Red wine-fueled lament

Oh, blog. How I've neglected you. I'm sorry. I have big, grandiose plans to resurrect you to your G-list status in 2010. I blame Facebook for taking all of my time and energy. And yes, while I admit the attention I received on said social networking site provided me with the short-term validation I needed at the time, I feel like there's nothing that compares with the just-as-superficial-yet-somehow-moreso-deserved validation that comes with all the effort that goes into one blog post.

I find myself at a crossroads with social media. On the one hand, keeping up to speed with the ever-changing world that is social networking and other things of its ilk is crucial, not only to the work that I do, but to my own interests as a semi-(and I use that prefix loosely) savviness with the Internets and all that, but quite frankly, I miss writing. The practice of writing something (no matter how horrible it ends up to be) on a daily basis.

Must figure out how to work this blog back into my regular day-to-day. Be patient with me, oh blog-o-mine.

Not to mention the fact that I just got out of a relationship and could use the mental, cathartic release that comes with putting words to virtual paper.

Bear with me, I promise I'll be back soon.

Happy Holidays!

Everyone here at You Forgot Poland! wishes you a very merry holiday season. To those of you who still come by my humble corner of the blogosphere---including those of you who still come by for that bikini wax video---thank you very much for your presence.

I turn 36 today. It's not really hitting me yet; I have tons of stuff on my mind, both on a personal and professional level, and it's making me feel a little overwhelmed.

Needless to say, I'll have plenty of time during the the coming year to revel in the joys of being 36.

There are joys to being 36 ... right?

Rearranging the Furniture

If you're one of those oh-so-classy YFP! readers with a complete brain stem, you'll notice that I've made some changes around here.

Really, the changes were unintentional. It all began innocently enough with me clicking around my Blogger dashboard and coming across all of the new-fangled bells and whistles I now have at my disposal.

So at some point, I reached the Click of No Return, and now am forced to:
- Re-build my blogroll, since Blogrolling has been down for what seems like 50 million years
- Re-evaluate if it's worth having Google ads on my blog; It's not like I'm raking in the dough
- Decide on a casual, yet elegant, blog template

If you see that your blog is missing from my blogroll, don't take it personally. I'm going off of memory and my Bloglines list here, so let me know if you want back on via the comments section.

And while I'm at it, I'm going to take this time to remove blogs that are currently on hiatus or ones that I've stopped reading. I will also be adding blogs that I follow regularly that weren't previously on my blogroll.

It's all about synergy, people.

Milestones

Lately, my life has been ALL about milestones, key dates and deliverables, so it's a wonder that I missed this semi-significant one: My humble corner of the blogosphere has surpassed the 100,000 visits mark. As of right now, I'm at 105,527 visits.

And counting, bitches.


I know I've been a little, how do you say, lax on the postings. I've just not been feeling inspired as of late. And yeah, I've been sorta keeping tabs on the whole Democratic primary and presidential campaign thang (Obama!), but I've also been working out, dancing lots and lots of flamenco, traveling, getting promoted and, in general, getting my groove on.

Doin' my thang, as they say.

I have been keeping close tabs, however, on all of my favorite blogs, and discovering new ones. Food blogs and blogs by chefs are my new guilty pleasure. Especially Eric Ripert's new blog, Avec Eric. God, I love that man. He is slowly encroaching on my total lust for Anthony Bourdain, I'll have you know. And that's saying something.

You'd think all of this food-blog-reading would inspire me to re-invigorate my own food blog, but no. I've been forcing myself to eat more salad lately that I haven't even really been doing any Filipino cooking in my own kitchen.

But that's neither here nor there. I'm officially at the 100K+ blog hits point.

Viva You Forgot Poland! Ole!

Bloggers, help a sister out

What do you guys use to see who links to your blog? I'm not talking blogrolls here, I'm talking about knowing who links to a particular post of yours, or to your blog in general.

I was using Technorati's watchlist thingy, but they've changed it and I have no idea how to find what I need anymore.

What do you recommend that's easy to use? This may come as a surprise to you, but I'm not exactly tech savvy.

It's nice to be noticed.

Like many bloggers, I check my blog stats religiously. Sometimes a few times a day.

One reader stopped by today from a link from this site.

Apparently Figure magazine is looking to feature a female blogger who:
* [Has] a sense of humor
* Love[s] fashion and have an eye for makeup
* Love[s] celebrities
* [Is] pro-full figure
* [Is] all about real life

That's totally me, y'all.

I don't know who nominated me, but it's pretty flattering to know that someone enjoyed my blog enough to include me for consideration.

I don't know if there's a voting process, but if you enjoy my humble corner of the blogosphere, won't you drop these kind people a line and tell them so?

No one under 17 allowed to read this blog

Who knew?



Heh.

(I don't know how to get rid of that "online dating" link, so forgive my Ludditeosity.)

UPDATE 6/25: Thanks to my new friend at pins&needles for the HTML help! I am now online-dating-link free!


Thanks to Commandante Agi for the inspiration.

Notes from the G List

I don't even know why I care, but this blog has been demoted to an insignificant microbe in the TTLB Ecosystem.

That's the lowest on the totem pole, y'all.

For a while, I've flitted about somewhere between flappy birds and marauding marsupials, enjoying my middle-of-the-road existence.

Now, I'm amoeba-ish.

I'm a little bummed about it. Whatever.

UPDATE 4/30: I am back to flappy bird status. I never thought some random online hierarchy could provide me with some sort of validation. But it does. And I'm ashamed of myself for it. I mean, who wants to be known as an insignificant microbe anyway?

Oakland Goods

I wanted to highlight a new blog I just added to my blogroll.

One of the things I love about living in Oakland is the sense of pride many people feel about this city. Sure, it's got it's share of problems---nobody's denying that Oakland has a long way to go on that front---but that doesn't mean that this city doesn't have its shining moments.

Oakland Goods does a great job of highlighting this city's cultural and artistic nuggets of greatness.

If you live or work in Oakland, or are looking to explore what I like to call this "diamond in the rough kind of city," check out this blog for some inspiration.

(Cross-posted on the Beast Blog.)

And now ... a blogging tangent

So I'm thinking of switching to Haloscan to manage my comments.

You know. Because I get so many.

But I have questions, and unlike The Decider in Chief, I'm not afraid to ask them. And here's where I look to you, Dear Reader, for input.

Feel free to geek out on me as necessary. Here we go:

1. Why would I want to choose Haloscan for comments rather than Blogger's thingy?
2. Is it hard to install or whatever?
3. Am I going to lose the few remaining Blogger comments that I do have if I make the switch and stuff?
4. Is there anything else I need to know before committing to this?

Thanks ever so. Love ya, mean it.

2006 Weblog Awards

Oh hey, look. It's nomination time for the 2006 Weblog Awards.

Wouldn't it be cool if a G-lister won something this year?

Ahem.

Goodbye, Blog Explosion.

I thought I had come to the end of all my pop-up ad drama, and started to surf BE again today.

Whaddaya know. Pop-ups. On BLAST.

I've spent all my credits on banners. I'll just surf blog after blog and leave comments from here on out. Screw BE. It's not worth the hassle.

I think I've installed like, 24930 firewall programs, run 5o6042029 virus/adware/spybot scans.

This BETTER be it.

Please continue to come by my humble little blog. I'll make it worth your while.