Blog

Last night, after the Orioles dropped their eighth consecutive game, manager Buck Showalter admitted that his players were pressing. "Of course they are," he said. He then turned the attention to the reporter who asked the question and made an analogy about him pressing to produce stories with new-fangled technology. “You’re pressing to come up with a great … whatever you call it," Showalter said at the post-game press conference . "I mean, that’s what you’re assigned to do. You know, whatever.

It has been a great first few months for b's TV Lust blog. You've responded enthusiastically to our array of TV recaps. So enthusiastically, in fact, that we're expanding our coverage. On TV Lust , you've been able to spend the week catching up on shows such as "The Walking Dead," "Real Housewives of Atlanta" and "Glee. " You've followed the drama on "Gossip Girl" and cheered along to "Survivor" and "The Amazing Race. " Now we're looking for more recaps from our TV fan readers.

An open letter to Congress. Dear esteemed senators and representatives: It's heartening, if not entirely expected, to see a number of you embracing blogs as a means to reach out to your constituents. At least 10 of you are blogging, and surely many more of you are thinking of starting. But I feel it's my duty as a humble blog analyzer as well as a proud and patriotic American to offer you a bit of constructive criticism. In short: Your blogs stink. I understand that political sensitivities require a certain amount of restraint in all of your actions.

Blogs, it's been shown, can do many things: shame celebrities, hound politicians, break news, challenge the mainstream media. But can a blog help save a city? George Soros' Open Society Institute in Baltimore hopes so. The institute, a private grant-making foundation founded by the billionaire financier and philanthropist Soros to promote economic and social reforms, this month launched a blog called audaciousideas.org to further debate about what ails Baltimore. Jane Sundius, the group's director of education and youth development, drew about a dozen comments to her post last week calling on community members to watch their kids as they pass to and from school each day, to both encourage them and ensure their safety.

For several years, friends have encouraged me to start my own blog. This is, of course, a bald-face lie I dont have any friends but if I did, I know they would encourage me to have a blog. To narrow my search, I Googled "Blogs" and buddy, there are a lot of blogs out there. Every citizen has a blog, according to the U.S. Census (I did not know that). Most sportswriters have multiple blogs. As I have also learned, all female sportswriters have "blogettes". I speak for America when I say I hope there comes a day when we dont discriminate between "blogs" and "blogettes."

In this blog space last week, I referenced a quote Penn State coach Joe Paterno issued at a pre-Orange Bowl news conference. The National Organization for Women is calling for Paterno's resignation over the comments. The controversy swirls around something Paterno said regarding a sexual assault allegation made against a Florida State player. Penn State officials are saying that the quotes are being misrepresented and read out of context. I can with some certainty say that Paterno was answering a pointed question about FSU's losing A.J. Nicholson, who was sent home and not allowed to play in the game.

Interesting things are happening where blogs and journalism collide. Several online innovators and a few traditional news outlets have begun pairing news stories with Web pundits, and in the process are quietly changing the way many people read and process news. Conversations are opening up. Headlines are finding a broader context. The news, in essence, is becoming newsier. The challenge - as always on the Web - is how to find intelligent voices amid the endless chatter. But almost-daily developments are making it easier than ever.

I've decided to make my occasional aggregating into a weekly blog round-up. Wednesday is the big day for food coverage in daily publications, and the online media perk up in response. That makes Thursday a good round-up day. That means some of the links I'm aggregating here won't be so timely, but I will still be Tweeting juicy links as I find them @gorelickingood . I will post a link here and there on the new Baltimore DinerFacebook page . 1. Let's start local, and eat our way out. Here's a glowing positive review of b in Bolton Hill by the City Paper's Mary K Zajac's and a Cheap Eats review of Hampen's new Baltimore Burger Bar 2. The Voltaggio Brothers expertly flogged Williams-Sonoma products (even the Smoking Gun )

Forget for a moment about all the talk about the blurring lines between blogs and journalism - that's such a 2005 conversation - and consider last week's development: A site called BlogBurst officially launched Tuesday after rounding up 600 eager bloggers and securing deals with a handful of prominent newspapers. The site plans to provide quality blog posts to newspapers, which can then publish the content on their Web sites or in their print editions. Essentially, BlogBurst is the Web's first blog-based wire service, providing blog content to media outlets similar to the way the Associated Press provides articles.