BlogDay2008: The Tribe Edition

This year’s BlogDay2008 post has a bit of a Jewish bend to sharing 5 new-to-me blogs. Happily you don’t have to be Jewish to enjoy them.

Stuff Jewish People Like: A spoof of the now famous “Stuff White People Like” and after the mega book deal clinched by SWPL, the SJPL people are probably slapping their foreheads saying, “Nu! Why didn’t we think of this first!?” As with many of the things I find on the Internet, the kasha with bowtie noodles has gone cold. If you like what you find there, please call their mothers to nudge them into coming back.

The Torah in Haiku*: Although they share a joint Wikipedia page, this site isn’t even remotely related to “Haikus for Jews” (unless you’re playing Jewish Geography). “Five Books of Moses, Add Japanese Poetry, Stir until ready” Brilliant.

Hebrew School: According to David, his music “…is an innovative use of the genres of Indie rock and experimental music to mitigate, through recording and performance, the disaffection of Jewish life in a large urban center.” A fascinating mashup reflecting David’s diverse enthusiasms and where you’ll also find a Bollywood version of “Hava Nagila” (Let’s all be merry!), except it sounds like they’re saying “Haba HaNabila”. Looking forward to hearing more of David’s own music on his site.

These last two are a bit of a cheat, because they aren’t new to me, but definitely worth sharing with you:

Jerusalemite: One of my very favorite plugged-into-the-Israeli-scene bloggers, Harry, has pretty much abandoned his personal blog (sob!) in favor of blogging on company time. Luckily for him, he’s the boss. “From a run-down corner office on the Ben Yehuda pedestrian mall comes Jerusalemite, the definitive English-language culture guide to the center of the world. Through our blog, event listings, maps and city guides, Jerusalemite gives readers the world over an up-to-date and specialized perspective on the various cultural doings in the Israeli capitol.”

HaKerem: The Israeli Wine Blog: Not to be confused with your Grandparent’s Sabbath dinner Manischewitz, Israeli wines have been winning major wine awards worldwide for a number of years. Avi’s blog “is here to bring the latest and also the greatest on the Israeli wine world — from the latest releases, to an exploration of the over 150 different wineries in Israel, to a discussion — and please join in — on how to help the world discover this hidden gem.” L’Chaim!

That’s this year’s BlogDay2008 roundup from me, but I’m going to leave you with a true bonus blog.

If laughter is the best medicine (next to chicken soup, of course), Benji Lovitt’s What War Zone??? should be on your daily menu. Benji made aliyah, that’s immigrated to Israel, a couple of years ago already. As any great comic would, he’s turned his culture shock into fodder for his humor.  But be warned! Ever since appearing on Israel Television’s Channel 1 a couple of weeks ago, he’s been possibly even funnier than before. Nu? What are you standing around here for?

Blog Day 2008 Approaches

BlogDay2008 is nearly here! What 5 new blog discoveries are you going to share with the world on August 31st, i.e. 3108?

Working on my list now, but meantime here’s my entry from BlogDay2007.

Eight Arms and all Heart

One day left of vacation, but I couldn’t let this amazing animation go by without posting about it.

Oktapodi (it’s huge, but let it load and enjoy!)

These are the same people who did “Le Building” a couple of years ago, which I repeatedly go back and watch because it is hilarious, like a badly* well-oiled Rube Goldberg machine.

When you are done watching, visit “the making of” on the official site.

(*I really must stop posting late at night.)

Social Bookmarking for the WordPress.com Masses

If you recently used any of the “Add This” buttons which appeared at the bottom of my Posts to bookmark it on any of the social networking and bookmarking sites and found that you were redirected to bookmark a different site, including unfortunately spam or pron sites, I apologize. Although I followed these directions in the WordPress.com FAQs, after WordPress.com strips out the javascript, the resulting “Add This” form is apparently borked and there’s some sort of redirect happening. Consequently, all the “Add This” buttons have been stripped from my blog.

Since the “Add This” button was inserted using the instructions provided by WordPress.com, I decided to drop a feedback note via my Dashboard telling them about the problem. After several back-and-forth emails the bottom line reply from support was that “…javascript is not allowed on WordPress. The correct AddThis button code should not include any such code. Please consult the FAQ again for full instructions.” Oh, oh-kay then, moving right along…