Okay, if you read blogs then you know that today is Love Our Lurkers day.
Now, I know you’re lurking. I mean, I get like 700 to 800 visits a day, and twice that when I, you know, happen to actually post something, so I know somebody is reading this blog. WordPress doesn’t allow me to get too detailed with the statistics, but I can surmise that a number of hits are from people quickly searching on male chastity or orgasm denial related keywords. Some of the numbers are from RSS feeds. Many come from Keyheld, the chastity blog aggregate that we set up last year. Some of you clicked in from blogs that I happen to follow.
But a lot of you just seem to drop by, and some of you seem to hang around for a bit.
Before I plead with you to add fuel to my already overblown ego, let me just say “Hey, thanks for stopping by.”
If you’re so inclined, please tell me a little about yourself.
If you’re too shy for that, then maybe you could tell me how you found this blog, or why you keep stopping by.
And even if you’re not so inclined, here’s a piece of eye candy for you to enjoy.
. . . that Tom Allen guy? You know, the guy who used to write about sexuality, orgasm denial, male chastity, and (judging from his search counter) Marina Sirtis in latex fetish garb? After a few tossed off posts about the latest sex news, some thoughts on my general health, and some cheesecake pics of a few celebs close to my own age, a reader even wrote:
Tom, if you keep it up your going to lose your chastity cred and be labled as the guy that has an elderly sex fixation ;p
I haven’t had much time or inclination to write lately. My usual routine used to be to get up early, check my email, then write for a bit, write a little more at lunch and perhaps check the several groups to which I subscribe, and polish off the writing in the evening – usually after reading some of the dozens of blogs to which I subscribe, either through Google Reader, or through the WordPress reader (which only works on WordPress blogs).
Over the summer, though, I found I have become more obsessed serious and focused on losing weight and getting back to the level of fitness that I had when I was 30. Since April, my routine has been to get up early, just do a very quick email check as I put on my trainers, and head down to my exercise area, where I try to get in about 20 to 30 minutes every day.
Yes, that’s right. Every. Freakin’. Day.
Well, I usually sleep in on Sunday, but other than that, I’m good. I’ve developed a routine that mixes up what I do, so my muscles don’t get fatigued. I’m slowly working my way up to using the heaviest weights that I own, and I’ve got more stamina. My biggest disappointment has been that I haven’t lost nearly as much weight as I would have liked, but a change of diet now seems to be moving that along. I try to get out 3 times a week for a good sprint on the bike. Generally, I get in two, once in a while I can do four – usually right after work, when I set a goal of doing 5 miles in about 20 minutes, or 6 miles in about 25.
I would like to write more, and on my commute back and forth every day, I come up with ideas for discussions, humor, and hawt chastity porn. It’s frustrating not to be able to get them out, and I even have a few things that I’ve started. But I don’t have as much time at lunch as I used to, and the mornings are the best time for me to exercise. I’ve tried doing them after work, but my schedule gets too erratic; several times a week I have to go out to some meeting or pick somebody up or drop them off or cook dinner. And the next thing you know, it’s 9:00 pm and there’s no way I’m going to pump iron by that time of night.
And like a lot of places this past year, business has been slow, and when people have quit, I haven’t replaced them, so I’m doing more work during the day, which cuts into my writing and blog surfing time. I’ve found that the bad economy has been depressing for me, which leaves me less inclined to write about cool and fun things. And I’ve also realized that one of the reasons that I’ve become a bit fitness-obsessed is because I’m having some control issues. I can’t fix the economy. I can’t increase the margin on the jobs that I’ve been getting. I can’t do anything about the constantly rising costs of insurance, fuel, electricity, or raw materials. The only thing that I can do anything about is myself - and so I have been.
I’ve got a storyline that I’ve been working on, but I can’t decide if it’s going to become a short or a series. I’ve been meaning to get something up on how to modify a CB6000 into something that’s more like a CB3000, and I’ve gotten as far as actually taking some pictures, but it still needs some fine tuning. And I’ve been trying to keep up with reading my favorite blogs, and I even manage to get a few comments in, and I feel badly that I haven’t been able to keep up. I suppose I could get up even earlier. . . Yeah, right.
So, once again, another post about me exercising, and without any discussion of sex, chastity, or orgasm denial. Sorry.
But just so some of you didn’t feel like you wasted your time, how about some Marina Sirtis exercising and talking about sex?
Just when you think it’s safe to go back into the water. Gillette tagged me for a meme on Gratitude, which, being a long way from our U.S. Thanksgiving Day (late November) requires some amount of thought. But perhaps that’s a good thing; we often only appreciate certain things when the capriciousness of life flings it into our faces -just as many of us fail to appreciate our partners until mid-February.
So, let’s just take a moment and go with it, shall we? C’mon, we can all think of five simple things to be grateful for, right? Here are mine:
1) I’m grateful for Mrs. Edge, and her ability to learn to be more understanding and intimate in our relationship. When so many bloggers write little else but complaints about their marriages and relationships, I try to remember that it’s nice when she makes an effort to be on the same page – or at least the same book.
2) My relationship with the Edgelette. They say that you get two chances to re-do your relationship with your parents: when you have children, and when you have grandchildren. I’ve tried to be the parent that I wished I had, and fortunately, she seems to have to personality to appreciate that.
3) Despite the several medical issues that I had last year, I’m thankful that not only do I had pretty decent health, but that I’m able to improve upon it (although not quickly enough, dammit!). My weight has come down – not as much as I would have liked, but I’m more muscular and toned than I’ve been in years, and I’ve gone down a notch on my belts. I had to get glasses for reading, but I hardly need them outside of work. My blood pressure and cholesterol is way down, and I seem to be healthier than just about all of the friends that I have who are around my age.
4) My talents. No, that’s not ego, that’s an acknowledgment that I have certain skills and abilities: to learn things quickly, to understand how things work, to express myself well in writing. I don’t get to use these skills much in my work, and I enjoy having opportunities to practice them elsewhere.
5) You. Yes, you crazy fool, you. You’re here, taking time from your busy day to surf for hot orgasm denial porn, look for pics of Marina Sirtis, Kim Cattrall, and other attractive older women, and to amuse yourself with my little tales and observations, and – once in a while – even leave a comment of appreciation. In a medium in which most blogs fail after just a few months, you keep coming back and encouraging me to keep doing what I’ve been doing for over two years, now.
I didn’t do the traditional “Blogiversary” post a couple of weeks ago when I was on vacation, but I’ve got 2 years and 200 posts on The Edge of Vanilla, and while this does sound egotistical, the fact is that I probably would not have written so much if I didn’t get the support and appreciation from you, the gentle reader.
Gillette, thank you for giving me the opportunity to think about what I’ve got going for me right now. And with that, I’m going to tag some newcomers to the blogging community: Naughty Wife & Good Hubby, Elle, Mykey, Pure Liquid Kink, and Curious Girl (since she steals all of my memes anyway).
See also: Fleshbot’s Sex Blog Roundup each Tuesday and Friday.
(Sugasm participants should re-post all the links above within a week. The following links may be excluded as long as you include all the above links.)
Okay, here’s another one of those meme thingies that I got from that girl. What would we do without memes on weeks that we’re busy, I ask you.
“Someone” reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they’ve printed. It’s not the Big Read though — they don’t publish books, and they’ve only featured these books so far. In any event . . .
1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you started but did not finish.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
4) Reprint this list in your own blog so we can try and track down these people who’ve read 6 or less and force books upon them.
1. The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger 2. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
3. The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
4. Lord of the Flies – William Golding
5. Life of Pi – Yann Martel
6. The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
7. The Color Purple – Alice Walker 8. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
9. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte 10. To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
11. Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte 12. Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell
13. His Dark Materials (trilogy) – Philip Pullman 14. Great Expectations – Charles Dickens 15. Catch 22 – Joseph Heller 16. The Hobbit – J.R.R. Tolkien 17. Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger
18. Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh 19. Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky 20. Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
21. Chronicles of Narnia – C.S. Lewis
22. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – C.S. Lewis 23. Winnie the Pooh – A.A. Milne 24. Animal Farm – George Orwell 25. Brave New World – Aldous Huxley 26. Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
27. On The Road – Jack Kerouac 28. Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens 29. Charlotte’s Web – E.B. White 30. Hamlet – William Shakespeare 31. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl 32. Complete Works of Shakespeare 33. Ulysses – James Joyce 34. Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad 35. Les Miserables – Victor Hugo
36. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen 37. The Bible 38. The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald
39. War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy 40. Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
41. Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
42. The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
45. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon 46. Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov 47. The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
48. A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole 49. The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien 50. Harry Potter series – JK Rowling
51. Little Women – Louisa M. Alcott
52. Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
53. Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
54. Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
55. Middlemarch – George Eliot
56. Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell 57. Bleak House – Charles Dickens
58. The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame 59. David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
60. Emma – Jane Austen
61. Persuasion – Jane Austen
62. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres
63. Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden 64. The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
65. A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
66. The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
67. Anne of Green Gables – L.M. Montgomery
68. Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
69. Atonement – Ian McEwan 70. Dune – Frank Herbert
71. Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
72. A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
73. The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon 74. A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
75. Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
76. The Secret History – Donna Tartt
77. The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold 78. Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
79. Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
80. Bridget Jones’ Diary – Helen Fielding
81. Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie 82. Moby Dick – Herman Melville 83. Dracula – Bram Stoker
84. Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson 85. The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
86. Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
87. Germinal – Emile Zola 88. Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
89. Possession – A.S. Byatt 90. A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
91. Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
92. The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro 93. Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
94. A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
95. The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
96. The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
97. The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
98. Watership Down – Richard Adams
99. A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute 100. The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
Funny – most people know me as a “reader,” but I have barely scratched the surface of the more popular works of fiction on this list. Who the heck makes up this stuff, anyway?
Your result for The Monty Python Movie Trivia Test…
85%
Sir Lancelot
Sir Lancelot – obviously the Brad Pitt of the knights. He was the brave, good looking, smart knight. He wasn’t king, mind you. But he was the closest to it given the bunch. You know your stuff. I recommend watching Meaning of Life a little closer and throw in some Life of Brian and you’ll be King in no time!
You may remember him from such hits as Christmas Ape and Christmas Ape Goes to Summer Camp, but how well do you remember Troy McClure’s other projects? Can you tell which of the following titles come from the filmography of Springfield’s favorite screen icon and which are the real-life dregs of IMDb?
In an apparent contest with my friend E as to who can scrounge up the craziest quizzes on teh netz, I offer up this amusing little tidbit. I didn’t do very well, but somehow I don’t feel embarrassed about that.
My score was 53% (8 out of 15). Think you can do better? Click the Troy pic and take the test for yourself.
Actually, I love taking these tests, and I’ll take anything that tells me that I’m an awesome person.
Anyway, this is another one of those cool OKCupid tests. Go check it out.
What’s your sexual style? Your Score: TYPE N
You scored: 91 imagination, 91 confidence, 45 dominance, and 62 generosity!
You are a KINKY, CONFIDENT, SUBMISSIVE lover who prefers to GIVE.
This means that: You like relatively kinky sex, and you have the great imagination that will always keep your partner guessing and excited! There’s no getting bored with you around, you could never settle for dull sex, you want something fun and new all the time. You aren’t afraid to try out anything you hear about. You might just be an intelligent lover who needs to be mentally engaged, or perhaps you have some dirty dark secret kinky desires, but either way, you’re never boring.
You are pretty confident in bed. This means that you know you can please your lover. Maybe you’ve read a lot of sex manuals, or have the experience from previous lovers, or just tend to be skilled at whatever you get your hands on, but you’re good and you know it. You can really get results and know that you have pure talent, so you won’t be hiding away shy, pretending to be all innocent. Your partners love your naughty self assurance, you don’t hesitate and this makes you a sensational lover.
You tend to be submissive in bed, so you prefer to go along with what your lover likes rather than your own plans. You might like being ordered around and acting out a slave/master fantasy, or perhaps you just get turned on by being helpless and unable to move. Or maybe it’s as simple as you lacking courage so prefering firm instructions in bed to make sure you are doing things right. Either way, you won’t be dominating your lover anytime soon, and might prefer the missionary position to any others.
You prefer to give than recieve. This makes you a very unselfish lover, devoted to the needs of your partner rather than your own. You get your pleasure from seeing them get theirs, you are a model sex partner. I’m sure plenty of people would love to have someone like you in bed with them! Remember though that if your partner gets pleasure from returning the favour it’s okay to let them, they might love giving as much as you do!
WE SUGGEST YOU: Get crazy with the kissing. It sounds basic, but perhaps with all your wonderful kinky antics and games, you have forgotten how good it can feel just to kiss someone all over, and have the same done to you! Practise with different kissing styles, kiss your lover in places you’ve never kissed them before. Kiss to tickle, kiss to seduce, kiss for hours, or kiss when you know you can’t go any furthur with it, like when you have to be at work soon. Rediscover kissing.
My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:
Yes, it’s a commercial for K-Y Products, but the Flash test leading up to it will keep you entertained for a while.
What nationality is Tom Allen?
Brazilian
Your bedroom powers are legendary!
Your lovemaking technique is an extension of the Samba; sensual, athletic, rhythmic, full of meaning, and like the Samba, it keeps going until daylight, or until a neighbor calls the police.
Give yourself a pat on the back… but be careful: you’re liable to give yourself an orgasm.
Update: Take the test several times, there are different questions.
I got snagged tagged by Blacksilk, who shows off her alluring intellectual side with an interesting choice of reading material. Smart women make me very warm and tingly inside.
Anyway, I happen to have these two books right next to each other at a fingertip’s reach from my keyboard. Let’s see if you can guess the titles. The first one should be easy; my 12 year old daughter would guess it. The second one. . .
Book 1:
Someone from the dead planet was talking to them.
“Computer!” shouted Zaphod.
“Hi there!”
Book 2: He was the good cop in the family, he left all the big decisions to Mom.
Now Mom tried to argue, tried to make him see reason. We lived above the snowline, we had all we needed. Why trek into the unknown when we could just stock up on supplies, continue to fortify the house, and just wait until the first fall frost?
Okay, who gets tagged? Let’s pick some more people who have stimulated my intellectual side. . .
