What makes a good blog? This is something writers at the Jackalope Ranch often contemplate. Okay, we're obsessed. And a positive byproduct of that obsession is finding blogs that make us happy.
Todd Daniel's blog is one of them. And, to answer the question, this blog is good because it's funny.
Daniel's tag line reads, "Proof that blogging is useless."
His posts share events in his personal life, musings about his artistic endeavors (he's a founding member of the
local urban artists collective, click here for a review on their debut art show), and descriptions of his experiments in the kitchen.
We're willing to bet that Daniel doesn't set out to be funny but it's his unique voice that makes us laugh. "I'm relatively certain that blog posts should be light and airy, meant
only to entertain and delight the reader, who most likely is eating a
grilled cheese sandwich and attempting to not spill Sprite onto the
keyboard. Unfortunately, I'm not that blogger," one posts begins.
Even some of the most benign activities make for good stories if Daniel has anything to do with it. His recent take on
playing the board game Life for the first time was charming and
heartfelt. "You begin by choosing a car. Apparently life begins once you get your driver's license," Daniel writes. "I happened to finish in last place -- I had the least amount of money, my house lost value, and I was in a sucky nursing home."
Cute.
It's not without emotional weight, however. Daniel's recent posts about his husband's elderly parents bring a somber, human element to his writing.
Still, most posts will make you smirk. Some will make you snort. And others will make you lol.
Check it out here.
And, for his brand new and hilarious blog about his weight loss journey (well, so far, it's only about weight gain), click here.
Full Disclosure: Todd Daniel, a.k.a. Todd Grossman, and his husband Robrt L. Pela are freelancers for the Phoenix New Times.
