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Everyone has as blog. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that my grouchy yet frighteningly clever pug had a blog, which I imagine would go something like :

Today I thwarted my female captor by winding under her feet and tripping her. While she was distracted, I managed to steel all of Short Round's graham crackers. Excellent. And tomorrow . . . tomorrow I do the same thing I do every night. Try to take over the world!*

Anyway. I check out a half-dozen or more blogs a day, and I've been noticing a disturbing trend among posters -- both bloggers and commenters alike -- to end every post with the following gem:

I'm just saying.

Why? Why is this repeated over and over and over? It's becoming the blogging equivalent of the surly "What-ever" of the Buffy-inspired Gen-Y dialect.

Sometimes they even vary it up:

I'm just sayin'

Or

I'm just saying . . .

Or

I'm just sayin' . . .

Original, no?

No.

It's gotten to the point where it is now a cliche. And worse, it's redundant. It's like saying, "Personally, blah blah insert opinion here blah blah**," when it's already perfectly clear that whatever it is that's about to pop out of your mouth is your personal opinion.

Likewise, we know that whatever it is that you just typed is, in fact, what you were "just saying."

So, please. Let's just move on.***

*The reason I didn't do better in law school probably had something to do with how addicted I was to Pinky and the Brain. In case you're not familiar with this Warner Brothers cartoon gem, it was about two lab rats who were forever trying - and failing - to bust out of the laboratory so that they could take over the world. The Brain was a genius, and Pinky . . . well, not so much. Every episode ended with a variation on the following conversation:

Pinky: Gee, Brain what do you want to do tonight?

Brain: The same thing we do every night, Pinky. Try to take over the world!

Pinky: Narf!

**Okay, in the interest of full disclosure, I do this all the freaking time.

***A fair question would be, And why does this bother you so much, Whitney?

And my answer would be, Actually, it really doesn't bother me at all.

I'm just bored, couldn't think of anything else to blog about, and wanted to work in a Pinky and The Brain reference. Mission accomplished.

Posted 20 October 2004 at 09:11 PM