Some of you who have taken time out of their day to stop down and read this blog might be wondering, “What’s the deal with the title of this dumb site?  ‘Ranting Weasel’ sounds like the worst randomly generated title ever”.  Weasels, as a species, are not known for their witty banter or well thought-out points of view (Neither am I for that matter, but I digress).  Plus, their little paws would tire quickly trying to use a standard keyboard, so a blogging weasel seems like a far-fetched idea from the start.  So why “Ranting Weasel”?

A little back story:  Years ago, I was asked by a work friend to join a fantasy football league (yes, i know:  NERD ALERT).  I had never participated in such a thing, and I’m not necessarily a ‘super fan’ who can recite football rosters from memory, or who can perfectly recall winning plays from Super Bowls of years past (*snacking on chicken wing*  YEAH, ‘MEMBER WHEN MONTANA WAZ LOOKIN’ AT 4TH N 24 WIT 3 SECONDS LEFT AN’ THEN HE ROLLED RIGHT AND THREW A STRIKE TO CLARK FOR DA WIN?!?!?!? EPIC, BRO, AMIRITE??!).  This is how I envisioned most fantasy football owners back then, well before fantasy leagues became such a national craze.  Anyway, I showed up to my first fantasy football draft with the other owners, having no idea of what I was doing;  I was really there to bond with other guys, eat junk food and drink beer.  The football part of the draft was secondary in my mind.

Just before we started picking players for our make-pretend teams, an owner turned to me and asked, “So, what’s the name of you team going to be?”.  I was not prepared for this part of the process!  Many of the owners had team names that used current player names or NFL team names, or used double entendres (i.e. ‘Show Me Your TD’s’, ‘I Like Your End Zone’, etc).  I really had no favorite player to name my team after ( in retrospect, I should have gone with ‘Favre Beans and a nice Chianti’, but I think the group I was with would have thrown me out of the room with that one), and I am not the kind of guy to use false bravado to pump myself up (Mike’s Epic Football Team Lazer Show Destruct-O-Matic 4 LYFE!!!).  In that split second I had to come up with something to name my make-believe team.

Since I was about to become a NFL ‘owner’, I thought about what kind of people own professional sports teams in general.  I immediately thought about these men who charge ridiculous amounts of money for concessions at games. NFL owners don’t allow you to buy seats at their games without first buying a personal seat licence, in stadiums that these billionaires have the taxpayers pay for. I thought about how they often try to underpay their players, how they lock out the season from time to time in the event that the player’s union has the audacity to demand the owners pay players their fair share, and that they talk about the importance of  ‘good character guys’ on their teams, unless a player with domestic violence charges can help a team win, then character doesn’t mean as much as a good 40-yd-dash time.  In short, these owners by and large are greasy weasels, using legal tricks and negotiation to maximize their profits on the backs of others.  So with that epiphany, I christened my team “Greasy Weasel”, and the rest as they say is history.  I have had that team name now for nearly 17 years, won a few championships with it, and am now refer to as ‘Greasy’ in my fantasy league, which, I’m not gonna lie, makes me feel good to have a nickname, no matter what it is.

Coming back full circle to this blog name, when it became time to name it, I though about my alter ego, the Greasy Weasel.  Being the Weasel in my fantasy league allowed me to become something I am not in my actual life:  confrontational, crude, ruthless at times, but all in the name of fun with guys and gals I like hanging out with.  As I start out again in the ‘blogosphere’  (is that a real word?  Not sure, but I’ll roll with it), I felt that I could be the Greasy Weasel in written form. Here, I can tell an amusing story or vent about things going on in my world or the world at large.  I can share a lengthy story about living in Shanghai for a time or traveling around the region and do it in better detail than in person.  This version of the Weasel, a Ranting Weasel, allows me to do a better job of entertaining and engaging with others, and so that is why you’re reading this on a site with the name “Weasel” in it.  May I always be a Weasel in name only, and not in real life;  we’ve got too many weasels in the world already.