Best of Blogs 3: Relatively Un-American

1. Drudge Report

To be perfectly honest I am not sure this is a blog. It has news. There's commentary. And it's heft in the conservative sphere is unquestionable. Why? To be honest, I can't quantify it. My suspicion is that fear is a motivating tool to Matt Drudge's fan base. The stories he deems most relevant are usually reminiscent of anarchy, liberal unrest, whatever those damn Europeans are doing, and the latest fashion news from Michelle Obama. Drudge never fails to hype the military, mock liberal politicians, and hype whatever those terrorists in the Middle East are doing (or just brown people, anywhere).

I check this out every once in a while because you'll occasionally find something interesting here. Yeah, some of them are the kind of headlines stories that never make it in reputable news circles, but every now and then I consider "the monkey who learned to love" a worthwhile story. Not to mention, Art of War: "Know Your Enemy" - even if it makes you dead inside.

2. Think Progress

I feel like this is one of the best organized blogs I have encountered. Especially coming after Drudge Report. It's blatantly liberal, as the term progressive implies, but it doesn't have as much of a stink of the wishy-washy like The Huffington Post and DailyKos.

I particularly like the "What We're Fighting For" and "What We're Fighting Against" on the right side of the screen, with its color-coded bars corresponding to the headlines of the main stories on the page. What doesn't directly relate to the color code is subtitled i.e. "Radical Right-Wing Agenda" or "Media Accountability".

3. Tree Hugger

Why not! We're in the Green Revolution right now. Why not title yourself something I shamelessly associate with the profane rants of an obese third grader (South Park). Tree Hugger is simultaneously a guide to thinking green and striving to wrap your head around esoteric environmental policy. Plus, it's a subsidiary of Discovery.

Science is cool now. If you don't watch Discovery you're un-American. By that logic, you really should read this blog. It's moderately well presented - could be better with a cable network providing funds. Tree Hugger is also really well integrated. Not only does it have forums for trolls like me, but it's also on Twitter for the real cool kids (I'm sorry if you love Twitter).

Best of Blogs 2: Things you don't care about

This week I'm proudly throwing up my nerd flag. These are the gamer "blogs" that I find myself checking out. Be brave and explore a little and you might find some good humor at the very least.

1. Penny Arcade

The often pedantic Tycho Brahe and his hetero life mate Gabe write game reviews and commentary on the tech world. The "blog" is updated about every other day, and sometimes several times a day. Don't forget to push the Comic button at the bottom, no venture into Penny Arcade is complete without reading a couple of the comic strips. They're the real reason Penny Arcade has grown so famous over the past 10 years. The duo even hold their own convention every year, PAX. A lot of the comics are nonsensical and obscure only to gamers. Their notoriety has spawned a series of video games published by the two friends.
P.S. Their newest update: "The Way of All Flesh" is at least partially relevant to what we do in class.

2. The Feed

G4tv is an upstart gamer, tech, and geek-based television channel under the umbrella of Comcast. The Feed is their news crawler in expanded form a la internet. It gives insight into all the things most people will never care to concern themselves with. But, if you look closely there might be that new phone you want or some awesome/disgusting new viral internet video. There are links to game reviews, features from G4's shows, video blogs from hosts, and all the ephemera of geek-dom. It's probably updated about 10 or 20 times a day, so that if you check it on any particular day, you'll have to scroll all the way to the bottom to catch up on all that's happened.

3. Fully Ramblomatic/Zero Punctuation

There's about a 99% chance that any people in the class who wander to this website will absolutely have no idea what's going on. Someone owns Illustrator, Photoshop and video editing software. Oh yeah, and they sport an acrid Neo-Australian accent and a clear disrespect for periods and commas. That's about all you might get from Zero Punctuation. Fully Ramblomatic unfolds the hilarious mind of Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw. He's part game reviewer, part game designer and full-blown geek prophet. Basically, you'll find suggestions for things to watch on YouTube, links to Zero Punctuation and commentary on the insane world of technology and gaming. Really, again, no reason for anyone who isn't a gamer to ever go to Fully Ramblomatic. But, if you go to Zero Punctuation, watch Resident Evil 5 just for my personal enjoyment.