This Week in Blogs, Volume II

Greetings, and welcome to the second weekly food blog roundup. Thanks for coming back. It’s been an exciting week in Food Blog World, and I’ll do my best to take you around in the next 1000 words or so. I’ve decided to change it up a bit and go for more short reviews, instead of a handful of really long ones. We’ll see how that goes. I usually just start rambling, so that might not work. Here. We. Go.

Kelsey at Bites + Bowls had a very busy week. In addition to wearing some Flashdance-style leggings, she also tried on 17 different colors of nail polish and took about 15 inappropriate pictures of fruit and veggies. Since Kelsey doesn’t eat mammal, there is usually fruit and/or veggies with every meal. This means three opportunities per day for phallic fruit and veggie placement. Oh, and she also became the first food blogger to take a picture of her dirty laundry. Congrats, Kelsey. Bites and Bowls was also under attack this week by a Negative Nancy commentor. There were like five consecutive posts when the same person kept writing nastygrams about pretty much everything. So I had to put on my disguise as my blog commentor alter ego/sassy middle-aged woman (this time I was named Marge) and come to the rescue. Marge saved the day and once again stopped the advances of Negative Nancy.

VeggieGirl – I hope your VeggieCameraman/VeggieDad is feeling better. He didn’t sound too good on your last video. I could send you some Robitussin or maybe some Sucrets or something. I’m hoping it’s just a springtime cold, and not a ventilation problem in the VeggieGirl kitchen/VGTV Studios. Oh, and VeggieGirl, my blondies have not arrived yet. What does a girl have to do to get some VeggieGirl blondies? Everyone else in Blogland seems to have received their VeggieGirl Blondies, and mine are nowhere to be found. Did you lose my address already? And why doesn’t my cable package come with VeggieGirl TV? I get Starz 8 in HD and four shopping channels, but no VeggieGirl TV. That ain’t right. Time Warner - If you're listening, can you please add VeggieGirl TV to my channel lineup?

 

Caitlin at Healthy Tipping Point is considering a move to Charlotte. I am 100% in favor of this move. If it helps make your decision, I'll let you refer to me as “Replacement Meghann” after you move. I’m cool with it, really. Caitlin had the first food blog night that I could actually relate to on Saturday. It involved onion rings, watching basketball,  and drinking beers. Not just A beer, but beers plural. Then you had to ruin it by running 10 miles while listing to the Twilight Soundtrack. Why must you torment me like this? You can move here if you want, but you better leave those damn vampire friends in Florida. Caitlin also finished her 30 day shred. Finally! I was exhausted just from reading about it.

On a Lobster Placemat. Okay, so I haven’t started reading this one yet, but I really dig the name and Kate likes your blog. Most of these food blogs seem to follow a pretty consistent naming convention of [Name/Nickname] + [What I like to Do] OR [ Name + What I like to Eat] OR [Some Noun and Verb Combo]. And then out of nowhere comes this fantastic abstract blog name that I really don’t understand. This is the food blog equivalent of Pearl Jam’s “Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town” in a sea of one word song titles like Daughter, Jeremy, Alive, and Black. I will start reading your blog, just because of the name. And because you play with your food.

Super Caloric Chalk Dust is also a pretty fantastic blog name. I also feel like SCCD must live in one of those cities where companies  test out all of their new products before launching them across the country. That's the only theory I can come up with, because I spend a lot of time at the grocery store, and I’ve never seen half of the products that you’ve tried this week. Doritos Collisions? Jelly Belly Pudding? Aloe Juice? Where do you find these treasures, and have they been approved by the FDA? I get scared when you go a couple of days without posting. I start to think that maybe one of these experimental/only available wherever the heck you live foods caused some significant health issue that is keeping you from your blogging responsibilities. Or maybe you just have other stuff to do.

 

ZestyCook – So I finally started reading this one so I have more to talk about than his beautiful bald head, but then I got sidetracked. I saw that you made a chocolate cake and used a Skor Bar as a topping. They still make Skor bars? I thought those went the way of the Rollerblade. Maybe they just started selling them in Canada and stopped U.S. distribution. Which reminds me – do they still sell Clearly Canadian in Canada? Because that stuff kicked ass. So if you can get your hands on some Clearly Canadian, you can send it my way. It would go really well with VeggieGirl’s blondies (which should totally be here by now).

The Fitnessista got a shout-out in one of her favorite (and my favorite) magazines this week – Glamour. My favorite part of Glamour (and Cosmo) is taking their little quizzes. It always comes back with results like "you really need to work on pleasing your man" or "you are a strong independent woman." I'm starting to think that maybe those quizzes aren't designed for men who are just killing time at the grocery store checkout. Anyway, Fitnessista's Glamour quote had something to do with healthy living and loving your body. I didn’t really read it. But I did see that she said something about doing Zumba. Kate and I tried doing Zumba once in South Beach with my Uncle Joe and Aunt Rolando. It was not pretty. My uncles were Zumba professionals and we were not.  I think Kate and I were both two entire songs behind the rest of the class. I also like Fitnessista because Kate can’t even come close to pronouncing her blog’s name correctly. So I like to ask Kate what she’s looking at (while I know she’s looking at Fitnessista) just to hear the pronunciation.  Kate’s version includes about 12 S’s and 6 I’s.

Matt at Brew and Bake just posted his 7th step in his how to home brew series. 7 steps and we can’t even drink the beer yet! I’ve decided that if anything takes more than three steps to explain, I’m probably just going to buy it instead. Or, I’ll just hang out in Matt’s garage when he gets to the ‘bottling’ step. And when he goes in to type out his blog post, I’ll just take the beer. Probably shouldn’t have written that plan down – there goes the element of surprise.

Stock Up/Stock Down – With Commentary. Sometimes.

Stock Up

Green Smoothies – Yeah, somebody thought it was a good idea to put spinach or kale in a smoothie. I’m sure it’s pretty healthy. It’s been a great weight loss tool for me. No, I haven’t tried one of these, but Kate has jumped on the bandwagon, and every time I see the post-Green Smoothie Blender in my kitchen I start to throw up in my mouth and skip my next meal. Thanks ladies!

Kombucha – So it costs like $3.50 and tastes like garbage water…what’s not to love? Oh, and it’s the only drink I’ve found that still doesn't taste good, even after you mix it with alcohol.

April Fools Jokes – Seriously... saying you ate something fried or had fast food is not enough. Ladies, this is your one day out of the year when you can lie and nobody can get mad at you. Go out on more of a limb. Next year I’m expecting a food blogger to say they were coked out with Lindsay Lohan or huffed gasoline for breakfast with an Olson twin. 

Breakfast Cookies - I stopped getting excited when I found it they weren't talking about Oreos

Stock Down

Pistachio Nuts - This latest recall hit the food blogging community very hard. We're going to pull through this. I promise.

Exercise-related injuries - Everyone seems to be magically healed now.

30 Day Shred – Level II - That was so last week.

Using the terms 'sammie' and 'brekkie' - Specifically for sandwich and breakfast. Actually stock is way up on these two. I just really want it to stop. So I thought maybe putting them in the stock down category would lead to their demise - at least on this side of the Atlantic.

That’s all for this week. I should be back next Friday. Give me a couple weeks and this food blog roundup will have its own blog. It'll probably have a weekly long post and then some shorter stuff on a daily basis. The new design will be fun, flirty, and feminine with a spunky edge. Not really. I actually just stole that from a food blog.  A free VeggieGirl blondie to the first person who can tell me where I stole that last line. I'm lying about the blondie too, but curious if anyone can name that blog. 

Alright, time to go.  See y'all next week.

Summer Plans

It's that time of year again (check local listings). There are leaves on the trees, the birds are chirping, and there are lots of door to door people trying to get me to buy everything from gutter cleaning to tree trimming to lawn care.

The lawn care guy came to our door today. He was from the TruGreen -ChemLawn company, I think. And why the hell would they include "ChemLawn" in their name? I think I'd try to downplay the use of chemicals, but what do I know. Anyway, TruGreen guy is warmly greeted by Kate (never really interested in dealing with a door to door salesman) and Gilbert (who was already in a bad mood because it was raining outside and he couldn't go to the bark park). So the doorbell rings and Gilbert starts barking like crazy. Kate gets the door because I'm lazy and don't feel like leaving my couch and Martha Stewart for five minutes. I know I didn't enter Publisher's Clearing House this month so there's no chance it's the prize patrol. Kate answers, realizes it's the lawn chemical guy, and responds with a firm (but polite) "no thank you, my husband takes care of the lawn." I loved it. It was delivered with the right amount of voice inflection, and had the undertone of traditional gender roles that are so not us. It could've only been better if she would've finished it off with "now if you'll excuse me, I have a roast in the oven to attend to. I said good day sir." 

Anyway, chemical man didn't stop there. The rejection before his pitch and the barking dog did not stop this guy from delivering his killer close-the-deal line of "what are your plans for your lawn this summer?" Kate responded with a quick "to mow it" and that was that. It was short and just enough smartass to get him to go away. 

After Chemlawn man left, the four of us (Kate, Me, Gilbert, and Martha) sat around and discussed how we could've answered that question better. Well, it was basically just Kate and I discussing it, but Martha and Gil were both there too. Anyway, how the hell are you supposed to respond to a question like "What are your plans for your lawn this summer?" We came up with several options. Feel free to borrow any of these if the TruGreen guy comes to your door:

TruGreen Man: What are your plans for your lawn this summer?

You: I'm not sure. We were thinking of taking the lawn to see my folks up in Wisconsin. But probably only the front lawn, because the back lawn gets car sick.

or

You: Well, we're going to enroll the lawn in a summer reading program at the public library. We want it to stay sharp and to keep on learning even during the summer months. Oh, and lawn is on the waiting list for swimming lessons at the YMCA, so keep your fingers crossed!

or

You: We've got a lot of things lined up for the lawn this summer. Including, but not limited to: letting the dog pee on it. Pounding some metal stakes into it and throwing some horses shoes back and forth, and probably digging some holes in it at some point.

or

You: We're probably going to take it easy this summer. Lawn had a big year last year (with the trip to Europe and all) so we'll probably just stay around here. I mean, lawn will grow and get cut and then grow and get cut, but that's about it. We'll probably do that every week or so.

or

You: We're planning on digging up the entire lawn, donating the grass to science, and then paving the entire yard.

That's all we could come up with. Then Martha butted in with something about making your own honey or something like that so we stopped thinking about the TruGreen guy and his silly question.  Again, feel free to borrow these, or share your own suggestions as comments.

Blog Housekeeping and House Hunters

Hi Everyone. Sorry for the delay. I've been doing some YIFY soul-searching this week. Lots of trust falls and ropes courses with me and my blog.

So I'll start with a little blog housekeeping. This food blog week in review thing seemed to work pretty well, so I should probably do some more of that. That being said, the food blog critic thing really doesn't fit into the strict charter of this blog - nor is it entirely interesting to people who don't spend their free time blogstalking (except reading mine). So the master plan now is to create a new blog where I just talk about other blogs. I'll start working on that one of these days with a new domain, new design, and all of the other things that go along with starting a new blog. Once that happens, YIFY will go back to just being a random collection of my thoughts about nothing in particular. Oh, and the new food blogstalker blog (yet to be named or created) will have pictures and graphics and all of the things that a blog should have. YIFY will remain in its current (ugly) format. So for the next couple of weeks, I'll continue doing the food blog posting thing here until I get motivated and make the pretty blog. 

Okay, that's enough housekeeping for one day. Now I'll make the smooth transition from blog details to cable television...

As many of you know, I spend a significant amount of my life watching television. I can't spend all of my free time stalking food blogs, and television is more than happy to fill this need. There are really three categories of television shows that Kate and I watch:

1. Shows that only Kate likes (about 15 shows - mostly those on HGTV or TLC)

2. Shows that only I like (about 100 shows - pretty much everything)

3. Shows that we both like (4 shows that I can think of)

I can think of about four shows that we both like off the top of my head: The Office, The Biggest Loser, Barefoot Contessa, and The Today Show. Of course, The Today Show should count as more than one show, since it's literally on for 24 hours per week (two hours on Saturdays and Sundays, and 4 hours each weekday). That's ridiculous, but that's for another post. This one is about House Hunters. It used to be one of the shows that we both like, but I recently made the decision to move it into the 'Shows that only Kate likes' bucket.

I'm not entirely sure why I broke up with House Hunters, but I can think of a couple possible reasons - I could be burned out from doing actual house hunting not very long ago and the thought of house hunting again just is not appealing at all. Or (more likely) I've finally realized that every single episode of House Hunters is exactly the same. Since it's still in the "shows that Kate likes" category, I still have to sit through my share of episodes. So I've decided to come up with a list of things that will likely happen in an episode, and then rate the episode based on how many of these things actually happens. Every episode has at least 2 of these things happen, if you're lucky, you'll see an episode with four or more of the following:

1. [Wife/Girlfriend] - Steps into walk in closet and makes some stupid joke about "Well, this is big enough for my wardrobe, but I don't know where he'll put his clothes" ha ha ha

2. [Husband/Boyfriend] - Sees dishwasher and makes dumb joke about "not having dishpan hands anymore" ha ha ha

3. [Wife/Girlfriend] - shows some apprehension about the backyard. Usually something about "I don't know if a pool is really safe with the kids" or "what if a bear comes in from that wooded area and eats the kids." Okay, that second one never happens, but the first one is pretty common.

4. [Husband/Boyfriend] - expresses some interest in turning the basement, shed, or bonus room into a 'men's den'. Bonus point if he uses the term 'man cave' and acts like he's the first person to ever use the term.

5. [Wife/Girlfriend] - dismisses one of the houses because of something stupid like "I just don't know about the paint color in the baby's room." This is usually when Kate starts talking to them through the TV and says something about how easy it would be to change the color of the baby's room. 

6. [Realtor] Ends up showing houses that are not in the couple's price range. Bonus point if they end up buying a home that was not in their original price range.

So next time you watch House Hunters, see how many of these you can check off your list. Or, next time you lose control of the remote try to come up with a your own episode cliche scavenger hunt. It helps pass the time. 

This Week in Food (Blogs)

Hello, and welcome to the first (and potentially last) edition of the YIFY Food Blog Roundup. This could probably go in a couple of directions from here. Either it could become wildly popular and create it's own spin-off blog, or I could offend a bunch of people that I don't even know, feel guilty about it, and then go back to blogging about my dog or hard alcohol. Only time will tell. A few of the ground rules:

1. Blogs were selected at random. And by random I mean I'm commenting on the handful that I read regularly, or those that seem to be popular because they get frequent shout-outs in the blogs that I read.

2. If you have your own food blog that you want to be included, or, if there's one that you read and you want me to comment on it, just leave it as a comment. No promises here - remember that this might be the last edition.

3. I'm not trying to be an ass. Really. This is about as edited/filtered as I get. Sorry if it is still in some way offensive. This is the first post where Kate actually has editorial control. Mostly because she's the nicest person that I know.

4. If I write something about you and you don't like it, you can email me and I'll edit the post, print a retraction, or apologize profusely - your pick. But if you don't think it's too painful, I'd say just laugh it off. There may be some symbiosis here eventually. If we hit the big time, then maybe we can help drive traffic your way.

Alright, now that we've got that our of the way, here's your roundup

Blog: Kath Eats Real Food

Blogger: Kath

Kath returned from Africa last week and got back to her normal blogging schedule. I'm not going to lie...life was a little more difficult when Kath was in Africa. Posts were inconsistent. Matt did his best to fill the Kath shaped hole that was left in blogworld, but it was hard on all of us. And when Kath did post, there were comment battles popping up everywhere. It was very difficult.

But now Kath is back and all is right in blogworld. She had a bunch of contests in the past week. I think it might be related to her trip to Africa. I have a feeling that next week she's going to announce that she's actually a Nigerian princess, and if you make a small deposit (of barney butter) into her account, then she can access all of the riches of her motherland and shower you with gold and ivory and probably some oatmeal. Be on the lookout for that, as I think it might be a scam.

Speaking of oatmeal, Kath and Oatmeal were fighting earlier this week. And by fighting, I mean that she chose other breakfast treats for a few days. It was difficult to watch. I felt like I was sitting in the back of the minivan and plugging my ears and saying la la la to myself to drown out the noise of Mom (Kath) and Dad (Oatmeal) fighting. I was worried that I would have to pick sides if they split up for good. I mean, we really like hanging out with Kath and Matt, but Oatmeal and I have such history together. Fortunately, it didn't come to that. Kath and her oats are reunited once again. 

Did I really just write an entire paragraph about someone else's relationship with oatmeal?

[Leaving the United States. Driving North. Going through Customs. Welcome to Canada] 

Blog: Oh She Glows

Blogger: Angela

OSG just launched a "Bikini Body Bootcamp" contest. Basically she's having her readers send in some 'before' pictures in bikinis (along with their measurements) and then they'll have a winner at the end of the thing. I'm trying to figure out how I can show my support. Which of these would be the least creepy?

1. I could take my picture wearing a women's bikini

2. I could go with imitation being the most sincere form of flattery, and also ask my blog readers to send in bikini pictures

3. I could send in my picture wearing a speedo and an "I Glo" baby tee

I think all of the above are pretty creepy, so maybe I'll just send in a celebrity bathing suit picture and say its me. I'd probably go with the famous Tyra Banks or Jennifer Love Hewitt pictures or something like that. 

But best of luck to OSG and the rest of the contestants. I know that bikini season is only about three days long in Canada, so hopefully they've got the scheduling figured out.

Blog: Zestycook

Blogger: Hmm, Zesty, I guess. Mind if I call you that? Perhaps Zest for short...

I have to admit that I don't really read this blog. I'm going to start, I just haven't gotten around to it. But it seems popular and fancy enough so I thought I'd write about it. Also, Zesty is successful in a female-dominated space, and I applaud that. I compare it to my success on the Taylor Swift Karaoke circuit, where it's usually just me and a bunch of women. But since I don't read his blog (yet) this is probably going to be a fairly superficial roundup.

I love Zesty's beautiful bald head - and I don't care who knows it. Have y'all seen his head? It can be seen in all its glory on the "About Zesty" page. It looks so damn smooth. It's probably good that we haven't met yet. I'm 97% sure that I'd start the conversation with "is it cool if I feel your head?" I used to think to myself that I'd much rather have gray hair than go bald, but a couple of things have changed my mind on that topic:

1. I started getting gray hair. And it seems to be coming in on the sides faster than the top. That was not part of the plan. I was hoping for George Clooney, but I'm worried it's going to be more like Grandpa Munster.

2. I saw Zesty's glorious bald head, and thought, yeah, that's definitely better than the Grandpa Munster look that I'm working on right now. 

I promise I'll stop talking about Zesty's head soon, but one more thing on that topic. When I was 14 and had to go to the dermatologist, there was a picture hanging on the wall. It was a side by side comparison of a 50-something plains Indian woman, and a 90-something Tibetan monk. The plains Indian woman spent all of her time in the sun so her face looked like an old catcher's mitt. The Tibetan monk spent all of his time protected from the sun and his bald head looked flawless. For the last 14 years I have been looking for a bald head as flawless as the monk head, and now we have found it...This concludes the somewhat-creepy section of this post where I describe another man's head.

I promise I'll actually read the blog next week so I can actually talk about it instead of Zesty's head. 

[Leaving Canada. Stopping briefly at Duty Free to buy some booze. Next stop = Florida]

Blog: The Inner Workings of a College Graduate

Blogger: Meghann

It's been a very exciting week for Graduate Meghann readers. At long last, Meghann addressed her relationship status. For those of you who haven't been following along (shame on you), Meghann has been spotted out with this guy named Derek, since the Valentine's day time frame, but he has not yet received a title on the blog. So every time Derek and Meghann do something, there are usually a handful of comments saying something like "are you and Derek dating" or "is Derek your boyfriend." 

Well, Meghann finally cleared this up for us. Sort of. In a recent post, Meghann stated:

"Truth is Derek and I discussed it this weekend and we both honestly do not know what to label each other. We both know that we enjoy each other’s company and that we are just seeing how things move from here. There is no rush to produce labels, so one day at a time people! LOL"

Well, that might be good enough for you two, but those of us in blogworld need a label. It doesn't even have to be an accurate label, as long as it is used consistently. So if you don't want to go with 'Boyfriend' or 'Dating', that's fine, but give us something. You can call him the Easter Bunny or the Pope or whatever you want - just give the guy/relationship a title. It can be like a game of blog Mad Libs.

In other Graduate Meghann news, Meghann and her Easter Bunny, Derek went rollerblading this week. Wait, what? How did they do that? Did they get into a DeLorian with Michael J. Fox, get it up to 88 miles an hour and set the flux capacitor for 1996? I can't remember the last time I saw rollerblades, but I'm pretty sure Clinton was in office. I'm not really sure why Rollerblades disappeared. It wasn't like a better technology came along like with the Zach Morris cell phone or the Betamax or laser disc player. People just stopped using them. But maybe Meghann and her Easter Bunny are bringing them back, and I support that. BTW, spellcheck doesn't even recognize 'rollerblades' as a word anymore.

Blog: Eat, Live, Run

Blogger: Jenna

Alright, this will be a short one...mostly because this post is already too long. I don't know what happened here. I went out of town last week and Jenna was like the queen of yoga and every post had something to do with yoga. Then I came back and now every post talks about swimming. What the hell did I miss? It's like someone did a big 'search and replace' on the entire blog and took out Yoga and replaced it with Swimming. I'll get over it, but I feel like it was all really abrupt. It's a good thing that this isn't a 'Single White Female' scenario, otherwise I would've already invested in my own yoga mat and personal Yogi, only to have to switch it up and buy goggles now.

In other ELR news, Jenna and her BF were at the beach, and apparently Jenna's BF is friends with Albert Haynesworth and other professional football players. Now I don't doubt that it's true, but it would be an amazingly funny inside joke if it wasn't. Like he could just give her another random celebrity every week and she would have to weave that person into the blog. Almost like a Barbara Walters-style namedropping (I was horseback riding with the King of Jordan just last week...I was in a hot tub with Matt Damon and Ben Affleck). Also, I'd really like to see a photo of Jenna with Albert Haynesworth. And yes, he's the one stomping on the other dude's head. If I was decent with photoshop, I'd make that happen...instead you'll all just have to imagine it in your mind.

Blogging Trends or Stock up/Stock Down (not sure what to call it yet)

Stock Up

Barney Butter

Tempeh

Commenting with ALL CAPS and plenty of !!!!

Fake signatures at the end of posts

30 Day Shred Level II

Stock Down

Yoga

Protein Powder

Labels for boyfriends

Black tar heroin

30 Day Shred Level I

Stay tuned for next week (or next time that I get around to this) when I'll review Brew and Bake, Healthy Tipping Point, Bites and Bowls, and whatever other blogs y'all tell me to write about.

That's all. Thanks for reading. Let me know what you think.

The Real Housewives of Facebook

This should probably be titled "My Digital Friends, Volume IV," but the real housewives total came to me when I was running yesterday, and I just couldn't help myself. 

So of my 387 facebook friends, there are probably 20 or so that are stay at home moms (SAHMs). A couple of these are family members. I promise this post isn't about you. Hopefully that'll stop my sister from being mad at me. Most of my SAHM friends are from high school or college who have recently followed the traditional progression of: graduated from school, got married, had kid, stay at home and raise kid. The new last step in this progression is apparently "spend all of my time on facebook." Stay at home moms are great people, and they have the hardest job in the world (other than coal miners, probably) but I know this much is true:

Stay at home moms are the worst facebook friends. Ever.

Most of this revolves around the status update. Specifically:

They Update Their Status All the time: I expect status updates at specific times of the day: Early risers update their status in the morning. 8-5ers update their status after lunch (something like "back in the office and ready for a nap") and then there are the ready to leave work, and just got home from work status updates. Finally, there are the 'I have nothing better to do tonight so I'll update my facebook status' updates. With SAHMs, they just update their status all day. Now I only know this because I'm on Facebook all day, but it's damn annoying.

They Update Their Status with Stuff that Doesn't Interest Me: I go onto Facebook to be entertained. This does not happen with your SAHM friends. You get Facebook status updates like:

"Life is good when [insert rugrat name] sleeps through the night"

"Shopping for Minivans, and recommendations?"

"Taking [rugrat] to Target. He's still trying to get over his cold. Darn that daycare"

"What does it mean when [rugrat] has green spitup?"

Again, I'm looking for an enjoyable distraction with my facebook status updates. I'm looking for an obscure movie quote or song lyric, or some interesting detail of your life. Maybe even something unintentionally funny after being overserved on a Friday or Saturday night.  Not this mom stuff about minivans or gerber products.

Their Mom Friends have Full Conversations on Facebook: So I usually judge Facebook status updates based on two criteria: 1. Does it make me laugh, 2. Did lots of other people comment on it. Usually these two are pretty consistent. If I find something funny or entertaining, I'm probably not alone. With my SAHM friends, they post the lamest status updates (see examples above) yet still get a handful of responses that are just as lame. It's like there is this vast network of moms on facebook that go from watching noggin to hitting refresh on their computer to commenting on their status and then repeat. Oh, and I know I could call them a Momtourage, but I really don't want that term to takeoff, so I'm not going to use it. Damn, I guess I just did. So if some SAHM asks for input about a minivan, there will be five recommendations up there an hour later. Maybe I'm just jealous, who knows. 

I think it all comes back to my fear that one day all of the cool kids are going to wake up and realize that everyone is using facebook, and then they'll close out their accounts and start doing something else instead. Then it'll just be me and the SAHMs left on Facebook and my only entertainment will be status updates about the Honda Odessey and Go Diego Go. 

My Digital Friends, Volume III

How about this...three days in a row. This will be your third and final installment in the "My Digital Friends" series. This one is about how having blogging friends really changes your interaction and relationships with these people.

I'll start with our friend Kath, who is sort of our Charlotte Kevin Bacon. Every friend that we have in Charlotte can be traced back to Kath (and her husband, Matt) in some way. We've met some other people (not through Kath) but usually they just try to get us to go to church with them. Kate likes to remind me of the six degrees of Kath whenever I make fun of her for excessive blogstalking. Usually something along the lines of "we wouldn't even know Kath and Matt if I didn't do this" like she's some kind of martyr or something. Gotta love it. Anyway, we met Kath and Matt because of Kate's blogstalking and then setting up a double date. At the time of this double date, I wasn't really a follower of Kath's blog, but since we were going to meet them, I took a couple of hours to do research on her blog. The blog was like a full couples eHarmony profile or something, except most of it was about oatmeal and yoga. Matt's blog focuses more on my interests (bread and beer), but that wasn't launched until after our first date. So that's one plus of having blogging friends...you feel like you know them before you actually know them.

One thing to watch out for when you have blogging friends is to not freak out their blog's recurring characters the first time you meet them. So the first time I met Matt's mom, I think I led with "So how is Spanish class going?" Matt's mom is auditing a Spanish class at a local university, but I only know this because I read the blog. Think how creepy that must sound coming from some guy you haven't met before. I think I followed that one up with something like "Why do you always order white wine when the meal absolutely calls for a full-bodied red?" Another one that I only knew because of my freakish memory and creepy blogstalking habits. Should've probably kept those to myself and just gone with something like "Nice to meet you, do you live around here?"

You also have to watch out and make sure that someones blog persona doesn't trump what you actually know about them. My friends Al and Kate are both bloggers. They got married a few months ago and actually announced it on their respective blogs. I saw them for the first time since the wedding, and even though my Kate instructed me to "congratulate them on their wedding" I think I led with "Hey Kate, congrats on your 1000th post" which was a detail that I had picked up from reading her blog. I quickly recovered with "oh, and congrats on getting married, too."

Having blogger friends can also get you reading things that you normally wouldn't read. My friend Michelle blogs about fashion. Now I enjoyed Sex and the City (the show and movie) as much as the next guy (actually, probably more than the next guy), but I probably wouldn't read a blog about women's fashion if I wasn't friends with the author. Then again, I doubt all of my friends would really be interested in some gem that I write that amounts to 1000 words about the best mixers for Gin, but they muddle through because they know and/or like me. So I guess it all works out. And now when we hang out with Michelle and her husband I can say things like "oh, those are your 7 for all mankind jeans, aren't they? I loved those with the Express Cardi."

Commenting on friend blogs is also fun. I usually do one of two things. I either comment with some kind of off-topic inside joke, or come up with a fake name and defend my friend blogger, if someone is being mean via comments. I usually select a woman's name. And this fake woman persona of mine (usually named Marge, or Marci, or Doris) is pretty sassy. I think if I was a woman, I'd be a little feisty. Like the kind of woman who gets into fights - usually over her man. You know, the one with the really thin eyebrows that you see at the mall or at the fair. Yeah, so I'll comment as Marci and defend my friends. Could that be a bumper sticker? "My Blog Persona is a feisty middle-aged woman."

Commenting on my friend Kelsey's blog is fun too. Before I met Kelsey, I saw her blog and she had (either intentionally or unintentionally) posted a rather inappropriate looking picture of a couple of apples and a banana. If you don't know what I'm talking about, give a 12 year old boy two apples and a banana and see how he arranges them. So Kelsey was just taking a picture of her lunch or something, and I really really wanted to know if the fruit placement was intentionally in the twig and berries formation, or if it was random produce chance. Kate told me that I couldn't ask via comments, because I hadn't met Kelsey yet, and it's already creepy enough that a guy is reading food blogs. But now that Kelsey is one of my blogfriends, I'm entirely comfortable asking - and can do so without worrying about getting blocked from posting comments.  

So there it is, folks. The end of my three volume series on digital friends. Tomorrow we'll have something on The Real Housewives of Facebook. That should be fun and will probably offend plenty of readers.

Speaking of offending readers, I'm going to give the whole 'food blog critic' thing a shot on Saturday. We'll try it once and see how it goes. Depends on whether I can be funny without being a complete ass. Maybe I'll turn it into a weekly roundup or something. I was going to ask the food bloggers for permission first, but decided that I'll just ask for forgiveness later, instead. So stay tuned for that. Should be fun.

My Digital Friends, Volume II

Two days in a row. Yeah, I know. I'm awesome. So here's Volume II of our three (or more) part series on my digital friends. This one is about my facebook friends.

If this topic seems familiar to some of you, then you've been reading this blog for way too long. I did something on 'Social Networking Rules of Engagement' way back in the day. Like back when I had a blogmate. But this is a little bit different. This one is about evaluating your current friend list and making difficult cuts. Sort of like trying to cut the budget deficit (yeah, I'm watching the president's press conference right now). 

So Burger King ran some kind of contest a few weeks ago when they'd give you a free cheeseburger if you defriended 10 people. I didn't go for that for a couple of reasons: 1. I wasn't really hungry for a cheeseburger, and 2. I like to avoid conflict at all costs. But it got me thinking about my friend list, and who I would cut if I had to cut people off. Like if Burger King offered me one of those creepy oversized 'King' masks and suits for cutting friends, who would I choose?Here's the math:

Starting Number: 387. This is the total number of facebook 'friends' that I have. To someone new to facebook, this might seem like a lot. To someone who just graduated college, this is nothing. To someone who doesn't use facebook, I'm surprised you made it this far. Anyway, I don't think I have 387 actual friends. That seems like too many. I don't get 387 birthday cards and there certainly aren't 387 people who I could call to help me move or bail me out of jail. 200 sounds better, so that's our goal. In my make believe world, Burger King will give me the creepy King head if I get down under 200 friends. So let's start cutting...

Subtract People Who I don't Know (14). So I have to admit that I'm a huge nerd. I started this exercise by going through my entire friend list and typing every name into an excel file. This list of 14 people is basically the list of people that led me to say "who the hell is that" when I typed their name. So those people are gone. I'm not really sure how I became friends with these people. Maybe they were former coworkers who friended me during new employee orientation and then didn't make it to week two. Or maybe I went to college or high school with them and they got married and I don't recognize their married name. Whatever. They're gone now. We're down to 372.

Subtract People Who I haven't talked to in at least three years (212). Whoa. that's a lot. And to clarify, talking on facebook doesn't count. So this means phone, in person, or email communication. So we could be done (we'd be down to 160 friends), but that wouldn't be much fun, so let's add some people back in.

Add in People who I haven't talked to in three years, BUT I have had some facebook communication with them in the past year (45). Try fitting that column heading on an excel file. So these are your facebook success stories. They write funny status updates or post inappropriate pictures.  They are your no strings, facebook friends. So we have to add them back. Damn, now we're up to 205.   

Add back people who meet previous subtraction criteria but are somehow related to you (2). So if you're following, these are family members that I haven't talked to in over three years. I know, I'm a bad cousin. But of the 16 total family members among my friends, I have talked to 14 of them, which isn't bad. But we've got to add these two back to avoid family reunion drama. So now we're back to 207.

Add back people who meet previous subtraction criteria but have the ability to get you fired if they wanted to (1). Of my 387 current friends, I came up with 20 who could probably get me fired if they wanted to (without trying too hard). So these twenty represent current clients and people who have rectangles above my rectangle on the org chart. Note: there are lots of rectangles above my rectangle. But I talk to most of these people pretty often, so most did not meet the aforementioned exclusion criteria. Only one person to add back in. So now we're at 208. 

Subtract your potential liability list (10). So these are people that are on your list. Your list that you'd hand your PR person if you were ever running for office. Not people that you need to disappear, but people that could cause issues in the future, either because 1. you've done ridiculous things around them or 2. they tend to say ridiculous things. So these are people that would respond to your facebook status with some hilarious inside joke that is just blatantly offensive to people who don't know this person. Yeah, they shouldn't be your facebook friends, even though they are probably your best friends in real life. Keep in mind that you have people in the 'could get you fired' category above. They don't get along well with the personal liability group. So these actual friends are off the list. We're down to 198. Give me my creepy looking King head now. 

Editor's Note - There are a couple of other groups that I started counting, but left out of this post:

1. People who have seen me naked. This list was way too long. No, not because of that. Get your mind out of the gutter. You try playing high school sports or living in a fraternity. Would it really cost that much more to put in individual shower stalls? If I ever donate money to my high school or college, I'm going to have individual shower stalls put in with doors or curtains. Some freshman will thank me. 

2. Stay at home moms. I love you all, but your facebook status updates just aren't very exciting. I could go on here, but instead stay tuned for a full post on this. Something like "The Real Housewives of Facebook." Maybe Thursday-ish, if 'yall are free.

Alright, that's all for tonight. Volume III tomorrow night.