Morning Ritual

[poliphilo]

I get up, creak downstairs, pour myself an orange juice, light a scented candle and check out the Guardian online- first the headlines, next the political comment, sometimes the arts news;  then I do the same for the Times. Only when I've assured myself that all's wrong with the world and our leaders are being as boneheaded and venal as ever, do I move onto the next phase- which consists of breakfast, email and LJ.

I don't enjoy the papers any more. I know what the commentators are going to say before I turn to their columns. It's just habit. This is what middle-aged men do, right?  They read the newspapers.

Ailz gets up a lot later than me. She also goes straight online- but instead of reading the news she clocks onto the Rabbits United forum.  I hear her chuckling to herself.  Sometimes she calls me over to look at something particularly cute. "Oh look, this rabbit has mal-aligned incisors."

I believe she's got the right idea; her early morning reading certainly seems a lot more entertaining than mine.  To hell with the gossip of the Westminster village! But what should I read instead?  You guys know what my interests are: can any of you suggest a non-newsy but everchanging website I could use as my home page?

Comments

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

PostSecret showed up on my FL- and it just seemed to go on forever- image after image after image- and none of them all that clever or poignant or witty.

Maybe I'll strike it through.

Flickr? Yes. Good idea! Thanks.

[mokie]

When PostSecret first started as some guy's art project, it was a great idea. He handed out cards to his artist friends and some strangers, and what came back was some beautiful stuff, and the secrets really felt like something meaningful, all aided by the fact that the concept was new and shiny.

Then the 15-year-old girls of the Internet* got ahold of the notion, and now it's become all old photographs with a bit of text on it instead of artistic exploration, and emo whining instead of revelations, or worse, a cavalcade of sexual trauma because the attention-mongers in the crowd think those are the only secrets traumatic enough to get them noticed anymore.

The whole thing just gives me the wiggins now. It's like watching girls starve themselves for popularity and awarding them points for it.

It has all the variety of ICanHasCheezburger.com , but at least LOLcats are funny.

No more ranting, I promise!

* The 15-year-old girls of the Internet are not necessarily all 15-years-old, or girls, but gads, do they all sound like they are...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I remember visiting the project when it was new- a year or two back- and it was great. And now- like you say- it's gone stale.

The same thing will happen with LOLcats- in fact I believe it's already happening. The smart people kick something off and then the dullards take over- by which time the smarties have already moved on to something else.