Blogs

I love blogs. I had a short but intense addiction, which has now settled into a mild obsession. I refuse to allow myself to add anymore to my Bloglines account - I don't really have time to keep up with my subscriptions now - but every once in a while I'll cave and add a new one. So why do I like to read blogs so much? My dad does not get the fascination with keeping or reading them. Some of his comments include: "Why would I want to read about someone I've never met before?" or "If I know them, can't they just email me to tell me what's going on in their life?" I tried to get him into the whole concept - he's a techie, for goodness sake! - cause I knew there are tons of things out there he'd like to read, but he wanted to know why they couldn't just put the information that he's interested in on their website. I like to find the stories that people write about their everyday life, as well as stories on specialized topics. One of my favorite blogs is written by a guy in Denver who's looking for a good man while working some kind of 9-5 job. May not sound fascinating, but peeking into his life a few times a week on his blog is fun for me. Tons of people - including myself - read WaiterRant , Opinionistas, Miss Snark , Shakespeare's Sister, etc. They're awesome examples of how far-reaching one person's writings can be on blogs, how ideas can be sent so far around the world in such a short amount of time. Some people even get paranoid about that kind of thing. Reading comments on these large, well-known blogs is either hilarious - because there are some truly funny people out there - or tedious, as everyone tries to out-do the previous comments. Reading comments on smaller blogs is more fun, because it's often more personal. Maybe it's the voyeur in me. I recently joined Romance Divas, and became addicted to blogs all over again. Some of these writers keep a blog for their writing, a personal blog, ...one is keeping a dieting blog. My Blogroll doubled when I started adding their blogs to my list. The fact that they can keep more than one blog astonishes me. I have a hard time updating this one a few times a week so that people don't log into their Bloglines account and go "Musings? Who the hell was musing, and what was it about?" (and yes, I know that I technically have another blog, that "Things I read" Thing. But that was something I did as an easy way to keep track of books to add to my to-be-read list, since I was always coming across them at work or at school. It's not an actual blog, although if you want to check it out, have fun. It really is just a list of books, though.) But if you want a good food blog that can explore the unusual one minute (avocado cake anyone?) and the humdrum the next, with a side order of humor and some scrumdiddlyumptious recipes thrown in for free, try The Accidental Hedonist . Besides the fact that I love the name, this is one blog I'll be addicted to for a long time.