28 Hours Later

Oh, Lordy. The disease has taken only 24 hours to spread so far that I have already emailed all my friends to tell them to read this, and put my blog address in my gmail status bar.

Worse, the world has now been painted with the indelible strokes of the Great Fat Blog Brush, which means everything – everything – is now potential blog material. I started my day thinking: “Oh look, there are no effing spoons in the kitchen again. Perhaps I should blog about it. On the other hand, I also got caught at three robots on the way to work, perhaps I should blog about THAT." And then – THEN – I started thinking of friends I hadn't yet emailed the link to, wondering if there was some innocent pretext I could use to contact them. It's downhill from here, I'm afraid.

Serve you right for being such a self-righteous wanger, I hear you say. And you’d be right. But then, as if I needed a further shove down the slippery slope, my horoscope this morning read: “You might have discovered a previously untapped talent; a creative gift. This could be rather thrilling for you. Your efforts at first might be tentative and uncertain, but don't grow discouraged just because you don't feel like a genius. Give it time.”

Dark times, my friends. Dark times. And the astrologer is quite right, despite probably being just another disillusioned copywriter who dreamed of The New Yorker but woke up to Pasqualina Online; I feel as far from genius as Obama from the mini-bar (that is: pretty damn far, but hoping for the best). And yet, being the wonderful friend that she is, Bean has pointed out the stupendous postmodern potential of writing a blog about why one hates writing a blog, and led me to a wonderful site entitled Social Media Douchebag. (Which is like self-help for web nerds; something along the lines of I’m Okay, Because You’re a Douchebag Too.) Of course, it grabbed me like a mugger grabs a short skirt in a dark alleyway, and that was that: I sat down to write about it immediately.

But before I become so PoMo it hurts, I feel I should get back to what I really wanted to do today. And that is to state the other side of the story; to pay homage to those rare and wonderful blogs without which the rest of us would have to spend our days, I don’t know, working or something.

Here they are, and here’s why you should read them.

1. Because we’ve all secretly wondered how the heck Goths wear that stuff in summer, and because I always wanted to use the phrase “Sandcastle of Mordor” but never found a way:
www.gothsinhotweather.blogspot.com

2. Because I am to these girls what Stan is to Eminem; that is, they don’t know I exist, but our friendship is real. REAL. We drink cocktails and swap girly stories and they laugh at my jokes and we admire each other’s hair and wear each other’s equally adorable shoes:
www.gofugyourself.celebuzz.com

3. Because she is just so damn funny:
http://becs-plan-b.blogspot.com/

4. Because you don’t need to resort to eating Bob Martins to put hair on your chest, head, or any other body part:
http://notabaldy.wordpress.com/

5. Because they’re awesome, and because they love me back:
http://www.laughitoff.co.za/
(and if you want proof that they love me back, click here.)

6. Because you should never start Monday without seeing the mullet of the week:
http://www.classicrockthebear.com/gallery/Mullet-of-the-Week-Gallery

7. Because everyone has secrets, and most of them are worse than yours:
http://postsecret.blogspot.com/

8. Because it’s so random it’s subversive (my favourite kind):
http://mahendras-ties.blogspot.com/

9. Because we’re very bovvered by not having her in the country:
http://cleverblogs.wordpress.com/

10. Because she has that talent I don’t have, of keeping her entries razor-sharp and post-Goethe pithy:
http://trinklebean.wordpress.com/

11. Because she’s a deeply cool South African émigré who doesn’t diss her home country:
http://www.geraldinemeliot.blogspot.com

12. Because they offer GHOST BLOGGING (so, if you’re too embarrassed to go down the rabbit-hole like me, you can get someone else to do it for you):
http://www.meerkatcommunications.ca/

And yes, many of these are my friends. But I never said I wouldn’t namedrop. Did I?