For most Netizens, Web logs—reading them, writing them, or both—have become a way of
life. So this year, they get their own category
By
MARYANNE MURRAY BUECHNER
Overheard in New York
www.overheardinnewyork.com
Amusing verbatim accounts of stuff people say to each other in public.
Anybody can submit; just email your (brief) transcript to the editors
for consideration. Overheardintheoffice.com
is equally hilarious. Warning: on both sites, some material is not
suitable for children, and profanity, stupidity or bigotry is generally
kept intact.
Cars
Jalopnik, Autoblog
www.jalopnik.com, www.autoblog.com
Crazy about cars? Between these two blogs, you should be able to feed the beast within.
Jalopnik’s scribblings have more personality ("Volkswagen continues to tease us like the
self-hating louts we are, releasing another teaspoon’s worth of details on its yet-unnamed
convertible….") while Autoblog delivers industry news straight-up ("Hybrids are Hot:
Honda sells 100,000"). Bonus link: 10 Hot Vehicles for
Techies, from the new cars.cnet.com.
Celebrity Slams
Go Fug Yourself
gofugyourself.typepad.com
A daily shredding of the sartorial choices of Hollywood stars, complete with photographic
evidence. To wit: Parts of Courtney Love’s new, larger body "are sort of sloshing around,
uncontained, like a Big Gulp spilling all over your gear shift when you take a turn too
fast." Chloe Sevigny proves "high-waisted pants are the spawn of Satan’s sewing machine."
Confessional Art
PostSecret
postsecret.blogspot.com
A
fascinating public airing of private thoughts—some dark, others funny,
endearing or disturbing—written on homemade postcards and collected by
blogger Frank Warren of Germantown, Maryland. Anyone can contribute,
and thousands have. Just make a card and mail it to Warren—he suggests
that you be brief, legible and creative—and, if he likes it, he’ll scan
it and post it on his site. The range of efforts (meticulous, sloppy,
artful, ponderous) will astound you.
Design
MoCo Loco
www.mocoloco.com
Blogger
Harry Wakefield of Montreal keeps you plugged in to the world of modern
contemporary design and architecture. Whether you’re a serious buyer or
only wish you could be, you’ll enjoy scrolling through page after page
of photos and descriptions of cutting-edge products, materials and
decorating concepts, organized by category (furniture, lighting,
jewelry, bathroom fixtures, wallcoverings and more). Entries include
links to manufacturers and retailers.
EBay Watch
Bayraider
bayraider.tv
Bayraider
ferrets out the silliest, freakiest stuff being auctioned on eBay and
other auction sites—a laser-etched Buddha, say, or the Slightly Used
and Possibly Defective Husband kit—and provides direct links to where
you can place your bid. There are things you may actually want, too.
Discoveries are organized by category (Music, Sporty Stuff, Weird). New
from Shiny Media, a U.K. weblog company.
Entrepreneurs
Allen’s Blog
www.allensblog.typepad.com
Allen Morgan, managing director at Mayfield—a venture capital firm in Menlo Park, California—backer of Beatnik, PlanetOut, Tribe and Pluck
—guides entrepreneurs on how to pitch ideas and get financing. The
recent "10 Commandments" series on how to handle those critical
meetings with VCs is a must-read.
Food
Chocolate and Zucchini
www.chocolateandzucchini.com
The blogger here is English-speaking Parisian Clotilde Dusoulier, who professes to love
every food-related act, from shopping for ingredients to garnishing a plate to consuming
the results, and recounts all of it with unpretentious aplomb. Recipes are indexed. Extras
include a Bloxicon page, where you can brush up on French culinary terms from cassoulet to
ganache, and a helpful Conversions cheat sheet. Honorable
mention: The Accidental Hedonist, written
with flair by one Kate Hopkins. Newsy, political and practical all at once (she offers 14
pointers "for better enjoyment of your cheese" in a May 27 post). The quotes on each page
("My favorite animal is steak." -Fran Lebowitz ) are like the cherry on top.
General Interest
Boing Boing
www.boingboing.net
A
grab bag of links to cool, odd and interesting things happening online
and off—like the bit about the engineering student who cobbled together
an air conditioner using a fan and a bucket of ice water, and the
Florida couple who found the image of Jesus on a Lay’s potato chip.
Gadget news, kitsch, digital art and disturbing consumer trends are all
fair game for the Boing Boing team, which solicits, and vets,
suggestions from the audience.
Humor
Anonymous Lawyer
www.anonymouslawyer.blogspot.com
Deadpan and ironic, this delicious insider account of life at a big law firm is pure
fiction—and should be required reading for attorneys who haven’t yet learned how to
laugh at themselves. Being a lawyer, according to the author, boils down to "fooling
clients into believing [we] have some real expertise and using fear and
manipulation to extort excessive hourly fees." He rails against idiot clients, partners
and associates, admitting "you can’t work at a place like this and have integrity." But
he’s not offering apologies, only rationalizations. What separates him from the "truly
evil," he writes, is this: "I know when I’m over the line. I do it anyway, but I know."
Motherhood
Dooce
www.dooce.com
Hilarious personal blog by one Heather B. Armstrong of Salt Lake City, Utah, a whip-smart,
sassy (and sometimes vulgar) stay-at-home mom. Even the exploding poop stories are good.
Also: DotMoms links to dozens of blogs
written by parents about parenting. Not all of them are "momoirs;" some of the bloggers
are dads.
Photography
Chromasia
www.chromasia.com
Instead of text, each daily post is a single (beautiful) photograph
taken by amateur enthusiast David J. Nightingale of Blackpool, England.
Tiny arrows at the top left-hand corner of the page allow you to view
other images; to scan Nightingale’s entire online portfolio (some 543
images to date), click on Thumbs. The Archives section offers a
detailed description of each image, including how it was shot (which
camera, type of lens, shutter speed, etc.). The Snowsuit Effort
is also excellent; featuring close-ups of the individuals photoblogger
Ryan Keberly meets on the streets of Detroit and the things they say.
For a Top 100 list of photoblogs and a directory organized by country
and language, visit Photoblogs.org.
Baseball
SportsBlogs Nation
sbnation.com
Home base for nearly two-dozen baseball blogs, most of them devoted to
specific teams. There’s Lookout Landing (for Seattle Mariners fans),
Fish Stripes (about the Florida Marlins) and Amazin’ Avenue (Mets), as
well as the terrific Beyond the Box Score and John Sickel’s Minor
League Ball. And each one has a diary where readers can chime in—a
feature SportsBlogs Nation co-founder Markos Moulitsas Zuniga ported
over from his popular (leftie) political blog, Daily Kos.
If you blog about a team not yet represented here, make yourself
known—score a spot on the roster and you get a piece of the ad revenue.
Also good: BaseballBlogs.org
Technology
Lifehacker
www.lifehacker.com
"Don’t live to geek; geek to live." This site, one of the latest blogs from Gawker Media
(backer of Wonkette, Fleshbot, Gizmodo and a slew of others, including our next pick),
dispenses sound tech advice with the understanding that computers can be frustrating,
time-sucking monsters that we can’t do without. There’s an invaluable set of links running
down the right-hand side of the home page, covering spyware cleaners, spam filters, online
photo sharing and more. For the fashion-tech report (Hello Kitty cell phones, desktop
fondue) visit PopGadget.
Travel
Gridskipper
www.gridskipper.com
Its mission: to "scour" the web for juicy tidbits on urban travel, nightlife and culture,
"with one eye on sophistication and the other on playful debauchery." Posts point out
neighborhoods, restaurants and activities you probably won’t read about in other guides,
with a healthy mix of the practical and self-indulgent. A typical entry might cover a
summer music festival or obscure art exhibit, or link to the World’s 100 Sexiest Hotels.
Tadi malam ga sengaja nonton film Groundhog Day di Global, oi oi ternyata filmnya bagus. Bill Murray-nya mantap.
? it’s my b’day by the way, *celingak-celinguk* ga ada yang nanya ya?), dan Phil berkata dengan takjub: 
