Before treating you to a neat, new blog, dear readers, Jane has news: Lip-sticking has been nominated for best Niche Blog in MarketingSherpa's 2nd Annual Reader's Choice Blog Awards, and the voting started yesterday.

Jane is in such delightful company with friends Michele Miller at WonderBranding, and Matt Homan at the [nonbillable] hour, that we're tickled all shades of pink. We humbly ask you to click over and vote! The results will be announced on June 8th.

Now, on to the good stuff...

Dear readers, today we bring you a blog review—a lei offered in friendship to the most delightful woman, introduced to us through our very best blogging friend, Rosa Say. Of course, Rosa is one of many very best blogging friends, but she holds a special place in Jane’s heart. We continue to rely on her most-excellent book, Managing with Aloha, as we build our publishing business.

When Rosa mentioned “giving of a lei” on her blog this month and asked us to participate, we eagerly agreed. To our dismay, we are coming in at the tail-end of being able to be part of this marvelous Hawaiian tradition—but to our credit, we didn’t let it get by us! Here we go:

Virtualosophy: a blog with the stated goal to have 10,000 regular readers by the end of 2005. We don’t know if Stacy Brice is close to her goal…but we think she must have surpassed it by now! How could the whole blogosphere not want to visit this blog??

Virtualosophy is about work, life, tech, trends, relationships, community, and…Stacy’s version of virtual reality. We cannot possibly cover ALL of those topics in one review, so we will concentrate on one: life. Because that’s what we feel when we read Stacy’s blog – an overflowing energy of life.

The blogosphere is growing so big, so fast, it’s hard to keep up with the good blogs, block out the bad blogs, and just find time to read one’s top 20 favorites. Jane’s top 20 are blogs with personality – blogs with a voice – blogs that don’t merely ramble on but that offer insight into the human condition. Virtualosophy is such a blog. Stacy’s ‘voice’ is welcoming but educational; inviting but personal; informative but humorous.

For instance: who wouldn’t be caught up by this post:

Do You Relate More to People or Numbers?

The other day when I was holed up with Dawn, we were working on something that involved some pricing of products. To help me figure out the pricing structure, I called a dear friend, whose business smarts are only exceeded by his amazing mathematical brain.

When I told him what I was working on, he quipped, “Caution: math genius at work!”

Pfffffffft. Oh, ok, I actually laughed. He’s right, though. Numbers really just aren’t my “thing.”

I can do them, but it's not at all my preference to do them.

Hmmm…Jane can TOTALLY relate! We have quite an aversion to numbers...but we love words. On Virtualosophy, we especially like Stacy’s command of the English language in the aforementioned example: i.e. pfffffft. Way to go, Stacy!

Truth be told, there are many elements of this blog that we find attractive. We simply adore the header – not just because it’s red, but because Stacy was so original in the font she used. We also find her choice of books compelling. Regular readers will immediately understand why. New readers…you must visit Virtualosophy and check out Everything You Always Wanted To Know About POD Publishing But Didn't Know Who To Ask, John F. Harnish’s book. And, we are quite impressed with Stacy’s writing – she knows where to put the punctuation marks, which, in Jane’s book, gets a big round of applause.

We also like her Virtual Assistant’s link, and her extensive About Stacy Brice page. That’s one area we find lacking in many blogs—a true ‘about me’ page that gives the visitor more than a cursory introduction to the blogger writing the blog. Stacy isn’t shy about revealing her background—she goes into more detail than even Jane is used to, but it's worth the read, and the best part of the whole page is the very last line: Together we can create magic!

We believe her. If you visit Stacy at Virtualosophy, you will, too.

Jane says, what’s not to like about that?