Ladies and gents, sit yourselves and let me tell you a (short) story, a story about a woman, a woman with desires, desires such as love, love of many kinds, one of which is linky love.

The woman is my good friend Mari, and the linky love is for her thingie (not blog, not journal) known as Intellectual Orgy.

I can hear you saying, “Well, that’s a cool name, but lots of blogs have cool names.” I can also hear Mari insisting, “It’s not a blog, it’s a thingie, dammit!” Whatever you want to call it, I am here to tell you that it’s more than just a clever name.

Mari’s a woman of intelligence, playfulness and wit, not to mention that she holds the title of Imperial Princess of Cute. She also has a way of turning the objects of her frustration into amusing reading. (Did I mention she’s quite comfortable with the more colorful elements of language? Perhaps I should.) Her weekend write-ups are the stuff of legend. So far she hasn’t written about any orgies, but you never know, do you?

“What,” you ask, “could such a remarkable woman possibly need from me?” That’s a good question with a simple, silly answer: She needs your links.

You see, until her thingie reaches a (small) critical mass of incoming links from other websites listed in BlogShares, nobody can buy shares in it.

I could have simply begged you to link her site without good cause, but instead I took the moral high ground — or at least middle ground — and gave you as many good reasons as I could name for you to actually link to, read and enjoy her efforts. I would not lead you astray in this, my friends.

Do it for me. Do it for The Imperial Princess of Cute. But most of all, do it for yourself. You won’t be sorry.

And when the time comes, you can buy shares in her thingie.

Huzzah! Now that it’s May, I can buy shares again!

Confused? Just take a look at what this website is worth.

Now I just need to figure out how we can drive up the value of Mari’s thingie so I can buy shares in it…