I dislike metablogging, but it's never too late to continue hair-splitting on the nomenclature, I guess. (Sounds something Naomi Wolf would write, doesn't it? Coming soon: Hair-splitting on the Nomenclature: A Personal History.)

The analysis here gave me pause today. Some of it has been covered elsewhere, but I liked his point about blog authors and self-denigration:

One of the striking aspects of this genre is the author's denigration of himself: the blog is purported to be "chaos," "random," "neurotic," and generally reflective of a failed life.

This analysis needs to make room for irony, and it may be coming on a bit too strong ("a failed life"?) but I've always chafed at the convention of using "random" as a premise for a blog or anything else. I suppose such people want to leave themselves open to possibility, but it comes off as if they can't be bothered to decide what's important. "Random" is like someone's grocery list. Who wants to read that? Why start writing if you don't have at least a sneaking suspicion that you have something to say?

As for B&W, nothing here is random, baby! The B&W elves often work overtime hand picking these nuggets and testing them for quality. At other times they are napping; our demanding publication schedule takes quite a lot out of them.