Top Three Blogs That Make Me Happy
Despite New Year's resolutions, I still read a fair number of blogs and websites. I've pretty much narrowed them down to "blogs I read for information and info-tainment" and "blogs that make me happy," with a few other categories and subcategories.In the first category I'd put things like the excellent Whatever or Boing Boing or Locus Online or Swivet or SF Signal or Mediabistro Galley Cat.The second category is more personal. Something about the way the blog's creator writes and what they consistently write about delights me. It's not escapist so much as, well, they just make me happy. So here's my self-declared subjective Top 3 for those kinds of blogs.Silence Without - Okay, so sometimes Tessa just gripes about her insomnia. But ninety-percent of the time there's a wonderfully observant travelogue or a funny cartoon or an insightful book review. Something about the way Tessa sees the world and her no-BS, still nuanced approach to her subject matter always makes me smile. It's not so much that it's comfortable as that the entries always surprise me.The Antik Musings of G.B.H. Hornswoggler - Andy Wheeler's blog talks and walks like an info/info-tainment blog, with its reviews of books and movies, along with other observations, but more than any other blog I read, I sense a lack of pretense. Andy doesn't have any axes to grind. He doesn't have any reason to suck up to anybody, either. I feel like he's objective, as much as anyone can be, and since his views often mirror my own, I find out about cool stuff I'm likely to enjoy through his blog. I also almost always find myself nodding my head in agreement when he takes on a semi-controversial topic.14theditch - Jeff Ford's livejournal makes me happy for another reason. Jeff's accounts of things like his cats pissing on an X-Box make me laugh out loud. But he's also completely unpretentious and, of course, knowledgeable about fiction and all kinds of other things. Ford's blog makes me happy for all of that and because you won't find any bullshit there.Okay, now I'm off to play pool for the rest of the day...