Visit Merlin Mann’s 43 FOLDERS blog for more tips on finding the time and attention to do your best creative work.

1. Good blogs have a voice. Who wrote this? What is their name? What can I figure out about who they are that they have never overtly told me? What’s their personality like and what do they have to contribute — even when it’s “just” curation. What tics and foibles fascinate make me about this blog and the person who makes it? Most importantly: what obsesses this person?
2. Good blogs reflect focused obsessions. People start real blogs because they think about something a lot. Maybe even five things. But, their brain so overflows with curiosity about a family of topics that they can’t stop reading and writing about it. They make and consume smart forebrain porn. So: where do this person’s obsessions take them?
3. Good blogs are the product of “Attention times Interest.” A blog shows me where someone’s attention tends to go. Then, on some level, they encourage me to follow the evolution of their interest through a day or a year. There’s a story here. Ethical “via” links make it easy for me to follow their specific trail of attention, then join them for a walk made out of words.
4. Good blog posts are made of paragraphs. Blog posts are written, not defecated. They show some level of craft, thinking, and continuity beyond the word count mandated by the Owner of Your Plantation. If a blog has fixed limits on post minimums and maximums? It’s not a blog: it’s a website that hires writers. Which is fine. But, it’s not really a blog.
5. Good “non-post” blogs have style and curation. Some of the best blogs use unusual formats, employ only photos and video, or utilize the list format to artistic effect. I regret there are not more blogs that see format as the container for creativity — rather than an excuse to write less or link without context more.
6. Good blogs are weird. Blogs make fart noises and occasionally vex readers with the degree to which the blogger’s obsession will inevitably diverge from the reader’s. If this isn’t happening every few weeks, the blogger is either bored, half-assing, or taking new medication.
7. Good blogs make you want to start your own blog. At some point, everyone wants to kill the Buddha and make their own obsessions the focus. This is good. It means you care.
8. Good blogs try. I’ve come to believe that creative life in the first-world comes down to those who try just a little bit harder. Then, there’s the other 98%. They’re still eating the free continental breakfast over at FriendFeed. A good blog is written by a blogger who thinks longer, works harder, and obsesses more. Ultimately, a good blogger tries. That’s why “good” is getting rare.
9. Good blogs know when to break their own rules. Duh. I made a list, didn’t I? Yes. I did. Big fan.

And, yeah, you should disagree with potentially all of this. It’s because I have an opinion, and so do you. It’s why you probably have a blog. See? The system works.

Butler Application (Mac OS):

[9/10] - Can’t live without it. This application is the ultimate tool needed to increase productivity and overall efficiency in navigating through your could be better organized Mac OS lifestyle. Whether you need a book mark manager, a file launcher, pasteboard extension (great for writing essays and researching), or a stream-lined aesthetically pleasing way to navigate through your file system in general, Butler does it all without slowing down your system. If I could tweak anything, it’d be the interface. Adding a few bells and whistles is personal preference though. A plus for some could be the bare-necessity of the program and its lack of flashy layout. A pinch more style, and this app would have my heart.

Directed by Michelle Lehman, last year’s Tropfest Australia winning film, MARRY ME, tells a little love story about “a little girl who likes a little boy and a little boy who likes his BMX bike”. The film was inspired by a true story when director, Michelle, at 5 years of age, would chase Jason Mahooney around the school in a pretend wedding dress (her mother’s nightie).

This short is beautiful.

Every girl drones on about how she wants to grow up and be independent: be a doctor or a lawyer or the president.  All girls really want is to get married.  And have huge diamond rings and gloriously long white dresses.  Oh, and did I mention kick-ass cake?

Tonight, I went to see BRIDE WARS with a few of my lit major friends.  I’m not sure why we decided to see this film, but it was kind of a girls night out and it seemed appropriate.  However, after watching it I sincerely regret that because of its PG rating that more children, girls specifically, will be exposed to the messages condoning iratic, “crazy” female behavior surrounding the marriage culture and social constructions of women.  Can you gather this from the trailer?

During the film, I felt myself cringing whenever the main characters Emma and Liv played into the normative social perception of girls and their feelings about marriage (that all girls are designed to dream about marriage since “forever”).  While Liv is a lawyer and can drop 20-30 grand on a wedding (10 grand on a Vera Wang dress, which “you alter to fit into, not alter to fit you”), Emma is a middle-school teacher.  Oh, but let’s not forget.  Apparently Emma has been saving up since she was 16.  Both want weddings.  The story dwells on the how even a strong bond like that of two girlhood best friends can be ruptured when the girls don’t get their way on wedding day (the “most important day in a girls life”).  The wedding planner tells the two brides-to-be that “their whole lives they have been dead,” and that it’s not until “they get married that the truly are awake and alive.”  Ironically enough, there is a married couple in the film that is portrayed as completely unhappy and dissatisfied with their relationship (the wife is constantly complaining), and we as an audience never see them having a good time or enjoying each other’s company.  Not to mention the attitude toward divorce is blasé and discussed like getting an ipod, something that’s just expected to happen to everyone.  Additionally, the single women in the film are pill-popping, and binge eating because they are so depressed that they haven’t found this “happiness,” and are thus seeking to fill the void in themselves, because OBVIOUSLY, not being married means you are not whole.  Um, yea.  Don’t think so.

Perhaps the movie was supposed to be funny and lighthearted, possibly even a satire of the American wedding industry.  Instead, (as this review also agrees) I felt that its’ plot revolved around the negative characteristics that society attributes to women, categorizing feelings like “angry, emotional, sad, and aggressive” as exaggerated, inherently feminine and expected of all women.  Two girls try to sabotage each other and embark on a bridal beat-down, demonstrating that they have no self-control.  Not once is it entertained that the two women would talk out the issue to resolve it.  Of course not.  They resort to “extreme” measures like destroying the other’s hair (swaps the hair dye from blonde to blue) or skin (alters the tan to be blood orange instead of hint of bronze).  One of the girls’ husbands confesses that he is frightened by her sudden outbursts of anger and “strong feelings,” because they are such a sharp juxtaposition to the dormant and passive, nice woman whom he had gotten accustomed to.  The fact that she wasn’t subordinate, or able to be “controlled” as he put it, was alarming to him and meant that he didn’t know her anymore.  Message?  Women aren’t supposed to do anything “too” anything, and they should stay middle of the road.  Example:  Too “easy” and you’re a slut, too “conservative” and you’re a prude.

Girls who are fed media like this are already getting the idea that if they are not dreaming about what kind of flowers they want or considering which “Save the Date” invitations are best for their wedding, that something is wrong with them. Lumping the goals and aspirations of all girls into a singular group enforces the misguided notion that all girls want the same thing- a man to marry them.  This excludes any girl (i.e. - the working woman, the divorcee, the lesbian) who differs from the “norm,” (and I use that term loosely, since it’s definition is so subjective) and isolates her- causing her to feel inadequate because she cannot identify.

This post is not to bash weddings or people who decide to get married.  All I am trying to point out is in a time as confusing as childhood and young adulthood, girls should be encouraged to be independent and value autonomy, not to sell themselves short and settle for what is “expected” of them if they don’t want to.  They shouldn’t feel pressured to be something they may not be.  BRIDE WARS portrays a very one-demensional, transparent girl/woman and I believe that all women should do what they love, and not feel like they have to fit some kind of pre-determined social, hetero-normative, homogenous mold.  Everything doesn’t have to be so cookie cutter.  And on that note, if it happens to be, that is entirely okay.  As long as it is what you are seeking as an individual to make you happy.  Bordering on offensive and derogatory, I don’t foresee this film going over well with women at all, on any level.