Mr. A’s food blog

Originally published at American Family. Please leave any comments there.

Last night, Mr. A and I were hanging out with a lawyerly couple when I outed myself as a blogger.  I was talking about my plans to take us all to China and Taiwan in about a bazillion years using my blogad revenue without dipping into the family’s main income stream aka Mr. A’s paycheck.  (Since I make well under $100 a month, it will only take about 7 years. heh.)

Since that conversation, Mr. A has come up with a variety of different crazy plans to increase my blog income.  For the record, I am not at all interested in pursuing them because it would take a lot of work and still not create much revenue.  And also, money is is not why I blog (thank goodness, because I would be failing miserably!). 

Mr. A also thought up several schemes to make his own blog and get his own ad revenue. 

(For the record, the idea of Mr. A blogging for income is INSANE, because his employer bills his time out at something like $300 per HOUR — not that he actually sees that $300– and I would guess that my per-hour blog income is something like $2 per hour?  More like $0.25 per hour if you include blog reading as research and development time.  It would make much more sense for Mr. A to work harder, make partner and then skim of his share of the billable hours of the pee-ons below him rather than piddling around blogging and not billing.)

Tonight, Mr. A decided it is his new calling to start a local food blog.   He was reading some local food forum post about a visit to a Korean restaurant.  He came bursting up the stairs with inspiration:

MR. A:   “Ok, I know what you need to do.  You need to start a food blog.  Because people here are CLUELESS!  I just read this post about this person’s visit to a Korean restaurant and they were so impressed with those little dishes that they give you before you order.  And they were weirded out by the little fishes!  I mean, who are these people writing  a Korean restaurant review and they have never even seen the little fishes before?!?  And they were so impressed that those dishes were free!  Has this person never been to a Korean restaurant??  Are they really qualified to review it?  And the person was saying how they always like to try to eat with CHOPSTICKS when they get Asian food?  Well, YEAH!  I mean what are they trying to say, chopsticks are some kind of wierd, exotic utensil?  Because, DUH, you use chopsticks to eat noodles.  It isn’t rocket science!”

ME:  “I am not going to write a food blog.  I would have to go look up the names of those little dishes and of the dish with the fish.  I would have to know how to describe Korean food in a food-intelligent way.  No.  No thank you.”

MR. A:  “Well, maybe I will just do it myself!  It wouldn’t even be that much work!  We eat out at least once  a week.  Every time, I could just write a post about it.  People would read it right?”

ME:  “Well… yes people would read it.  They read all kinds of crap blogs.  But it would be a lot of work.   You would have to go comment other places to get readers. You would have to be nice to people who comment on your blog.  It takes time and effort.  I suck at that stuff, otherwise we could afford to go to China a lot sooner.  I am not going to write ANOTHER blog.  Besides, a restaurant blog would have to be local.  I don’t write the name of where we live so you won’t get fired.”

MR. A: ”Hmm.  Well, maybe I will just write it myself.  I could start by writing about the Indonesian restaurant where we ate tonight.”

ME: “HA!  Now that would be a terrible blog!  All your entries would be about how the food you ate made you sick!  (Mr. A has a delicate stomach which is probably irritable bowel syndrome and severe lactose intolerance.)  This would be your first entry:

‘Tonight we at at the Indonesian Restaurant.  It was good.  I ate too much and drank a pink fizzy soda.  I particularly loved the spicy egg.  Then I had digestive issues and had to go immediately home.’

MR. A:  “YES! That is exactly what I would write, but I would also mention that the restaurant should hire another server because it took 15 minutes to get the check!”

ME: And what else would you post?   ‘Tonight, we ate dosa.  I love this particular South Indian restaurant.  I would write a more detailed post, but I have digestive issues from the spices and have to go directly to the toilet now.’ ”

ME:  “Or maybe you would write ‘Tonight, we ate at the fancy ice cream shop.  My malt was delicious, but then I had to jog home and leave the wife and kids walking several blocks back because I am lactose intolerant.  I almost didn’t make it!’”

MR. A: “I can’t help it that I have digestive issues!  Maybe it is my lot in life to suffer for my blog!  My readers would know that I was suffering for THEM.”

ME: “You would have to call your blog ‘In and Out’ or maybe ‘Food and Poo.’  That would be awesome.”

ME Again: “You know I am going to have to blog this conversation, right?”

MR. A: “Yes.  I will even let you blog about my poo problems.  But you have to make sure you tell them about the chopsticks comment by that reviewer.  I mean seriously.  They are JUST CHOPSTICKS.  It is no big deal!”