Columbuser.com has returned from the netherworld, all rested up and ready to rock your world with local stories of little-to-no import, bloggy ruminations on the state of Columbus, Ohio, and post-MSM internecine warfare.

To all those who’ve asked after the proprietor (i.e., me), I’m fine- just burned out on blogging for a while. Thanks. But that’s been my modus operandi on previous blogs- write for a while until I’ve run out of the urge to spiel, then to give up blogging as various ideas and rants pile up in my head until it inspires me to write again. So now I’m inspired. Will I quit again? Or to put it nicer, go on hiatus again? No doubt. For those who need constancy, just know: possessions are fleeting.

Special thanks to Jerid for the wonderful send-off!

Important news updates since I’ve been away: Bill Todd lost that race; Marc Dann resigned.

Jeff Coryell at the Ohio Daily Blog had a post up a little while back on Ohio’s mayoral elections and the difficulty of finding information on them:

Bonobo at Blue Bexley has an intriguing post up today, listing the people who have pulled petitions for Bexley mayoral and city council races. Coincidentally, I spent some time yesterday visiting county party and board of elections web sites, and googling for media stories, trying to assemble a list of significant mayoral elections on the ballot in Ohio this year….

Unfortunately, I find that the info isn’t so easy to compile! The county party and BOE sites are very inconsistent and not necessarily up to date.

I’ve found that that’s frequently the case, and not just concerning elections. That’s one reason why I’ve set up OhioWiki- to be a good source of information on Ohio. One that will drill down to a much more local level than Wikipedia does.

So I’ve taken Jeff’s list and put it in a table on a page in the wiki I’ve called Ohio elections 2007. I’ve also started a page on the Columbus mayoral race- it’s bare-bones at this point.

Hopefully the wiki can be become a good place for information on Ohio’s elections. If you have something to add, go right ahead. Registration is optional.

Hi! This is a blog which will cover news, politics, and life in Columbus, Ohio. There are a number of other Columbus blogs out there, a bunch of which only started in the last few months. There’s something in the air I guess. This one aims to provide a perspective that you can’t get anywhere else. We’ll see how it goes.

I’m still tinkering behind the scenes on the layout and functionality, so it may be a bit bumpy the first couple of weeks. I’m going with a soft launch. In the meantime, there’s a blogroll to fill out, static pages to write, and WordPress code to hack.

If you want to write for the blog, let me know. In the event the site eventually makes money, you’ll start getting some of it. I know- everybody says that.