The Polytropos Sidebar Tour, Part I

While some readers will recognize some of the links to your left, most of you won’t recognize most of them. Since the blog is still only three days old, I don’t feel too bad in engaging in a wee bit of self-reference. So step right up, and I’ll tell you who these people and what these places are . . .

The Blogroll

Unqualified Offerings is the blog of the aforementioned Jim Henley. In the roleplaying game of life, Jim has a very high Intelligence Attribute and excellent Skills in Writing and Wit. He also has the Flaw: Libertarian, but that doesn’t mean he’s not worth a daily read. Bookmark him.

(pronounced lock-lin) and edBlog belong to college friends — Jonathan Laughlin and Ed Heil, respectively. Jonathan is in a cool band. Ed is working on Topos, an email-based storytelling game. He is a polymath and all-around nice guy.

Neil Gaiman needs no introduction. Oh, OK, he’s the author of the subperb comic Sandman, and more recently of some novels (American Gods stands out) and even a couple children’s books. At some point he linked to Bookslut, who talks about books a lot, so I read her faithfully as well.

Electrolite and Making Light are the husband and wife blogging team of Patrick and Teresa Nielsen Hayden. They’re editors at Tor Books who I don’t know at all save by being a fan of their blogs. I first bookmarked Electrolite because his “Commonplaces” section was cool. He quotes his wife a lot in there, which implies a power structure in their marriage that I find comfortingly familiar.

Where is Raed? is the now-famous Iraq blog written by Salam Pax. It remains an indispensable inside view of what’s going on there these days.

Got Game? and Greg Costikyan are both computer gaming blogs, written by a professor and a designer, respectively. Both excellent and not updated nearly often enough.

Ed Hand is a friend I had lost track of until recently. Many cool recipes on his blog.

The Agitator is cool for many reasons, not least of which is the fact that he organizes his blogroll according to Bob Dylan albums. Like Jim, I read him in spite of the fact that he’s a libertarian.

Crooked Timber, Lawrence Lessig, and Talking Points Memo are all worthwhile reads as well.

Regular Reading

Ars Technica is good computer-geek reading all around, and required reading if you build your own computers.

Boardgamegeek is the “it” place for German-style boardgaming.

Spinsanity does a great job of pointing out inaccuracies and falsehoods across the spectrum of political discourse.

The Onion, Slashdot, and Slate need no introduction.

The tour will continue in the next entry. Step this way . . .