Instead of just (briefly, and poorly) ripping off Michael Malice’s excellent web site Overheard in New York, I’d like to take a moment to recognize the amazing amount of attention and plaudits it’s been receiving in recent weeks. Not only have there been interviews (Air America Radio, The Brian Lehrer Show, Allentown’s Morning Call) and perceptive articles, but it’s received several best-of-the-web nods: TIME.com named it one of the 50 Coolest Websites of 2005; AOL News named it blog of the week back in July; VH1’s Best Week Ever Blog called it “the greatest site in existence.” As if that weren’t enough, late January sees the publication of an Overheard in New York book — just two months before Michael’s biography is published by Ballantine as the next American Splendor graphic novel.

The most interesting of these, to me (outside of American Splendor, which I’m dying to read), is its appearance on TIME.com’s list — because this list also included Dooce, a “Hilarious personal blog by one Heather B. Armstrong of Salt Lake City, Utah, a whip-smart, sassy (and sometimes vulgar) stay-at-home mom.” As far as I know, I’ve never met Heather, but I used to see her husband perform all the time as keyboardist in a band called Swimpigs, the closest thing that happy valley had to avant/punk jazz à la Pigpen.

I stumbled across Dooce for the first time about three months ago; somebody had linked to a post about poop, and like any good fecalphiliac, I took a gander. Poking around the site a little further, I came across a reference to her husband Jon Armstrong. “Hey, I used to listen to a band with a cool keyboard player named Jon Armstrong,” I thought. Then I noticed a reference to BYU. It didn’t take long to ascertain that her husband was the same guy I remembered, and they had both been students there at the same time as me. In fact, you can read about their first times meeting each other, in he said/she said style, a saga that includes a concert I attended in 1995: “The first time I ever saw Jon Armstrong was at a CD release party for the band Swimpigs, an acid jazz group for which he played keyboard.” Fun fun fun. In fact, somewhere out there I think there’s some home video footage of that concert, which includes some poorly-considered shots of me dancing (taken by one of the Numbs). If anyone finds it, just keep an eye out for the big dude up front, with the shaved head and knee-length black trenchcoat.