The other day, the stats on our site visits just shot through the roof for good ol’ Counterforce here, and a majority of those hits were deservedly for part two of Occam Razor’s continuing piece on a post peak oil world. Personally, I choose to believe it had everything to do with how well written the piece was and what a visionary our own Mr. Razor is. But I know that the picture of Esther Baxter didn’t hurt either.

So, that in mind, before we get started, let me just say this:

Okay, and now that that’s out of the way…

The other day, someone told me in conversation that they thought that practice of blogging was going to soon go out of style. They said we’d go back to “official” things for our entertainment, such as “real websites” and what have you, and the whole idea of personal reporting would vanish on the wind. They had no real basis or examples to back up this theory, which makes sense since they were just some nutjob who wasn’t going to let a lack of facts get in the way of them having too many opinions.

But what got me thinking was that they literally said that the “twilight of the blogs” was upon us.

Personally, I couldn’t agree less.

I feel like the internet is on the cusp of another metamorphisis. Web 2.0 is taking hold more and more, and yet I feel like it’s the middle stage of something new. The dawn of TMI? Maybe. Or maybe we’re just fattening ourselves up with better access to info and porn for the inevitable and impending robot (and/or zombie) holocaust of death, doom, and destruction. Or, you know, the fucking penguins, man.

But in the here and now, it kind of seems like everyone’s blogging in some way, trying their hand at the role of escribitionist, trying to put new, weird information out there and reach people and make connections that aren’t normally made in your usual day to day living. Some of the guys from The Office and their friends started a sports blog during the writer’s strike just to have something to do and someone to talk to. It’s not called just “Dr. Horrible,” it’s called Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. And isn’t blogging what Duchovny’s character does in Californication when he’s not fucking around or having his new novel stolen by nymphets?

So I’m going to list a small little blog roll (and other random links) of my own here, not a full and complete list by any means, but just a sampling. And I probably won’t say too much about any of these just yet because… Well, I imagine I’ll go into them much more later and for now, you should just give them a slight gander yourself.

The list naturally begins with the good folks at This Recording. If I had a gun to my head and was forced to sum up this in one sentence, I’d probably come up with “This is eye candy for intellectuals and fans of Mad Men.” Back in the day I would routinely land on this site via The Hype Machine, but now it’s become a (at least) once a day destination for me. Some of the finest writing on the net and let’s not bullshit around, it hosts two of my aforementioned internet crushes, M. Young and M. Lambert. Although Tess Lynch is pretty awesome as well.

Reverse Cowgirl is a blog I’m a big fan of. Her and Lena Chen and Gawker (which I don’t look at that much, but still) and Jezebel and Girl With A One Track Mind all scratch some kind of itch that’s somewhere inside the sexy complicated mess that is me.

Here’s a quick link to all the blogs at Wired. Most of them are pretty good.

More quick mentions: Overheard In New York. Animal! Boing Boing. Bookslut. Jean Snow. Defamer, but only very occasionally. Kieron Gillen. Magibon and JWZ. The Huffington Post. John Rogers, the Kung Fu Monkey. Julie Klausner, who’s fast becoming another of my internet crushes. Fancy and Synthetic Pubes (though I keep wanting to say “Sympathetic Pubes” for some reason) and Professional Negro and What Would Don Draper Do? (which is so much better than the others, like, oh, What Would Pete Campbell Do? cause, I mean, who the fuck cares?) and Garfield Minus Garfield. Girl Farts, Open The Future, All Things Go, At Her Discretion, and 3 AM. BitchBuzz, Democratic Underground, and L’Emploi du Temps. And Motel de Moka. Oh, and definitely the Schrute-Space and Creed Thoughts.

Probably worth a quick mention here is Rich Johnston’s Lying In The Gutters, if for the name alone. Mostly just comic book and other genre wankery gossip, it’s something I read every week. I’ll catch you up quickly: John Byrne is a bit of a stupid racist and Frank Miller is a sexist misogynist. Mark Millar is a crazy Scottish bastard, Steven Moffat is an unstoppable genius, and Neil Gaiman will probably be writing Doctor Who next year. Oh, and Valerie D’Orazio has her moments as well.

Oh, and I feel the need to talk about how every day when I log into the Counterforce here to see what’s going on and steal a little of my cohort’s genius, I notice that the top blog here on wordpress is something called Black Celebrity Kids. When you look at it, you’ll see that the blog is exactly what it says it is. It’s interesting, but man, I want their numbers. Also, the numbers of the number 2 blog on wordpress everyday, which is a Big Bang fansite. Big Bang being a Korean hip hop group and not, you know, the start of the universe as we know it (which I think also deserves a fansite). You know who I don’t want to steal numbers from? The number 3 blog on wordpress, something called Texas Darlin’, which seems to be on a perpetual Obama haterade bender.

I should also name drop a tumblr out there that seems designed to stalk the wonderful Caitlin Hill, and who actually linked to us. Thanks bunches.

Speaking of tumblrs, there’s always the Counterforce tumblr if you’re absolutely bored beyond belief and in need of a good (or just cheap) laugh. In the same vein, there’s the Counterforce youtube channel. Both works in progress, and both are dirty little sluts.

And speaking of the women, we love, I should make two very important shout outs here…

The first to Peanut St. Cosmo, who finally joined us here at Counterforce and did so wonderfully. Here’s the thing you don’t know about P’nut just yet: She’s breathtakingly gorgeous, but the only thing that surpasses her quite frankly intimidating beauty is her big, sexy brain. Seriously, it’s massive, like the size of a medicine ball. And she uses it to headbutt people and penguins into comas.

And secondly, I want to say hey to someone who’s said hello to us recently: Maria from One Sharp Broad. In a short space of time, I’ve become a big fan of hers (plus, Maria, you’ve got good taste) and anytime she wants to write something for us, we’re more than interested. I mean, shit, we’d be interested if she just wanted to put on high heels and step on us.

Oh, and a little random blogness from the blogosphere…

Starting with this one, which is just for Benjamin Light.

And just for Peanut St. Cosmo, highlights (or lowlights) from the Tucker Max script.

And the Ryan Adams’ tumblr, just for Peanut.

And shit, this article is practically all about Occam Razor.

Like I said, Molly Young likes Phillip Roth.

Are Obama bloggers really making an effort to bring the democrats together?

GWB actually a comedian? That would make sense. A lot of sense, actually.

And with that, I’ll wrap this up for a bit. You’ve got new reading material, so that should keep you busy, at least until Occam Razor returns. I leave you with two quotes and some mp3s. Go back to whatever the hell you were doing.

“I think the pleasure of the completed work is what makes blogging so popular. You have to believe most bloggers have few if any actual readers. The writers are in it for their own reasons. Blogging is like work, but withoutcoworkers thwarting you at every turn. All you get is the pleasure of the completed task.” -Scott Adams

“Blogging is like masturbating into a mirror while you videotape yourself so you can watch it later while you masturbate.” -Lewis Black

The Lemonheads – If I Could Talk I’d Tell You

Brazilian Girls – Good Time

The Cold War Kids – Something Is Not Right With Me