...when it's so bad it's good

I'm back (yayyy!) at work (boooo!) after a lovely camping trip to the Grampians (yayyy!) which went all too quickly (boooo!). The east Gippsland trip didn't eventuate, so we headed west to the trusty ole Gramps, into the heart of the Victoria Valley and away from the crowds. It's funny how when you plan a trip you think about doing some bushwalking, climbing a mountain or two, ride bikes around, etc (or is that just me?), but in the end you spend most of the time dozing in a hammock, drinking cold beer and wondering if 2 hours is a long enough gap between breakfast and lunch (yayyy!)
And hats off to those involved in the protection of one the worlds most unique and endangered forests with the recent announcement of the long overdue Barmah National Park. The folk at the Victorian National Parks Association should get a bloody medal for this. In fact 160,000 hectares across the state has been protected from the type vandalism that used to be called 'a few local jobs for the boys'. May the earth's splendorous biodiversity that remains in the few surviving wild places live long and prosper, albeit under extremely trying times and with a most uncertain future.


So now I look down the barrel of 2009 and from the outset it's looking much like the previous year and aside from now being a married man, impending plans to buy a house, quit smoking, find a new career and conceive a child, its business as usual.

On blogging, I'm still waiting for that rich, eccentric, old spinster to offer me $10,000 per month to continue spewing my try-hard witticisms into the interwebs. Old lady, I'll do two posts a day if that helps and I can't wait forever. That's a threat, not a promise.

Now I read other peoples blogs a bit, though not as much as I used to. There's a few I like to follow because they are consistently a good read. And there's a few I follow, not because they are a particularly good read, but as a courtesy (bloggers need bloggers). But there's a few I have followed not because they are a good read or as a courtesy, but because they are so goddam awful! They are so bad they are beyond belief, and therefore are kind of funny and memorable and piques ones curiosity. Woody Allen is known for saying "Sex is like pizza. Even when its bad, its good" and he's obviously saying that as a man and not a woman, but maybe blogging is the metaphorical pizza. Here's what I mean...

1. The Quest for Comedic Stardom

I don't know how I stumbled across this one but this US blogger decided to start a blog charting her anticipated rise to fame and glory to become the greatest US comedian ever. Only problem is that she's not funny. I always assumed that being amusing was a prerequisite to being a successful comedian, not just an unwavering belief in one's own capabilities, though I'm not sure if she was actually trying to be funny or was just incapable of being even the slightest bit amusing. Her posts consisted of links to other blogs from people that may have been slightly amusing to someone, interviews with successful comedians and YouTube videos of apparently funny people and things, with the occasional rant about how disorganised she is and how one day soon her career will take off and how you should subscribe to her (no doubt hilarious) emails and RSS feeds. I had to check back every now and then, just to see if one day she eventually figured out what the job description of 'Comedian" actually was. The blog was abandoned last year for a new and improved site Standup Comedy 101, which lasted one post and also appears to have been abandoned last May. Gotta love those Americans and their unshakeable optimism for self improvement.


2. The Other Cheek

I rarely look at this one because visiting blogs is tantamount to supporting them, and Andrew Landeryou's blog deserves no such support. At first I seriously thought he was taking the piss out of angry, right-wing bloggers, then I realised this guy is the ultimate aggro right-wing blogger. For those who don't know, Landeryou is known in Melbourne for bankrupting the Melbourne University Student Union in 2003 and for being sued by Solomon Lew for $3 million over a shonky dot.com business. Needless to say, the bloke has a few enemies. But rather than gracefully fade into obscurity, Landeryou set up 'The Other Cheek', his "Blog of Freedom!" which he shoots barbs from the windows of his mysterious "Tower of Power". His rants take aim at his plethora of enemies in politics, the media and business. The Labor Party (of which he was once a member) takes a pretty big chunk of Andrew's hateful venom, and the left in general. Solomon Lew took up a fair bit of blog space a while ago, though he cut that out after legal threats and now Sollie doesn't get a look in (so much for AL's strong belief in freedom of speech and anti-censorship beliefs) and predictably, The Age newspaper gets a fair bit of mention for it's left-wing bias, which apparently has nothing to do with the paper's investigative reporting of AL's dodgy dealings. Oh, and the Republican Party is regularly showered with praise for "defending our freedom" in Iraq and Sophie Mirabella is a Saint and anyone who thinks otherwise is smelly, leftist, commie, arab filth. Pretty nasty stuff. Sure I support everyone's right express whatever they feel about things, but when your blog is so bitchy, hateful and negative, it becomes a bit of a joke. Ah blogging. The last refuge for the disempowered scoundrel!

(This here criticism is likely to get me a nasty response from AL, from the fair assumption that he Googles himself daily, being the narcissistic, meglamaniac he is. But I'd be honoured to make his ever-growing enemy list and I could do with the publicity. "Game On!")


3. Lucy, I would like to improve my English

This one really shouldn't be here because it's not a bad blog and is actually quite sweet, though if I were an English teacher or pedantic about correct spelling and grammar, it would be pretty crap (evin thogh pobodys nerfect). Lucy is an average Japanese working Mum, making her way through life in Kawasaki, Japan and dedicated to the cause of learning English. Lucy gets top marks for dedication, as I've learnt through some of my OS friends just how much of a bitch of a language English is to learn, and she set up her own blog to help her. Here posts are short, sweet and whimsical, almost Haiku-like in structure, though I'm now sharing a blase, highly western-eyed observation. She loves food, and stuff', and you can learn a lot about Japanese food, the real stuff, not just Teriyaki and Nori rolls. I am fond of Engrish (its so endearing) and I know that could be seen as condescending, but I like to help Lucy from time to time. Perhaps you should too?


There's lots of other blogs that could rate a mention for me, but some may be too close to the fractured blog 'community' that I generally revolve in so I'd better not (yes, like AL, I self-censor). Surely I'm not alone in this? Do you, dear readers have any 'bad' blogs you would like to share with me, ones you have checked out more than once because you are stunned by it's complete and utter awfulness? Or any good ones for that matter? I need a new good blog or two, ones that aren't too self-obsessive or arrogant or high-brow (unless they are so much so they are fascinating), but are written well enough to get away with almost anything. Please induldge me.