That’s so cute I could puke a rainbow!

This seemed like it would be a nice break after the rather morbidity that is Officer Bobby’s life. (Speaking of, I forgot to give the link to that last time, so here it is: Negative, Ghostrider. And I specifically recommend the post about the Angel to give context to what I wrote about earlier.)

I was Googling ‘unicorns in love‘, when I came across this blog, which is similar to Boing Boing in a few ways. It’s got massive advertising due to it’s popularity. It’s not personal the way many of the other featured blogs on this site are and it has won a lot of blogging awards over the course of its existence. Most recently, in October, the Blogger’s Choice Awards gave it Best Animal Blogger, Best Entertainment Blog and Best Blog of All Time. It was also awarded Best American Weblog earlier this year in March. What’s generating all this buzz? Kitties!

And duckies, chicks, bunnies, puppies, and anything else that has a small ear to head ratio. It started around two years ago; a website devoted excluively to posting pictures of the most adorable creatures around. (A notable feature of the site that differs from Boing Boing is that although this site appears to be run by one person, the founder, Megan Frost, it seems that the majority of the content is user provided. There’s even a map on the website of ‘cutelogists’–people that considering finding cuteness a priority in their lives.)

There are even cute rules, although they don’t function in the way that traditional rules. Instead of being necessary conditions—you must meet this criteria to be cute—they are sufficient conditions. Which is to say that if an animal meets one of these rules they are cute by default. So far there are 37 of these rules. The top five are:

1. Putting you paw up is cute.
2. Looking helpless is cute.
3. An inquisitive look is cute.
4. More than one species of baby flopping around is cute.
5. Fish eye lens on a baby animal is cute.

Sad or cute? This is rather bizzare, and I found it under the categories tab of the site. The images that it led me to were confusing because it was generally a tough call between cute or sad, but usually they were just sad. And ultimately I found them to be annoying. Actually the whole site was eventually too saccharine for me. But if your Seasonal Affective Disorder is acting up again this is a great, cheap, if not temporary, cure.

Don’t get me wrong, I love being a cop.

 

There’s actually a lot more police blogs out there than you care to know and most of them are pretty badly written. Take my word on this, I’ve done the research. Hope was lost until Bobby’s blog surfaced. Set somewhere in the United States it reads like a great episode of Law and Order. Entries bounce back and fourth between quiet moments of introspection, and explicative laced rants. It tends to be more rant heavy, but after all, he is a cop.

“Except for a brief stint where I wanted to be a pyrotechnician it’s all I ever wanted to be.”

I guess that’s his motivating factor for not quitting. It’s fairly clear from reading his writing that this journal serves some sort of cathartic function for him.

“If I get it all out on ‘paper’ I don’t have those frustrations lingering with me all night long. Add in the fact that the department that I work for really falls short in many categories, especially leadership, and you have my blog.”

One of the most interesting things about the blog is that it both confirms and denies so much of what you assume about police officers. In many ways he seems like every other mustached asshole that’s ever pulled you over and ticked you for a broken taillight. Yet there’s something much more pensive and human about his work. Two posts specifically come to mind, “He’s a human being for God’s sake,” and “A messenger?”. In the latter he relates an encounter he has with someone while trying to take a piss, and then they just disappear.

“I don’t know that the guy was an angel…I can’t explain my comfort speaking with him. I’m a cop. I don’t trust anyone that isn’t a cop or a friend/family member…I’d never experienced anything similar prior to that or since.”

What’s the meaning behind the title? He’s a big fan of Ghost Rider the comic book here.

“He’s far from perfect and in some cases, a real screw-up. I guess I feel like I’m not so different.”

Online journals; cheaper than therapists, possibly more useful. Telling us not only about ourselves, but giving humanity back to the fuzz.

Boingers

Posting this was put off in the hopes that I would get a response to the email interviews I sent out to some of the editors at Boing Boing. Sadly, all I heard back was an echo. That’s cool though, I know they’re busy. Except.

Except for David Pescovitz, who was sweet enough to send the following reply, which I sincerely appreciate, because it was a polite thing for him to do. He was thoughtful to wish me luck.

“Hi Elizabeth,

Thanks for your email but unfortunately I’m way too slammed right now to respond. Good luck though!

-dp”  

With good tidings, and without further ado, I diligently bring you this post.

This site is huge in blogging circles, it won ‘Weblog of the Year’ in 2004 and 2005, and even though the “in” folk know about it, I realized there were a lot of us “out” folk, who had no idea of it’s existence. So, if you’re already familiar with this catalog of wonderful things, consider yourself lucky. If you’re not, consider yourself lucky anyway, because its being brought to your attention now.

Boing Boing, which started out as a magazine, has been on the web in some form since 2000. However this version of the site was only launched last August. This is noteworthy because for the last four years they had disabled their user comments section. This latest version is their first attempt to reincorporate this feature, and is currently being edited by Teresa Nielsen Hayden, who is not pictured above.

My only warning would be to make sure that you don’t get sucked into reading it all day, that’s pretty much what happened to my entire Saturday when I found it.