Category: just for fun

Bloggers who make me think

thinker.jpgI tried to resist the meme. Honestly, I did. But the allure of the five bloggers who make me think pass-along was just to great. And, since Karine Joly was kind enough to include this blog in her top-five list, I felt obliged to keep this meme alive.

Before I share my five, I should say that I don’t always want to think when I’m surfing blogs. At least, I don’t always want to think hard. I’m usually looking for entertainment, or snarky commentary. But, when I am in the mood for thinking, here are some bloggers I can trust to usually get the mental juices flowing:

  1. crazymonkey. I don’t read Greek, which makes crazymonkey very difficult to comprehend. But the site employs lots of pictures and the occasional English phrases, and the links are usually mentally stimulating. Sure wish I knew what the monkey was saying, though.
  2. Andy Shaidlin’s blog, alumni futures, because it makes me think about alumni stuff.
  3. Michael Stoner’s mStoner blog. Typically thoughtful posts from a thoughtful guy whose photo makes him look even more thoughtful.
  4. A recent find: American Copywriter. Read today’s entry and I think you’ll get why I’ve got a crush on this blog.
  5. Snark Hunting. A blog all about naming and branding. I read this a lot during the past several months as our campus went through the angst of changing our 43-year-old name.

There’s plenty of other thoughtful blogs out there, but in keeping with the letter as well as the spirit of the meme, I’m sticking with those five.

Friday Five: things I love (about the Internet) edition

I conclude my three-part series on things I love with a short list of things I love about the Internet:

  1. It’s a wellspring of information that you aren’t likely to find elsewhere (except when the mainstream media pick up on something that becomes huge, like those JibJab videos. Where else can one learn that Sept. 19 is International Talk Like A Pirate Day, or that yesterday was International Talk Like Bob Dylan Day? (Hat tip to Courtney for the Dylan thing. If you click on that link, I highly recommend you watch the mockumentary “No Direction, Period.”)
  2. Mashups. The Internet is the perfect vehicle for DIY video and audio bricalers to deliver their video and audio mashups (definition (YouTube video)) to a global audience. Whether it’s a video of a Tony Blair tribute to the Clash or the musical mixology of the Kleptones (samples), you can find all manner of creative mashup artistry on the web, if you know where to look.
  3. Memes. Those little virtual parlor games that propagate like kudzu all over the ‘net. They range from the five bloggers who make me think-style pass-alongs to the ubiquitous “which ______ are you” quizzes (about which more later).
  4. Online quizzes. I love me some online quizzes. Through these quizzes, I know that if I were in Star Wars, I would be Boba Fett (“Because of your dark past you don’t say much, and you don’t have many close friends, but man do you look cool!”), and that of the ensemble of The Office characters, I am most like receptionist Pam Beezly. If I were a theologian, I’d be Calvin, and if I were a Calvin and Hobbes character, I’d be Hobbes. The path to self-enlightenment is as close as AllTheTests.com.
  5. Blogging. I love blogging. Isn’t it obvious?