Blog Day 2006

05:00 PM Aug 31, 2006

Another year, another blog day. And what with bloglandia still breeding like rabbits, I'm going to venture the rash assumption that the multiplying tribe of politechnonprofit-type blogs slumming in our barrio are also known to you, gentle reader. So in the spirit of wanton cross-pollination that inspires this made-up occasion, here are five blogs I like that don't have a lot to do with whatever demon impels you hither.

• The Baby Names Wizard is notable for a clever web widget that charts the rise and fall of your once-cool name. It's associated with a blog that trades in some riveting micro-sociology dissecting names and naming trends -- like parents' relative conformity to dominant baby names over time, and why the moniker of Geena Davis' character in "Commander In Chief" doesn't quite ring true.
  
• It's really more of a webzine, but it does feature daily updates of 'round-the-web news and an RSS feed, and that makes Football Outsiders a blog in my book. Unconventional football metrics that study what's really going on in football games, a gridiron equivalent of what Moneyball is in baseball. Together with '05 Blog Day endorsee Pro Football Talk, it's a must-hit for football fans. And it'll help you whup your fantasy league, unless they convince you to draft Kevin Jones.
• Even less blog-like is the eXile, actually the web face of a profane English-language tabloid in Moscow with an indispensably debaucherous nightlife catalogue. It's been kicking for a good decade back to Russia's Yeltsin-era gangster-capitalism pillage, launching the career of Rolling Stone journalist and Spanking the Donkey author of Matt Taibbi. Current good reasons to bookmark it include scathing lit critic John Dolan, who smoked out James Frey as a fraud long before The Smoking Gun got to it; and the War Nerd, whose grisly battlefield sojourns (not to mention his accurate prediction of Hezbollah victory over Israel) have lent him a cult following.
  
• English is a minority language among blogs and global connectedness is the whole schtick on the Intertubes, so Global Voices Online's hub of worldwide bloggers (with country-specific feeds) will provide plenty of smart-sounding things to talk about at happy hours.
  
• The peripatetic Weber's Polar Night defies categorization in the best possible meaning of the phrase. Good for surreptitious experimentation in altered states of consciousness while the boss isn't looking.
  

For last year's Blog Day recommendations (and scads of linkspam), click here.  Other DIA staff blog day posts are here and here.

Bang it here for all tagged BlogDay posts on Technorati.

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