Through the years, that seemingly innocuous sentence has stricken many young hearts with indescribable fear. The pulse begins to race, the beads of sweat appear on the forehead, the headache begins.

But this is my destiny. I will tell you a story, once week—inspiration permitting—from start to finish, 500 words (or half a picture).

So what can you expect from 500 words? If I had friends, they would caution you to expect the ranting of an unstable, slightly overweight, socially challenged person. Fortunately, I have no friends.

This page is nothing more than my outlet. Back in college—Warning, Drew University flashback—I was a three-year editor on the staff of the school newspaper. My sports stories, concert reviews and ruminations on the state of the food service in the school mess hall were read by a huge subset of the university community.

After being out of school for five years, I realized just how much I missed it. I still have opinions, dammit. I just didn’t have a place to publish them. Then I remembered that I did—the Internet. I just needed to find a place to host my web page, and I was ready to go.

This is a huge step up from my ill-fated attempt to publish my own ‘zine, Buffet. The premier issue never made it off the ground, despite considerable efforts.

As for my hopes for this page, there is only one—total world domination. With a little good fortune, the right people—and you know who you are—read this page and realize that there is some prodigious writing potential buried somewhere in this prose. Hopefully those same people will then provide me with a, larger, much more lucrative forum in which to print my bon mots.

Let’s not fool anyone here, this is a selfish, ego-driven exercise. I just need a place to publish my stuff. I have lots of opinions and don’t care to know what others think about the topic. This is a monologue, not a dialogue. If you ever detect an ounce of humility, report it immediately.

What I’m really saying is 500 Words is about me. It’s what I think and how I feel. It might even be offensive or profane at times. And it’s not influenced by commercial distractions (though if someone wants to pay me to think a certain way, we should definitely talk).

Now, I’m not looking to stir up trouble. I’m a lover, not a fighter. (Okay, I’m not much of a lover. But I’m definitely not a fighter.)

As for what kind of content you can expect here, it’s hard to say. One week you might see a movie review. Another week might be a lamentation on a wasted basketball season. And a third week might just be a series of random thoughts. (That’s my out in case I can’t put together 500 words on one topic.)