Forgive me Blogger, for I have sinned. Also, ribbit.

I made a jokey comment on another blog that was supposed to be funny but came off as mean. It hurt that blogger's feelings and I feel effing terrible about it, and I'm so sorry.

So in a desperately transparent effort to worm my way back into his good graces, I am breaking my promise to myself to stop pimping out other bloggers (because they're all better than me and all my readers bugger off to their blogs instead of reading mine) to bring you someone who is indeed one of the cool, beautiful people.

Allow me to introduce you to Trinity.

Trinity is awesome because:

1. Trinity is his real name. It's just a freaking cool name. Like a badass video game character or something.

2. The This Book Will Change Your Life Experiment - as he puts it, said Book is "a 365 page instruction manual for adding crazy shit into your life". He performs daily tasks as instructed by the Book and blogs his experiences for your reading pleasure. I don't think I've ever seen anyone do anything like this on a blog, and I really like it! Luckily he writes in an engaging and entertaining way, because even the best story needs to be told right.

There's no way in hell I'd ever do something that requires so much effort and commitment, but this way I can do it vicariously. Yay! It was an easy instant add to my ginormo reading list.

3. He is the soul-twin of my dear friend, ex-blogger The Girl with the Pink Teacup. Anyone Miss Teacup likes is instantly all right in my book, so in a way, Trinity had pre-approval before I even "met" him. She likes him so much she sent him Freddo Frogs, which brings me to the next part...

4. Trinity also goes by the blogger name of Newt the Wonder Frog. Now, a Wonder Frog sounds pretty awesome in itself, but this is because frogs are awesome already and here's why:

• Frogs are the first indicators of an ecosystem going tits-up. If the frogs are gone, everything else is headed for doom.

• Tree frogs are awesome. They look like plastic or rubber but they are real and they have adorable roundy toe pads. Also they get in the shower with you at your friend's house in the Australian bush. Not because they're pervy, but because it's delightfully humid in there, just like a rainforest.

• Poison Dart frogs are awesome. Toxic secretions from their skin are used by the indigenous peoples of Central & South America to poison the tips of blow-darts (wiki here), and also, they come in a delightful Crayola range of colors.

• Frog Princes are a staple of popular culture. No other animal has as much chance of turning into a prince as the frog. It's just a fact. Although there is little to no data on whether His Highness continues to eat flies after gaining human form.

• Freddo Frogs, as mentioned before, are Australian chocolate frogs available either in solid chocolate or filled with various flavors of delicious goo. And y'all know I like my candy.


So there you have it, now go visit Trinity and tell him I sent you and said he was cool, beautiful and awesome! and then please come back and read me.

Calling all girls!

Ladies:

Do you secretly (or not-so-secretly) like to read books that have hot pink covers with curly writing and impossibly slender cartoon chicks on the front?

Does this somewhat less than intellectual literary proclivity embarrass and delight you at the same time?

Do you have a hectic schedule or a short attention span that only allows you to read a chapter at a time?

Do you like blogs with awesome names?

If you answered "hells yes!" to all of the above, Ninja Sex Pants (check out that URL name, best evs) is the blog for you. Moonkee writes a Cheesy Bookstore Romance (her words, not mine!!!) serialized in blog form. She explains it like this:

In 1996 I started writing a cheesy romance. I was working at Waldenbooks then and saw daily what utter crap was selling like hotcakes. (See "Throwing 'The Horse Whisperer' across the room upon completion, circa 1996.")
This is the result, as far as I got with it.

Now remember, this was written to make fun of other books. The initial idea was to take something exceedingly dull and cheese it up. I believe that when it's done right, this could be termed something along the lines of "farce" or "satire." But fear not! I promise that you will find no such thing in the reality that is CBR. You'll want to start with the first posting, April 25. And by "want" we all know I mean "will do it to make her feel better and staunch the flow of approval-seeking e-mail before it starts."

Unfortunately, Moonkee has allowed real life to interfere with posting the next chapter. I know, right?! So I'm counting on y'all to get over there (in the interest of doing my bidding, go to that link before you go to Chapter 1) and beg shout at coerce encourage her to continue writing!!!

I need my next chapter, people!

Moonkee, I'm not above bribery. Please accept this shiny new Sweet Blogger (Redux) Award* as prepayment for my next chapter!!!



*I don't know who all I've given this award to but if you have the old one, please feel free to take this one as an upgrade!
On a side note, I'm kind of annoyed because the colors are showing up much more blue/purple and wishy-washy when I upload it than they are in the original file, but I still think it's better than the old one. Does anyone know why the color looks perfect when I Save For Web in Photoshop and then changes when I upload it to Blogger?

Required reading

I think this article on playing the "race card", by Tim Wise, should be required reading for all Americans - if not, as I commented there, all humans (originally posted here, containing the reference material).

It's kind of long, especially for someone like me with a ridiculously short attention span, but he makes points that people simply need to hear.

You know, I wasn't going to shorthand it, but it's really long. I do desperately urge you to read the whole thing, but it does require a little time which you may not have right away. Basically it's a brilliant demolition of white America's attempts to write off any black American complaint of racism as "playing the race card". I was already aware in a general sense of how deeply race affects pretty much everything in America, but the statistics and situations he quotes are still pretty horrifying.

I know people do this, but I'm not sure why; perhaps it makes us uncomfortable to think we might have a hand in another person's suffering, but it's easier to dismiss or minimize their experiences rather than roll up our sleeves and work on stopping it.

When I was reading it I was reminded of a conversation I was involved in back in high school, where a (self-described) Australian-born Chinese girl asked our reasonably racially diverse (albeit all-girl) group to raise their hands if they had experienced racism directed towards them. Out of a group of about 20 or 30 girls*, every single non-Caucasian girl raised her hand.

Up until that moment, being a whitey myself and having been raised in a racially- but not politically-diverse environment, I had thought of racism as the province of history or the occasional old person. That moment stuck with me and was the beginning of my eyes being opened.

I will not apologize** for trying to open other people's eyes in the same way here on my blog, a space I consider my own. I can't force you to read the link, or to take away from it what I did, but it is my sincere hope that you do.


*I can't remember exact numbers. It was a long time ago, okay?!
**As sometimes bloggers feel they ought to when stating strong opinions. Why is that?