September 21, 2004

Ennui

Here I sit, on another telephone deposition. The folks who are running the show are in southern California. I am sitting at my desk, on a muted speakerphone, eating the candy my secretary just brought me and listening to this nonsense while I read blogs. The deponent is a pulmonologist -- not the most exciting creature life has to offer. He's a bright guy and is much easier to stomach today than he normally is when he testifies, since today he has not once referred to himself as a "world renowned physician" (he really has said that before).

The deposition I'm on today is similar to many I've been on before, and the deponent tends to say the same things every time. Thus, I have a deposition plan now. This is my telephone deposition drill: I dial in, make my appearance on the record and make chit chat with the lawyers on the line, press the mute button, start a summary and begin surfing the internet until something comes up on the deposition that need my attention, at which point I punch the mute button, chime in, punch the button again and go back into blog catatonia.

I don't claim to be the great American blogger. I'm hardly an A-lister, and have no claims to become one. Nevertheless, having blogged for over a year, I've decided I have enough experience to gripe about other blogs that get on my nerves. Here goes:

1. Law school blogs:
Why are there so many bloggers who are law students? Is it because they have so much free time? Is it because they like to write? Is it because they like to whine? After trolling for new reads on Blogspot, I've found more than one blog containing some version of the following, "Law review is so haaarrrrdd." If you're on law review, you're likely to graduate and step into a six figure a year job (or soon to be six figures a year), so I don't want to hear it. Although there are some law school blogs that are good (Mixtape Marathon comes to mind), most suck.

2. Overly-specialized blogs
Although these obviously appeal to small fragments of the population, I can't really get into a blog about bird watching, politics (I'm referring to blogs that only discuss politics and nothing else), religion, basket weaving, etc. This calls to mind a quote I recently heard (and I really don't remember where I heard it or I would cite the source, I swear) about NPR. NPR is really great, except when they decide to air 12 minute stories about a new combination of a tomato and a kumquat: who cares?

3. "Deep" blogs
If you haven't seen one of these, count yourself lucky. These are painfully awful blogs that only serve as a medium for the writer to emote about senseless drivel: why we don't have world peace, why all their "friends" don't realize they're a misunderstood genius, why their dog walks out of the room when they walk in, etc. Enough. To quote Elaine on Seinfeld, I can't take any more gentle sobbing.

4. Biologs
I call these biologs for lack of a better term. These are blogs where the blogger writes ad nauseaum about every detail of their lives. Do I blog about my life? Sure. Do I write about my life to the exclusion of anything else? Um, no. All bloggers (primarily those under the age of 20) who write blogs which contain lists or run-on excruciatingly boring paragraphs detailing every phone conversation had, e-mail sent, letter read, t.v. show watched, fight had and/or meal eaten should be beaten, stabbed and trampeled. Survivors should be prosecuted.

I'd better get back to this deposition. I might have to hit the mute button soon.

Posted by Kitty at September 21, 2004 05:04 PM

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