If I turned to exercise in times of stress, I'd be the belle of the ball at my upcoming college reunion. More frequently, of course, I turn to copious amounts of snack food and tea. Given said reunion, that won't due either. And so I turn to writing, my crutch, procrastination method, and faithful companion for as longer than I have acknowledged it as such.

You may know me from such blogs as Phoblographer* and Metroblogging San Francisco. Though my personal life makes guest appearances on Phoblographer*, that site's guiding principle has always been Policy First, Politics Second, Career Be Damned, And Save the Navel Gazing Commentary for the Nail Salon or evening Salons with The Girlfriends. Not that Phoblog is fluff-free, but you don't get to be a kind-of-sort-of-among-a-certain-group-of-devoted-and-highly-compensated-tiny-fan-base-preeminent-California-political-blogger if you bore your readers to tears with stories of the latest Safeway sales, do you?

Phubar, however, is more personal.

No, that's not true. Phoblog is intensely personal for me - all politics is, as surely as it is local. But Phubar is a different kind of personal. It's law school personal. Readers who know me know that I have been a decidedly antagonistic participant in my legal education. Law school is over now.

BarBri, however, is just beginning. And it is already frustrating beyond belief. Phubar is born of this frustration. The name is, quite obviously, a Phoblogged version of FUBAR (for those unfamiliar with the term, or who haven't even seen Saving Private Ryan, that would be F*cked Up Beyond All Recognition). I would've gone with a play on SNAFU because it's more apt, but, as the tagline explains, Snaphubar would've overly clever even as it preserved both the situation and the bar reference.

I'm stretched too thin blog-wise already. Phoblog is bound to suffer over the next few months. I'm an absentee captain over at Metroblogging. And a few other side projects are being woefully neglected even as I type. In a perfect world, I will ditch this site tomorrow and lavish an appropriate amount of attention on Phoblog. After all, I've already done so much damage to my career with that puppy that I may as well finish it off and then legally change my name to Paper Trail.

Phubar will be a free spin zone, a gripe fest, a tad funny - I hope - and perhaps even a source of advice and or comfort for those similarly situated.

A note of thanks to Metroblogging co-founder Jason DeFillippo for creating the banner. Law students are generally regarded as dorks among dorks, so I figured the dorkier I looked the better. I think you'll agree we succeeded nobly on that front. You can see the original photo, taken by Rob Nicholson, here.

This could be the first post. It could be the last.

Enjoy.

P.S. Think the layout here is swankier than Phoblog? Too bad. Any eventual Phoblog redesign will maintain its delightful orange goodness. Because nothing rhymes with it and I adore my little asterisks.

(Had to turn off comments to this post 'cause it got spam-attacked. Don't know why, but it did. Have a burning desire to comment about this post? Email me. Or just yell it outloud and hope it gets to me and the readers via the cosmos.)