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EVEN IF THIS WERE HALLOWE'EN, NOT TO MENTION THIS BEING THE CHANGEOVER WEEKEND FROM SUMMER TO STANDARD TIME IN THE UNTED STATES AND CANADA (with Certain Obvious Exceptions), Your Correspondent perhaps felt it was time to devote today's edition to a "pre-emptive" edition of the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ's) for this blog.

Especially considering where there are some of you as probably have questions about Your Correspondent and The Exaggerator as are going through your head that "need to be asked" for once.

I'll try my best to fill this need on your part, and I hope you'll be satisfied with the result. Shall we proceed?

• What motivates you to blog as you do?
  I would have to say my upbringing, and the abuses I was made to ensure throughout. Thanks to a diagnosis of dyslexia brought about by a pre-natal auto accident as injured my mother seriously, I was placed in a succession of institutional and, later, foster-care situations from age six on until my high-school graduation in 1980 (never mind where some heckler shouted "Johnny Wadd!" in the audience as I was about to receive my diploma). It was an upbringing as saw me facing one mindset which expected me to look the other way @ the injustices around me (and pretend such cannot be expected to exist), while concurrently encountering another which held that such needed action being taken.
  Especially fuelling this desire to blog was an extended referral by the Minnesota Vocational Rehabilitation (VR)--basically a formality for the disabled, including such with learning disorders like myself--of my case for jobs training and evaluation interstate (i.e., to a testing facility in Menomonie, WI and a sheltered workshop in Eau Claire, same state), never mind where suitable facilities probably existed in Minnesota (howbeit in "bad neighbourhoods" of Minneapolis); flashbacks of abuse suffered @ a foster home I was resident in just prior to graduation from high school led to a referral to the local Day Treatment scheme in Eau Claire whose mentality was a "fight-fire-with-fire" approach in dealing with "schizophrenia," especially the paranoid sort. One which had parallels to the Oceanic mindset in George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty Four (disapproved of by the Day Treatment counsellors as "too depressing [and] paranoid," reinforced with advice that I Attend Church Sunday), complete with frequent claims of "spies," "men in white coats," "schizophrenic germs" and "parasitic agents" in therapy sessions, not to mention some Bad Words Unbecoming Those in Positions of Authority, Confidence and Trust.
  In any event, Day Treatment's approach and mindset were all the more serious enough to cause serious psychoemotional harm precluding any likelihood of useful and gainful employment, notwithstanding two subsequent attempts @ employment in the sheltered-workshop system (in one such instance, I was expected to say that "emotional well-being", rather than money, explained the need for working there), following my being moved back to Winona in the fall of 1981. And still the "troublemaker" tag kept following me, even extending to suggestions that my "tattling" was directly to blame for the closing of the local Orphanage in 1976 when, in fact, changing attitudes towards treatment of problem children were in part responsible therefor.
• Did you have prior blogging experience?
  I will admit that, when I was in middle and high school, I had fantasies and designs on launching a gazetta of my very own, the better so I could channel my own thoughts to the widest possible audience. Money, however, was pretty much the problem precluding it.
  But with the increasing awareness of the Internet in the mid- to late 1990's, as well as public access computers being available in such venues as the Winona State University biblio, I decided to launch what I considered an "online column" of sorts through Homestead, one of the first free website services, as allowed me to express my take on things online. I called it "It's Another Prozac Morning in America," and I had it from the summer of 1999 until late in 2001, when changes in Homestead's modus operandi incompatible with public computers put an end to that.
  In response, I decided to launch on Freewebz my first true blog in the sense of the term, which I called "the daily phosdex" (after a nom d'Internet I use, "IludiumPhosdex," for the sake of privacy). That went swimmingly for a few years, but when a few online "purists" and Niedermeyr types started complaining about the "ratty" appearence of the site, I decided to move "the daily phosdex" to a straight blogging platform.
  Especially so the sort as allows for making extra money (or trying to) in supplementing the disability benefits I get, especially as it's unlikely that I would be coming into money within measurable distance. (It still seems to be that way.) And Blogdrive.com, warts and all from time to time, happened to provide the ideal such I needed.
  By the fall of 2007, when, thanks to the generosity of Winona State, I was able to finally get my very own computer and Internet access @ my flat in the Shaffner Homes here in Winona (where I've been resident for 25 years when the New Year rolls around), "the daily phosdex" began getting a repute, thanks to its "ratty" looks of largely courtesy linkbacks, as "Worst. Weblog. Ever." In any case, I decided to give up on "the daily phosdex" and, shortly after Christmas 2007, started anew with this blog you're visiting now.
• What explains the name and stylee of The Exaggerator?
  I acknowledge the influence of the Hanna-Barbera prequel series to Scooby-Doo entitled A Pup Named Scooby-Doo for the name of this blog--specifically, a recurring gag involving a supermarket tabloid in the Weekly World News vein called the "National Exaggerator", which a younger Freddie Jones would quote from on occasion.
  Which gave me an idea to relaunch my blogging presence on the Information Stuporbahn by calling it "The Intergalactic Exaggerator"; however, because Blogdrive caps blog names @ a maximum of 14 characters, I settled on The Exaggerator.
  Now you know.
• What explains the frequent recourse to exotic and esoteric language in your blog items?
  I acknowledge the influence and inspiration here of an older school of newspaper publishers in the early American West, the sort as were rather fond of the flowery sort of writing which, @ times, could cross into the sarcastically acid. Think of my fondness for language as a sort of "safety valve" against the abuse and taunts I was made to endure in a very critical stage of my life, especially in school.
  But perhaps the best way I can think of to explain such recourse to the style I use (without, thankfully, recourse to especially the Seven Dirty Words and their variants) was a T-shirt slogan from about the time of my high-school graduation: "If you can't dazzle them with brilliance ... baffle them with bull."
  In some instances, expecting you, Dear Reader, to consider going to your Funk & Wagnalls (as it were) and looking up the meanings of some of the terms I use--especially in obsolete and archaic senses.
• What about the use of British English on occasion?
  I acknowledge the use of British English terms in the blog from time to time when so-called "common sense" expects me to use American English, and American English Only, because a) I happen to live in America; and b) I should consider America to be The World, and to consider the concept as reversible (i.e., "The World is America") if and when Loyalty and Patriotism dictate this.
  And yes, it is true that there are substantiative differences between the English spoken in our "morally superior" United States and that spoken in a supposedly "morally suspect" Great Britain. But, as for the occasional use of British English, it's to serve as a reminder, for one, that American English has linguistic roots in the British, just as much as the first specimens of British settlement @ Jamestown and the none-too-successful Popham Settlement. (Even if quite a few terms of American English, cookie, stoop and cranky among them, have Dutch antecedants; credit that to the Dutch settlement @ New Amsterdam, which we now know as New York.)
  And, for another, that "it's a small world, after all."
  In other words, we need to stop looking exclusively in terms of a "Fortress America" mindset and, instead, see in terms of what the late Wendell Willkie called "One World."
• Have you ever been on the "It's a Small World" ride @ Disneyland or Walt Disney World?
  I plead guilty as charged.
  Specifically, I visited the original such @ Disneyland in the summer of 1979 as part of a family vacation otherwise marred by abuse, teasing and cruelty involving foster-siblings I was living with, targeting me in particular. I took the Guided Tour option, and "It's a Small World" was one of the featured distractions (along with the Santa Fe and Disneyland Railroad, Pirates of the Caribbean, the Bear Country Jamboree and the Tomorrowland People Mover).
  The memory thereof has been a longtime guiding influence of my blogging experience and its editorial mindset in calling for us otherwise "morally superior" Americans to stop seeing things in an exclusively xenophobic mindset and be world-centric for once.
• How do you consider Americans to be "morally superior" to all others?
  I use that term for purely ironic and sarcastic reasons, particularly the sort targeting the uber-conservative Zealots and True Believers whose mindset of America is probably on the same page as Imperial China in its decline, particularly so under the opium-addicted and @ once xenophobic influence of the Empress Dowager Cixi.
  (As in seeing especially the Forbidden City in Beijing--specifically, the Palace of Cloudless Heaven--to be The One True Portal and Gateway to Heaven. You may want to Netflix The Last Emperor for the complete story.)
  Fox Prolefeed and kin in particular.
  The same thinking likewise explains my use of the second line of the English version of the Canadian National Hymn, "O Canada" (as in "True Patriot Love in All Thy Sons Command") on occasion vis-a-vis appeals to a rather crude and base form of patriotism as crosses the line into jingoistic excess, or otherwise risks it. (The second line in the French version thereof is "Ton front est ceint des fleurons glorieux!", which came out in the first attempt to translate same into English as "Thy brow is crowned with leaves of red and gold!").
• Why don't you get a "real" job for once, and learn to keep your mouth shut and nose clean?
  As I explained early on, I went through extreme psychoemotional abuse and torment while under the Day Treatment Programme in Eau Claire County, Wisconsin, and to such an extent that serious emotional harm, anguish and cruelty persist to this day.
  Persisting to such an extent that it precludes my ability to find viable work that would, in your simplistic mindset, "make you learn to use your hands rather than your mind," especially before "serious error" ensues as could "pose problems."
  As explains my being on Social Security disability benefit and Supplemental Security Income, which, as everyone knows, can only go so far (especially before you come into money, which seems, as I said, to be all the more unlikely within measurable distance). But then again, considering where the "safety net" could easily fail, I decided, out of necessity, to include online shopping in this blog, as well as an opportunity to make a donation (regardless of amount) to the cause of this weblog and Your Correspondent. (I should mention that, unfortunately, donations in aid of The Exaggerator do not qualify for tax deductions.)
  When it comes to my e-boutique, The Exaggerator Collection (as powered by CafePress.com), I conceived of it as a way to not just supplement the income stream, but also as a sort of "walking billboard" promoting this blog; i.e., when you see anyone wearing anything bearing this weblog's name and logo, I hope you'll think of this blog (and maybe do a Google on the same). Not unlike the signs and bumper stickers of Wall Drug and the shopping bags of Stew Leonard's, which, I acknowledge, were indirect inspiration for the whole idea of ephemeral apparel being ur-billboards (especially so in the tackiest of tourist trap communities).
• What explains your interest in Reducing the National Debt of the United States as a Good Cause worth donating part of the proceeds from online shopping towards?
  With so much having been discussed in especially recent years about the size and extent thereof, as well as prevailing mindsets in certain Washington circles still playing by the canard of "low taxes = jobs = prosperity = social stability and order" as has otherwise been discredited in more logical circles (and still holding same dear as an article of faith as will Save America From Herself)--not to mention continued and continuing ex-lax on the issue, presumably "for political reasons"--I, for one, felt that it was time that someone who offered shopping in the Greater Blogosphere considered pledging part of the proceeds therefrom (if any) towards reducing the National Debt.
  (Which, in fact, is actually possible; click here to find out how.)
  As if that weren't enough, I've also called upon "the Four Hundred"--the traditional arbeiters of wealth and power, or so we're expected to believe (and defer to in the name of Natural Law and the Order of Nature, or so we're expected to believe)--to "do their part" in making contributions towards the National Debt's reduction absent the prospect of outright repudiation or cancellation, or such being refinanced through (theoretically) gold-backed debt securities for which the vaults @ Fort Knox may not have enough such as collateral without having to dispose of substantial quantities thereof, thereby "destabilising" or otherwise "undermining" the gold markets and such among the weird and unwholesome who profit therefrom.
  Soooo: In planning your holiday shopping (which, considering the rising gas price of late, you may want to consider doing more of on the Information Stuporbahn), think about online shopping with a conscience--as in the Greater Collective Good of the Nation being aided by ameiloration and relief of the National Debt, for one, absent any serious initiatives towards those ends as would have Serious Political Consequences in Certain Powerful and Influential Circles, especially so the conservative such.
• Where did you get the idea of calling the Internet the "Information Stuporbahn"?
  I acknowledge the influence of the Nickelodeon animated series The Fairly OddParents, specifically the episode entitled "Information Stuporhighway." Combine that with "Infobahn" (an early buzzword for the Internet from around the mid-1990's), and you get "Information Stuporbahn."
  It's a way to add colour to a Greater Blogosphere as is otherwise expected to be dull and otherwise show monochromatic blandness (cf. this classic specimen of "Engrish" from an envelope used by a Japanese film-processing laboratory to return finished photographs: "Fresh fruit enriches everyone. Takes the thrist out of everyday time. A pure whiff of oxygen, painting over a monochrome world in primary colours. We all like that. It's why everyone loves fruit.").
• Where did you get the name "IludiumPhosdex"?
  I came across it in the Loony Tunes animated short Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century, vintage 1951. (Daffy Duck plays a rather bombastic parody of Buck Rodgers, hero of a science-fiction-themed comic strip still popular @ that time; same is also remembered as one of the first run-ins Daffy has with Marvin the Martian.)

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