It’s that time again, sports fans. Everyone is gearing up for the big weekend. Running around gathering their chips and dip, stocking up on chicken wings and most importantly, beer.

What’s the reason for this celebration?

The Puppy Bowl

While some of you will actually be watching football like it matters, the rest of us will be tuned into the adorableness that is puppies running around playing, sleeping in water bowls and being all around cute.

Cards and Steelers?

No, thanks.

Have you seen this starting line up? I can’t even handle it.

So which will you be tuning in to? Adorable fluffy puppies playing or a bunch of sweaty, fat guys crashing into one another?

The answer is clear here, dear readers.

This blog has been lacking the real reason you all come read this blog.

Today we officially launched The Printed Blog here in Chicago and in San Francisco!

I stood outside in the freezing cold at the Blue Line Damen stop passing out our first issue. People were very receptive and we flew through copies. Some even came up to us asking if this was the blog newspaper!

Click, click!

I know this is probably old news to you guys but I finally seen this today.

LOVE IT.

Obviously, I’ve been busy with The Printed Blog. Putting together a newspaper seriously takes time away from personal internet time so both of my blogs and twitter have been seriously lacking.

My own reader?

Forget it.

I’ve seen the dreaded and panic inducing (1000+) for the past couple of weeks. I apologize for not being as visible as I usually  am. You guys know normally, I’m all up in everything and everywhere all the time!

Well now that our first issue has been pieced together, things will get easier. Instead of building from the ground up, we have a foundation and that is a relief. We officially launch The Printed Blog on Tuesday. It’s not even out yet and I’m thinking of ways to improve, make things flow more smoothly and stay more organized next time around.

Next time around if we are well received, that is!

It’s not any surprise to anyone if you follow me on Twitter, exactly how frazzled and nervewracked I’ve been the past few weeks. Working two jobs is exhausting. It wouldn’t be so bad if I didn’t have such long hours at job number one and was working on a deadline on job number two.

It will all pay off though – one way or another.

(Did you see me in The New York Times yesterday? Oh wait…you can’t see me all the way in the back. Trust me though, it is me and I’m not claiming to be some random  stranger. At least the photographer caught me smiling with my eyes, you just can’t see it.)

I’ll write more about The Printed Blog next week. I just wanted to let you all know I’m alive.

(and to tell you to go enter the giveaway for an iPod Touch at TPB’s blog and my giveaway for some fabulous green beauty products over on Oh How Lovely Shops.)

For now, since I’m behind on EVERYTHING, what’s been going on? New job? Buy something pretty? Suggestions on the fancy smancy, well deserved drink I will get once we launch? Feeling sick? Read a good book? Oscar predictions? Thoughts on the new Real World cast? (Yes, that’s how behind I am)

Talk to me! I feel out of the loop!

First off, let’s give a round of applause to my guest bloggers this week! Michelle, Kyla and Brandy, take a bow, you girls are lovely and saved my poor blog from a week of neglect!

It’s like negative 30 billion degrees out here in Chicago. Yesterday while walking to the office, my hair was freezing, face red and my glasses were icing over. Obviously, I walked into the office looking absolutely stunning. Oh and then a photographer from the New York Times came in to photograph us later. Oh during the shoot, I was sitting next to Lauren (she’s on our ad team and awesome!), who use to be a model.

Let’s break that down:

negative 30 billion degrees + red face  + sitting next to model + NYT photographer = me potentially look like a chubby hot mess in a future NYT article

I know you are itching to see if it prints and trust me, we should know soon.

Let’s just pretend it was a bad hair/face/body day and be done with it. Okay? My other option is finding every copy of the paper and taking a permanent marker to me if a photo has me in it. If I miss any, I expect you to do the same.

Can you tell I’m not a fan of photos?

Tyra will be disappointed in me.

Jamie = Smile With Your Eyes FAIL.

Thanks to Jamie for letting me hijack her website as she’s out there changing media and journalism as we know it.

I am Michelle Woo of the cleverly titled blog Michelle Woo and in today’s issue of Photo Scanner Fun, I have a somewhat embarrassing confession to make.

I used to do musicals.

Me (center), age 14, in “No, No, Nanette” at my high school. I look so cool.

Growing up, musical theater was my main extracurricular. When I was in elementary school, my parents had me audition for a local song and dance company as 1) they hoped it might help me break out of my shell and 2) I couldn’t throw/hit/kick/catch a ball to save my life. So in front of a panel of note-taking grownups, I sang a shaky “Somewhere Out There,” somehow made the cut, and thus began a life of sequins, red lipstick and jazz hands.

I performed in shows like “Bye Bye Birdie,” the musical rendition of The Hobbit (no joke), and even “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” with the Young and Restless’ Michael Damian and the Broadway cast. I was never the lead or anything, thank goodness. I was always more than content doing heel-step-shuffle-ball-changes and singing my “Ooooh, oooh, ooohs” as part of the ensemble. (Although in “Once Upon a Mattress,” I did get to recite SEVEN WHOLE WORDS as Princess #12. Thank you, thank you. No pictures, please.)

While this was strictly a childhood hobby (shoot me if I ever do adult community theater), I do kind of miss that old life — the delirious late-night rehearsals, the adrenaline, the standing ovations (from my parents). Every now and then, in the car or in the kitchen, my sister and I will spontaneously belt out obscure Broadway show tunes and pretend we’re on the big stage. It’s fun.

So there’s my confession.

Did you ever do musicals? Wish you did musicals? Watch musicals? Make fun of the kids who did musicals? Spill!

Hi, I’m brandy and I write here. Jamie asked me if I wanted to do a guest post for her and I said ‘yes! absolutely!’, because I have it on good authority Jamie will one day own the internet and I want to be on her good side when that happens.

You know when you have an idea that’s so crazy that you have to write about it? Like, that time you decided to go a week only drinking things  from a funnel? Or that time you went to Mexico and got a gang member to explain to you what each of his tattoos meant when you bumped into him in an alley? Or that time you voted *Republican?

That’s what todays post is like. After getting 4 random emails in the last week asking for dating advice, from both bloggers and real life friends, I thought I would impart some tips for the ladies about relationships.  Why is this idea so ridiculous? It could be because I’m currently as single as humanly possible. So much so that asking me for relationship advice is similar to asking Tara Reid tips on sobriety. It’s just a silly idea. But, I thought it would be fun to try and everyone needs a good laugh during a long week. So open up your knowledge basket, because I’m about to fill it up.

1. If a person likes you- YOU WILL KNOW. Stop. Re-read that first sentence. Now read it again. AND AGAIN. Read it until it is carved into your memory, burned into your eyeballs. Read it until you choke on it. Guys don’t play hard to get, so if he IS hard to get? Then he’s not the guy for you. Move along. Trust.

2. Sure, relationships are work but if it’s more work and less play, more tears than laughter, more Ike and less Tina then it’s not worth it. Relationships ARE work, but a relationship shouldn’t feel like a full time job, unless you are getting paid. And if you are getting paid for sleeping with the guy? Then you are a hooker and not a girlfriend and this post doesn’t apply to you.

3. Make up sex is hot, but you know what’s even hotter? Compromising so you don’t argue in the first place. Okay, that’s a lie but you could try it and see if it works for you.

4.”I’m sorry” doesn’t fix things as quickly as “I was wrong” does. But, sometimes it’s nice to hear both, so say each when you mean it.

5. If you have sex in person, you need to dump them in person. If you’ve only had phone sex, you can dump them on the phone, but I assure you, a message left on a machine is just not classy.

Any tips you feel should be on the list?

*Kidding. I promise. I miss politics. Let’s still be friends?

My first guest blogger this week is probably the craftiest, most stylish girl I know. I also totally want her hair. It’s the ever so lovely Kyla Bea! If for some reason, you don’t read Kyla’s blog…seriously, what’s wrong with you? Get to it!

Also it is apparently Delurking Day or something so delurk and say hi. I promise we are all nice here!

***

In winter there seems to be more time for dreamy flipping through fashion magazines or vegan cupcake cook books, which means more time for blogs – and my top indulgences are design and street style blogs. I am full on and wholly addicted.

Where I live in Canada, between Toronto and Vancouver, the winter lasts from November to April and is routinely well below the -30°C (-22°F!) mark which means a significant amount of time spent indoors. This year is also the first year that I’ve owned a PVR which has opened a world of TV to me that I couldn’t be bothered to watch before…..suddenly America’s Next Top Model has entered our home.

The word fierce has new meaning! There are more (albeit less political) girls from Alaska! There are hormone injections and
underwater shoots! But between the winter weather, street style blogs, and Top Models I’m feeling all together fashionably sub par this winter.

So in continuation of Jamie’s major fashion offenses, I give you 5 major fashion offenses I have committed in The Great White Canadian Winter. Because sometimes when you have frostbite, you just can’t think straight. And sometimes it’s more important to be warm than to look good.

The Crimes:

1. Painting my nails in pastel, because while the light blue OPI that I own looked edgy in the summer, but it really draws attention to how pale I am in January.

2. Layering with more than one sweater and compensating for massive heat loss due to wearing leggings when I should be wearing snow pants by wearing black long johns under black tights. It keeps the heat in!

3. Wearing snow pants over my skinny jeans. I’m still going to wear skinny jeans even though I’m cold and the internet tells me I shouldn’t! I’m just not going to freeze. Snow pants are cool when you live 8 hours north of Minneapolis, it’s a fact.

4. Rocking oversized men’s flannel and skinny belts. It’s warm. And with ankle boots it can be fierce. Or at least warm & tall. I’m not apologizing for this one.

5. Watching my co-workers squirm while trying to choose their words when complementing my new sweater. Because it’s not a sweater, it’s a pancho. (Don’t worry, I didn’t wear it with tights to work!)

It can be near impossible to look pulled together when you’re staving off frostbite and static electricity – what winter faux pas have you given up on avoiding while there’s snow on the ground?

That’s right. We’re going to be handing stuff out left and right for the next two weeks. It’s going to be good stuff too! Do you really think I’d have my name attached to something boring and useless?

NO.

That’s why Jenn and I arranged some pretty fabulous giveaways.

Today we’re kicking things off with THREE Pro Flickr accounts.

Have a Flickr account but not a Pro one? Here’s your chance! Is yours ending soon? Let’s add more time! Not on Flickr? Well, we’re just going to have to start you off right with a Pro account!

Find out how to enter on our blog here. It ends Wednesday so make sure you don’t miss out.

Then stay tuned for more giveaways later this week. I won’t tell you exactly what they are but I’ll give you a hint: they rhyme with Farbucks and myTunes. Any guesses?

We do things big too so we’re definitely handing out more than a few of each. That means more chances for you to win!

Then next week? Well that one I’m keeping a secret. No hints because it’s just that good. It’s way bigger and way better than gift cards and Flickr accounts though, that’s for sure!

Why are you still here reading this?

GO ENTER