Blog Moratorium - week 1

Back story here.

It's a strange situation.  I've become so accustomed to reading my blog feeds every morning, that I find myself with extra time that needs to be filled.  I haven't given up on ALL blogs, though -- just politcal ones.  And even then, Dave Winer usually has a post or two a day about something political... but if I just avoid those, I'll be okay.

I thought it might take a while before I saw a noticeable difference in my political knowledge, but right now I realize that almost all my news is Obama for President, Anna Nicole, and the Astronaut crazy-lady.  I did run across the Ted "Tubes" Stevens bill to block Wikipedia from schools, but that was on a techy blog.

The one thing I find really distressing is the 10 o'clock local news.  Last night, it began with 2 fatality car wrecks, an attempted rape, a murder, and a cop chase.  There was a brief bit about the Libby trial, more Anna Nicole, and then 5 minutes about the upcoming rodeo.

In around-the-office chatter, there is one meme that stands out: everyone likes Obama, noone likes Hillary*.  In depths discussions of policies almost NEVER come up, but on a "person I'd want to drink a beer with" level, Obama is WAY out ahead.  As for Republicans, McCain and Guiliani are the only ones that anyone knows... and their memes are pretty old hat by now: "Maverick" McCain and "9-11" Guiliani. And again, no real cares about policy positions.

Well, that's it from the Blog-less world.  I'll check in again in a week or two.

*sidenote: it's interesting, THAT is how they are refered to. Just "Hillary" and "Obama".  I talked to a guy for 10 minutes, and not once were the words "Clinton" or "Barack" ever spoken.