Where, oh where, have all my blog buddies gone?

MARION, Ark. - In the wake of massive holiday food comas and two-week drunks, much of the world's blog production has ground to a halt with content providers eschewing the virtual world for the distractions of the actual world.

"This is almost unheard of. Bloggers are notorious social outcasts and so even holidays, weddings and birthdays will find them in front of their computers, typing out entries in the vain belief someone is reading," industry analyst Roger Elliot said.

News operations, politicians, Geraldo Rivera and others who rely on blogs for the majority of their research are worried about how long the dry spell will last.

"Unless we have another major snow storm or some local folks get caught up in some international tragedies, I'm not sure where we're supposed to get our news without the bloggers," said Steven Mann, station director for WFXY, the local FOX affiliate.

"Actually, if we had some local people caught up in international tragedies we probably wouldn't be able to find out about it without the bloggers."

Although the holidays are being blamed for at least some of the missing entries, industry watchers are hesitant to lay the entire drought at the feet of Christmas cheer.

"The truth is no one knows what's happened to the bloggers," said Mindy Yin, spokeswoman for the Organization for Internet Cooperation and Development. "Sure, some of them maybe have had one too many pieces of fruit cake or are having their stomach pumped after ingesting too many pumpkin soy lattes, but that doesn't explain all of it. After all the holidays come every year."

Alyssa Buck, who blogs as Rey-Ray on the World Piano Monkey Pizza Donut site, says she hasn't posted an entry in "like, days or something."

A die hard blogger, Buck, 16, said she isn't sure what's come over her recently but after spending a year of her life blogging at about 100 hours a week she is feeling burned out and disillusioned.

"I started out to like change the world, I guess. I had all these great ideas and I knew, I just KNEW that if I could get them out there then things would get better. But after a whole year, nothing is different. You could say things are worse. So I just haven't felt like logging in recently. I don't even know what people are discussing on my blog. And I don't even care."

She hopes after the new year she'll be able to return to her blog.

Trading of video game and Hot Pocket stocks were down Thursday on the news of the unofficial blog blackout.

Compiled from our wire services