Blogworld

As I began writing entries for this newborn blog, I did what any reasonably curious person with access to the Internet does these days and I "Googled" the term "medieval blog." Poking around in various places unearthed a list of such blogs at http://fishpond.owlfish.com/medievallogs.html. That got me sampling around a bit and looking at things like http://unlocked-wordhoard.blogspot.com/ and http://www.inthemedievalmiddle.com/. I feel as if I'm a budding oenophile who is sampling a great many varietals of different vintage and trying to get a handle on my own preferences while developing a knowledge and appreciation of the standard taste benchmarks. I also see that blogs can easily become a near occasion of sin for those of us who fight regularly with the temptation to pontificate. Likewise, I wonder about the impact of blogging on the production of Ph.D. dissertations. My guess is that blogging is moving up quickly to the status of "getting coffee" in terms of its delaying effect on graduate student (and perhaps professorial?) academic productivity. Luckily, those of us who function as low-level administrators can far more easily justify our blogging efforts as job-related. The good news, too, is that some (at least) of what might pass for idle conversation if verbalized around a water cooler or the departmental photocopier is, actually, of some interest/use/amusement to readers. Of course, I'm not sure if any such discerning parties are eyeballing my own pontifications, but it DOES make me feel good to think so. Perhaps pride of authorship is the real key to blogulatory activity. Go figure (or just write a comment on my blog).