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Type "olsen twins" into the Search box on Yahoo! and more than 6 million pages respond to the call. Among the legion of fan sites, fugly comments, and photo extravaganzas devoted to the wisp-thin style icons, one blog is written, edited, monitored, and nourished by a 23-year-old graduate student named Erin Balser.

Erin started MKAshley.com in April on the "global new media network" b5media. Since then, this Toronto-based cultural studies major has launched a Nicole Richie fan site (RichieFan.com), a webpage devoted to David and Victoria Beckham (BeckhamGroupie.com), and a blog that champions green fashion (ChicbyNature.com).

How does a young academic end up the driving force behind a host of positive celebri-blogs? We contacted Erin to find out:

Hey Erin! You have, by our count, four blogs. Is that the right number? How do you do that?!

I do have four. There was one point I had seven (four with b5, one other contract blog, and two personal) but had to scale back when I started school again. How do I do it? Well, I' m an Internet addict and I'm very organized!!

It's gotten easier as I've been doing it longer—I've learned where to find information faster and how to blog faster and that kind of thing. Read the full profile...

Thanksgiving's behind us, the end of the week brings December, and from there it's a straight shot to Christmas. For enthusiasts of fir tree decoration, the time has arrived. Haul out the ornaments, unbox the tinsel, and, most importantly, release the twinkling lights.

Since 1999, The Antique Christmas Lights Museum has chronicled the luminous history of how Americans have bedecked and brightened their Christmas trees using electricity. We wrote about the site back in 2000, when the webpage was called "Bill's Antique Christmas Lights Site." Now retitled, the site continues to cast an incandescent light across the Web.

When we emailed the museum's curator, George Nelson, he talked to us about how September 11 effected the site, what's the most outlandish tree lighting of all, and how he illuminates his own tree...

Hey George! In 2000, we listed your site in the Yahoo! Directory as "Bill's Antique Christmas Lights Site." Now it's called "The Antiques Christmas Lights Museum." Why the name change—and who is Bill?

Bill is my deceased brother, who originally started the site. I took it over, and expanded the site, including many updates that Bill was going to upload before his passing. I have become just as hooked on the old lights as Bill was, and it has now become one of my many obsessions. The name change reflects the intention and purpose of the site, which is to share America's electrical Christmas heritage.

How have peoples' responses to the site surprised you—if at all?

I'm constantly amazed at the amount of e-mails and letters I get from the site. Many are requests for help in finding some lights remembered from childhood, while others are simple notes of thanks for sparking a memory or bringing back the "old days." Surprisingly few people write to ask the value of their lights, as most site visitors pick up on the fact that I collect and share for the historical and information value, not for making a buck.

After 9/11, the site was flooded with e-mails from people desperate to find light sets from their childhood. It was a trying time for everyone, and a very dark time in our nation's history. People wanted the comfort and safety of home, and wanted to be reminded of simpler times when they saw the world through the eyes of their youth. From October through December of that year, more than 4,300 e-mails were received.

Some of the more interesting e-mails, especially memories of Christmas past, are shared with site visitors on the Christmas Memories page. Read the full profile...

There is no truer proclamation of fandom than purchasing a spanking new jersey with your favorite player's name on the back. But these purchases are fraught with peril. A player can be traded at the whim of capricious management. A player can turn out to be a one-season sensation. Or a player can have his personal life take an unfortunate turn.

A commitment has been made. Do you store the jersey in a forgotten corner of your closet? Or do you stick with the jersey and wear it with pride?

The dudes behind Straight Cash Homey are hoping for the latter. Amir Blumenfeld and Ethan Trex are documenting unfortunate jersey choices on their humorous photo blog. Their mission is to turn "life into a random jersey scavenger hunt."

We giggled as we browsed through the site, and we knew we had to find out more about the men behind this mission. Amir and Ethan were nice enough to join us for a chat about undercover photography, awful jerseys, and crummy players forever immortalized on the backs of fans...

Hey guys, who hatched the idea for Straight Cash Homey?

Ethan: Amir. Next question. No, Amir had the idea to make it a blog, but we'd been playing around with the idea for a couple of years. We'd call each other when we saw a jersey that was funny.

Did you guys take pictures of jerseys and send them back and forth to each other?

Amir: Yeah, mostly camera-phone pictures. Then eventually real pictures.

Ethan: Our next plan is to advance to doing paintings and then shipping them to each other. Read the full profile...