There are blogs, and then there's LiveJournal. LJ is theoretically good for keeping up with what your friends are doing. I avoid it like the plague and force my friends to tell me how their lives are going in actual conversation.
However, the pain of LJ doesn't mean that there can't be decent blogs. Ideally, the blog format acts as filter for the internet, with someone who shares your interest pointing out things they've stumbled across, with the commenting system allowing a community of likeminded folks to pop up and chat about what's posted. Blogs can be whining, self-absorbed crap, but they certianly dont' have to be. A few personal favorites:
- On the liberal political front, I like the informed legal perspective of
TalkLeft and the hyper-detailed, team political analysis of
Daily Kos, as well as Kevin Drum's aforementioned
Political Animal.
- Zlich is right: MP3 blogs are, indeed, where it's at.
Fluxblog,
The Tofu Hut, and
gabba / POD are my favorites. And, of course,
Honey, Where You Been So Long.
- Your favorite creators probably have a blog where they update you on their current projects.
Neil Gaiman and
Warren Ellis both do a superior job of mixing their own updates with interesting links.
- Rather than read websites full of comic book news, I read
Fanboy Rampage's snarky comments about comic book news. Meanwhile,
Grotesque Anatomy provides interesting (if somewhat sporadic) commentary.
-
Boing Boing is as good a general-purpose blog as anything out there. It's described as "A Directory Of Wonderful Things", which is fairly accurate. On the flip-side,
Gizmodo is a great example of a specialist blog.
- Finally, my absolute favorite blog is Teresa Nielsen-Hayden's
Making Light. TNH is a science fiction editor at Tor, so there's a vague empahsis on literary/SFnal/fannish discussion, but her posts cover the gamut of creation, she has a superior group of commenters who follow her blog, and her posts tend to be top-notch. For example, check out her entries on
the infrastructure of New York City,
the writer they call Mary Sue, and the editorial wisdom of
Slushkiller. To get an idea of what her comments are like, check out this
Open Thread discussing favorite SF/Fantasy novels; I found myself with several dozen more books to keep an eye out for.
FnordChan
But the poster obviously posted that image because of the word 'emo' -- this thread has nothing to do with emoticons.
