Hi, Barack Obama. This is Xrlq 2.0. And he’s my first. So far his talents include hating new food he’s never tried, and chasing after our pit bull. That, and cracking up everyone around him by pretending to choke himself and saying “Why you little…!” in his best Homer Simpson impression. And so, Barack Obama, when you say “yes, we can” can carry North Carolina for the next 100 years, were you counting on Xrlq 2.0’s vote?

Because if you were, you can’t have it.

For 5 1/2 years, I’ve blogged under a pseudonym. My reason was simple: I wanted to keep my professional and blogging lives separate. Sure, I could tell you my name but refuse to divulge where I worked, but who are we kidding? I never made it a secret that I was a lawyer admitted to practice in California, so any reader who knew my name would have no trouble tracking down my employer. So as a practical matter, if my employer’s identity was to remain a secret, mine needed to, as well. And no, I wasn’t under strict orders from my boss to remain anonymous, but my boss at the time did express considerable relief upon learning that I was, anyway, for the simple reason that no one can think I spoke for a company I hadn’t even identified.

With pseudonymity comes a certain responsibility. Taking my identity off the table carried the implicit promise that my identity is not relevant to what I say. If I blog about the idiocy of secondhand smoke, you as the reader should be entitled to assume that whoever I work for, it ain’t the tobacco industry or anyone else with an obvious interest in the subject, else I would have told you. Conversely, if I do work for an insurance company owned by a mortgage lender, but do not wish to tell you that, then let’s face it, I’m not going to be able to say all that much about mortgages or insurance on this blog. What little I can say about these topics must be information that is publicly known and related to the industry as a whole, rather than to my particular company. Therein lies the problem.

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As of last week, I have a temp job in North Carolina which, with a little luck, may turn into a permanent position. Moving again would suck, but if I have to move anywhere, I’d rather move within the South than out of it. Speaking of the South, Chris Lawrence is officially full of crap for describing a move to Carolina as “leaving the South.” This state is soooo south of Virginia it isn’t even funny. After about six months as a born-again Virginian, I barely noticed the accent anymore. Now I can barely communicate. Over the past week, I’ve encountered the following:

1. Earlier this week around lunch time, a co-worker asked me if I’d got lynched yet.
2. Last week, the same co-worker asked me if I whuckum downan eacho knees.
3. The same day, a hostess at a local restaurant (complete with a nose ring, a gazillion tattoos, and all the other garb that screams out “I belong in Frisco, not here!”) asked me if I was donaninn.
4. Around the same time, I called Duke Power to get the power switched to my name in my apartment. I did not understand a friggin’ word Boomhauer said, not even enough syllables to transcribe here. Next month I should find out whether I just ordered power, a new set of Ginsu knives, or something else.
5. I recently learned that the Carolina School of Languages is within walking distance of where I work. I showed up there today asking to enroll in an evening class where I can learn to speak Carolina. Judging by the strange look I got, I was relieved to see that for once, someone else had no clue WTF I was talking about.

UPDATE: If you’ve ever wondered whether “Unpartisan” actually has a human reading all the blog entries it links, or if a bot scours the net for anything that matches a few keywords, Wonder no more.

UPDATE x2: Chris clarifies in comments that his “leaving the south” post referred only to the Triangle, not to the state as a whole.

UPDATE x3: D’oh! Actually, the original post made that pretty clear to begin with. That’s what I get for attacking old posts by memory - particularly a memory distorted by my own lack of exposure to the region at the time it was formed - rather than waiting until I can get the original to load properly.

I know they call it doocing when one gets canned because of his blog. I’m not sure what to call it when things happen in reverse, i.e., when a totally crappy work situation just about causes you to “fire” your blog. That’s basically what happened over the past few months, and the reason why blogging has been so light. In a nutshell, I left a good job in California for what appeared to be an indistinguishable one in Virginia, only to find out soon after I began that my new boss was both a dumbass and a hardass, and that his boss, the General Counsel, apparently thinks he can do no wrong. I also learned that in addition to cycling through administrative staff too many times to count, my new idiot/asshole boss had managed to burn through four regulatory counsels in less than three years. Yesterday, I became number five.

For obvious reasons, this really, really sucks. Doubly so since one of the reasons we moved here was so we could afford to live on my salary alone. Now our family income is $0. Any possible job leads would be highly appreciated. Insurance regulatory law is my background, but I’m open to other options as well. Not wild about moving yet again, but if it happens it happens.

All whining ends now. As you were.

The first time I posted baby pics, I got comments like “Damn, that’s one ugly baby … no, wait, I was focusing on the father, nevermind.” I’m not making that mistake this time around.

And we feel fine. Pics of all 8 pounds 13.8 ounces and 19.5 inches of him to follow soon. Bonus points for the first commenter who can correctly guess the county of Xrlq 3.0’s birth.

UPDATE: It was a trick question, but commenter AMac nailed it.

UPDATE x2: A commenter at Patterico questions the timing of this announcement. Heh.

The got-damned south scored itself another mouth. Watch for another in two weeks.

Baby beep bird bites, boppers boy bug bye. Daddy diaper doggy door eat, eeeew! Hi Jodie juice, kitty light Mommy monkey? Meow! Maddy Molly, more nice night. No orange papa, pop poppy purple. Read, shit, sip shoes tiger. Toys tubby, walk water, Xrlq yummy:

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Or, if you prefer, Elliott Yamin’s brush with his biggest smallest fan.