Hoosiers Ate My Brain

The Hoosiers Ate My Brain Best Posts of 2005

Last year about this time, I took a wonderfully long vacation and gave some thought to things I seriously wanted to do more of in 2005. One of those was writing. As an editor, it's awfully easy to fall into the trap of editing others' words and creating none of your own. And for me, I really just wanted to exercise my writing muscles. Some posts have been better than others -- and lately, I feel I've suffered from a lack of self-editing, in addition to my usual typo-ed glory. My posts feel long and rambly to me which is partly a function of time and brain-drain. I just don't have the time to tweak things the way I used to. That said, instead of a boring "best of" list, I thought I'd share some of the posts I felt were the highlights of Hoosiers Ate My Brain this year (creating my own form of boring "best of" list). Thanks for hanging out in my space in 2005 and here's to more fun to come!

February: The hardest thing about starting a blog is naming it! Once I decided what to call it, the rest was simple. February brought us the beginning of the Daylight Savings Time debate, a long discourse on Frito Chili Pie (and the spinning off of my food blog, Feed Me/Drink Me), and my neighbor, the violinist. Plus, the healing power of a kiss.

March: Terri Shiavo dominated the news, the Editor-in-Chief of Playgirl outed herself as a hot, dirty Republican, and Webster's New World added "D'oh" to the dictionary (spawning a long discourse on The Simpsons and one of the most searched for posts on the site).

April: I commented on libraries (and Indianapolis' in particular) entering the modern age, Mark and Lisa moved to Australia, and spring started to show itself.

May: I headed home for a visit to the Oklahoma Panhandle and the rodeo, the Michael Jackson case *finally* went to the jury (even I got bored with it) and an Indy judge ruled a couple couldn't share their pagan religion with their child.

June: June began with an interesting post where I slammed the ICLU for supporting the ban on prayer in the statehouse. Well, now we know the facts and how that's all played out -- and I've reversed my opinion, not surprisingly. And June ended with a post on big weather -- both literal and figurative (another of the most searched for posts on the site.)

July: In July, most of my writing was becoming off-blog in the form of business plans, budgets and business strategies, but I still found time to blog about summer in Oklahoma and the Erudite Redneck tagged me with a book meme .

August: In August, things started spinning out of control. A man locked his testicles in a padlock, the NCAA began forcing teams to change their names, and I found out that I really am Boss Hogg. Plus, in another very popular post in searches, the LA Times released transcripts of Marilyn Monroe's stash of audio tapes.

By mid-August I had completely surrendered to blogger's block, travel, work, and guilt. I didn't post again until October.

October: I felt my writing suffered after the break, but looking back now, there's some good stuff in October. My favorite posts: Evansville engineering students get, uh, distracted by art, a study shows women would rather sleep than have sex, Pat Miller introduces her ridiculous reproductive rights legislation, and sadly, local cyclist Sharon Wollam is killed while riding on the Monon Trail when she crashed in an intersection and was hit by a car.

November: Indiana's own Brokeback Mountain, why blogs don't suck, and dressing the house for Christmas. (I'm hearing it's been the most passed around post of the year.)

December: My favorites for December included a post on an upcoming episode of The Simpsons, The Forbes 15 Richest Fictional Characters, and possibly my favorite post of the year: The guy at Meijer.

Thanks for hanging out and listening to my opinions. Blogs are just that, a way to share opinions and unique perspectives on life. And I hope to keep providing just that. As a writer, it's a challenge, but one I think I'm up for. Thanks for all your comments and page views in 2005.

posted by braingirl @ 2:14 AM