Welcome to Channel Hide

Welcome, Internet traveler, to Channel Hide, a blog that contains the internal rambles of a slightly insane group of individuals translated by a keyboard and slammed onto your computer screen. If you make it through this first post, your internal "Weird to English" translation ability is functioning wonderfully, and you probably will enjoy what you find every time you come back.

I guess as your read this first post, you probably want to know a few things before deciding to pay any attention to what I have to say here. For your convenience and sanity, I have created this handy FAQ to ponder about for the next few paragraphs.

Who the hell is typing at me?

I should say "Great Question" but since it is my question it's not that important. I am James T. George, Hidesquadron1, Jim, Tony, Porkchop, and about ten million other nicknames. I prefer Jim, and should you choose to correspond with me, I suggest using that name almost exclusively.

I am your everyday sorta guy, with special emphasis on my inner geek. When I'm not being preachy about my love for my Pittsburgh sport teams, I'm usually trying to keep up with the fast paced world of technology, entertainment, comedy, and just about anything else people are talking about.

As much as I would love to continue to play myself off as an awesome person (I really do rock) I would much rather you all get to know me and my interests through my writing. Stick around and I promise you will eventually come to know me better than I know myself (and then invite me to parties and stuff).

Why Should I Read This Thing?

Another great question, Jim! I prefer to think of this site as an outlet for the multitude of internal monologues I develop every second of every day, only here I filter out the crap and actually prepare concrete thoughts for you to read and (hopefully) enjoy. My writings here will span a wide array of topics which will appear randomized and presented as casually as possible. I enjoy making people laugh, so often I will fill my chats with anecdotes (usually within these nifty parenthesized areas that are usually breaking established grammar rules) and will often get sidetracked during those comedic thoughts as well. Get used to that if you plan on sticking around.

Keep an eye out for the rare anecdotes within anecdotes because that usually will be the part of the article where my thoughts spin out of control, and you may need to get a beverage and/or aspirin to continue reading. I apologise in advance for this. I simply can't help myself.

I am not a fountain of knowledge, by any means, so anything I do post that requires some sort of evidence to back it up will have it. I also have many contacts who might have input on topics of interest, and they will be able to post as contributors. I also welcome feedback, so comments are encouraged and (mostly) won't be moderated. I'm not against foul language or anything like that (although let's try not to go overboard with it) but I do not tolerate personal attacks, racism, slander, and all that other garbage some of you (twisted, evil, detrimental to society type people) like to post. If any of that does come up (and it probably will) I or one of the other authors will be sure to remove such nonsense with our patented "Justice Spatula" (its not really patented). This is a blog, not the senate debate chambers. Keep things civil folks.

Why Are You Writing This Nonsense?

I have stuff to say, basically. Why do I have to say it? I don't really have an answer for that. Maybe somehow I'm feeling that by allowing people to read my random thoughts I will somehow enrich their day? Sure, that's a great thing to hope for in a blog like this, and if you feel the same you should start a blog too. I also enjoy a good conversation, and a blog is a great way to start one on any topic you choose. I also really enjoy making people laugh, and as an easy going guy myself, I enjoy reading things that are entertaining and interesting. Hopefully my sense of humor translates well here.

If I had to declare a mission statement, I suppose it would be something like: "Inform, Entertain, and converse about anything and everything myself or the readers feel like discussing."

How Can I contact you and perhaps contribute?

All my contact information, as well as that of anyone else authoring regularly, will be available on the right hand side of the page. I have set up a nice google chat gadget there too, if you would want to talk with me live (assuming I'm at my computer).

To contribute I would say the best way would be via the comments, where you, me, and other readers can converse. If you have some sort of topic or tip you'd like to see a post about, drop it and any URLs into an email. (No attachments please. Emails with attachments are automatically filtered out.)

Is There An RSS Feed?

Yes. Click the button under the contact info and choose your feed reader of choice. If you are unfamiliar with RSS feeds, here is a quick overview of them and how you can use them:

http://www.whatisrss.com/

Will you be doing rich content posting?

I got an email about this before I even had my first post up, so I guess it's worth talking about. For those who are not familiar with the term, "Rich Content" could be pictures, audio, video, and interactive content. I will most certainly utilize such things, and I will try not to make you need to download abnormal software on your computer to enjoy this content.

Things you probably should have to enjoy this content, and where to get them:

- Adobe Flash: http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/

- Microsoft Silverlight: http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/resources/install.aspx

- Windows Media Plugins (for Firefox): http://port25.technet.com/pages/windows-media-player-firefox-plugin-download.aspx

Since this site is built on the Google Blogger service, I don't see why it wouldn't work on most major browsers. If you are reading this, you don't really need to change anything, but I do recommend IE, Firefox, and/or Google Chrome because they all pretty much run all web content you will come across elsewhere.

What Does "Channel Hide" Mean?

It really doesn't mean anything. It originated as a spin off my screen name mentioned above, but I just think it sounds cool.

I Am A Cleveland Sports Fan. What Should I Do?

Never tell anyone, and try to quit - cold turkey. Should you find that difficult, find a support group. There's a rather large one in Pittsburgh, where 65,050 gather most Sundays during the fall and winter months at the local football stadium.

I hope that overview helps a bit, and I really hope you come back to read some more as the site evolves. I recommend visiting 117 times a day, just incase something new is posted, but thats just me.

~Jimmy "Nice to meet you, Interwebs" the G.