For a Pessimist, I am Pretty Optimistic

…I’ve just been sick and tired – literally. After dragging ass these past few weeks, I was lucky enough to get horribly sick for the entirety of the Labor Day weekend. I finally returned to work today and have been playing a major game of catch up with everything.

Since it’s already Thursday, I’m going to be terribly gauche by posting only another picture for the week, but will make a full comeback this Monday.  I’ve received some cool awards and I have a lot of reading to do before I can display and pass them on with thanks to Ettarose, Sassy Mama Bear, and Athena! 

I am stubborn and leaving the poll up for one more day – come on guys, only 14 votes? I know we can do better than that!

Currently “The Marlon Brando of Cats” is winning, but the fatty wasn’t cooperative this morning and wouldn’t let me take the last picture needed to complete the post (after spending 15 frantic minutes looking everywhere for him, I found him sleeping in my closed closet?!?)

Besides, I also left out a title which is now included. If any of the original 14 voters feel horribly outraged by this omission, then just let me know you’d like to change your vote in the comments section. Or let us know that you’re horribly outraged and where you are so I can come and smack you in the nose.

Aw crap, I have writers block. I’m blocked so much to the point that I can’t even think of a knee slapping intro to this proposition (just the title).

In fact, lately all I can come up with are titles. Oh sure, there’s a story behind them but once I type that title and hit enter to get to the next line in Word, I do nothing but stare at the blinking cursor.

Damn I just did it now! Seriously, I think I zoned out for a good 3 minutes before a crashing noise outside of the office brought me back to reality. Help!

Why don’t we test to see how many people actually read this blog and start FAPIPO’s first poll ever? Yup that’s right, I’m passing the buck to you guys! What should I write about next? Have no fear – everything is humor related (in my own twisted way)!

It isn’t necessarily just for me, but I was lucky enough to have caught the attention of Ms. Violette over at BigShoes who bestowed this honor upon me. I had learned about the Arte y Pico Award maybe less than a month ago and just like I told Violette, I didn’t even imagine that my material could or would be considered! 

Before I can enjoy placing the award on one of my sidebars, I must get down to business and present the award to 5 other bloggers….which was no easy feat because I have been fortunate to come across too many great sites!  

And now for the winners (insert drum roll here): 

Awake and Smelling the Coffee – there’s no way I can summarize all of Jeffrey’s talents; you need to go to his blog and check out his extensive archives for yourself where amongst them you will find stories from his childhood, his many travels, and his experiences teaching English in Korea. 

Mental Health Humor and Cartoons – How delightful that someone is able to put a positive spin on such a serious topic! It’s a great place to go to not only learn more information, but also get a laugh from Chato’s cartoons. 

The Edge of Sanity – I fell in love with Ettarose’s blog the first time I came across it and read “The Ballerina” (check it out for yourself and see why!) 

Luxor (A White Cat) – Is this the first time that a cat has been given this award? Perhaps Luxor can stop making mischief enough to let his Mom and Dad accept the award on his behalf. 

I Do Things So You Don’t Have To – a true humanitarian, JD will eat a bacon candy bar, get her wisdom teeth pulled, visit a nude beach and tell you all about it just to spare you from having to do these things yourself! 

Now it’s up to these 5 bloggers to pass the torch:

1) You have to pick 5 blogs that you consider deserve this award, creativity, design, interesting material, and also contributes to the blogger community, no matter of language. 

2) Each award has to have the name of the author and also a link to his or her blog to be visited by everyone. 

3) Each award-winning, has to show the award and put the name and link to the blog that has given her or him the award itself. 

4) Award-winning and the one who has given the prize have to show the link of “Arte y Pico” blog, so everyone will know the origin of this award. 

5) To show these rules.

The other day I wrote a post talking about how frustrated I was while waiting to hear news in regards to three things. Thank you to those who left me supportive comments; it really helped to brighten up my mood and possibly spread some good karma in the air! Here’s a quick update:

1.       The Apartment - We heard back from the landlord about that apartment we were interested in and were told we could move in on August 1st (we were called July 31st). Suffice it to say, the hubby and I spent the past two days wide awake desperately trying to move everything. We’re still not done, but all that’s really left is the food from the fridge.

Unfortunately, we have to wait until our appointment on Tuesday to get a cable and Internet connection. After roughing it (yes I’ll admit it, I’m lost without the ability to go on the web) for the past day, I finally trekked over to a somewhat nearby Starbucks where none of the employees knew how to connect to the Internet. I guess people who go to Starbucks are such regulars that no one ever asks that question? Or they’re just stupid, ha-ha. Either way, I won’t be online, so my apologies (especially those on Entrecard) if I can’t stop your page until Monday.

2.       The Job – I finally was called about the job and told to come in on Monday. I’ll be working there for a week confirmed, but there’s still no idea if the girl I’m replacing will be staying for longer, even though it’s assumed she will. I’m still trying to remain positive, but it doesn’t look like I’ll be able to make this into a permanent job so I’m trying to just cheer myself up with the fact that I’ll receive a paycheck for a short while. On another note, I should start to look for a permanent job, but how can I interview when I’m working somewhere? (Sheesh – when I started to write this the plan was to be happy I got the job in any capacity, but thinking if over, now I’m worried).

3.       The Award– I managed to win Most Popular on Today.com for the month of July! Woo-hoo, now I’ve been Most Popular for 2 months in a row! I think though that this month was a fluke since it was such a huge increase since last month.

Thank you EVERYONE(an extra thank you to those at Today.com, Entrecard, Reddit, StumbleUpon, etc.) for helping me to achieve this. I know it may seem silly for me to get so excited about it, but I can’t help it! As it is, I feel so proud when I look at the side columns and see the little badge the Admins at today.com gave me for last month.

Site News:

1.    New layout – Due to ad formatting changes, I switched from my original black and green two columned theme to this brighter and whiter three columned one. At first I thought it was too cheery and plain, but after I customized the header, it started to grow on me. What do you think about it?

2.    Random Pic of the Day – I felt I needed to do something to bring more humor to the site (especially on days when I write fluff posts or when I write about a “heavy” topic) so I started posting a silly picture everyday.

3.    More posts and updates – I’m trying, trying, trying to see if I can write a post everyday for a week. Once I do that, then I just may attempt joining one of those groups where everyone vows to write a post everyday for 365 days. So far, I keep missing posting on Sundays (I get way too lazy then!)

Collaborations:

1.    Stuart from Secluded Habitat has been kind enough to let me sponsor his monkey, Cheeky, during his International travels. An Australia native, Cheeky is excited to set his sights on the US but all he has on his itinerary is Salt Lake City and then NYC with me. Anyone else interested in taking Cheeky around their town?

2.    Athena from Hot Child in the Suburbsadded me to her blogroll and I couldn’t help but reciprocate.

3.    One of the pics of the day, A Dilemma, was featured on Bits and Pieces.

Funny Comments:

1.    Ok. I’m sure that was taking somewhere in my office. It seems like the kind of thing management would do. - Freelance Guru (in reference to pic of the day: You Are Destined to Burn)

2.    I LOVE when spell-check tells me I spelled my own last name wrong! And being so reliant on spell-check, I always go back and look before I realize that it’s spell-check that is wrong, not me! - keyster94 (in reference to the post “Damn You Useless Yahoo Spellchecker!“)

3.    I want my kid to be just like this kid’s best friend, you know, the one who knew all he had to say was, “I dare you…” - Kate @ All Over the Place (In reference to Pic of the Day: Someone Get This Kid a Snickers)

4.    So SO true about the time-wasting dialogue. Do porn writers get bonuses based on audience frustration? And that’s a great analogy. hahhahahha!– lolli @? (in reference to the post “Random Comparison: Porn and Chicken Wings”) 

Funny Comments from other sites:

1.    I hate it when these things get in the house. Happens to me all the time. (in reference to Pic of the Day: WTF?)

2.    Pedo? So… the male was pre-pubescent? For pedophilia to be an accurate label the object of one’s desire must have not arrived at puberty yet. (in reference to the post “A Near Brush with Pedophilia…it’s not only girls who develop early”) – Um, sorry to disappoint you with the fact that I’m not a pedophile?

Funny Searches:

It’s interesting that these are the most common searches that my site comes up for: sex, porn, Jenna Haze (one of the most clicked tags), pedophilia, Nigerian scammers, black syphilis, gay cat

These really caught my eye:

- i yell at my dad for viewing porn on my laptop and he hits me yahoo answers (I tried to search for this myself, but didn’t come up with anything)

- Pedophilia movie list girl (sounds like an interesting name for a blog)

- my father give me a name (poor guy wanted an Everclear song and got this crazy place instead!)

- cosmopolitan magazine june 2008 issue his g-spot (seriously why, why, why are people bothering to read this piece of crap article –  unless they wanted to see how ridiculous it was?)

- ambien scuba diving (what?!)

While over on Secluded Habitat the other day, I found myself becoming one of hopefully many sponsors of a monkey with a love for travel. Cheeky, pet to the blogs’ author Stuart, has been itching for a holiday and since Stuart won’t be able to accompany him, he has asked if any fellow bloggers would like to help show his monkey around the Globe.

Of course I offered and I’m pretty excited about showing Cheeky around NYC. There are so many places I want to take him: the Empire State Building (how could I not?), Central Park, Times Square, The Village (both East and West), even the Museums of Art, Natural History, Sex (well maybe not that last one…I don’t think he’s that cheeky!)

Besides New York, Cheeky is also scheduled for Salt Lake City, Utah and possibly the UK. Anyone else interested in showing Cheeky about town? I know there are quite a few readers from the US that can help to really show Cheeky all different aspects of the country.

How about some other international hosts too? Cheeky doesn’t mind where he goes as long as it helps him spread his “monkey wings” outside of his home in Australia.

The page is looking a bit wacky now…hang in there and I’ll have everything straightened out tonight.

Due to some formatting changes to all today.com layouts, I found myself in need of a 3 column layout. So that means we have to say goodbye to the double columned black and green flower layout that I had really grown fond of.

The good news – the page should start to look less cluttered.

The bad news – most of the 3 columned layouts I prefer have already been taken by prominent bloggers.

Since I don’t want to seem like I’m “biting” anyone’s page style, I’m fiddling around and trying to see if there’s a way I can combine the new and old layouts. Wish me luck!

7/22 @2:50am - All done…I think. We’ll see how this is received. I think it’s too bright and cheery, but maybe it’ll be easier on the readers eyes.