Daily Dose of Deb

Everything from "Chevy Chase as a Soulmate" and "Jogging with Donny Osmond" to "Deb Does Erotica" and "There's Always Blowjobs." Actually, a lot of Deb's writing revolves around her family, especially her children. Daily Dose is fast paced, brisk, and captivating with its introspection and clever writing. Even a trip to Chuck E. Cheese can't escape from under the sharp knife of Deb's wit:

"We just got back from a double Chuck E. Cheese party (Taylor and Carey), and I don't recommend anyone doing that under the influence of a migraine. But the boys had a blast as usual. Will is petrified of Chuck E. Cheese, though, and declared that he is a scary monster."

Much of Deb's writing is farcical, twisting the routine of every day doldrums into something larger than life. The writing is sensitive and carefully crafted to reveal not only the edges of the writer's psyche, but the colors and contents of it as well. Though Deb's an atheist, it doesn't exclude her from conversations on Christianity. She even links the lack of religion in her life into 'an explanation' of why her life is sometimes crap:

"So I walk over to my new secretary's desk today; it's after 5 so of course she's gone to take care of her family. I need to scan something into her paperport, and I'm cursing because it's the simplest little device and yet I can't figure out how to use it, when I notice these little Christian artifacts she's discretely placed on her desk. It's very subtle; you wouldn't notice them unless you were looking for them, so clearly she's not trying to broadcast her Christianity to the rest of the world... and I'm suddenly wondering if my complete lack of faith is what's fucking me up."

Daily Epiphany

"Taking a break, typing on the laptop, I'm eating some lunch. Two packets of instant grits, cooked in the microwave. How do y'all eat your grits? I like mine with some sort of fruit, today I added a generous dollop of strawberry preserves."

Welcome to Texas. Mesquite, (close to Dallas) to be more specific. Bill Chance's life to be exactly specific. And. . .how do you eat your grits?

Grits aside, Bill's an environmental chemist, and as a journalist, quite a solid writer. Bill's a People Chase member (created by Karawynn Long) and apparently likes snapping pics. Whether it's a digital camera or not, Bill's page is graced by various photos, as well as a 'Daily Photo Page.' In addition to being a People Chase member, let's also congratulate Bill. Bill is one of Savoy's 1998 Whitman Award winners.

Bill's Epiphany is a mix of poetry, prose, quotes, and insightful reading. There's humor, discussions on topics as varied as phobias and Christmas preparations, and the Daily Epiphany 'Greatest Hits' with some of the more popular or well liked of Bill's entries from the last year.

The Daily Rant

Black background, blue fonts. Even looks like a daily update, and (surprise!) it pretty much is. This is the third of our Texas journals, and this one hails from (not near Dallas but) Dallas itself. This is Glen Dixon's rant, and there's almost a rant for every day. The reason that the appearance of Glen's page is basic is due to his method of writing-entries are posted automatically, using a perl script called "Newwwsboy." All Glen's got to do is e-mail his journal and wham! bam! The entry is automagically created.

Most of the rants are about or are inspired by news stories. There are rants about racism, political games, and kids crashing airplanes with the use of magical laser pointers. Those readers who are curious about which particular news story might have sparked Glen's rant can always check out the original as most of these articles are referenced via the generous use of links.

Daily Rantings

Daily Rantings, 'where the shit hits the fan.' Pretty much. Pretty entertaining reading, actually. Despite most of the writing being expressed in 'IRC-speak,' these rants and bitches are fresh. They're not predictable. They usually start out somewhere in left field and keep going.

You've got rants on why human life is pointless, why driving in gridlock sucks, why work is fickle and superfluous, why prozac isn't the best way to rewire your neurons, ad. infinitum. If you haven't gotten angry, if you haven't gotten really SCREAMING mad in a while, read this. Or, if you're looking for some bizarre and utterly paranoid writing which is chock-full of heavy handed and bluntly wielded sarcasm, snap on your seatbelt, pop a pill, and read.

The Dailymeal

For all of you who might miss the familiar scenery of punk-rock Charlottesville after the Gus' sudden uprooting and subsequent segue into San Diego, here's an answer. Read about Charlottesville in another journal. There's not much besides the scenery that these two journals share, but we do have to say that both are written very honestly and straightforwardly.

And how is Charlottesville doing? Well, what do you think? Charlottesville is still alive and vibrant with punks, goths, fratdaddies and drunks:

"Driving back up 14th street was a madhouse of students at varying states of inebriation making asses of themselves. It's this time of year that I loathe the return of the students for this very reason. Boy am I glad I decided to go to Hamilton [rather than UVa]. The students can be the same there too, but there are 1,700 people in the whole school as opposed to 17,000 at UVa."

Other than the journal entries, there are writings here as well. The 'writings' are elegantly written, some of them are prose, some poetry. Consider "Smoke Hunger," sparked in an instant of inspiration over an event usually considered bland and mundane:

"Nervously she sucked down the cigarette,
the ashes not even given time to fall.
With some strange fascination
I watched this old woman
devour that cigarette
like it was a breath of fresh air.
I'd never seen anyone
so voraciously hunger
for the addiction.
I could tell it didn't
calm her nerves when
she lit another -
gone in five magnificent drags."

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