blogs on fire

well now! i have been given an AWARD. because i am ON FIRE. well, at least rosewinelover thinks so, and who am i, mere bigheaded mortal that i am, to disagree? she describes me as “Long-time friend, lover of Staffordshire Bull Terriers. Sweet, adorable lunatic.” which goes to show she knows something about me.

ahem. so here’s the award, which i have already proudly emblazoned on my sidebar

and here’s what i have to do as a recipient;

SEVEN secrets and EIGHT nominations.

i don’t make the rules, bubs. (as SOMEONE* might say…)

okay, not secrets so much as some things you might you not know about me… let’s see…

1. i recently commented on a product I HAD NOT BOUGHT on amazon. i can’t remember who posted the link to it, someone on twitter, and i got itchy fingers. i’d never written anything on amazon before, and i did wonder if they might come to my front door and vaporize me for saying;

“We don’t know when or if this item will be back in stock.”, March 29, 2012

By elaine4queen

This review is from: My New Pink Button – Bettie (Health and Beauty)

“We don’t know when or if this item will be back in stock.”

well, GOOD.

who even thought of this? it is dismal. completely offensive. it actually epitomizes the self hatred we are encouraged to feel. don’t hate yourself enough yet? buy our product and watch a little piece of your soul DIE.

***

unbelievably, to me, this product is for making your private parts pretty. with makeup. because that’s what we’ve all been longing to be able to do, right?

some of the other reviews are actually VOMITINGLY funny. and i can thoroughly recommend the thrill of joining in. i meant to blog about it before, but the hunger games got in the way.

2. on klout i am ‘influential’ about 16 topics, one of which is klout itself. this is insane, because of all the interweb things in all the world i understand klout the least. topics real people have given me klout in are; tea, blogging, chocolate, and vaccines.

through the mighty power of whatever spying software it employs, klout also ‘believes’ i am influential in; klout, animals, meditation, coffee, books, birds, horror, facebook, bacon, pets, cats, and dogs.

among the bizillionty one other things that confuses me about klout, there is also the fact that there was a time, gentle reader, when klout believed that i was influential about fashion. now, i took this PRETTY DAMN SERIOUSLY. so i wrote this post about my fashion predictions for 2012, and a further one because, you know, I AM INFLUENTIAL ABOUT FASHION. but in the meantime klout have WITHDRAWN fashion as a topic. so i added it back just now. because, you know, me and fashion – we’re LIKE THAT. so. 17 topics, now. take THAT, klout!

3. the closest i have ever come to being anywhere near viral was with this picture;

which i posted on tumblr ages ago, and which turns up reblogged regularly. i don’t usually tumblr my own photos or artwork because i am not currently active as a visual artist. i enjoy clicking through and seeing what other pictures the rebloggers post it with. i follow them if i like what they are posting.

4. i once went to a club night dressed up as frida kahlo

my friend grace took the picture. the theme was “night of a thousand sombreros”. people literally treated me as if i actually was frida kahlo. as if i was famous. i wasn’t! i was DRESSED UP as someone famous! people are mental.

5. i will  be 50 this year. FIVE – OH!!!!!!! fifty. so weird. soooo weird.

i will have some friends round. my friend BJ was visiting yesterday, and she asked me what i wanted for my birthday, and i said CAKE.

because, cake, right? i didn’t even think about  it, and it is an awesome idea. i am friends with some very good cooks. my place is probably pretty comfy for a dozen people, so i can only invite a handful plus their significant others. makes it pretty easy to know who to invite. it will be the people who have been in my life over the past year. people who helped when i moved, when i was ill, and when i was mental. if i could have everyone i wanted i would, of course, want to invite the internet. well, not everyone on the internet, but bloggers and tweeters and the like. i will have to do some sort of birthday blog.

fifty, people. that’s half a damn century. only two of mes takes you back to the titanic sinking. think of that.

6. i have mucked out pigs. this is pig poo;

it’s like big rabbit droppings. my cousin has a bunch of rescue animals, two of which are BACON pigs. they are nice chaps, but don’t get between them and food, is all.

7. the first place i posted regularly was citynoise.org. and it was peter from cn who taught me how to gank images and make hot links. and that is how much html i have ever needed to keep all my blogging free for a decade. thanks, peter!
this;

‘robot building’ prompted a great thread.

so, that’s my seven things, and here are my eight nominees for the BLOG ON FIRE award. of course, this is going to be VEXED. largely because i follow quite a lot of blogs who either don’t follow me back or else never comment, have themed blogs which they would never deviate from. so, what to do? i probably don’t know eight bloggers who would want the award, half the people i read are not even blogging publicly. here’s the deal. i am going to tell you about blogs i like reading. just that. there may be one or two who pass the badge on. but i’d rather tell you about blogs i like than try to get a full quota of people who might reblog.

here goes.

1. so the SOMEONE  i mentioned thusly * is lucysfootball. wisecracking frizz haired amy, who blogs EVERY DAY! every single day. it’s like blogging is her superpower.

2. my favourite tumblr blogger is @mariskreizman at  slaughterhouse90210 as with a lot of really good creative projects, hers is a simple idea which no one else thought of.

3. ‘have a go’ blogger lahikmajoe has a blog about tea, but his wp blog has bits about all sorts in. he’ll blog about anything from the political stramash about gunter grass’s poem about israel to trying to blog in lowland scots, a dialect which most scottish writers avoid, so tricky is it to get right.

4. i want to nominate a ‘magazine’ now, souciant.com. my good internet friend charlie bertch set this up with his chums, and it’s pretty great. this is what he wrote about the hunger games, and here is a really interesting piece on the gunter grass furore. you can follow this in the wp reader, so i am counting it as a blog.

5. chiller writes about all sorts. her recent post on watering the garden may have saved my garden’s life.

6. this piece by sj made me laugh. i mean, we’re bloggers, right? we are going to like a rant about blogging.

7. eldon is hilarious. that is all.

8. i don’t write novels but i follow noveldoctor because he is clever and funny. and if you write anything it is useful to read stuff about writing. i read stephen king’s on writing recently, and it was really interesting. and useful. and so is this blog. he also tweets @noveldoctor.

and, see? once i liberated myself from the thrall of trying to think about who would like having this award, who would follow the memey bit of it, all that stuff, and just recommended some blogs i got through it really fast and could go on. this list doesn’t even replicate my blogroll. i know! crazy, right? who knew a blogger might read loads of different blogs?

live and learn, people. live and learn.