The BlogStalker

Hi Friends. Thanks for stopping by. How was your week? Good…glad to hear it. Pretty good week here. To follow up on last week’s recap, I survived my meeting with the doctor on Wednesday. No horrible illnesses or diseases, so that’s cool. The doctor did say that he’d like to see me lose a little weight. To which I replied “yeah, me too.” I’m glad that I’m on the same page as my medical professional. See you next year, doctor. Enjoy the $25 copay.

I’m sorry to report that I won’t be posting next week. Actually, I’m not sorry at all. Kate and I are heading to Cabo for the next 10 days or so. I’ll have limited access to phone, email, and sobriety. Hmm, maybe I should put that as my out of office message. Nah…probably not. Might not have a job to come back to if I did that. Anyway, I doubt I’ll be spending a whole lot of time reading blogs in the next week or so. I’ll be back with my weekly recap on the 26th, as long as I don’t end up with Swine Flu or something.

Alright. One sort of funny story and then we’ll get to the blog review. Kate spent the last couple of evenings googling Gilbert’s dog breed (in between looking at all of your blogs, of course). Searches included: Shar Pei Rat Terrier, Rat Pei, and Shar Terrier. Then she’d find pictures of similar looking dogs, and would show them to Gilbert. Usually saying things like “Gilbert, come look at your sister.” Then she mentioned that she wanted to find Gilbert’s family so we could have a reunion. So totally joking, I recommended that she check out ancestry.com to find Gil’s relatives and then I went back to watching bad television. About ten minutes later, Kate says “I don’t think this is going to work…it’s just stuff about people and their ancestors.” Apparently she thought I was serious and had looked for Gilbert’s ancestors online. That was probably the highlight of my week. Okay, now time for the blog review.

Kelsey from Bites and Bowls has taken the top spot away from Hangry Pants, which means I got some free shiz. Kind of, but not really. Kelsey jacked one of my Smart Ones on Saturday night/Sunday morning, which you can read about in this post. To repay me, she brought over a box of Twilight-Inspired Conversation Hearts. They came in a box with the dreamy Edward Cullen on the package, and the hearts said things like “Bite Me” and “Live Forever.” They were delicious, even though it’s four months after their originally scheduled consumption date. So thanks B+B for the free shiz. In that post by Kelsey, you’ll notice that she and I sang karaoke backup to Matt last weekend on Nuthin’ But a G Thang. I volunteered to sing the Dre parts, which I thought meant I’d just say ‘hell yeah’ in a low voice over and over again. Turns out that Dre actually has a verse. Oh, and I also found out that if there’s a ‘radio friendly’ (or wal-mart friendly) version of a song, then that’s probably the version that the karaoke guy will have. I was singing the album version. So I’d like to apologize to the patrons of the Yellow Rose for my bad language, but I think I was singing the song in the way that Dre and Snoop wanted it to be sung. Except for the whole drunk white guy in a dive bar in suburban Charlotte North Carolina part. Hell yeah.

Emily at Super Caloric Chalk Dust tagged me in this post, which appears to be some kind of chain letter/post. I heart Super Caloric, but I’m not really a chain letter responder kind of guy, so I’m just going to talk about Emily and her blog and we’ll say that I’ve fulfilled my chain letter duties, okay? That way, if this is really some kind of scam, then I won’t be considered an accomplice. As far as I can tell, the only difference between a chain letter and a pyramid scheme is that nobody gets rich with a chain letter. People just end up giving personal details (like their lack of at home pants wearing) instead of ending up with mad loot.  And for this chain blog thing to take off, they should probably include some threat of dismemberment or disfigurement. Those both seem like good motivators for old school chain letters. Like send a pair of flip flops to 10 of your best friends or else you’ll get the hiv or something.  So I’m going to make my own rules instead. By being tagged, it means I should stop eating peaches, and should go on vacation and sit on the beach for a couple of weeks. Okay…sold.

Tina at Carrots ‘n’ Cake made some dong-shaped cupcakes in this post. At first I thought this was really out of character for the C ‘n’ C blogging factory. I mean she usually does nice things like pictures of parks in Boston and funny stories about Mal, and out of nowhere come these iced dongs. But then I read the post, and it turns out that it was part of a bachelorette weekend party thing. This makes sense. Bachelorette parties are one of only three scenarios where graphic depictions of man junk are socially acceptable. The others are junior high (sex ed class) and episodes of Oprah when Dr. Oz is the guest. That damn Dr. Oz is always talking about man bits. Speaking of  sex ed…did I ever tell y’all that my dad was my sex ed teacher in Jr. High? I can’t remember if that was on this blog or another blog. Anyway, this is reason #1 why I haven’t been embarrassed since 7th grade. Nothing tops that. Nothing.

Speaking of wangs, Snackface made a pretty fantastic reference to Trey MacDougal’s flaccidity in this post. I know, this post is more than a week old, but it was probably the funniest thing that I read this week, and it’s my blog, so I’m making an exception and including it in the weekly roundup. Mostly because I’m planning on stealing this line and calling anything limp ‘Trey-Like’ from now on. We’ll see if it sticks. Cut to my favorite scene from Mean Girls when Regina George says ’stop trying to make fetch happen.’ Say what you want about LiLo, but Mean Girls is one of the best movies in the history of the world. Ever. And shame on me for just now writing about Snackface…there’s no excuse for that. I mean, she has SATC references in her posts, she attends Matt Lauer’s alma mater, and she hangs out with homegirl. How did it take me 12 installments to write about her? I say again, shame on me.

Stock Up

Amazing Wheat Grass - Really? We’re drinking grass now? I’ll take healthy eating stereotypes for $200, Alex. This is like a bad commercial for a casual dining establishment. Like the family goes to the health food restaurant and everyone is drinking grass, then the dad makes a stupid face so the family goes to Flingers for some jalapeno poppers or something instead. Ugh.

Blogapalooza References - This is pretty much the social event of the summer. I’m looking forward to this almost as much as the season finale of Real Housewives of New Jersey. Healthy Twilight Pancake had a nice post about it where she asked readers which bloggers they wanted to meet. I almost signed in under random names to stuff the ballot in my favor.

Free Shiz - Not for me, but there are some contests worth mentioning. The Professional Vegan is giving away some books…Fast Food Nation and Food Inc. I didn’t know they wrote books about those movies, but you can find out the details here. In other free shiz news, Kori at All things B is giving away some of that Amazing Grass in this post. In other news, I’m going to mow my lawn on Saturday before we leave town, so I’ll be having a grass giveaway as well if you want to come over and pick up the clippings. It’ll save me some raking.

Summer haircuts - I’d like to think that this is because I got my fro cut off last week, but I doubt I’m really a trendsetter here. Post-Graduate Meghannnn and birthday girl Jenna were among the multiple bloggers who got ‘em all cut this week. Am I really talking about the hair cutting schedules of people I’ve never met before. What the hell is wrong with me? But if I meet them all at blogapalooza, it won’t be quite as creepy, right?

Stock Down

Mean Anonymous Comments - Actually there have been way too many of them recently, but I give them a big thumbs down. If you want to be a wanker and get into a comment pissing match, go to a political or news blog or something. Anonymous mean comments on food/health blogs are just dumb. Props to Fitnestestinesstia and her pilot on the way they handled this one. Critical comments are okay. Just leave your name so we can engage in a healthy dialogue. Or so I can leave a flaming bag of poo on your doorstep.

Gluten - I really don’t know what gluten is, but people seem to be avoiding it. I could google it and find out what it is, but  I’m a firm believer that for everything I learn, I forget another thing, and I don’t want to forget anything,  And please don’t try to educate me via comments, or else I’ll forget my 2nd grade teacher’s name.

Soy - People seem to be anti-soy this week as well. I’m alright with that, as long as it just means I should avoid faux meat (like Soy Burgers and Soy Sausage). Consider it done. But don’t make me give up my soy sauce and edamame. Can we make an exception there?

Foods that end in consonants - I’m not sure why, but there have been lots of posts about foods that end with vowels. A prime example of this is Rose’s Frittata and Scone post. That’s a double word score. Keep in mind that Pat and Vanna are going to charge you $250 apiece for those.

Alright friends. That’s all I’ve got. See you in a couple of weeks. We’ll try to do better next time.

Hi Friends. Everything is right in the world again. We have replaced Kate’s blog reading machine. It was a difficult process. Kate had very high standards when making this purchase:

1. Laptop must be small/cute - but not tiny
2. Laptop must be light - who knew that there was such a large difference between a laptop that weighs 4.6 pounds as opposed to 4.7 pounds? Kate did, that’s who.
3. Laptop must have good battery life - there is no shortage of electrical outlets in our house, but Kate is not a big fan of plugging in her power cord - it takes away from valuable blog reading time.

The Geek Squad guy was waxing poetic about some computer - talking about how it would meet all of our HD Video needs. I tried to tell him that the only video work that we’ll be doing on the computer is watching VeggieGirl TV, but I don’t think he knew what  I was talking about. So here’s what we went with:

So far Kate’s pretty happy with it. Kate’s only regret is that she doesn’t have a hard copy of her 100 or so food blog bookmarks that she had on blogreading machine 1.0. In fact, she actually had to ask me for the link to my other blog. I was a little upset about her not having that one memorized, but at least she wanted to read it, right? Alright…enough about the computer. Let’s get going with the blog review.

Post-Graduate Meghann is in San Antonio for work. You can read about her adventures in this post. It was a nice post, and she should receive some sort of compensation from the San Antonio Convention and Visitors Bureau. There was one line in the post that I have to take issue with:

“A bowl of fresh fruit starring me in the face is my true weakness.”

What? Fresh fruit? Fresh Fruit cannot be a weakness. Chocolate can be a weakness. Kryptonite can be a weakness. Black Tar Heroin can be a weakness. According to Barry White and MC Hammer, Your (Yo) Sweetness, can also be my weakness. Fresh fruit is just stuff that you’re supposed to eat.

Post-Graduate Meghann also did an extensive post on sports bras. I thought about writing about it, but figured that there’s really no way for a guy to comment on that post without sounding like a giant perv, so I won’t. But if you are in the market for a sports bra, and want to shop by brand, fabric, size, color, or store, then this is probably a helpful post. Doh, I said I wasn’t going to write about this one and now look at me. Okay, I’ll stop now.

Hangry Pants and Mr. Hangy Pants took a break from developing obscure nut butters and went shopping at the Super Caloric Magical Store in this post. I have mentioned in previous posts that Emily from Super Caloric Chalk Dust somehow finds every random ass test product ever developed. This happens so frequently that it has now become a commonly used term in our household. If we find random ass products at the grocery store, we call it super caloric. Unfortunately, we don’t have magical bodegas down here with rare (and potentially not FDA approved) products. Charlotte’s idea of a new product is a commemorative 18 pack of Miller Lite with pictures of NASCAR tracks on the cans. I don’t think that counts. Anyway, the Hangrys found Throwback Mountain Dew, which absolutely qualifies as super caloric (in a couple of ways). I believe I have mentioned that I am a strong supporter of Diet Mountain Dew. I have continued my support, even though Kate now refuses to buy it for me (and calls it Garbage Water), and I’m not even into jumping out of airplanes on a snowboard or base jumping. Based on their commercials, this must be the target market for their product. So yeah, I’m pretty jealous of the Hangrys for this find. Hopefully it’ll make it down to Charlotte in a few more months, although it’ll likely have a NASCAR track on the label or be in the shape of a tire or something like that.

Kelsey at Bites and Bowls made an exciting announcement this week. She selected a new yoga studio in this post. I assume that having a blogger choose and blog about a yoga studio is sort of like having a celebrity endorsement for a political candidate. Kelsey clearly made an informed decision, laying out the pros and cons of each of the candidates. You know…all of the important stuff like cleanliness of the studio, as well as the music that the studio plays. Now I think Kelsey should’ve gone with the studio that was playing Hootie and Britney, but I’m not really a yoga expert. My one formal yoga experience was very similar to my one Zumba experience. I think I’m the first person to ever get yelled at during a yoga session. I do sometimes lay in bed for a few minutes before waking up. I guess I could just come up with names for each of my still-kind-of-asleep positions and then I could call it yoga. Then I wouldn’t feel like such a lazy ass when I wake up at 7:59 and walk downstairs for work. No honey, I wasn’t sleeping, I was perfecting my “Tired man lower case t” pose in the yoga studio (bed) upstairs. I love it. Kelsey also wrote a nice post that involved volume drinking (always a fan favorite) but the font size and color changes got to me before I could finish reading it, and I moved to another blog before the chest pains got too bad. 

The latest blog that I’ve been stalking is Homegirl Can Eat. That’s just fun to say/write. Now I’ve been fairly critical of some of the abbreviations that have been showing up in blogland recently (see previous thoughts on sammie, brekkie, and grapie). Homegirl has taken a new approach. Instead of falling into the baby talk trap that has caught so many good bloggers, she has basically developed her own language. I’m actually a fan of this approach. It sort of reads like some kind of twin talk or Jodie Foster’s dialogue in Nell. Fortunately for me and the rest of Homegirl’s readers over the age of 21, she has developed this dictionary to explain what the hell she is talking about. Unfortunately it took me a few visits to this blog before I found the dictionary, which made my first few trips feel like a day of Telemundo watching…very enjoyable for sure, but I clearly felt like an outsider. If only MTV would offer a dictionary, then I could get back to watching The Real World without feeling like such an old man.

Stock Up

Mexican Food - I thought it was just a Cinco de Mayo thing, but we’re going on two weeks now

Descriptive Yoga Posts - Yoga is already in the stock up hall of fame, but now I’ve seen quite a few descriptive posts where people talk about different poses and I just sort of lose interest mid sentence. It’s kind of like when people start describing their dreams. If it doesn’t involve me, then I lose interest very quickly. 

Grey’s Anatomy - Not the show so much, but posts about the show. If you are looking to fill the McDreamy-sized hole in your TV viewing, I recommend The Real Housewives of New Jersey. The shows have nothing in common, but I want more people to watch the housewives so I can discuss them in this blog.

Questions or Quotes at the end of posts - Now I’m a fan of these, but keep in mind that doing this increases your comment volume, which will make some people (Kate) think your blog is super popular. I guess that’s probably a good thing.

Strikethrough Correction - Often used in context of: what I really want to say more eloquent or politically correct way to say what I really mean to say. This technique is reaching Twilight levels of popularity in blogland.

Stock Down

Red Wine - I’m trying to keep it from disappearing entirely for the summer, but I’m just one man.

Trader Joe’s Sushi - Not because it isn’t on blogs anymore, but because I didn’t realize until I got home that they think Jalapenos belong in a tuna roll. This was very upsetting. I know it isn’t really in the spirit of this blog to talk about my own food experiences, but I consider this one a public service announcement for anyone who doesn’t want to find a jalapeno in their sushi. Which should be everyone in the world.

Sliced Bread - Everything in blogland is now in wrap form. There are also paninis and bagels, but no regular old slices of bread. Do we need to change that expression about it being “the greatest thing” now?

Alright. That’s all I’ve got. We’ll try to do better next time.

Note: This was originally posted at http://yourselfinfiveyears.blogspot.com/

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.