Yesterday, our city newspaper ran a great feature article on a blogger who has been pretty well known around here and over at Big Orange—Pam Spaulding of Pam’s House Blend. Pam does great work, and it was a pleasure to see her spotlighted.  I particularly appreciated the stamp of credibility these kinds of articles can give to bloggers and to blogging in general.  When I first stumbled into this new form of citizen journalism, it was the summer before the 2004 election, and apart from my husband’s technical groups on line, I’d really never heard of the concept before.  And from the puzzled reactions I got from friends & family, especially as I became more and more involved in 2 or 3 on line communities, it seemed that "blogging" was a new frontier indeed.

It’s still hard to explain to folks who don’t frequent blogs things like the true sense of community that evolves, and how these very real friendships often extend offline as well.  It’s also hard to explain how much more I’ve come to trust the opinions I read on my favorite blogs, knowing that nearly anything that gets posted will also get critiqued and/or confirmed from multiple—often hundreds--of other posters.  Still, for people who don’t visit these sites, the small bits of blog-lore with which I can often pepper my daily conversation remain a source of puzzlement.  I don’t think my own husband realized the extent of my addiction until the day he called up to ask me to meet him for lunch.  "I can’t," I answered, "I’m not even dressed yet!  My diary hit the rec list this morning and I haven’t left the computer!" Others are baffled by stories like why I’m making a financial contribution to a small-time politician in a far away state, or why I have to be at my keyboard at exact times for certain regular diary conversations, or why I get Christmas cards from around the globe, or why I traveled halfway around the country to meet people I felt I knew intimately but had never seen face to face—it’s kind of a hey, you just have to be involved, I guess, to truly "get it."

So when did you 1st start visiting blogs?  What are some of your favorites?  Have you ever neglected something off-line in order to participate in something online?  What do these online communities add to your life?  And as always, what are you drinking, and what’s for dinner?  This is an open thread.