Excellent Blog Awards: Part 3

• If You Belonged Here is a relatively recent find for me.  I've been reading through her archives the last few weeks (I've added her blog, and Groovy Mom's, to my sidebar, in The Thoughtful Life).  I want to be like her when I grow up - opinionated and outspoken (I know I'm like that on my blog... kinda.  I want to be that way all the time!).  One of my favorite posts of hers is Darth Dateable - about how to find your very own nerdy-geek guy:

...Go to the nearest bookstore. You want a bookstore, not a library. Make your way to the fiction area. Keep your eyes peeled. First good looking guy you see in the sci-fi section, grab him. That's your new boyfriend.

Unless he's wearing a size twelve wedding ring. Then that's Mr. Poppins and I advise you to stay at least ten feet away or I might have to stomp on your head.

Seriously, I do not want to do prison time. But I will. I've watched some Prison Break and if those yahoos can escape in less than two seasons, I'm confident I can, too...

It's a good thing she closes comments, otherwise I would have been really annoying by leaving lots of comments on older posts.  Another favorite of mine is her post on finding other INTJ women, Lonely Non-Girl Seeks Same:

...Perhaps even more than our male counterparts, we like to "cultivate an air of conformity" and pass ourselves off as normal, or at the very least as INFJ. An INTJ female can be downright scary to some people and we learn at a very young age that being weird-serious as opposed to weird-quirky makes for some pretty lonely days on the playground.

I have been told many times, in many ways that I am not like the other girls. Usually this is said with the same kind of creepy tone one would use to tell someone they have a tail.

What makes a female INTJ such a non-girl, which is the term I find least offensive, is that we stand up for ourselves, stick to our guns, and don't get weepy or insulted when someone tries to derail an argument by calling us a, gasp, bitch. We simply state that being a bitch is besides the point and get on with what we were saying. Non-girl, indeed...

See.  I want to be like that when I grow up.

• The Sci Fi Catholic. I had a longer intro to this blog back in November (read here).  A blog both whimsical and serious about Sci Fi, Catholicism, and all sorts of other things, written by D.G.D. Davidson, Snuffles the Dragon, and Lucky the Goldfish.  Recently, I've enjoyed My Rant Against Acronyms (also check out the discussion in the comments):

I have mentioned it before, but it bears repeating: I hate acronyms. My soul hateth them with an undying hatred.

Acronyms are by their very nature exclusive; they exclude everyone who doesn't know (or can't remember) what they stand for. There are two groups of people in particular who use acronyms to excess, and they are unfortunately the two groups in which I most often find myself: fanboys and Catholics...

Unlike fanboydom, Catholicism is not supposed to be an exclusive group. I realize that theology requires some specialized language that won't be readily accessible to the uninitiated, but do we have to make things worse by using acronyms? All the RCIA and CCD around here is about to drive me nuts.

Particularly irritating, whenever I see a priest's name in print, it is almost always followed by an obscure, indecipherable acronym, as in "Fr. Peter B. Phlogistion, M.O.B." or "Fr. Horatio K. Flaggelate, L.M.A.O." I have asked around, and so far it seems that absolutely nobody has a clue what those stand for. Sometimes, people like to put their degrees after their names, as in M.A. or M.Diddly,* but I have never heard of an F.O.B. degree...

And, in Phat Tuesday, he writes fan fiction based on his own blog!:

...No holiday is more (unofficially) self-indulgent than Phat Tuesday, and no form of fiction is more officially self-indulgent than fan fiction. I've spoken of fan fiction previously on this blog. Many authors dislike fan fiction, and the site Fanfiction.net even maintains a list of writers and publishers who have asked that their work not appear in fan fiction stories (don't ask me how I know that). Even Strong Bad hates fan fiction. But personally, I think fan fiction is the greatest compliment to an artist's work; it proves that he has built something so wonderful, it invigorates imaginations in a way that demands responsive creative output.

But it recently occurred to me that no form of fan-fiction could be more indulgent than self-referencing fan fiction. Now that this blog actually has a moderately respectable readership, and now that we are in the midst of a self-indulgent holiday, I have decided to produce, in honor of Phat Tuesday, some examples of what Sci Fi Catholic fan fiction might look like if someone out there were actually producing Sci Fi Catholic fan fiction. So grab your plastic beads, put on those pants with the butt cut out, and gather 'round for some serious self-indulgence...

Go read the actual fan fiction here.

Comments

[moominpapa]

I'm so glad you find all these cool places on the web, and share them with us. I really enjoy getting to hear and read these entertaining and thoughtful writers.

[D. G. D. Davidson]

Thanks a lot for the plug! It's always great to win an award!

[M Light]

You're very welcome! I've been enjoying your blog!