Oh My Stars and Garters

This Thursday link post thing is getting a little out of hand.

I mostly blame it on Google Reader and it’s damn little stars.

Every time I read a post that I like or want to share, or that makes me laugh or think, I mark it with a little star.

Six days later I count up my stars to find almost a hundred.

I could make a post with all of those links, but I don’t think anyone would read it – myself included. So, I’ll feature a few of them now and, as for the rest, I’m thinking we might need to take this little venture to a twice-weekly status…

Confessions of a Pioneer Woman is one of the consistently best-written blogs I’ve read in the past year. Our humble frontierswoman is currently narrating her way through the story of courting “Marlboro Man,” her dedicated hubby. Great writing, and an engaging read. Start with how they met and surf forward to catch another piece of the memoir scattered throughout every few posts.

Moose In the Kitchen takes her post’s title, “Faults, Illustrated,” slightly too seriously for a moment and produces a paragraph I really enjoyed, followed by a solid introspective blog post. If you’re into that kind of thing. Which I am.

Fresh Arrival is a blog that focuses on one quality link at a time. This week they shared a great one for musicians – OurStage. At first blush it’s just yet another GarageBand on which you can scrabble hopelessly for some notice against people who have brought hundreds of their voting friends.

Lame, right?

Except, Ourstage generates content rankings by staging hundreds of tiny “battles” between two pieces of similar content. So, basically, your song fights a lot of cage matches, and the winningest songs get the most recognition.

Once Arcati Crisis has some demo-quality recordings I think we’ll be giving it a try.

In the past week the vast zeitgeist of entertainment media seems to be aligning to highlight a single show – AMC’s Mad Men. Moot Point breaks it’s allure down into digestible chunks. All I needed to know was: (a) it’s about an ad agency, (b) in the 1960s.

They had me at hello. I might not be as retro-centric as some, but anything retro and dealing with communications slays me. Case and point: Good Night and Good Luck. Loved it. Oh, and, also Shorpy, a retro photoblog. Awesome.

Iconic blogger Jason Kottke went on a touch of a hiatus (two months!), but has since been back with better-than-ever links. Not just links I want to share with you, but links I want to discuss. At length. With everyone.

For example: NFL TV Distribution maps – I think I invoked this link about eight times during Sunday’s game, and I wasn’t even drinking. It’s not just the usefulness of it, but the ability to visually grok which games have a nationwide appeal, and which barely make a regional impact.

Another great one: a man broke the world record for days awake (11) by systematically switching between left- and right-brain activities. Oh, and: Graph of the movie poster colors of the top-grossing movies, by rating.

And more: food from afar may be more energy efficient than locally grown – which totally countermands that annoying geological footprint thing that has been a link of the week somewhere on the internet every damn week since I posted it in 2000. And: A cat that infallibly senses death. Don’t cats lead souls to the afterlife?

I could have written a thousand word post about each of those links. Seriously, this could just turn into a Kottke response blog, like those battle raps that respond to whatever was on the last mix tape.

(Plus, Peter, don’t forget the bookmarking suggestion for Infinite Jest, because you’re due for a re-read.)

My old hypertext buddy KevRock has taken a leave of absence from one of the best places to work in the world so he can blog. Sortof. Really he’s trying to prolong his cycle of alternating work with life-affirming education.

Me? I appreciate life more when I’m working. If I have more than three or four days off I begin to go through withdrawal. But, I say, more power to him. Especially if he’s really going to blog more :)

Pam Rentz shot my photo of the week.