blog day

  Today is Blog Day 2005, chosen because you can read the date, 31 Aug, a.k.a., 3108 as the word "Blog" (makes more sense if you look at the graphic). The main point is to recommend five new blogs, or at least blogs you think are under-read.  Participants are encouraged to choose blogs outside their usual realm of interest. The last part was important to me.  I can see from the referrers to my blog, and from the blogrolls of the blogs I read regularly, that we are a sort of incestuous bunch. So I started my search at sites that were at least a degree removed from these siblings. "New" was harder. I'm not sure what the definition of "new" is, so I've chosen sites that are at least new to me; those that have been around awhile at least demonstrate staying power. 

My intentions were to find five really good sites.  I have had a sort of busy week, and ran out of time.  While I found some interesting reading, I also found a lot of crap.  But here I offer you what intrigued me:

• Somewhere on the Masthead --  This made wading through all the turds worth it. Digressions on work and life by the anonymous Magazine Man, editor of a major magazine.  What prompted me to bookmark this blog?  Just plain funny and fantastic writing.  In his profile, lists one of his interests as "a well-turned phrase."  That's also one of my major turn-ons, and Magazine Man crafts some great ones. I have written some material of this type (but only occasionally of this quality) in other venues, and this has encouraged me to go ahead and do more. And finally, looking back to his first entry he talks about being an early reader (me, too), including reading as a boy the "Great Brain" and "Encyclopedia Brown" series (me, too!).  Man, I haven't thought about those books since I read them as prepubescent tomboy!  Connection established. 
• The Science Creative Quarterly -- This is a pretty new endeavor, on it's second issue, new material fortnightly (every two weeks, Yanks).  Good science essays indexed on the left, more creative science-related articles on the right.  I especially liked "Mother Goose and the scientific peer review process."  Not sure this site has really established its unique voice, but I'm looking forward to seeing how it develops.
• TiddlyWiki -- Not exactly a blog, but...I came across this via the productivity site, Lifehacker.  It's an experimental application that allows you to produce a self-contained, single-HTML-file document utilizing microcontent.  I can't even explain this!  Go look at the TiddlyWikiTutorial, and play with it.  It's very cool.  People use it primarily for task lists and such, although you can make an entire blog out of it.  I can't think of a really practical use for it myself at the moment (I use the extremely handy free web-based Backpack for all my to-do lists), but what is important to me -- and why I'll monitor the site -- is that I see the future of blogging evolving with this type of application.  I am especially interested in being able to use microcontent (a tiddler, which sounds naughty) on a regular blog (go check it out, you'll see what I mean!).
• Worth mentioning: Mimi Smartypants (funny); The Space Above the Couch (arty); Blue Ridge Blog (pretty); and the Questionable Authority (a new blog worthy of watching in my own genre I thought I'd sneak in, even though he is currently already at Flappy Bird status).

Now I'll go see what everybody else dug up...

Comments

[Magazine Man]

Wow, this is the nicest thing anyone has said about me in ages. Many thanks for the shout-out. Glad to know I'm not alone in my love of juvenile detective fiction.

Not to sound like a total blogwhore, but if you haven't read it already, you might enjoy "Boy-Detective Days" my one and only real-life adventure as a, er, boy detective.

It's in the column under the heading Random Anecdotes (in case the link doesn't post right, which is always likely where I am concerned).

http://masthead.blogspot.com/2005/03/resume-random-anecdote.html

Boy, you made my day! Come back anytime!

[Marie]

Nobody has called me pretty in a long time...:-) Thank you. I had you in mind when I took today's photo.