A few good blogs
One of the best parts about blogging has been discovering other writers and their unique voices. But it hasn’t been easy. I’ve really had to search.
The reason why I’m writing this post is because even though we hear about how many millions of blogs there are in the blogosphere, it’s hard to actually find ones you enjoy on a consistent basis. So, I thought I would share my favorites in case others are looking for a few good blogs, and hope that readers will recommend some more in the comments section. What I look for in a blog is either something consistently funny (which goes with the theme of my site) or a personal blog that is well-written, engaging, and includes some humor.
Catherine Sherman was my first good find. I found her blog through Wordpress.com which offers free hosting for bloggers. A lot of my friends use blogspot, and I kind of regret not going that route myself because it would have been simpler but I learned a lot purchasing my own domain name and it offers a lot more flexibility.
Anyway, Catherine is a Kansas blogger who wrote a post about Flight of the Conchords, a television show we both adore, and I immediately liked her writing style and the layout of her blog. It also turned out that Catherine had visited Australia and more specifically, Tasmania, this year so we had a lot to compare notes on after that.
From Catherine’s blogroll I found Kiwibloke, Planetjan, and Middleground. I’ve mentioned Kiwibloke several times in my posts about Flight of the Conchords because he also follows the show and chronicles all things New Zealand. Planetjan is written by a California teacher with a witty sense of humor and great research skills. She wrote an excellent series about narcissim and Narcissistic Personality Disorder that I greatly admired. I’ve been thinking about it a lot since because I’ve had a few close encounters with narcissists myself and it isn’t pretty. I’m just getting to know Middleground but it’s written by a southern married mother of one with a dry sense of humor .
I recently added Montana For Real to my blogroll. This is written by a friend of my family’s who writes about life on a working Montana ranch. She does an excellent job of capturing the essence of modern day ranch life on a daily basis. She is also an aspiring fiction author, like me.
Barnes and Noble introduced me to Dooce through the audio series Meet the Writers. Heather Armstrong writes Dooce from Salt Lake City, a blog that started in 2001 and famously got her fired from her job. She just finished a memoir called, “It sucked and then I cried: How I had a baby, a breakdown, and a much needed margarita.” I’ve put it on my reading list. She also is witty and honest about parenthood. Can you sense a theme here in what I like?
The others on my blogroll, like 1000 Awesome Things or Indexed aren’t personal. They mostly chronicle life in a unique way, or make fun of things like passive aggressive notes, or apostrophe abuse. I check them out occasionally for a chuckle, but I like the personal blogs better.
Anyway, that’s all of my endorsements for this Saturday afternoon. I hope you can add a few more in the comments section. Now off to enjoy the good weather!
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May 3rd, 2009 at 4:10 pm
Thanks for the mention of planetjan. >blush< Just wanted you to know that I asked my students to spell “rhythm” last week. Yikes! Then, I taught them your trick, and by the end of the day they could hardly fit their big heads out the door. They were so eager to teach their parents that trick. Many thanks.
I always teach the directions using Never Eat Sour Watermelon, but a 4th grader once told me he remembered it from Never Ever Smoke Weed!
Now that is a really funny story. I imagine you have a few “speechless” moments as a teacher. I’m so glad the trick still works. Janelle