I took a brief respite from my regular posting to overeat and overindulge. As with any act of hedonism, you eventually have to pay the piper. Today I resume writing, tomorrow I intend to resume running.
Since it is close to year end and since one of the pioneers of local blogging is no longer blogging, I thought I’d return to posting by taking nominations from the blog readers of the best and worst of local blogging in 2008. In deference to the blogger who started this nascent tradition, I’m dubbing this the 2008 HoCo Hayduke Blog Superlatives or H2BS.
For starters, I’ll nominate HowChow as the best new local blog of the year. HowChow is covering the local food scene better than anyone has before.
The Andy Warhol award nomination goes to JessieX who briefly changed her homepage picture to something resembling a Warhol painting. After receiving mixed reviews, she has since changed back.
The Betsy Brown Blog Procrastination Award nomination goes to Western Howard Blog. Not only has Betsy not posted since June, her last post was even about procrastinating.
The nomination for the Transformer Award goes out to Embrace Hostility. This fall Embrace Hostility morphed into Columbia Now transforming from a snarky irreverent blog to an informed thoughtful blog.
There are no rules or criteria here. Feel free to make up your own award names too.
Fire away.
Daily
18 hours ago
9 comments:
Consider this a Roast:
The Sock-in-the-pants award goes to …well I can’t say it here because he’d look up my IP address and sue me. But rest assured, there’s some technological hit-boosting, leading to daily reader numbers far beyond what is reasonable for a blog that didn’t post anything new for a week, and when posts occur they are Boring.
The Totalitarian Dictator award goes to a blogger who won’t play the give-and-take required in any relationship as she must be the only authority in everything she’s involved with goes to JessieX. Need to see proof? Just try and take over the ‘blogtail’ party and set the venue somewhere she doesn’t like.
The Unforgiving award goes to 53 Beers – avoid letting him see lies – his brain is like Hotel California. Stuff comes in and never leaves even if he’s presented with hard evidence of misrepresentation.
The Wild Hare award goes to FreeMarket for his out-of-the-blue emotional responses indicative of swallowing an elephant and choking on a flea. He has the make-up of someone in finance or accounting.
The Predictability award goes to Columbia Compass. It must be a lot of work rearranging words for each post: Rewrite, post, repeat, rewrite, post, repeat. Readers need not visit beyond once.
The most fabulous writer who is skilled beyond anything seen heretofore is Dinosaur Mom. It doesn’t matter what she’s saying, the words are like music. Ok, that’s not a roast, but her skill is *that* overwhelming.
The blog with the worst group of commenters is Hedgehog report on the national level. Average IQ: 16, Average arm length: to knees, Average attitude: buzz kill. Why are they so intensely unhappy? Someone tell them that the phrase is “..life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”.
Again, TWO years in a row, the award for pompous a$$ goes to WB. No explanation needed.
And the most in danger of flaming out, having duplicated what WB is saying: Columbia Now. For a personality that seemed so independent to suddenly suit up ala WB, it’s puzzling to see the 180 to total conformist. Will the real Brian (or whatever the name is) please step forward.
Sadly, no one gets the award for Independent Thinker. We have lots of these thinkers in Howard County, but none have blogs. Most (all?) bloggers are on the same side of the tracks – all agreeing with one another. There’s no deliberation, no good discussion, and that results in a parched truthscape. It would help if those on the other side of issues weren’t working so hard to keep our rights intact, maybe they’d have the kind of time needed to blog. Or maybe people feel pressured to agree, civility and all. Or agree because of social pressure from bombastuous personalities (you bloggers).
That’s ok. On average, local blogs have about 800 visitors weekly and that is including sock-in-the-pants. People likely revisit, so there are about 800 blog readers. (feel free to jump in with stats at any point). 800 is tiny compared with 270,000 citizens, and Patuxent’s reach of 80,000 for a combination of publications.
Maybe I should divulge SITP’s name. If he sues, the papers might pick up the story and then 80,000 people will identify him with that moniker. It’s a plan!
Better luck next year.
"The Wild Hare award goes to FreeMarket for his out-of-the-blue emotional responses indicative of swallowing an elephant and choking on a flea."
I think you should get that award based on your own comment, anon 7:43.
Anon 7:43 AM,
While I do admire the use of $ in "pompous a$$" it doesn't come close to the best insult flung my way in 2008. The nomination for best insult given to me on this blog in 2008 goes to PZGURU who called me a "passive aggressive elitist propagandist."
-wb
Thanks for the fear of me going completely comformist. I'm not totally sure what the entails, though. I'm just hoping we plan better, and I'll take the roasting in jest. :)
YAY! I - well actually my commenters - won an award!
HowChow for local info and citizen food journalism. Dino Mom for raw, real, heartwarming and funny reporting from her life with three kids, a burueacratic job, a husband and MIL. Freemarket for speaking his mind and taking a stand, regardless of whether others agree. WB for actually keeping our local blogs breathing this past and quiet year.
And, while not quite in the category of things mentioned here, Twitter, for being the best micro-blogging platform around. Yeah, tweeps.
Honorable mention to every brave soul who dares put their opinion in their mouth and own their perspective, thinking and personal reputation. Rock on, dear bloggers and commenters. You're the new breed of leaders in our community.
I was always preferential to calling the year-end awards "The Dookies", but this is a fine collection you have here.
Happy new year, all!
Why don’t those cowards at Howard County Issues start a blog? Don’t they know that newspapers are so last century?
What? Anon 12:16 thinks HE's SITP?
It's not you. Relax.
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