Thank you for stumbling onto my blog... and also, congratulations! You are now part of an elite group of internet users -- namely readers of this blog. This is a pretty exclusive club consisting of you (welcome!), me, and my mom. All subsequent readers will be lower in rank than you, so be sure to haze them to your heart's content. Need to look something up on Wikipedia? Ask the new guy. But don't ask me, because I'll be busy writing something for you.

So what exactly is "How Odd" about? Well, it's the quintessential "personal blog," with a humorous slant, plus a bit of general weirdness. "How Odd" comes from the phrase people (usually family) use after I've said something, written something, done something -- you get the gist. The point is, this blog will contain some of my musing and observations on life, plus some other stuff I just make up. "How Odd" will also chronicle the interesting parts of my life, all while hopefully causing you to smile or laugh yourself to death or somewhere in between. I won't lie to you, I'm aiming to get as close to "laugh yourself to death" as possible without actually hitting it, but my aim isn't perfect. You've been warned.

That's the site, but who am I? My name's Omar, but you can call me OZ since those are my initials and also because I dress up as a member of the Lollipop Guild every year for Halloween. I'm a 29-year old male originally from Miami, FL, but living in Pittsburgh, PA, since 2005. As a result of this location change, I've been known to complain about the weather during fall/winter, and I have a theory that snow originated in the fiery depths of Hades. More on that later.

Professionally, I'm a work-at-home computer programmer, which means I avoid dealing with weather and traffic and all that nonsense. It also means that I chat quite a bit with my two cats during the day and, yes, they talk back occasionally and, no, I'm not crazy, thank you very much. I'm also married, and my wife does have to deal with traffic so every morning there's a chance that I'll be woken up with a baseball bat propelled by jealousy. It's a constant threat I live with, but I've adapted. In my spare time, I enjoy reading, playing video games, and traveling. I also aspire to be a writer, and this blog is just the thing to get me in the writing habit. Maybe I'll even post a (gasp!) serious story some time. We'll see.

That about does it. I'm aiming to post a couple of updates every week, and I really do hope you'll return and/or subscribe, and maybe even tell a friend. Thanks again for stopping by!

UPDATE 1: Shortly after starting this blog, my wife and I discovered that we were pregnant. Well, not so much "we" as "she." So during those belly-expanding months, a good percentage of the posts here had something to do with the upcoming arrival of the baby (a.k.a., The Heir).

UPDATE 2: And now that said baby has arrived, there might be a few baby-related posts. BTW, The Heir is a boy!

UPDATE 3: Since importing my old blog's posts, I thought this mini-Debra Barone FAQ might be useful...

What's your problem with Patricia Heaton?

I have no problems with Patricia. She's a fine actor despite being only 17 inches tall.

What do you mean? You write her character, Debra Barone, (quasi-) mean letters.

Ah, now you're asking the right questions. Take note, Debra Barone and I have a correspondence. Patricia Heaton has nothing to do with that interchange. I'm exchanging letters with a television character, not a television actress. And for the record, I don't like Debra because she's mean 97.63% of the time to 99.985% of the people she encounters. I write to her because... well, "Everybody Loves Raymond" happened to be on one night while I was cooking up a blog post.

Then why do you continue to write letters to a television character?

Because she responds to my letters, and the least I can do is be polite and answer her replies. I'm not a caveman.