So, I started doing this series where I end up reviewing my blog buddies from Daily Post and send them some link love and search engine love, hopefully propelling them towards the top of the Google ladder. I had reviewed my very first blog buddy Casey here as the opening post in this review series. I was supposed to do dePressed (no pun intended) from My Life Depressed next, but decided to bump her for Stacey from Walk A Mile In My Shoes instead. Why? Well, mainly because I was reminded of this, ahem, awesome song by the Fountains of Wayne. Check it out: anyone remembers?

Anyways. Stacey, hope you’re not mad at me. I ain’t suggesting no0thing (yet!) 😉

So, Stacey Archer is an upstate NY chick who’s moved to Southern Cali almost half a decade ago and loves the big city life! She has loads of interests and comes across as a very effervescent person on the about herself page. Two of her things are my things too: driving around with the music blaring (I paid nearly Rs. 2000 extra in road taxes to ensure I could do that!) and sports. She started blogging in order to improve her writing skills, which are pretty awesome anyways, and now has been caught up in the whirlwind of the PostADay2011/PostAWeek2011 challenges. Thanks to a prompt by Scott over at Daily Post, she wrote an introspective post on why she was blogging. I appreciate the fact that she could own up to the fact that though she had a blog since May 2010, she never really cared much for it! Takes a lot of guts to own up to that, eh?

She started blogging last May, and opened with a 5-question-Friday post (numerous editions of which were to crop up later on in her blog). They offered quaint insights into her personality and self, though I must admit I am not a big fan of these types of tag-along posts. They have got the merits of fostering a sense of community-blogging, but I have seen most people tend to lie through their teeth without even a hint of shame on these. I would rather read 20 posts by the blogger to form my opinion about them than be force fed some concocted version of who they really are/wannabe. Stace, no hard feelings there, oye?

This ruminative post was by far one of my favorite posts on her blog. Go read it and learn for yourself the crazy shit she is capable of throwing around. And Stacey, that Hurricane Bertha thing, here’s what I gotta say: PICS OR IT DIDN’T HAPPEN! By the way, why on earth would you try to take on a bigass bear with only your vocal cords? Were you high or something, eh? However, the post ends on a rather somber note as she talks of something which I consider myself a bit of an expert: messed up, dangerous relationships (so much so that I had to make a resolution this year to end all messed up relationships!). She resorted to the Lord’s words to help her find the way.

Talking of pics, this post most certainly awakens the green munster sleeping in me. Look at the fantabulous pictures of the friggin’ awesome places she’s been to. Stacey: I officially hate you (aww, not really!). I have the travel bug myself a bit, but thanks to medical school and the resulting ruckus, I have not had the chance of going to really out of the world places in the last 7-8 years. sigh. I wonder if the bug is alive at all now. Stacey, travel for me. Be my eyes. And post tons of pics, ok?

I did not read this post. I was lost at the point where she claimed she had a MySpace account. Seriously, Stacey, that is NOT cool. Take this post off. stat. (just kiddink!)

By the way, gentle reader, did you know there was an International Sushi Day? And it is perilously close to my birthday? well, I did not, until Stacey enlightened me! This year I am so going to celebrate it. Note to Stacey: remind me, please?

She has a lot of foodie stuff to offer on her blog, ranging from the very intriguing Quick and creamy Mac-and-cheese, to the very boring vegetable soup and healthy salads. But one recipe which I found totally rad was the one about stuffed peppers. Smoking chillies, Batman, that sounds hot. Gotta try it out sometime!

I also liked her historical musing on Labor Day. In my world, when someone asks me if I am celebrating Labor Day, I just tell him that my ObGyn days are behind me (excuse the poor pun!), praise be to the Lord! So, for once, reading about Labor Day like a normal human being is indeed refreshing!

Stacey is on the party co0mmittee at her workplace and they have the annual beach bash (my hospital just has the annual bash: where the doctors in the ER get bashed up by the drunk rowdies). She learned to play the Ukulele for that! Nice, eh?

I started reading this post, naively thinking that she was about to unleash on us Joey Tribbiani’s fav pick up line (F.R.I.E.N.D.S. anyone?). But it was about her goal-setting exercises. Whilst I admire her for this, I resent her for saying:

…better than just setting New Year’s resolutions, because I think that those can be silly and sometimes superficial, and don’t make you examine your current situation, nor think ahead about your future.

Hey. Not nice, I made Resolutions, and very deep and meaningful ones at that. You have no right to take that away from me. *sobs*

And last, but definitely not the least, is my favoritest post on her blog (yeah, I just made that word up – I like her post so much). At the end of the post, she asks what I have learnt from the chick flicks. Well. Besides the fact that Hugh Grant has a monopoly on this trade, there is one vital morsel of wisdumb. Never believe in the chick flicks. They are all lies. Real life is a bitch. And girls never, ever swoon. Unless you’re giving them a diamond the size of their fist. The only thing I gained out of chick flicks was to collect the pick up lines which no one spotted. They almost always tend to work. And the best thing is that if the chick figures out that you are using a line on her, you can always say that you knew that she, like you, was a chick-flickophile. Works all the time. At least with me. Oh, and another thing: such liaisons started thus tend to end in a very messed up relationship (or sometimes, the lack of it).

And now for some techno jargon. Stacey is using the Elegant Grunge theme on her blog, which goes well with the feel of her blog. I am not too fond of the color combination of the header she uses as it makes reading the subtitle a pain in the retina (huh! Got you, didn’t I? What did you think I was gonna say?). However, her sidebars are missing some key components which I refer to when browsing a blog: post counts on the archive (tells me how avid a blogger is), blog stats (tells me how popular the blog is), recent comments (tells me who is saying what about her: bitchy, I know), top posts (you know why!) and a contact page with a contact form. Her blog is elegantly named, is written very well (she gives herself little credit for the lucid writing style of hers) and, best of all, is honest.

Stacey, if you have read till here (I am sure the rest of the readers are comatose by now) I ask you to refer a few of your insomniac friends to this post: I will bill them later. Or you can make me the stuffed peppers! I must say I am glad to have you as a blog buddy. Pizza’s on me if our paths ever cross in the real world!