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Let us begin this post with a disclaimer: I don't normally do chain mails things. Not if it's blogs or Facebook status updates that read "� I bet most of my friends won't copy and paste this to their own status�" Even if it's about cancer or kitties, or kitties with cancer, I don't give a shit. I just don't do them and generally despise reading them.

SAVE TUMOR CAT - Pass this along or you'll go to HELL!

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I'm going to break that vow right here, in the name of promoting fellow authors and other shit I like. All of that being prelude to this: has bestowed upon me, for reasons that can only lead to a conclusion of brain damage on his part, the . If it had come from anyone else, I might have just ignored it as Internet nonsense, but I do love me some A.J. Brown, so the exception has been made. Now, let's get it on.

What the fuck is the Versatile Blogger Award? Dude, click the link above for more info.

What does one do once they've won the award? Besides holding a party in their own honor, getting totally shitfaced, and passing out facedown in the bathtub, they're supposed to do this shit:

* Thank the award-giver and link back to their blog in your post. (check)

* Include a link to the original blog, The Versatile Blogger Award. (checkerino)

* Share seven things about yourself. (I'll always talk about myself. See below)

* Pass this award along to fifteen blogs you enjoy reading. (er, no)

* Contact your chosen bloggers to let them know about the award. (still undecided about this part as it seems pretty lame�)

* There is no deadline for responding, although I would imagine that being "fairly prompt" would be the polite thing to do. (DON'T YOU FUCKING TELL ME TO BE POLITE, I GOT POLITE RUNNING OUT OF MY ASS, I'M SO OVERSTUFFED WITH POLITE YOU SONOFABITCH!)

Before we go further, I already know I can't name 15 blogs I enjoy reading, whom I would also pass this thing along to, nor would I do that anyway. That would be the chain-mail aspect about this that makes me break out in a rash. But I will contact the person whom I name as my Versatile Blogger (if I end up doing that) and let that person do with this as they wish. And besides, most of the blogs I like have a large readership and are probably inundated by similar stuff all the time, and I have no interest in spamming them with this. But I will link to them and spread the word and the love around like it was fucking peanut butter. Oh yeah, baby, peanut butter love�

First, I'll share seven things about myself that you, Captain Reader, may not know:

1. I hate oranges. Hate those fuckers. Can't stand the taste, can't stand the smell, don't like orange juice or orange soda or orange candy or orange julius. Add some vodka and make it a screwdriver? You just ruined perfectly good vodka. Nice going, ass.

2. In January, I self-published a novel under a pen name. I've been trying to decide how to market the thing since it's, you know, published under a pen name, but I might as well announce it here. It's most decidedly not bizarro, which is why I didn't put it out under my own name, and I confess to being curious about the whole self-publishing deal. I thought I'd try it myself, if for no other reason, than to get a better idea of a different facet of the publishing world besides just the writing side. The novel is Mr. Flashback by Son Porter (). Don't ask where the name came from, there is no real significance to it. It's just easy to remember.

3. Speaking of books, I will have a new one coming out soon. will publish my novella King of the Perverts sometime this summer. I can't tell you how stoked I am about this book, and also about working with Grindhouse. They put out great pulp horror and bizarro and their books look, and are, utterly fantastic.

4. For you horror fans, I make this admission: I absolutely hated Richard Matheson's book Hell House. Just hated it. I found it to be dumb, cheesy writing and not at all scary. I spent the whole book yelling at the idiot characters. Flame away.

5. That's two things I hate, so I better list something I love: severe thunderstorms. It doesn't matter if the tornado sirens are going off, branches are flying through the air, rain is pelting my face, lightning is exploding all around � I'm that dumbass who stands out in the middle of a thunderstorm, hoping to glimpse for myself a tornado. If I had the money, I would take one of those tornado chasing vacations in Kansas or Oklahoma.

6. The first thing I ever wrote was a fully-illustrated fanfic of my favorite cartoon when I was about 6 or 7, ). I loved their spaceship, the Phoenix, and always wished I could have found a toy version of it. I never did, .

7. I spent nine months of my childhood inside an iron lung.

OK, that last one is not true. I'm actually just a big fat liar.

Now, on to the blogs I regularly check out:

1. AJ Brown's : Lots if introspective stuff about writing and fatherhood, being a husband, and juggling all those things. And as I mentioned, AJ and I have a little long-distance bromance going on, so� (blush)

2. John Skipp is !: No, this has not been around long, but the few posts Skipp has up so far have been so inspiring and helpful over the past month that I find myself checking regularly to see if he has a new post up yet. That's why it's here.

3. John Scalzi's : I can't not read whatever Scalzi posts, because more often than not, he writes exactly what I'm thinking about a particular subject. GET OUT OF MY HEAD, SCALZI!

4. The Cubs-centric baseball blog : I'm gonna throw a change-up here (PUN!) and add a sports blog, because goddammit, I gots me some roots in sports writing. And this is my list, so blah.

5. The something of Andersen Prunty, : Not exactly updated regularly, but when it is, it is always interesting and entertaining. Currently, he's holding a contest for readers to create a cover for his upcoming book, Fill the Grand Canyon and Live Forever.

6. : More of an occasional read for me, but regularly updated with interesting news and insights into publishing and writing. Worth the time.

7. JA Konrath's : The always interesting but equally annoying Konrath expounds on sticking it to the man through self-publishing. I like his transparency and willingness to share numbers and info, but am equally enraged by his insistence on posting in the third person. That just bugs Lowe.

8. Caris O'Malley's : There is never a time when Caris fails to make me laugh. A great majority of that time, I'm laughing at him, but still, you can't argue the results!

9. Kirk Jones's : Kirk likes to examine bizarro and horror art and literature through a scholarly, professorial lens. I like to read Kirk and pretend I'm smart like him.

10. Redneck bizarro robot genius, : Goofy fun from a bizarro son of the south. God Save Us, George W. Foxworthy!

11. College football fun from : OK, one more sports blog. If you're not a college football fan or observer, you probably won't get much of what's here, but if you are, and you do, then this shit is gold, more often than not.

12. Um� hmmmmmmmmm� There are other blogs I occasionally read, but I think I'll stop this list here. I will reserve the right to come back and add to this list when I inevitably remember the ones I forgot to include.

If you made it all the way through to the end of this, then I now have one question: why? If you can answer that question in no fewer than 200 words, I will email you a free copy of Son Porter's dynamic debut novel Mr. Flashback. Send your essays to: [email protected]

OK, bye bye!