangely entertaining websites to waste time on (not exactly true - I did come across this and this). I stopped writing simply because the blog stopped being fun for me. I was a victim of my own success and couldn’t handle the burden it all became. I was overwhelmed with pressure and I wanted to take the easy way out so I could just hang out with my friends.
Basically, I was LeBron.
It became obvious to me a few months ago that my blog was stale. I didn’t enjoy writing it anymore and, judging from the feedback I got, people didn’t enjoy reading it anymore (still can’t figure out why the people who didn’t like it continued to read). What made the blog so much fun for me in the first place was that I wrote each and every blog post without caring about what anyone thought of them. I was concerned with telling funny stories from my life, not the number of page hits I averaged per day or whether or not my blog had mass appeal. Somewhere along the line, though, all of this changed and writing became a chore. That’s why I made the decision a couple of months back to retire from blogging (you probably don’t remember, since my retirement was overshadowed by Amanda Bynes’ retirement from acting and, hopefully, using a fart machine to be a huge cockblock, cause that’s just not cool).
The primary goal behind my “retirement” was for me to gauge how much I actually enjoyed writing my blog. If I stopped writing for awhile, realized it was a huge weight off my shoulders, and I didn’t miss it one bit, I probably wouldn’t have ever started blogging again. Instead, I found that after two months of doing virtually no writing whatsoever, I started to have a weird feeling. You know the weird feeling you get when you stick your finger too far down your bellybutton and hit the right spot? Yeah, it wasn’t like that at all – I just wondered if anyone else noticed how awkward that feels. No, mine was more of a “your only contribution to society is your blog and without it you’re a nobody” weird feeling. Ya know, the kind of weird feeling that gives you a kick in the pants and reminds you that nobody cares how good you are at FIFA 10, even if you do beat a five star team on “Legendary” difficulty (like I’ve done).
With all of that being said, I’ve obviously decided to start blogging again, but in a lot of ways I’m starting a new blog rather than resuming the old one. Since my days on the Ohio State basketball team are over, I’ll be forced to make the blog more about my personal life and my weird random thoughts and less about how I check out cheerleaders instead of watching the games or how I try to make postgame handshake lines as awkward as possible. I’ll still write frequently about sports, or more specifically my basketball “career” (the story of how I got drafted by the Harlem Globetrotters is coming soon), but nothing is off limits anymore. In other words, the blog will become much more irrelevant and even more uninteresting than it already was. So you have that to be excited about.
Besides making the blog irrelevant and uninteresting, the other drastic change is my plan to write short posts more often rather than waiting two weeks to write 5,000 words. I know I’m somewhat contradicting myself with this post, but in the future I plan to make this more of a traditional blog that basically consists of posts that are only two or three paragraphs. By doing this, I allow myself a chance to write about things I think are mildly interesting but aren’t important enough to warrant an entire eight paragraph blog post. Things like my hatred of receipts or how my girlfriend and I recently got engaged (just kidding, baby! You’re definitely worth eight paragraphs!). Finally, the last major change with the blog is that I’ll no longer continue the recurring theme of linking to my Mr. Rainmaker video (see what I did there?). Sorry to disappoint.
Whether it was a guilt trip or just an overwhelming sense of boredom, something compelled me to start blogging again and I’m glad it did. After all, it wouldn’t be right for me to turn my back on the blog, considering it has done more for me than oversized sunglasses have done for ugly girls.
Seriously, though, have you noticed how hard it is to tell if chicks are attractive now that they all wear sunglasses covering half their faces? Of course you have. The same problem exists when trying to determine if a girl is of legal age or not. That’s why I just stopped going to high school proms and Justin Bieber concerts altogether. What’s that? Admitting that makes me sound like a pedophile? And I’m engaged? Oh, I guess you’re right. Whoops. Let’s move on.
I guess the purpose of this post was to inform you that even though I’m bringing the blog back, I’m not exactly bringing the blog back. If you came to the blog only because you liked reading the behind the scenes stories of college basketball, this blog is probably no longer for you. But, if you read this blog because you know what it’s like to be a benchwarmer in some regard and you can’t help but laugh at jokes about farts, you might be in luck. So welcome to Club Trillion 2.0. It will feel a lot like the old blog, only now far less people will read it because it won’t be nearly as good. Ultimately I’ll get a real job where I write about things that actually matter, but until then I’m going to have some fun on my blog, because I’m an unemployed college graduate who has nothing better to do. There promises to be a few cool things within the next month, so stick around and check them out. Or don’t. It’s your call. Just know that if you stop reading, we’re all going to make fun of you on here because we know you’ll never see it. But I guess if you want to relive your sophomore year of high school when all the cool kids talked behind your back, well, that’s your prerogative.
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I’m going to continue the awesome basketball-related YouTubes at the end of posts, mostly because it’s a way for me to guarantee that anyone who reads the blog will be entertained by at least one thing. So email me your favorite YouTube that has some sort of tie to basketball, but please make sure it’s awesome. In return, I’ll give you a shout-out, which is pretty much the most significant gift I can give to anyone. When I thought I was done blogging, I deleted all the old fan submissions for YouTubes to use, so I’m not going to give any shout-outs this time around, but I’ll still include a video I found on my own. In the future, I hope to use exclusively fan submissions, so send and re-send anything you come across. In the meantime, here’s Bill Walton being Bill Walton.
Proud To Be An American But Even Prouder To Be A Buckeye,
Mark Titus
Club Trillion Founder