Sometimes I can’t find the opportunity to actually write about all of the cool stuff I see out there on the Internet.  Either there won’t be time or there won’t be much for me to add besides, “hey… this is cool!”  But since I’d like to pass along these nuggets, I’ve setup an application to publish the chosen headlines and links over on the Corsairs’ Affairs sidebar.

So in case you were wondering what was going on with that big list of headlines, that’s what it is.  Make sure you take a spin through the collection of stuff that I’ve tagged for sharing because it’s fascinating, informative, insightful, interesting, funny or otherwise awesome.  Sometimes, the stories relate back to things I’ve previously blogged – for instance, Jay-Z giving props to Grizzly Bear and Empire of the Sun, both of whom have been plugged in Corsairs’ Affairs’ most popular feature:  Free Music Sunday.

Oh, and if you’re reading this via RSS and maybe don’t know what I’m talking about, fear not!  My shared items has an RSS feed of its own that you can add to your reader of choice.

In any case, keep up with the shared items and you won’t miss great stuff like this montage of Tone Loc’s two classics that demonstrates that “Wild Thing” and “Funky Cold Medina” are, in fact, the same song:

That’s me! I’m terrible… I’ve already abandoned two other blogs and after two and a half months without posting, any longtime readers might figure the third time wasn’t quite the charm for me. Time will tell if that turns out to be true, but CA isn’t done ticking just yet. Nosiree… I’m sure I’ll manage at least one more post before it bites the dust…

As it is, things kinda snowballed on me starting in Mid-December. First, I came down with the Worst Cold Ever, then it was the holidays and all the traveling and obligations they entail, then I got an Xbox360 AND Netflix… and then all of my free time magically disappeared.

Whenever I might have sat down to write a post, I would simply get distracted by TV shows that I try to keep up with on Hulu, Netflix rentals, Xbox games, or the 70 or so RSS feeds that I try to follow… Many years ago when I was still in college, one of my bosses made the observation that I never got much done because I tried to do too many things. I can’t help but think about that assessment now as I see the way it keeps me from getting particular things done.

It’s really just another manifestation of my old nemesis: procrastination. I’ve had stuff to write about for the last few months, but I’ve always had some reason to push it off ’til later… Heck, I’ve been meaning to write this post for upwards of a month!

None of this is to apologize for going AWOL or not posting. I warned you that it might happen and I suggested following CA using your news reader of choice so that you wouldn’t be missing anything (and I thank the two of you who follow on Google Reader). The point here is simply to acknowledge and chronicle all these little things that I’d like to do better (and hopefully, the resultant improvement… in this case, that would be more frequent posting!)…

At one point in time,  I had the notion to make this a topical blog focused on the Pittsburgh Pirates.  My thought was that having a particular subject would give me regular grist for the mill, and what better than the Pirates?  After all, I’ve been a relatively manic fan since my first game back on July 4, 1983.

As it turns out, the ensuing years haven’t been kind to Pirates fans.  Throughout the 25 years that I’ve been a fan, the club has amassed a grand total of three winning seasons, one .500 mark and a whopping TWENTY ONE losing seasons.  Even one of those winning years was defined by one of the most unfortunate losses in postseason history.  Suffice to say, being a Pirates fan is not for the faint of heart.

This is also exactly why I don’t think I could fathom maintaining a Pirates blog.  It’s just too depressing.  Even though I follow the team pretty closely, I just don’t want to chronicle all of the Andy Barketts, Tony McKnights and Angelo Encarnacions.  Might as well have the captain inventory the Titanic’s deck chairs.  So I tip my cap to Charlie at Bucs Dugout, Pat at Where Have You Gone, Andy Van Slyke and all the others with the fortitude to keep an eye on one of sports’ most miserable franchises day after day.

Corsairs’ Affairs was named with the idea that I’d be writing about the Bucs (a “corsair” essentially being a pirate).  I certainly plan to weigh in on the team now and again, but I encourage folks to go elsewhere for more regular coverage.  For instance, go check out Where’s Van Slyke and revel in the road to 17, a rundown of each of the past 16 losing seasons.  Today’s feature is the 1997 team, one of my favorite squads of all time in any sport.

It was a little over a year ago when one day I realized I was doing everything wrong. OK… that may be a bit of an exaggeration. In fact, there were actually a great many things that I was doing right. On an individual basis, I made plenty of sensible choices on a day-to-day and week-to-week basis… but stepping back to see the forest for the trees, I didn’t like the way the big picture looked. I looked around and saw friends and acquaintances getting married, having kids, buying houses, pursuing careers… generally speaking, having a life… changing… growing up…

In the meantime, I was basically doing the same things and having the same expectations as I had been for the last several years. My situation was essentially unchanging and it kinda felt like life was starting to pass me by while I just kinda stood there watching. I was missing those beautiful growing moments that transform you over the course of your life…

This situation was exacerbated (or perhaps more accurately, created) by a bad hip… I won’t bore you with the details, but suffice to say that it was very bad hip… it was quite painful and interfered with basic stuff you might take for granted like walking and talking… ouch! In large part, it was this bad hip that kept me from going out, doing things and… well… having a life…

Nowadays, the hip is better… not great, not where I want it to be… but good enough that it’s high time for me to get off my ass and start… having a life… To be clear, this isn’t to suggest that I feel like I need to get married, have kids or whatever… Anyone who knows me certainly is aware that I’m rarely one to do things because other people are doing them. But it seems like high time to do something more than sitting around and waiting for the right moment to do… whatever I want to do… (to some extent, procrastination is as significant a bugaboo for me as the hip problems)…

Anyway, I’ve had occasional bouts with blogging in the past. Ideally, it’s something that I’d like to do somewhat regularly. Practically speaking, however, I write very slowly (and poorly, IMO). What’s more, I haven’t often had subject material to write about. But now in the interest of personal progress, I’m re-evaluating everything… And In light of that, I’m giving this one more try.

Effective immediately, Corsairs’ Affairs is back in business… Stay tuned for updates on me getting a life, occasional rants about pet peeves, a few recommendations to enrich your life (because I care about my audience!). the occasional bits of wisdom handed down from my lil’ soapbox and an assortment of questions for the gallery. Your feedback and comments are always appreciated… Enjoy!

A long time ago, on a blog far, far away, I once posted my thoughts on a semi-regular basis until one day for a variety of reasons… well… I just stopped… No goodbye message, no “hey, I might not post anything for a bit”… just nothing more…

Now that wasn’t the plan… I didn’t wake up one morning and say, “harrumpf! that’s it! I’m done with blogging!” I just didn’t have anything to say for a bit… or probably more accurately, I didn’t want to take the time to say whatever it was I had to say… and the whole blog-posting just fell out of my routine and became one of the things I don’t do anymore…

Actually, that’s happened twice now. But yet here I am, giving it another go… third time’s the charm, right? Maybe… For awhile, I kinda felt like blogging had become passe and even cliche… I mean, forget having time to post new material… I don’t really even have time to READ all the blogs I’d like to… news-type blogs, sports blogs, friends’ blogs… information overload! And then I discovered the joy of RSS…

RSS allows content to be syndicated such that it can be picked up by an aggregator, which will pull in all of the posts from blogs you want to read, effectively allowing you do all of your blog reading by visiting one simple website… Furthermore, as a Google Reader user, I can tag posts to be shared, instantly creating a pseudo-blog with a few clicks of the mouse…

… and all of this brought me around to the idea of blogging once again. Now I don’t need to write something a few times a week to keep people coming back… I can tag a few interesting posts in the reader and have ‘em pop up in the embedded RSS feed on my site (on the sidebar) instead… I’ve also become something of an amateur photographer in the last year or so… my flickr site has its own RSS feed… and then maybe sometimes I’ll get some time and inspiration, and I’ll sit down and write something myself…

Fundamentally, the new Corsairs’ Affairs is three blogs in one: my own words posted here, the thoughts and ideas of others from my shared posts page, and the pictures that I take… on any given day, there may be nothing in any one of these three, but I think that there will be something new in at least one fairly often… and with RSS feeds from the two external sites in the sidebar here, you have access to the complete Corsairs’ Affairs experience all right here…

… or you could go ahead and add all three feeds to your very own RSS reader… that way, you don’t have to keep coming back to see if I’ve done anything new… and for a flaky-ass blogger like myself, that can only be a good thing, no?