Welcome to the eighth edition of the Friday Five! Admittedly I haven’t been getting around the blogosphere quite so much lately, but when I do, there never seems to be a lack of interesting blogs to link to. So let’s see what I stumbled onto this week!

As always if you write a great blog or just know of one that you think deserves a spot in the Friday Five, please don’t hesitate to drop us a line.

• Geeks of Doom – A fantastic multi-author blog featuring a little bit of everything. Comic reviews, movie news and reviews, music news, contests and more can be found at Geeks of Doom. You don’t even need to be a geek to enjoy everything they have to offer.
• Pink is the New Blog – If you’re someone who can’t get enough celebrity gossip and news, this is definitely a blog that’s right up your alley. The tagline says it all – “Everybody’s business is my business”.
• NFL Power Rankings – If you’re a die-hard fan of NFL football and can’t get enough of stats, I think I’ve stumbled upon just the site for you.
• A Cool Friday – If you have a soft spot for blogs that are not quite so wordy, often more visual and always entertaining, A Cool Friday is a great way to spend a little free time at the end of a long work week.
• Just Creative Design – Authored by a graphic and web designer, JCD focuses on design tips and resources spanning many forms of design, such as print, web, logos and much more.

It seems just when you think you’re back to your old self, a herd of angry germs attack you and render you sick and useless for two weeks. At least that seems to be my story these past couple weeks.

But hey! Let’s see if we can get the Friday Five kicked back into gear once again, shall we? Welcome to volume 7 of our little link love series.

As always if you write a great blog or simply know of one you love to read, don’t hesitate to drop a line and let us know about it!

• Inkweaver Review – If you’re an avid reader and are always looking for that next great book to read, perhaps you’ll find something special here.
• Keep Designing – Chock full of fantastic free vector art and photoshop goodies you can use in your next great blog and website designs. Keep Designing also features graphic design case studies and tutorials.
• Where the Long Tail Ends – A movie review site dedicated to old, possibly obscure or just plain awful films that have fallen by the wayside.
• OrangeInks – A site dedicated to finding all the useful services and gadgets around the web, which make our internet lives easier.
• Bloody Computer! – Offering clear and simple advice to deal with many common Windows problems.

Welcome to volume number six of the Friday Five! Yes, I know there’s been a bit of an absence and I apologize for that.

Between moving into a new home, various personal issues and a massive bout of blogger burnout, I’ve unfortunately let my blogging responsibilities fall to the wayside. Here’s a good start at getting things back on track!

As always, if you’re the author of a great blog or just know of one that you think should be featured here in the Friday Five, please don’t hesitate to let us know about it!

• Paula’s Playground – Perhaps you may remember Polli from Polliwog’s Pond? Well this is her new blogging home and she’d love for you to stop by and say hello!
• The Candy Blog – If you like candy, you’ll love this blog featuring meticulously photographed and documented reviews of candy from around the world.
• 200 Characters – The concept of this blog is really quite simple – each post contains prose in 200 characters or less.
• Strange New Products – A look at the weirdest, funniest, stupidest, and ingenious new products entering the marketplace. Unfortunately this blog seems quite dormant right now, but there’s still plenty of old content to read.
• GameDrift – A great place for news and reviews catering to both console and PC gaming enthusiasts.

1. Describe your blog in five sentences or less.
The easy answer is “a southern belle turns beach bum.” After a tough year last year, a death and a separation, this life-long-land-locked-lady moved to the coast of Florida, a place I had never been before in my life. So my posts and photography are about my exploration of the area, the little “hidden gems” outside the tourists’ radars, the beauty of nature around me, the people I meet, and the basic lifestyle of coastal living. Sometimes I’ll just post a photo, or sometimes my posts are semi-personal, but it all usually relates to the bigger theme of my new life living on the Cape.

2. Link us to one post from your blog that best defines who you are.
That’s tough to say because I think they just about all define who I am, but it would probably be these two that are related through my love of nature.

• Like Mother, Like Son – Because I have an almost insane love of thunderstorms.
• Show Some Respect for Nature – Because I get irritated by the laziness and irresponsibility of people who take nature and their fellow human beings for granted.

3. What sets you apart from other bloggers?
What sets me apart from other bloggers is observation. Through simple observation, I (hopefully) open people’s eyes to both our differences and similarities, and the dozens of people and things we see everyday yet dont really see.

4. When and how did you first discover blogging?
I first discovered journaling online back in the early 2000’s. I had been a member of several writing workshops when a group of online friends and I discovered a small site called Journalscape. It is exactly how it sounds, a place to journal. It was (and still is) a site mostly for writers and artists, a place for us to share thoughts and accomplishments about our work, and even write about our personal lives. There are no ads, no monetizing, no spamming, no marketing. In fact, it’s strictly forbidden…it’s just a nice place to commune with other like-minded people. I tried blogger a few years ago, but at that time there was no way to pull people in (like with blogcatalog, my bloglog or Entrecard) to read your blogs and it didn’t “feel” like a community. A few months ago, a friend and I were slaving away over our computers writing seo/marketing copy for a woman, getting paid next to nothing. We decided to do our own sites, with better quality content, and have since been in the process of setting them up. After moving to Florida, I decided I wanted to start my own blog about living on the coast and…well now, here I am.

5. What is your biggest pet peeve related to blogging or the internet?
My biggest pet peeve about blogging in particular would be these people who don’t keep up with their blogs. Personally, I write at least one post a day, if not more. I get frustrated to (while dropping ecards) visit the same blog over and over and see it hasn’t had a new post in almost two weeks. And these are people who have tens, sometimes hundreds of readers (per their feedburner chicklet.) Oh, they’ll still drop a card in your widget, but yet they don’t update their blogs. I also don’t like these sites (like the woman I used to work for) who cram 50 or more crappy, keyword-filled articles on their site to raise themselves up in the search engines just so they can sell a book they probably didn’t write themselves.

6. Name one plugin, blogging widget, or service that you can’t live without.
I love the Adsense Plugin for WordPress. I don’t know a thing about css or php, and the Adsense Plugin (which isn’t just for Adsense) allows me to place any java or html widget (including the Entrecard widget) or chicklet on my sidebars through the dashboard, without having to manually go in and edit the template code itself. It’s like “Blogging for Dummies”

7. If you could choose anyone, living or dead, to write a guest post for your blog, who would it be and why?
Wow, that’s a tough one. I’m not real big on guest posters either. I might be if I ran a blog on Internet Marketing or SEO Optimization, but I don’t. I would do it as an interview. Since I’m a lover of history, Katherine the Great, or maybe the author of one of my favorite books, ”A Confederacy of Dunces,” John Kennedy Toole. However, even the interview would be within the theme of my blog, “So is this your first visit to Cape Canaveral?” “Do you think you’ll take surfing lessons at Ron Jon’s?”

8. How has blogging made you a better person?
Well, I know online journaling has made me a better person because as a closet introvert it helped me to open up. My newest blog has just taught me to be myself. I also enjoy meeting other bloggers and anytime you can meet other bloggers that makes you a better blogger.

9. What are your tips for becoming a better blogger?
See answer #8. No seriously, just be yourself. If writing about yourself, make it relatable to others, find the universal truth. Also, there’s a writer’s rule, “to become a good writer, a writer must read” so I’d say, read other blogs, leave thoughtful, relevant comments and those bloggers will generally come back and not only read, but comment on your posts as well.

10. Name one great blog that you read on a regular basis. What makes it unique?
The one great blog I read is on Journalscape, and so as not to “out” her often personal journal, I’ll just have to keep that one to myself. However, I really enjoy reading Caledonian Comment, The Thinking Blog. Not only does he cover stories, mostly political, around the world, but Americans don’t always know about the inner nuances of the British government. I mean, the whole world saw President Bush do his best Elaine Benitz dance in Africa, but we didn’t see PM Brown lull to sleep a group of Israeli school children during a speech to the Israeli Parliament. So for me, it’s very educational, and I enjoy his use of photos and subtle wit. Plus, I like that he has the CNN latest news widget on his sidebar, so I can easily check out some of their newer feeds right off his page.

Welcome to week number five of The Friday Five! As usual we bring you five links to blogs we hope you’ll enjoy.

If you know of a great blog you think should be featured here, please feel free to drop a line and let us know about it!

• Blogging Bits – Blogging Bits is a great site dedicated to helping bloggers write better, gain more subscribers and earn some extra money with their blogs.
• Nikki Finke’s Deadline Hollywood – If you’re looking for the latest up to date news on Hollywood and all its happenings, look no further than Deadline Hollywood.
• View from the Cloud – If you like the funny (and who doesn’t like the funny?), you should check out the view from Jeff’s cloud. I guarantee you’ll find something to make you laugh.
• Destination Somewhere – If you’re someone who likes to travel, Destination Somewhere has you covered with travel tips, news and recommendations.
• Madhuram’s Eggless Cooking – Madhuram provides her readers with some seriously tasty looking recipes, all of which require no eggs whatsoever.

The Blog – The Wooden Fish is an attractive looking blog featuring tech related articles, movie reviews, Wordpress discussion and even some great looking original desktop wallpapers for download.

The Blogger – Originally from China, George Yang now resides in San Diego and considers himself an elementary web designer, though it would be difficult to agree with that just by observing the work he’s done with his own site. George is fluent in Chinese, Spanish and English.

A Post We Luv – George writes a short but sweet review of Juno, a movie which I absolutely adored.

The Blog – As you could probably guess by the name of the blog, Slacker Heaven is a great place to hangout if you feel like wasting a little time on the internet. You’ll find a bit of everything, including funny and weird pictures, movie trailers, games and more.

The Blogger – Unfortunately not much can be found about the slacker behind Slacker Heaven, but it’s safe to assume that they take wasting time seriously.

A Post We Luv – Toys Aren’t the Same is a look back at the some of the toys us older folk used to enjoy when we were young.

The Blog – 0at.org is a blog which encompasses topics related to marketing and design (and a smidge of humor and personal topics) written by a professional designer. Chances are you may have seen his work – Drivl, SEOmoz, Web 2.0 Awards, and FilmCritic.com, just to name a few.

The Blogger – Matthew Inman is a 25 year old web designer, developer, marketer and co-founder of SEOmoz.

A Post We Luv – A Bear With a Mullet. Matthew asked his readers to choose something for him to draw. This was the winner.