Stumbling Across Good Blogs

I am not much for slogging through blogs in search of entertainment or good writing or both. The handful of blogs I read regularly belong to women I met through the YWBB and that I have listed on my Widow Blogroll. Anything that is evenly remotely entertaining, my husband Rob found using StumbleUpon and then went on to find others through the links he found on the worthwhile blogs he stumbled across. Stumble is a program that you can use to find specific topic oriented blogs or just randomly flip through like a couch potato with satellite. Through Stumble Rob discovered A Riot is an Ugly Thing along with its host, Uncle Keith. Uncle Keith, I should warn you, will not be everyone’s cup of tea. He is middle-age though he claims to be old. He is unapologetically incorrect and he likes to post pictures of scantily clad women who could be his (of legal age) daughters. But he can be funnier than hell while doing all of the above. Another pervert Rob discovered before the days of Stumble was the host of What Would Tyler Durden Do? (WWTDD) For you non-Fight Clubbers out there reading this from your IKEA-ized domains still in your khaki cubicle uniforms, Tyler Durden is the the name of the character played by Brad Pitt in the movie, Fight Club. It is one of my husband’s favorite movies and my step-daughter’s favorite books by her favorite author, Chuck Palahniuk. When I first began corresponding with Rob via email (because yes, where would two internet junkies meet but on the www), he told me I reminded him of Marla Singer. I was appalled (after I googled her up on Wikipedia) but in retrospect I can think of at least one area where she and I have some in common – though I am forbidden to go there (much) in my blogging. WWTDD is a celebrity eviscerating site, where the host skewers the flavors of the week and waxes pornographically about the current crop of famous tail. He may be Uncle Keith’s nephew. Tyler Durden came to us courtesy of The Gil Meche Experience. This is a cadre of writers there who claim to be law students somewhere on the East Coast of the U.S. The main blogger is a young man named Pulp who is on a mission (one of many) to expose David Brooks as a tepid writing talent. Nurse Myra of Gimcrack Hospital (PG) is someone Rob met through Uncle Keith who obviously enjoys her because on Friday she posts tastefully done pictures of herself in provacative clothing. She is a real nurse though in a real retirement home in the real place of Australia and she is a very talented writer. She writes with wit and style about the day to day of her job and the people she encounters. Rob discovered, inadvertently, that she was widowed as we are and thought at first that I should categorize her with the other widow blogs. While her “about me” states that she blogs to keep sane, she is not writing about her grief. Even if she were, I would still put her with the interesting blogs because she and it are that.The Diary of a Mad DC Cabbie is a Stumble find. He is not mad but he is a cabbie in the DC area and he blogs on all manner of things. He is funny. He is smart. And he is a very good writer. As is Johnny Virgil over at Fifteen Minute Lunch. I would do much to be that funny. His rantings on washrooms have earned him a place of honor in my esteem forever. Waiter Rant is just that, and apparently its author has written a book and was approached about turning it into a movie according to my oldest step-daughter. She is the original source of this blog and though my husband reads it – aloud to me – every so often, I don’t find it compelling enough to read on my own. It is well-written and others find it quite entertaining. And Rob likes it. He has much better taste in blogs as a source of leisure reading than I do. I am from the quaint old school of building community and friendships via the blogosphere. He does not believe that one can be friends with people who may or may not really exist at all. As one of my mommie friends from yore pointed out when she and the other women I now call friends met on BabyCenter – back in the days before we moved to a private group home – who knows who any of us really were. One of us could have really been a 55 year old man simply pretending to be a thirty-something pregnant woman or new mother. After all, you never know what some people will do to entertain themselves. Rob explains us, in case you are interested, as above average anomalies and exceptions to all rules.Blogging, in my opinion – ’cause that is the only one that counts around here, is a viable source of the written word as entertainment or information. One could do worse than to check out and become a daily reader of any of the blogs I have mentioned.

3 thoughts on “Stumbling Across Good Blogs

  1. Myra, six months was rough for me too. I hope you find something that might help here. If not, check out the Widow Blog links. There are some really good ones out there and several our by women less than a year out. Take care.

  2. hi and thanks for the linkage… oops, i accidentally wrote kinkage there. wonder if that was a freudian slip or just one of my usual typos.

    when I get home from work tonight I’ll be back to check out the other recommendations – they look great.

    also am looking forward to checking out ‘grief’ in your category cloud. it’s 6 months since stephen died and I’m finding it a particularly hard time so i’m looking for all the advice/comfort I can find

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