Well, here I go being barely active again. I really haven’t been “into” regular blogging lately; even my anime blog is suffering. I have all these ideas during the day, and when I get home, it’s like all the determination has been sucked out of me. If my home is activating my lazy streak, maybe I should move?

Nah… too much work.

More seriously: As I’ve written Houblog over the last 3 years, I’ve tried to ensure that I have reported factual data. Whenever possible, I’ve posted links to source material, or posted scans of original documents. My rule of thumb has always been, if I can’t verify it (and obscure the origin enough to keep myself and any source off the hotseat) I won’t write about it. From time to time, I pick up bits and pieces of information that I just can’t verify. Most often, this is because I can’t investigate enough to verify, without drawing attention to myself at work. (Needless to say, the only place I want attention because of the blog is on the blog.) And sometimes there isn’t any original source material. So I’ve let these go by, even when I wanted to write about them badly. I’m sure that’s cost me a lot of potential posts over the last few years.

Starting tomorrow, I’m going to change that policy. I’m establishing a new topic: “Rumor Control.” Items under this topic/category should not be considered 100% accurate. In fact, they may be completely inaccurate, and they’re definitely unverified. All they are is what I have picked up from the grapevine, nothing more, and nothing less. Not personal gossip; I have no interest in that, and if you’re the type that does, you’re reading the wrong blog anyway. If I have a sense of the rumor’s veracity, I’ll indicate what I think of it, but that’s about the limit.

I think they’ll be of occasional interest. At the very least, they’ll be mildly diverting. Tomorrow morning, I’ll post the first of these….about the fallout behind the firing of a Utility Customer Service assistant manager who was scamming people.

In the meantime, I’d like to leave you with a line heard in a (probably union financed) commercial supporting COH employees:

“The guy scooping out your sewer makes less than the guy scooping your Ben & Jerry’s ice cream!”

Edit: Let me make it clear, the new category is for the purpose of reporting items that I feel it may be in the public interest for them to be spotlighted. It is not for the purpose of airing “dirty laundry” or gossip.