Day 142: VIP Island, or, We Love You People

We realize that recently this blog has bordered on the infamous "you like me, you really like me!" speech by one Sally Fields. But it's a wonderful thing to open up our email or comments and basically read lots of nice things about how this blog is not just a piece of crap. After traveling with just eachother for so long, we forget that other people have opinions or that compliments exist (we've become more the type of mismatched people who think it's sweet when Lara tells Claire she has egg on her face so she can wipe it off).

As a thank you for all this wonderful attention we are instituting the shout-out rule. Many nice people have written about us on their own blogs (sometimes sending us links, but sometimes we find them stealthily through google) or have linked to us, and we feel that these things deserve attention. So, as a thank you for reading us, and making our days so much nicer, we will put you in the *new* VIP Island list of links on our blog. Because it's all really nice of you, you see.

Please keep writing, and we swear to things important that we will try to respond to everyone. As, well, we don't have lives and we got mad when the New York Times Frugal Traveler never responded to our stalking of him and offering of discounts on budget Spanish airlines. Finally, if we forget to link to you, or have not yet found your kind mention of us, remind us because sometimes we can be idiots. How to remind us: Comment here or write us at ClaireandLara@gmail.com OR HateToHelp@gmail.com.

Today's round up of recent emails of note and VIP Island Links. These are entirely random, so if you are not here, please do not think that we did not laugh and point in very positive ways. We'll get to you as soon as we can! So to start us off:

VIP Island Links and Other Assorted Shout-Outs:

Love number 1 is Natalie who emailed with pics of her perfect person (one of the two children) who keeps her from traveling the world entirely without plans but, thankfully, reading our blog. (Lara misses her niece and nephew to an obscene degree that has worn out Claire's patience so said pic was extremely refreshing for one of us at least). We will include the picture when she says it is okay, because otherwise that might be illegal or something. Lawyer Lana? Is that illegal? *NB: She said okay, and this is a small person named Kai looking nuts (in a good way)!



VIP Island member Doug, who avoided the entire bridesmaid question with the response "1) I'm a guy and thus have no idea what's in/out/looks good/doesn't look good but is expensive so by default looks good. 2) Other than a picture from your hike of Everest I have no idea what you look like. 3) I have no idea what shade of green "hunter" is...maybe my ultimate downfall." Oh, it will be the ultimate downfall, Dougie.

VIP Island member True (the well named) of Everything True, who has a well ranked blog and seems to be the widget man of blogging. We need to learn from you, True.

Texas's own VIP Islander HereWeGoAgain, who sounds like one frickin' funny mother and whose frequentlu updated blog was very nice about us.

Then there's SavvySunshine, who has been a faithful reader since she found us some months ago, who has written about us too many times to count (thank you), and who, as we have shamelessly explained, we ripped off our blog template from. There's Andrew, who is working on a farm in Iowa wanting to be a travel writer, and Proshat The Great, whose blog should be checked out if only for one of the strangest profile graphics we've ever seen of a shop in Tehran. GrizzAmican, who seems to think Howard Stern might sponsor us, and Sarah, who actually went to Dessy.com to do an extensive search to find the best bridesmaid dresses ever, and Renee, who offered us a place to sleep in New Zealand.

We thank Ascensions86, for the Italian post on us, that made us think for 30 seconds that three years of college Italian counted for something.

And the ever-succinct Marco from Target who affirms that we "May have the coolest job in the world" and has an email signature that we *love love love*: “I got a fever. And the only perscription... is more cowbell."

(We wonder, what do you do at Target, Marco? We're fascinated...)

P.S. BLOGS THAT HATE US (no, really). If you read nothing else on this post, please inform yourselves about our lesser qualities. And if you find any more blogs that think we suck, let us know. It's good to be informed about both sides of an issue.

This blog called us lame. Huh, we say. This blog also has some ish with us.