BLOG CABIN Blogs that bring on the cheer— even in the dead of winter By Jennifer Wutz-Lopes Don’t you just hate March? March, not April, is the cruelest month, unless you are wintering in Florida, in which case I hate you. March in Buffalo is pretty grim—the wind, rain, and snow really makes me bitter, and brings out Seasonal Affective Disorder in full force. Here, nothing’s going on until Easter, and chocolate bunnies are bad for you anyway. My advice for those of you feeling blue like me: let the laundry pile up, take your Zoloft, be lazy, and read some of these blogs, which are guaranteed to at least make you smile. A little. One man who has it worse off than you and me is the dude from Hello Kitty Hell, who once encouraged his wife to embrace something she loves and use it to start a business. The wife loves Hello Kitty and on his advice now buys Hello Kitty stuff and sells it for a profit on eBay. The dude hates Hello Kitty more than anything else, but hey—it was his idea, right? Now, he blogs about all the HK crap in his house. Of course you already knew about the Hello Kitty vibrator, but did you know you can also buy HK deodorant, panty-liners, vitamins, toilet seats, and contact lenses? Top it all off with a Hello Kitty bra and you’ll be set to party! If you don’t believe me, check it out for yourself at www.kittyhell.com. Looking to catch a movie to take your mind off your problems? Read its review at Sarcastic Movie Reviews (www.rtheygood.blog.com), the blog that takes “the pretentiousness out of Hollywood, one cliché at a time.” A gem line in January asks, “If you live in a town with only two movies playing and your choices are the bleak murder musical, or the annoying rodent musical, might I suggest masturbation?” The reviews go all the way back to 1997 (think Good Will Hunting), so you can get some delicious sarcasm on the movies you’ve got in your Netflix queue, before or after you see them. Crummy Church Signs is a blog offering critical analysis of critically bad church signs. Started as a lark by a self-proclaimed smartass, it now documents photographic evidence of those signs you see outside churches that sometimes make you say “huh?” Examples: • Tiny child saves world! Full story on Sunday! • Get an expert opinion—pray! • Swallowing pride won’t cause indigestion. • Is your name in the Facebook of life? • Jesus is the reason for well, umm, for everything. And my favorite: Hand over your life to Jesus and nobody gets hurt. Submit a picture of a crummy church sign near you at www.crummychurchsigns.blogspot.com. There are all sorts of neat things for you to look at on Neatorama.com, and will at the very least help you waste a bit of time during your long, sad day. A report on the thirty strangest deaths in history or a recount of the 1919 molasses flood in Boston is bound to cheer you slightly. So will the fun facts section about Twinkies, Academy Awards, and Bruce Lee. Every day, there are several new posts with weird facts or cool videos that you’ll just want to watch over and over. In fact, I just watched the video of the soldier who surprised his kids by wrapping himself in a giant gift box twice, and sobbed with happiness for about thirty minutes. Damn hormones. Do you remember your old roommate from college who used to leave you notes about cleaning, cooking, or replacing the mayonnaise that you so rudely used all up? What about the signs at work that encourage you to eat your own lunch, or to clean up after yourself, since your mother doesn’t work there? Well, PassiveAggressiveNotes.com is guaranteed to make you laugh out loud. Barking dog owners, neighbors having noisy sex, lunch-stealing thieves, people who don’t flush the toilet—these are the people that are receiving passive aggressive notes—and sending them into the site for viewing by all. Enjoy! Jennifer Wutz-Lopes needs to go south next winter. She lives in Lockport with her husband and son, and blogs at Jen14221.com. Back to the Table of Contents Back to Top