Thursday, May 17, 2007

Blogs of Note. Aside from this one.

I can tell from the general indifference my last couple of posts have generated that either A) people have gotten out of the habit of checking in here for new content, or B) the new content isn't all that interesting. Since B) is too horrible to contemplate, I can only say that I hope word spreads that I'm trying to get back into the groove of regular posting here -- though by no means can I guarantee it -- and that those who have given this blog up for dead will give it another chance.

Though posting at this blog has been spotty at best for a while, my reading of other blogs has continued apace. I've tried to comment where I feel I have something relevant to say, but rest assured, blogosphere, I am still monitoring you! Just to prove it, here are a few that have been particularly engaging me recently.

Bully, the little stuffed animal who maintains a blog, has started a project I only wish I had thought of first: a Wodehouse a week. He's going to read every book P.G. Wodehouse ever wrote, one per week, and report on it in the blog. That's tremendous. I think Wodehouse is one of the most fantastically funny and entertaining writers in the history of the English language, and Bully clearly agrees. He's gone through three books so far; he should be done with the project in another, oh, two years or so. I envy him.

I also wish I had thought of this first: Greg of Delenda Est Carthago has been going through the seasons of Seinfeld and grading "The Women of Jerry" -- the many girlfriends of Jerry Seinfeld, the character -- based primarily on the fame index of the actress, but also taking note of the quality of the episodes, and the increasing age difference between Jerry and his fictional paramours. Part 6 has just been posted (featuring a shout-out to me, which I swear I didn't even realize before I started writing this post). Good fun!

Lyle at Crocodile Caucus has been reporting on the television "upfronts" (during which the various networks announce their fall schedules, including what's new, and what's been cancelled). I hope to get into it myself sometime very soon, and add a new chapter to "Tom's Unfair Previews" over on the sidebar. For the past two years, as you may or may not know, I've been boldly singling out the Fall Season's failures and successes, and more failures, based on nothing more than the networks' sketchy website outlines of each series. Hence: Unfair Previews. While you're waiting for my venom to be unleashed on TV at large, why not check out Lyle's thoughts in the meantime?

Chris's Invincible Super-Blog (aka the ISB) has moved to a new address. But it still features the old site's customary rundown of every week's new comic books, including the best weekly kick to the face (yes, there's always a kick to the face somewhere, every single week), as well as entries on many other awesome comics and comics-related items (caveat: to Chris Sims, everything is "awesome").

It's Sci-Fi (aka "Skiffy") Week over at SamuraiFrog's Electronic Cerebrectomy. Here are his thoughts on Entertainment Weekly's list of the best 25 science fiction movies and TV shows of the past 25 years. It is a very stupid list -- two Paul Verhoeven films are mentioned, and neither of them is RoboCop, and at #1 is The Matrix, which pretty much destroys the integrity of the list right there -- and SamuraiFrog does not hesitate in exposing that stupidity. And here are his top ten episodes of Futurama. Personally, I'd put either "The Devil's Hands Are Idle Playthings" or "Roswell That Ends Well" (which has possibly my favorite line in the whole series, Fry's nonchalant "Welp, I killed my grandfather!") at #1, but it's still a fine list, and includes about a thousand of the best Futurama quotes. Warning: this blog sometimes has pictures of naked boobies. Which, as Chris Sims might say, is awesome.

Fellow ACAPCWOVCCAOE* member Flesh-head's Treehouse of Random Goodness has returned to regular posting after a long hiatus (at about the same time my recent hiatus began here). And, remarkably enough, he credits little ol' me with inspiring him to get back in the blogging game. Aw, shucks! You're only sayin' it 'cause it's true. Well, I'm proud of, and humbled by, any influence I may have inadvertently had on young Mr. Flesh-head, and I'm glad to see him reviving his blog. And, even more pleasing, he's as big a fan of the Dodgers as I am, and he even came about to Dodger fanhood pretty much the same way, and at about the same time, as I did. Very cool. Go Dodgers!

Over at the AV Club, Nathan Rabin has been engaged in a year-long blogging project, "My Year of Flops." Every week, he's been taking legendary, and not-so-legendary, cinematic flops, reevaluating them, and breaking them down into the categories "Failure," "Fiasco," or "Secret Success." (According to Nathan, My Super Ex-Girlfriend was merely a Failure; Elizabethtown, which was kind of the impetus for the whole project, was a Fiasco -- with which assessment I heartily disagree; and, surprisingly, Ishtar was a Secret Success.) His most recent entry, #32, is the bizarre and awful Exorcist II: The Heretic (Fiasco).

Hopefully, if a few of these blogs are new to you, you'll go check 'em out and enjoy 'em. Just as long as you keep coming back here, too! See you soon with a new post. (I hope.)



*As spelled out on my sidebar, that would be the Associated Comics And Pop Culture Webloggers Of Ventura County, CA, And Outlying Environs.

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