In the updated version of his Safire’s Political Dictionary, William Safire traces “blogger” to mean something like “person who persuades opinions and communicates by the written word.” He claims that it goes back as far as Pliny the Younger. Now, when I first heard this, I thought it was total bullshit.

But the more I think about it (you know, over the last 20 minutes or so, so you know I’ve really had time to mull this over) the more I think that Pliny the Younger was totally the first blogger. At least, the Epistulae reads like a blog. Think about it…

::insert Wayne’s World hand waving and flashback noise here::

So, Mount Vesuvius across the way seems to be exploding, and my uncle is really obsessed. He’s going over there to investigate it scientifically. He got a boat and is sailing over there in the opposite direction from the sane people who are fleeing.

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My uncle had a heart attack breathing all the ash spewing from Mount Vesuvius. Now I’m bummed, but on the bright side he was a cool old guy, if a bit crazy. What with the sailing over to Mount Vesuvius and all. [insert that line about it being so Vulcanic that it was like, a Vulcan-o from last week’s episode of Doctor Who, which would have been better if there were wacky Pliny the Elder hijinks in it]

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So, there are like, these guys who are really into Jesus? They’re calling themselves Christians? And, like, I was just watching some people feed them to lions? And I think that’s, like, totally uncool?

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OMG dolphins!

See what I mean?

(Tonight, when I actually have my copy of the Epistulae on hand, I will add the Latin counterparts of my brazen but more accurate than you might think translations)