The two weeks off from politics that I’m taking does not, of course, mean that I’ve stopped reading blogs – I’m a politics junkie, after all. It has meant that I’m paying just slightly more attention to my blograzing habits (just made up* the word!), which means that I’ve noticed that I seem to drift a bit. You know: find a site, read it a lot for a time, check it regularly, slow down, not check it so often, look at something else, come back later and catch up… sort of an ebb-and-flow, you know? Dunno if this is normal, a sign of my astonishing breadth of interests, an indication that I’m flighty, something else entirely – or any combination thereof.
Call this the Sunday open thread about blogging as blogging, then. Doesn’t hurt to go all meta every so often.
Moe
*Unless, of course, somebody already beat me to it.
find a site, read it a lot for a time, check it regularly, slow down, not check it so often, look at something else, come back later and catch up… sort of an ebb-and-flow, you know?
I’m like this with several, although there are some I will always read, every day, if I’m online.
I normally scan the headlines on a dozen or so each day, but only comment on a few. I find I get involved in a thread and can’t shift gears too easily.
Two blogs I’m enjoying more and more (yes, I know I’m late to the game) is USS Clueless and the Belmont Club…world class analysis on both (even if I often disagree with the POV).
There’s got to be a word for it
Moe Lane of Obsidian Wings proposes a new word—blograzing: You know: find a site, read it a lot for a time, check it regularly, slow down, not check it so often, look at something else, come back later and catch…
World class analysis?
Please. Those dudes are insane. Between the Belmont Club declaring victory in Fallujah and Steven Den Beste declaring war on the Left …
I find I do much the same, Moe. For quite some time, especially during the primaries, I spent a lot of time on dKos in the community there. I spent a lot of time reading Dave Neiwert, Billmon, Atrios, Kevin Drum, and Josh Marshall.
Then I discovered Tacitus, and for a while there totally dug the kind of interaction I could get there–particularly with sane and reasonable conservatives, since most of the conservatives you run into on liberal communities tend to be–well–there to troll.
I still read Kos and TPM, but most of the others have fallen by the wayside. The quality of discourse at Tacitus has fallen drastically, and most of the comment threads at Kos and Atrios devolve quickly to an unreadable leftist echo chamber. I think I articulated some of the reasons for this shift in my last email to you.
I’ve been getting into Winds of Change lately, but–and I flatter you not–ObWi is my “home” right now, as it were.
Agreed, ObWi is good. I’ve been scarce around these parts mainly out of annoyance at ObWi’s absurdly slow load times coupled with forgetfulness.
I basically stick to my blogroll, which fluctuates a bit but tends to stick to a basic core of blogs since metastatizing around my reading favorites circa the end of last spring. I check Yglesias, Pandagon, Tacitus, and Calpundit first and return multiple times daily, though I hardly ever comment anywhere other than Tacitus, and have ignored most of the recent firestorm threads there lately in favor of the diaries. Obsidian Wings, Intel Dump, Tapped, (and lately the Gadflyer) I read at least once a day but generally come to only after finishing a round or two through the main group. Josh Marshall, Oxblog, and Crooked Timber I used to all read regularly and hardly ever do lately, I’m not sure why. I never really got into Kos and only check Atrios maybe once a week. The first blog I ever read was the Agonist during the opening days of the Iraq war, and I really haven’t been back there since.
*Sniffle.*
ah, but moe: you are my Zubin Metha….. sorry, couldn’t resist 🙂
I’ll jump in and say that this place seems to be the only blog left right now that hasn’t devolved into a flame war* or an echo chamber**.
The weather may be damp and rainy up here in the Northeast, but its a hot, nasty summer in Politics Land.
*- Tacitus, Balloon Juice
**- Kos, Kevin Drum
‘the only blog left right now’
truly, are we marching left, left, left right now?
I used to do what you describe, but since I signed up with Bloglines I find it doesn’t happen so much anymore. The big difference I find between using an RSS aggregator like Bloglines and just checking a bunch of blogs by hand is that I tend to read the comments less now. (Except for here, which I almost always have open in a tab and check the comments regularly.)
ah, but moe: you are my Zubin Metha…..
Funny, he’s my Zero Mostel…
I’m doing the same thing, but I’ll always have ObWi.
Blograzing – I like it!
I haven’t yet gotten an RSS feeder. I need to do that. But, I have a pretty standard way, of checking my “bloglist”. I use Mozilla Firefox, and have tabbed broswing. This means, I can save a group of tabs as only ONE bookmark.
I have 2 “news” bookmarks, which go to 8 sites each.
I have 4 “political” bookmarks, which bookmark about 10 sites each.
I have 1 “technical news” bookmark, which has 7 sites.
So on a day where I have a couple of hours (not often) I get through all of them!