PRETTY & CUTE

This story from 2022 is mind boggling. I posted it online recently and several people thought it was fictional. Which is fair enough, most "NEWS" (Not Even Worth Shit) is entirely fictional, and this story may be as well, but it does check out:

Trans skateboarder defends competing against children after beating 13-year-old girl

A 29-year-old trans skateboarder who beat a 13 year old girl in a skateboarding has defended competing against children, saying “I’m not going to go easy on them because they’re kids”.

"Ricci Tres", from Los Angeles, won the women’s division of the Boardr Open street skateboarding competition and won a $US500 prize, with 13-year-old Shiloh Catori, from Florida, coming in second and taking a $US250 prize.

Four of the six finalists were under the age of 17, with the youngest being 10-year-old Juri Iikura, who came in fifth.

 Ricci Tres won the women’s competition. At 29, Tres was the oldest contestant.

Tres, a former Navy officer who previously went by Richard Batres, has three children to his ex-wife. Tres began taking testosterone-suppressing hormones two years ago.

“I’ve decided that I like being pretty and cute,” Tres said.

The transgender athlete’s victory sparked outrage on social media among critics, who blasted Boardr Open for allowing a much older competitor to face off against biological females — many of them children.

 

Shiloh Catori, 13, from Florida, took second place. Picture: The Boardr Open New York City

Skateboarder Taylor Silverman led the chorus of discontent, writing in an Instagram post, “Male wins women’s finals and money at Boardr Open NYC presented by DC today”

Silverman, who has been skateboarding for 11 years, previously complained on social media that she had lost to transgender rivals twice, including at the Redbull Cornerstone competition in May, when she missed out on $US5000 in prize money by coming in second.

But Tres has remained defiant, telling The Daily Mail in a new interview on Tuesday that skateboarding is not as physically demanding as swimming or running and that age and gender “don’t count”.

“I’m not going to go and be easy on them because they’re kids,” Tres said.

“It’s funny it’s what I am getting beat up over the most, people saying, ‘You’re beating little kids, little girls.’ I didn’t intend to do that. This is the first one I’ve been to that I actually wanted to win … the age thing doesn’t really count.”

Tres was always interested in skateboarding but didn’t consider it professionally until it became an Olympic sport in 2020.

“I’m just skateboarding to be happy,” Tres said. “I just want to be happy.”

According to The Daily Mail, Tres attempted to enter the Women’s Street USA Skateboarding National Championships in a bid to qualify for the Olympics, but was rejected for having too much testosterone.

Tres argued it was a different situation to that of University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas, who became the first transgender woman to win the NCAA’s Division I swimming championship in March, sparking controversy.

Earlier this month, the swimming’s world governing body, FINA, banned most transgender female athletes from competing in all major events, including the Olympic Games.

“I don’t think I have physical advantage,” Tres said.
"Ricci Tres" used to be "Richard Batres".

“Look at me. I’m not buff or anything. I don’t work out really, I just skateboard. And I don’t think skateboarding has anything to do with physicality, especially when you look at kids these days. 

The whole physical aspect of skateboarding isn’t really there. It’s really the skill level. Any kind of advantage you get is determined by … skaters know … it’s your commitment and determination.”

Tres likened it to being “a race car driver”.

“If you love the sport, it speaks to you and you find ways to do what you do on your board,” Tres said.

“If I have any advantage is that I’m extremely determined. But that’s not an advantage. Everyone has the opportunity. It’s kind of like a race car driver. It doesn’t matter what you look like, you can drive the car regardless of your physique.”

The Navy veteran has three children and an ex-wife.

Tres suggested skateboarding should have different categories than just male or female.

“There are so many suggestions,” Tres said.

“It goes in hand with all the feedback I am receiving. A lot of it is negative, a lot of it is positive. I think it’s all necessary. People can get angry people can get happy and people can come together and come up with something. 

 

Personally I don’t think segregating everything is the right way. I feel like that would be calling us different, like a different human race when we’re not.”

Tres came to the “realisation” of being female two years ago after feeling “guilty” for secretly cross-dressing for years as a child.

“It was the thought of the fact that I’ve lived 27 years with these little guilt over random things that I didn’t give myself time to understand like cross-dressing … finally I just came to the realisation that I am female, have a lot of female energy and that is what I prefer to be,” Tres said.

Tres’s ex-wife and three children now live in Minnesota and the family haven’t seen each other for more than a year.

https://www.news.com.au/

Nike did a "beautiful" woke advertising campaign featuring Ricci Tres talking about "being true" to himself. Of course there is nothing more "true" than a man trying to pass himself off as a woman...

GO WOKE GO BROKE

"Meaningful actions" include copying Bud Light and doing an ad with Dylan Mulvaney - that should work well for them!

 

He is the dude that pretty much ended Bud Light - can he do the same for Nike?

A FULL CIRCLE

Back in the 90's I was checking out a cool new clothing brand called SHIFT. I guess the name stood for a shift to a new more advanced state of awesomeness or something.

Looking at the SHIFT Logo I was Inspired to set up a website (we didn't used to call them blogs back then) called SIFT, meaning to sift around looking for interesting stuff.

I removed the H from shift and made my own versions of the logo in red & blue & purple rather than grey. When my blog later became quite popular I ended up printing SIFT T-shirts in a range of colours!

Around that time I also started going by the online alias SIFT but often found when I was signing up for accounts on platforms like g-mail that the name SIFT was already taken.

Even back then I was aware that there were try hard satanists lurking all over the internet and the circular logo of Google stood for 666, so I started calling myself “sift666” because that name was usually available. 

Actually I started calling myself about a dozen different online names but the sift666 one stuck.

Later, on a new blockchain platform, my sift666 name worked out very well because a bunch of the insiders fancied themselves as satanists, and thought I must be one of them as well. 

That was great for a while but I didn't realise that they really did consider themselves to be actual satanists. I thought they were just mocking the retarded satanists like I was, and we were all on the same page. Up until I did a post openly ridiculing satanists, and all of a sudden I was the anti-satan, so I was blacklisted from the platform.

Jump forward a decade and a friend started calling me “sifty”, meaning someone who lurks about not getting much done. A very appropriate name really.

Then I told her about my old blog where I used to have 800 misspelled porn search tags aimed at attracting illiterate google porn searchers, which got millions of hits up until Google blacklisted it. Notice a pattern here?

Anyway, after hearing that, she started calling me “shifty”, as in someone dodgy and cunning, who tricks satanic corporations online. Even more appropriate!

Then I realised I've nearly gone full circle from SHIFT to SIFT, and onward to SIFTY and then SHIFTY which is nearly right back to SHIFT again.

Over the past decade my blog hits have gone down from hundreds of thousands per year to bugger all, but now they seem to be going back up again.

After nearly three decades of battling my evil nemesis Google online, I've come to the conclusion that Google may be evil but I am shifty.

 

RANDOMS 2026 #32

 There is just no way to tell 😂

 

NEWS is Not Even Worth Shit
 

Looking ripped dude 
 

Well he might have a crack at it

 

"Women's" basketball is getting really brutal! 😅

 A healthy breakfast 😂

 
KFC BRO? 😂 

 Of course Mrs Dell hasn't been switched out for some freaky looking transvestite, that's the same woman after some minor cosmetic surgery

  Feeling the vibe... 
 

1950's America - back when gay meant GAY!

 

WHY I USE BLOGGER

I'm certainly no fan of Google, my evil online nemesis, but having posted on WordPress quite a lot in the past, along with a few other platforms, I am still a fan of Blogger. This article is a good summary of what I like about it:
 

Is Blogger Still a Thing in 2026?

Blogger remains a relevant platform even in a highly competitive 2026 market. It has earned a well-deserved spot in online publishing for a reason. It is an excellent platform for newbie bloggers who are kicking off new blogs and want to get their content established online. 

The fact is that Blogger’s official positioning is surprisingly clear and current for 2026, and that is one of the primary reasons why it has remained relevant to this day. 

Blogger is a free tool where you can create a blog, choose your unique design, publish on a Blogspot address or a custom domain, and earn through AdSense if eligible. 

On top of all that, it offers ample opportunity to understand your readers through built-in analytics, to connect to Google Analytics, and safely store posts and photos with Google.

Blogger is home to millions of publishers, which is clear proof that it is far from a forgotten early web tool. The platform offers bloggers and influencers many benefits thanks to its clear positioning.

The moment you stop looking at Blogger through its trend value and start seeing it for its practical value, you will quickly realise its purpose. 

In 2026, the discussion around blogging and content creation is focused on ecosystems, subscriptions, newsletters, communities, and content machines. Yes, some creators do need those things. But as it stands, there are also many who don’t. 

A lot of creators simply want a dependable place to publish their hard and thoughtful work. They also want to be able to organise their work and build an archive that is not locked inside a feed. That is exactly the sort of job Blogger still does well.

What Makes Blogger Relevant Today

Blogger remains a well-used blogging site because it has a very low barrier to entry for first-time users, using its standard functions. 

That means you don’t have to pay for web-hosting or find your own template for your blog; you can start by choosing from a variety of pre-designed templates, changing their layout to suit your needs, post content quickly, and if you decide you want a more polished image, you are free to change that BlogSpot domain name to something else. 

The information on the “about page” is very straightforward and does not overcomplicate the feature mentioned above. Blogger offers simple publishing, flexible design, audience insights, payment through AdSense if that is applicable to your purpose and long-term storage through Google. Simplicity will always be useful and appealing.

There is also a wider cultural reason Blogger still matters. There are many digital platforms available today that provide individuals the opportunity to share their ideas and expertise, but few allow the individual to truly control how others view and use that shared material. 

While social media may be a great place for people to discover new content and authors, it is a rented space. Therefore, if the algorithm associated with the rental platform changes overnight, the author may find themselves with much less visibility for their work. 

Similarly, yesterday’s posts are often lost after just a few days online. By contrast, Blogger provides each individual with a fixed location on the internet where they can store their thoughts and opinions over time. Blogs are particularly valuable for writers, niche commentators, hobbyist experts, lifestyle publishers and small-scale creators who desire something more enduring than simply having a profile page. 

Blogger still offers that without demanding a complicated technical setup first.



Influencer Success Stories On Blogger

We can demonstrate how Blogger works with influence by looking at real-world success stories. A good starting point would be Diana Rikasari. Her Blogspot site has been up for years now; her description of herself at Blogger lists her as an award-winning blogger, fashion entrepreneur, and published author. She is also a public speaker, and has been active in the blogosphere since 2007. 

An independent academic paper on personal branding examined how bloggers create their own identities using fashion blogging as a vehicle for that process; the authors use Diana Rikasari’s blog as one of their case studies, concluding that her blog was successful in communicating her unique identity. 

Together, those sources show Blogger functioning as a genuine platform for influence, not merely a stepping stone buried in internet folklore.

It is helpful to evaluate an even smaller, contemporary model. Not all creators are attempting to create or achieve celebrity status. They just want an online space to get their work out there. But even if your goal is not to make it as a big-time blogger you may still get noticed in a big way. 

Seadbeady’s Fashion and Beauty Blog, which runs on Blogspot, describes itself explicitly as both a platform for bloggers and influencers. This Blogspot-based blog covers fashion, beauty, product reviews, interviews with other creators, and more. 

In a 2025 post, Seadbeady stated they were able to grow their blogger site from a handful of views a month to over 10,000 views per month on average and at that stage were working in promotional capacity for several beauty boxes, including those by L’Oréal, Garnier and Maybelline. 

That is a realistic kind of success story: niche authority, steady visibility, and collaboration opportunities built from a Blogger site rather than a huge media operation.

Blogger does not have to dominate the creator economy to remain effective. It simply has to help the right people build recognition, consistency, and credibility in a space they control. 

For many of us, establishing ourselves as legitimate voices within our respective areas of interest is far more important than chasing whatever social media outlet happens to be screaming the loudest surrounding its marketing efforts.

Blogger Vs. Newer Blogging Platforms

Compared with newer publishing options, Blogger is a less ambitious choice. It was never intended to be built on top of high-end membership, paid community models or endless customised designs. 

It is fair to mention this because you can only truly appreciate Blogger if you take it directly for the need it’s intended to serve. A writer looking to build a subscription-based business model, a paid community model or a highly-tailored design system will likely find one of the newer platforms to better meet their needs. That is not a failure on Blogger’s part. It is simply a matter of fit.

Blogger still has advantages that outmatch newer platforms in terms of ease, simplicity and cost. It provides a way to get writers online quickly. Custom domains are supported by Blogger. The purpose of Blogger is not to try to surpass each and every other newer publishing platform. It provides a simpler alternative that many users find more practical.

Key Features Influencers Appreciate

The most important key features that have attracted some influencers and personal brand owners to the Blogger platform — its ability to be visually representative of an influencer’s professionalism and an understanding of how well a blog post will perform. 

The first, a “custom domain”, is possibly the largest feature that makes an influencer appear much more professional than those who use a free BlogSpot.com address.

Blogger’s ability to provide flexibility in terms of design is important too, even if it isn’t stated with flashy wording. The blogger “about” section provides information on easily usable templates, flexible layouts and a variety of background image options. 

This might seem unexciting compared to newer sites based on an abundance of creative visual tools, but a great deal of these influencers do not require an endless number of ways to visually manipulate their space. They want a simple, recognisable area that represents them and allows their content to shine through. In this respect, Blogger still delivers that.

Audience insight is another feature offered by Blogger. Users have the ability to evaluate performance of individual posts via analytics built into the blogging software, where your visitors come from, and what subjects your visitors are most interested in learning about. 

You can also connect directly to Google Analytics for additional details. Understanding your audience can prove valuable to creators who are trying to determine their niche, understand their audience behaviours, and develop pitches for potential collaborations. 




Building A Loyal Audience With Blogger

Audiences are created through consistent, useful content, as well as an individual’s sense of belonging. The long-term nature of Blogger allows for this type of loyalty to be developed. Not only does Blogger allow for the ability to save thousands of posts, photos, etc. with Google, but it also promotes the idea of developing a permanent website archive.

This type of archive will help convert casual browsers into regular readers. Casual browsers may arrive through searching a specific topic or linking from a social media platform. Someone who arrives through search or a social link is not limited to one passing update. They can view all your previous categorised blogs and get a better feel of your voice and expertise. 

Whether or not Blogger is still something to consider is based on what your goals are. If you want instant viral fame, then using Blogger would not provide an immediate solution. However, if you want to develop a loyal audience by creating a transparent, easily accessible, and owned repository of work, then I think it makes perfect sense.

 

How Blogger Supports Brand Collaborations

Brand collaboration efforts often happen even before an email exchange. A blogger’s site serves as evidence of their style, dependability, and transparency. If Blogger is used with intent, it will be able to support these aspects exceptionally well. 

A custom domain name, a professional-looking home page, organised categories of topics you write about, and an easy-to-navigate archives section. All of these items assist brands to understand who you are and how you express yourself. Blogger’s own structure supports exactly that sort of presentation.

There is also a strong operational reason to have your cooperative work live on a blog. Content posted on social media moves very quickly and is easily missed. 

Blog posts allow for fuller storytelling, more comprehensive background information, and active links, which will continue to provide value to your readers after the initial campaign has ended. That is beneficial in markets like beauty, fashion, travel, books, interior design and lifestyle where your audience may want something other than just a quick endorsement. 

A Blogger site gives those collaborations more room to breathe and more chances to keep delivering value long-term.




Tips For Maximising Blogger’s Potential

The creators who get the most from Blogger usually do not treat it as a relic or a backup plan. They use it as a central hub. The way to maximise your use of Blogger is through the selection of a clean template, registration of a custom domain, organising your home page clearly, and organising your content so readers know what your website is about. 

This level of creative freedom with both the look and feel of your website and insights into your audience allows you to create that type of organised space without making setup feel like a separate job.

Thinking editorially can also help. Most blogs benefit more from having a handful of strong cornerstone pieces versus flooding their site with low-quality, quick-hit articles. Archives are usually created intentionally. Categories have meaning. Titles are descriptive. 

Articles that were once valuable but have become outdated are often updated instead of deleted. When using social media, short-form content can provide links to richer content available on your blog. Blogger tends to work best when it is the place where ideas live in full, while faster platforms handle discovery and conversation. That combination still makes a lot of sense.

Blogger is still worth taking seriously in 2026. And yes, it is because it still does something specific really well. It still provides creators the fundamental building blocks of creating and maintaining their own space online.

This is why Blogger has secured its place. The ability it gives creators to clearly publish, steadily build up content and maintain ownership of their published work.

For writers, niche experts, hobbyists and influencers wanting to have a reliable and long-term base on the open web, that remains a viable option in 2026. 

This is an edited copy of a post from bloggertuesday