Writing about photoblogs for two months in a row proved to be too much for me. There are dozens of fantastic photoblogs at chicago.photobloggers.org, and my paltry descriptions can’t really do the images justice. The photos are there to be seen, so I suggest you check out Chicagoland Photobloggers for yourselves.

So what will I be rambling about this month? I recently realized I have now been writing the “Virtual Chicago” column for more than a year. I can’t say a lot has changed in Chicago’s corner of the blogosphere since I started this column; the online community here was already active and vibrant. Instead, I’d like to talk about a few of the trends that make Virtual Chicago the best place to waste a few hours.

Online fixations with the CTA: From CTA Tattler to This is Grand to Chicago Blogmap, and Chicago Bloggers (chicagobloggers.com) (both of which sort their blog entries by CTA train line stops), to the .WAV collections of CTA Rail sounds, to the picture collection of CTA buses, Chicago bloggers are clearly preoccupied by our public transportation system. Despite the numerous fare hikes and unreliable service, people carry a lot of fondness for the CTA. I haven’t investigated this, but I can’t imagine that many cities can boast the same level of devotion to such a flawed system.

Chicago Themed Websites: It’s hard to believe that Gapers Block has only been around since 2003; it seems like it’s been the premier Chicago-centric webzine for as long as I can remember. Of course, Chicagoist.com has its roots in NYC based blog Gothamist.com, but under editor Rachelle Bowden, Chicagoist has come into its own in the past year as a great resource for Chicago news and minutia alike. It’s one of the only sources that even acknowledges the mysterious conversion of several North Side Burger Kings into something called “Burger Delights”—and for that, I am very grateful.

Online Grassroots Journalism: Archpundit.com has been all over the local mainstream press in the past couple of months, and Maya Keyes’ coming out was news in Chicago’s blogosphere—covered by blogs like modernvertebrate.blogspot.com and selfishhedonist.blogspot.com—long before it hit the papers. And of course, the pioneering non-corporate journalism of Chicago Indymedia has been active for several years. We now have new media monitors in the form of the excellent suntimeswatch.com (may I suggest a “Trib Watch” as well?) We may not yet have Air America back (as of this writing), but we’ve got a thriving online political media community, which even includes the—gah!—Reagan Review (reaganreview.com, if you actually want to subject yourself to going there), a conservative webzine made entirely by teens.

E-mail new blogs and websites to virtualchicago_column@yahoo.com