Real news may be hard to come by at the Democratic National Convention in Boston, but some Web log writers with press credentials to the Fleet Center extravaganza have found creative ways to make a mark online:

• Hey look, Al's lips are moving: On Monday evening, blog-surfers were able to read Al Gore's convention speech before Gore even gave it, thanks to political consultant Jerome Armstrong on www.MyDD.com. He posted his advance copy of Gore's remarks on his blog, letting folks in on a poorly kept secret - that the credentialed press typically gets advance copies of major political speeches. This, however, may mark the first time one of those sneak peeks has been shared with the public.

• Kerry's 'Dukakis Moment'?: The blogs are abuzz with comments, jokes and rants about the photo of presidential nominee John Kerry in the so-called "bunny suit", really an anti-contamination suit, that he donned Monday to tour the space shuttle Discovery at Kennedy Space Center. Wags quickly compared Kerry's photo-oops to the infamous shot of a two-sizes-too-big-helmeted Michael Dukakis - Kerry's former boss - riding in a tank during the 1988 presidential campaign.

Kerry defenders claimed the photo's release was a right-paw conspiracy to make Kerry look silly this week. "This was a leaked photo," Kerry campaign manager Mary Beth Cahill groused. NASA, however, said it allowed the Kerry campaign to review photos of his visit before it posted them on the Kennedy Space Center Web site.

At any rate, it's too late now. The blogs have taken the controversy and run - or maybe that's "hopped" - with it. www.BlogsForBush.com, for example, used some digital magic to add fluffy rabbit ears to Kerry, who by they way says he has been secretly endorsed by several major foreign bunny leaders. Or not.

• Watch out for those arrows: New York University prof Jay Rosen, writing on his PressThink blog (journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/), is doing some of the most thoughtful work at the convention.

Taking off on a comment by veteran AP political reporter Walter Mears that political conventions are a "memory device" for the parties, Rosen notes that they "convey events in the present tense backward in political time," giving the parties a "storied past" and letting the media talk about when conventions were a "real" event. They are arrows pointing backward, he says.

Bloggers, he continues, are so popular with the traditional press at this convention partly because they're a novelty, but "I think there's a different and deeper answer. Over their heads the arrow points forward. Blogging represents - at least for purposes of the convention narrative - what things are becoming. 'The conventions have become...' is a tired story line."

We plan to include excerpts from various convention blogs this week. If you spot any convention-related blogs we should check out, particularly by bloggers with ties to Greater Cincinnati, let us know. Send your suggestions to Ray Cooklis at rcooklis@enquirer.com.