The lighter side of blogs

Will you two stop saying “gummi” so much?—Marge Simpson

Blog. Bloggers. Blogosphere.

Blogs brought down Dan Rather?

A couple of months ago I wouldn’t have known what that last sentence even meant. Of all the things the blogging of Dan has done, the most lasting will probably be the entrenchment of the word “blog” and all its variances into the American consciousness. It might even be bigger than the infamous “hanging chad.”

But, as someone who barely can sustain the energy to read the news in the newspaper, there’s no way I’m going take any extra time to dip into the bottomless well of pundits and wags blog-scaping America’s political terrain. Thankfully this does not preclude me and the rest of the bored-to-tears-with-politics public from joining the blog revolution. There is in fact another, significantly lighter and just as prolific side to all this.

Sites like the Drudge Report, Gawker.com and Wonkette.com are all wildly popular blogs, and to different degrees each serves up the “real” news in a fun, irreverent and more digestible fashion. Slide a few inches down the slippery slope from there, however, and the “news” starts to go down like so many bite-sized potato chips.

As a newbie to the world of blogs, I spent a of couple weeks gorging myself to come up with this list of some of the more delicious sites out there.

Jossip.com: “Celebrity and media gossip and news…” Famous folks like Martha, Nick, Jessica, J-Lo, plus media teasing: “AP Sexes Up Leads: Editors given ‘optional’ alternatives.”

BoingBoing.net: Billed as “a directory of wonderful things,” BoingBoing is at the very least eclectic. Recent posts: “Latex costumes more kooky than kinky,” “KFC sells southern fried toxic dye to Chinese consumers,” “Latte foam art snapshots.”

Defamer.com: L.A. (mostly) gossip. Recent post of Simpsons co-creator Sam Simon talking to Howard Stern about Michael Jackson’s guest spot on the cartoon: “He demanded the script be changed so his character could spend more time with Bart. … According to Sam, they said they changed the script, giving Jackson a scene where he spends the night alone with Bart in his room. Sam also added that during the voice recording, someone gave Jackson a giant Bart Simpson doll, and when he thought no one was looking, Jackson started to kiss the doll.”

Helookslike.blogspot.com: One woman’s “morbid game of psychoanalyzing strangers in pictures.”

Popdoh.com: Speculatory celebrity gossip of the sexy kind.

Preshrunk.info: Unique T-shirts from around the world. My fave: “TAFT: Can you dig it?” with a vintage pic of the former president’s mug.

—Jason Cassidy