In her entry for March 17, O'Donnell notes that she received a phone call from Alley, who was stung by the remark. O'Donnell apologized halfheartedly and defended herself by claiming she was making a joke at her own expense. O'Donnell speaks first and thinks later, a luxury most civilian bloggers enjoy, but for a celebrity, the stakes are higher. And although O'Donnell claims to be widely reviled, her blog seems to spring straight from the heartwarming, scrapbooky Middle American values that so many on the left, rightly or wrongly, cringe from. Motherhood is extremely important to O'Donnell: She notes with beaming approval that her shrink takes calls from her two teenage kids even when she's in the middle of a session. (Personally, having my shrink take personal calls on my dime would be enough to turn me into an angry lesbian, but maybe that's just me.) And while O'Donnell clearly does her share of charity work, she isn't particularly skillful when it comes to explaining what that work means. In one entry, she describes a trip to Somerville, Mass., to help raise money for beleaguered public schools. But her flowery musings -- rendered in a kind of faux freeform verse -- make for wincingly painful reading: "we live in dangerous times/ when our childrens childrens/ will ask us/'what was it like then - when democracy almost died?'"

If you're the type of person who often asks yourself, "Mommy, why do people fight wars instead of just giving each other big hugs?" formerlyrosie may be just the celebrity blog for you. For the rest of us, there's WIL WHEATON dot NET, in which Wheaton, who is in his early 30s, writes freely about many subjects, including his home life (he's happily married, with two stepkids), his pets (two of his cats have recently suffered from serious illness) and, most movingly, I think, about his career. Wheaton got the idea for WIL WHEATON dot NET after a Hooters waitress did a double-take and asked him if he "used to be" an actor. Horrified and dispirited, Wheaton started his own Web site to let the world know he was still alive and still working. The site evolved into a blog with a large, devoted following.

Wheaton's style is relaxed and convivial and often enjoyably silly. (On his FAQs page, a reader asks, "Is it true that you were really Ashley Judd's first onscreen kiss, and you ruined her for the rest of her life?" to which he replies, "Yep. It is 100% true. Ashley Judd played Robin Lefler, in the ["Star Trek: The Next Generation"] episode 'The Game', and Uncle Willie went to bootytown.") But Wheaton's goofy charisma isn't nearly as interesting as his take on what it's like to be a professional actor who -- the popularity of his blog notwithstanding -- isn't exactly a celebrity. Wheaton recently landed a small part as a drug-addled crazy person in an episode of "CSI," which may not be that exciting to big-time celeb watchers, but which can mean the world to an actor who's trying to make a living. In a recent blog entry, Wheaton writes of sitting down to watch that "CSI" episode with his family: "Around 8:57 last night, I had a brief flash of panic: What if they cut my part down? I'm going to feel like the biggest jackass in history!"

Wheaton's part wasn't cut down, and he spends the rest of the entry describing how he "felt his face flush" when he saw his name on the screen, and how certain things he'd tried to convey about the character had, to his relief and pleasure, actually come through on-screen: "I thought I looked a little chubby in my face (thank you, Stone Brewing company) but the real volatility that I was hoping for was definitely there." After Wheaton's character was led off to the police car, one of his stepsons said, "Man, that was scary!" The other said, "It was cool, though."

The overarching point of that entry may be that celebrities aren't like you and me, except when they are. WIL WHEATON dot NET is appealing because it's written by a regular person with intelligence and a sense of humor. When he's lucky enough to do the work he obviously loves, he also has a pretty interesting job. But while his readers leave lots of comments congratulating him on his "CSI" performance, there are plenty more who are eager to offer advice about the sick cats. In the end, that's what writing -- and reading -- blogs comes down to. The Inner Self isn't the stuff of everyday life: The cats with the kidney problems are.

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