Welcome to Refudiatin'

So, I have a total of four blogs to my name: first, Adventures in Animation, a short-lived blog for sharing my sketches and drawings while I tried to get into the BYU animation program (to no avail); second, J Squared, a personal blog that has evolved into a source for all my newspaper articles and cartoons as well as some political commentary; third, J.J., Erin and Allisyn, the blog that tracks all of my adventures with my wife and one-year-old daughter (mostly run by my better half); and fourth, Man Stuff, a collaboration with guys from the Ward Formerly Known as the BYU 5th Ward who wanted to offer a counterpart to their wives' mommy blogs (my contributions are usually related to BYU sports).

Now, if I were to tell you that I was starting a new blog, your first reaction would probably be, "What? This guy blabs on and on and on as it is. He's on Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus, Blogger, in the newspaper all the time ... isn't that enough already?" And after you come to terms with me blowing yet more hot air online or in print, you would probably guess the subject would be either trying to get into law school or our two months living in New York. But, nope, you'd be wrong.

Even if you had 100 guesses, you probably wouldn't think it would be Shakespeare.

But, yes, this semester I'm taking a Shakespeare class at BYU, one I've always wanted to find room for but couldn't until now. And one of the main class projects is a network of Shakespeare blogs manned by my professor, Dr. Gideon Burton.

I've always been interested in Shakespeare, I think because I've always been interested in a little bit of everything. Knowing stuff is just one of my favorite things to do. I like knowing current events, world capitals, old movies ("Oh, so that's why Citizen Kane is such a big deal") and classic rock ("Oh, so that's why The Beatles are such a big deal). It just helps me feel smart. And at the very least, knowing all this trivia helps me to be awesome at armchair "Jeopardy!" or it helps me understand all the pop culture references on "Gilmore Girls" or "Psych."

For some reason, I've always wanted to know more about Shakespeare. Shakespeare is probably the second most pervasive writing in the world, just behind the Bible. I would bet most people were introduced to lines like "Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?" and "To be, or not to be? That is the question" before they even entered kindergarten.

And around that age, when I knew all the U.S. presidents from Washington to Clinton and knew all 50 states in the United States, I actually looked forward to the day when I would read Shakespeare plays in school, instead of watching every token "Romeo and Juliet" episode from every family sitcom.

(Skip to the 3:50 or the 14:13 mark on the timeline)

In high school I read "Julius Caesar" and "Macbeth," and here at BYU I read "The Winter's Tale" and "King Lear." And now that I'm taking a class with Shakespeare as its focus, I'm excited to become even more of a Shakespeare scholar.

Two other bits of my personal history with Shakespeare: I've had two cartoons in The Daily Universe that were references to Shakespeare.

This was my response to the ridiculous hullabaloo over President Boyd K. Packer's talk last October.

And this was making fun of Sarah Palin for comparing herself to Shakespeare last summer (which also brought about the name of this blog).

And now, I'll close with this, since for the class I'm currently reading "Hamlet" (this is "The Simpsons," so there is some mild, not-BYU-appropriate swearing):