"Today it's my birthday and my grandson, who is very stingy, gave me a blog"

And with those words, Maria Amelia Lopez, 95, began her journey to cybercelebrity as one of the world's oldest living bloggers!

"At first I thought a blog was just a type of paper notebook," said Lopez, a great grandmother. "When I saw my grandson using the Internet, it caught my attention. I said to myself 'What's this? You can find out about anything. I want an Internet!'" With 60,000 regular readers so far, Lopez's homely mix of memory and chat, available at http://amis95.blogspot.com/, attracts regular readers from around the world and has put her back in touch with the younger generation in a way she had never imagined. "No one pays any attention to old women any more. Not many people love us. But I was surprised by the Internet, because young people who were 18 years of age, or 14 or 15, tell me about their lives and what they think and ask my advice," said Lopez.

Links: Maria Amelia's blog [in Spanish] | Reuters's Oddly Enough article (photo: Miguel Vidal/Reuters)