UPDATED: Blog malaise is the new swine flu (with a side of Over to You).

You guys, I think I have a touch of the blog burnout that's been going around.

I still want to write, and I still like reading other people's blogs... I'm just feeling like I'm off my game a bit. I can't think of any witty comments even when I really like a post (or even particularly witty replies to y'alls comments here), and I've no ideas stored up for my own future posts...

I usually have two or three drafts up my sleeve, and I've nothing!

Help me, blogosphere! What would you like to read on this delicious sugary pink blog of mine?

Should I do more odes?

More Soda Fountain of Knowledge (language or culture)?

More Blogisferia Chronicles? Is there anyone whose blog is in my reader list brave enough to put their hand up to be in the next Chronicle?

Or is there something I haven't written about that you want me to? Current events perhaps, or nano-celebrities like Jon & Kate Plus Eight Minus Jon?

Comments please!!! Oh yeah and the best (i.e. most helpful) comment wins a Sweet Blogger Award!!


That's right. I'm not above bribery.

UPDATE: also, crap. I was adding the well-fed graphic designer to my blog list and accidentally removed someone else, and I've no idea who it was. Can anyone tell who's missing over there?

Recommended Viewing: In the Mood For Love

We recently watched In the Mood For Love, a Chinese movie by Wong Kar Wai.

I don't want to go into the plot too much, because I seriously want y'all to see it for yourselves. It's a melancholy sort-of love story, just quiet and gentle and sweetly sad. Every single frame is achingly beautiful. I'm not exaggerating. The set design is pitch-perfect (if it's not technically period-perfect, it's emotionally perfect), the color palette is used to great effect, and the way the camera lingers on a wisp of smoke or views a scene from down a hallway and with a slightly blocked view instead of right there with the characters, just infuses the film with a sense of longing, but at the same time it's very peaceful.

And I covet the lead actress's wardrobe to an obsessive degree. Like, I would wear the shit out of every single thing she wore. Ridiculously fantastic. It's set in the 1960s, so she had these incredible modern-style cheongsam type dresses, with elegant high collars, neat little cap sleeves, and glove-like fitting to her curves (and it didn't hurt that she had a smoking hot bod). I was literally gasping with joy and envy every time she had on a new outfit. And then demanding to be taken to China.

These pictures are kind of terrible quality, but you get the idea:







Also, now I'm really craving wonton soup and char siu bao (BBQ pork buns).

Redact This.

Don't you hate it when bloggers write those posts that are all mysterious because they want to complain about something that's going on in their real life, but they can't give any details, because they don't want to give up their sweet precious anonymity*?

It's like the blogger's emotions are soldiers writing home to Ma, but the blogger's brain is the army, intercepting their letters and removing any potentially damaging information:



*Which is not to say that I don't understand why people do it. Or that I won't ever write such a post.

Fun Size: Cocktail Hour.

I really like the drink they call a Shirley Temple - you know, Sprite with Lord-knows-what thrown in there to make it go pink. Because clearly the most important thing about a drink is that it should match your outfit.

But I was thinking the other night, I bet a Shirley Temple would taste pretty good with a shot of vodka chucked in. Only what would you call it?

I suggest, the Drew Barrymore*.




* GET IT???!!! Because she was a nine-year-old alcoholic**.

**Too soon?

To Boldly Go...

Captain Kirk: We don't know what terrible dangers may lurk down on this strange new planet. We'll need to assemble an away team. Let's see... of course I will go, my second in command Spock, Chief Medical Officer McCoy, Lieutenant Sulu... and you there, in the red shirt, what's your name?

Ensign: Jenkins, sir.

Captain Kirk: All right, Ensign Jenkins, you're coming with us. You too, Ensign Kowalski.

Ensigns: Aw, crap.


As soon as you saw some poor schmo in a red shirt (who you'd never seen before) in the away team, you knew who was going to get crushed by styrofoam rocks or atomized by unconvincingly plastic lizard-people. My mum and I coined the name Ensign Expendable for these unfortunate fellows. I wonder if Starfleet Academy had a course on Not Getting Picked For the Away Team, aka Survival 101.

Really Hot.

Sometimes, when a mummy and a daddy love each other very much, the daddy does things to make the mummy happy...

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He squeezed the bottle over the hot water, smiling at her as she watched small mountains of bubbles rising from the surface. She swore she could almost feel the steam rising and making her skin hotter, or maybe it was just that she knew what he was going to do next.

"Oh yeah baby, you know I love it when you do that!" she purred.

She inhaled sharply, watching his hands as they worked slowly and surely over the dishes, lathering them with a luxurious foam and then sluicing steaming hot water all over them to rinse off the detergent. She loved the way the muscles in his strong forearms corded as he carefully placed each dish in the draining rack.

"That's not all I've got... I know you're gonna love this, you dirty girl." He winked at her and strode across the kitchen.

His long, sensitive fingers caressed and securely knotted the handles of the garbage bag. He lifted it gently out of the bin, its weight meaningless in his well-muscled arms, and headed for the back door, stopping only to hook one finger into the mouth of a milk-bottle, rinsed and ready for recycling.

"Oh baby," she moaned rapturously, "I love how you know exactly what I want you to do without me even having to ask!"

The Blogisferia Chronicles: Chapter the Fourth

This post is a special gift for two lovely lady bloggers who've recently celebrated their birthdays...


Previous Chapters:
Chapter the First
Chapter the Second
Chapter the Third
*************************************

Princess Soda needed help, so she summoned two of her favorite witches to ask them to find a solution.

Trumpets sounded to herald their arrival at Candysoda Castle.

"Your Highness, announcing the good witches of -"
"For Blog's sake, man! Don't call them good witches!" Princess Soda hurriedly tried cut off the announcer, but it was too late; he had already been turned into a sock monkey.

Two exceedingly glamorous ladies swept into the throne room, surrounded by a capering, chattering crowd of dear little monkeys.

"Am not a good witch," muttered Gwendolyn disgustedly, sneaking a sip from a suspicious flask she had hidden in the folds of her robe, "I'm a fabulous witch! Don't you know calling someone a good witch is like saying they have a nice personality?!"

"Yeah! Call me a good witch & I will cut you!" snarled Sass.

"My dear fabulous witches! I need your help." Princess Soda explained that as a present to her beloved husband the King, she had her hair enchanted so that it would grow very long. At present it trailed behind her by about two feet when she walked. It looked very becoming - if slightly unsettling as it curled and twined along the ground like creeping vines - but the problem was that it had become extremely heavy and difficult to bear.



"...and I don't know what to do!" finished the Princess.

The witchy sisters thought for a moment - interrupted several times by various members of the court unburdening themselves into Sass's ear much to her annoyance.

Then Gwendolyn's eyes lit up.

"I know just the thing, Princess! I will give you some of my monkeys to help carry your hair for you! The little buggers won't learn how to fly," here she broke off to give them a hard glare, "but they're nice enough, and I have taught them to stop flinging poop at least."

"Heh, you said poop! Thank you, Lady Gwendolyn, they are dear little things! I am sure they will be a tremendous help!"

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Stay gwenilicious, sassy and fabulous, ladies.