When I signed up for high-speed internet service years ago, storage space for a personal web site was thrown in as part of the deal. I chuckled a little when I saw that. I’d never had a web site, and never needed one.

But it was free. And there was this constant world-wide clamor to know everything about me, and what I thought about different stuff. And besides, all the cool kids were setting up websites.

So I created a home page. I didn’t know anything about designing or writing for the web. I didn’t have any programs that could help. I had a lot to learn just to put up a simple first page. It looked pretty bad. I imagined anonymous web-surfers forming harsh first impressions of me based on that page. So I gave it an apologetic name: Michael Burton’s Pathetic Home Page.

As time went by, I learned more about web design; I bought programs to help create better-looking web sites. I used templates designed by people with better taste than my own. Yet everything I’ve done online has been pathetic. It’s… uh… it’s branding. Yeah, that’s it — branding.

Now it’s time for a re-branding. In recent months, server performance on the ol’ weblog has been even more pathetic than successful branding requires, so I’m moving this blog to a new host. And besides, all the cool kids are getting their own domain names, so I’ve got one, too: brainrow.com.

The word “brainrow”, of course, conjures up images of a forbidden wing of a nightmarish futuristic prison, where the brains of prisoners are kept alive in glass jars, wired together into a giant organic supercomputer used by the totalitarian government to keep track of everyone and control everything. The brains are all fully conscious and aware, but powerless to do anything because of the way they are wired into the computer grid. Until…

Or, uh, maybe it makes you think of happy, colorful rainbows. Those are nice.

All the blog posts have been moved to brainrow. At this point, comments have not been moved. It might not be possible to move them. I fixed a number of glitches after the move, but I may have missed others. If you see a post that doesn’t look right, send me email.

Long-time readers can rest assured: this blog may have a new name, and a new address, but, deep down, it will always be pathetic.