The skinny on diet blogs: I try not to blog about blogging, but a certain friend of mine seemed very smug when she discovered I knew nothing about one of the fastest-growing genres of weblogs, diet diaries. I think I’ll start one:

Diet Dairy, Aug. 31: I drove all the way to Bellevue so I could binge a Sonic double cheese and tator tots drowned by one of those new slush and milkshake things flavored in grape-sugar syrup. It was almost as good as the Donut Den apple fritter I had this morning (only 2 packets of sugar in my coffee, yea.). For lunch I had a salad with low-fat creamy blue cheese dressing. I thought about running this afternoon, but decided I needed to blog instead. I promised myself I would blog about my diet and feel very good about sticking to it.

Take this magazine, please: After getting 35,000 submissions a month of really bad jokes, the editors of Readers Digest decided it was time to put out an issue on how to be funny.

Which reminds me, I once sent in what I thought was a funny story to Readers Digest. Unfortunately it did not make it into the magazine and I did not get a check for $100.

Here’s the story; see if you don’t agree I was robbed:

Working as a congressional aide, I once called the Department of Transportation seeking information about seat belt testing. “Oh, you need our passive restraint engineer,” said the staffer. “But I’m sorry, he’s tied up right now.”

But seriously, folks.

Deer me: A Guttenberg, Iowa, entrepreneur saw a niche opportunity in the deer hunting magazine marketplace: he discovered there was not a single one with very little advertising, a circulation of only 15,000 (in a category boasting 18 million participants) and articles not written by professional writers. So (as you would expect from a Guttenberger) he decided to publish one himself and has succeeded in filling that niche.

Fargone in North Dakota: The launch of “The Plains Woman,” a magazine for women who live in North Dakota (talk about your microniches) failed because, according to the mostly female staff, the employees were mistreated by management.

Not surprised: There are just too many amusing (tragic?) aspects to this “hometown-girl-appears-in-a-magazine” news story that it’s hard to choose just one quote, but here goes:

“But her parent’s aren’t too surprised.”

Nor should they be.

Surprised: Sometimes, I am happy to be wrong. Like when I mis-judged the “robustness” of the increase in advertising spending during the first half of 2003.