I don't have all the sites I visit or blogs I read in my sidebar because I like to keep it short, but I suppose it's pretty obvious why most of them are there.
I change them up now and then, but there's the core TV and movie links, including a couple of TV writers who have taught me a lot about how things work behind the scenes in general, and sucked me into the weird world of Canadian TV specifically. There's the word nerd link to the fabulous OneLook Dictionary. I've written about the Internet Archive and LibraryThing before. There's my geek brother's blog, and a few other nods to my own pseudo-geek leanings.
Then there's a couple that just make me laugh.
Scott Feschuk's Weekday Update
Every weekday morning Scott Feschuk's Weekday Update has at least a few laugh-out-loud reflections on the news of the day. His last entry, for example, warns people they might need to up the ante this Valentine's Day, following the arrest of the lovelorn astronaut:
Criticize and ridicule Lisa Nowak all you like – seriously, go ahead: big fun! – but understand one thing: once somebody drives 900 miles in their own urine to don a disguise and wield pepper spray, a BB gun and a steel mallet in the name of love, we have entered a world in which flowers and a card are just not going to cut it.
Feschuk writes for Macleans magazine, used to write for the National Post, worked as a speechwriter for the Liberals, and did a kick-ass job of interviewing Paul Haggis at the Banff World Television Festival and writing about the festival. I said this at the time, but his article on networks' obsession with multiple platforms is the kind of writing that makes me want to pack it in. Except I won't.
Nowadays a TV show is apparently "a subset of a bigger experience . . . a wonderful content experience" that incorporates the Internet and digital platforms. That's how it was described by Fred Fuchs, newly hired as a senior programming executive at the CBC. So next time you watch a terrible Canadian television program, don't say, "This show sucks." Remember to say, "This subset of a bigger experience sucks."
Meldraw's Let me get this straight.
I just re-added Meldraw's Let me get this straight to my blogroll, since she's finally back to blogging regularly (so she says, and she invites nags if she falters). I "met" her through my days at TWoP (House forums, of course), though we don't really know each other. She writes witty and thoughtful essays, often on the minutia of life. Her most recent post is a recap of her first year working for "The Man," where she details what she's done with her new salary and benefits, including signing up for high speed internet:
I read somewhere that the average American spends 14 hours online per week. In other news, I am Rhode Island.
They're two very different blogs, but I'm grateful to both for consistently making me laugh, and sometimes think a little bit. But mostly it's the laughter.
