It appears that Balloon-Juice is up for a weblog award again. Some of you may not know why I sat the awards out this year, so let me tell you a story full of sordid maneuvers, backroom deals, tragedy, triumph and innocent victims. You see, at this time last year John had not registered Democratic at that point so a case could be made that Cole, the maverick Republican blogger who left RedState when Republicanism betrayed Barry Goldwater, better represents conservatism than Republican zombies who fill the conservative category every year. It was gratifying when the judges agreed. Completely incidental and not at all on my mind at the time, the bitter tears from rightwingers who take the contest far too seriously, and who certainly would have lost a one to eleven split vote, would have been delicious.
Then something happened that may never be explained. Maybe the bitter tears angle occurred to the judges. Maybe their inbox filled up with youtube vids of Michelle Malkin spelling out threatening messages in her cheerleader outfit. Maybe something even more mind-bogglingly awful happened. Officially the awards gurus mysteriously discovered a bug in the code that ‘forced’ them to bump us and the Jawa Report from the conservative category, but you and I and Gene “Time Cube” Ray know that there is more to the story than that. I can handle what happened to us; a reasonable but mistaken person could see our candidacy as an inspired attempt to raise trouble in blogland right. Seeing the innocent guys at Jawa go down, however, still weighs heavy on my conscience.
The judges bumped us into a harder category, so we won that instead. Here’s how we did it. (1) We put up awful music videos and threatened more if we lost, and (2) we embedded the post on our front page. The difference between pre-embed and post-embed was astronomical. So, here goes. If Tbogg’s total does not go up sharply we can start with Celine Dion.
Don’t split the vote. Tbogg ’08!
rawshark
I have to admit I read Autoblog everyday. Great site. I did mention to them yesterday that I’d be voting BJ as number one though.
Montysano
I may have linked to it here before, but here it is once again:
Your Mumia t-shirt won’t get you into heaven anymore
It doesn’t get much better that. "Rumbly-tumbly pupperoos" lulz
Zuzu's Petals
I dunno, I’ve tossed a couple of votes Autoblog’s way. It would be sweet to see SOMEBODY beat out the Mormon lady and Insta-boy.
Also, another shout-out for best military blog:
Army of Dude
Face
I read that as "Tbagg". Yikes.
Brick Oven Bill
I voted for you John, and only recently came to know that your weblog was so successful. Congratulations on the achievement.
John Cole
No one will catch Cjane. Hell, just the Romney and Osmond clans alone could outvote the rest of us.
The Moar You Know
I’m glad to see the Moderate Voice in last place, which it richly deserves. Terrible layout, writers, premise.
Zuzu's Petals
@John Cole:
Ah, but Autoblog is ahead right now … barely.
David Schraub
I recall that TMV won its category last year without even campaigning (it also won the year before that).
This year, the no campaign strategy (which of course isn’t a strategy at all — Joe genuinely doesn’t care about these things) doesn’t seem to paying off, but the competition is perhaps a little bit stiffer than it was the last two times.
plus C
Maybe Jon Swift should get a plug as well… He’s also been unfairly bumped from the conservative blog category, and ends up in a crossfire between blogs every year.
Cain
Bah, there is no such thing as a conservative blog. I’m surprised that even Sullivan’s blog is considered conservative. He’s currently neck and neck with Hot Air. I for one, hopes he wins.
Conservative blogs, the dregs of the internet world.
cain
Kevin K.
Please vote for Rumproast, too, if you get a chance. That bastard Ace of Spades got my total down below 50% with his daily Nice Deb (PUMA-endorsed!) recommends. I am humiliated.
Nylund
I think a campaign to help out any blog behind RedState would be worth my time. I’d be happy to play a part in making sure they end up dead last in their category. Considering they’ve only managed to muster up 700+ votes so far, it shouldn’t be too hard to push the others past them.
Alex
After you pull the lever for Rumproast, please mosey on over to the best military blog category and toss in a vote for Army of Dude. I know it might pain you to vote for an infantryman, John, but I could be the only person who has read Balloon Juice on an Iraqi police commander’s computer. He was not amused to see Meat Spin as his homepage after that.
Kevin K.
Actually, it goes without saying that you should pull the lever for Army of Dude first after this comment:
Bravo.
scarshapedstar
Already voted for you, Alex. Best of luck trouncing Michael Yawn and those Deliverance extras at FlackFive.
srv
The real reason we won before is that BJ had conditioned us to such awful response-times that we would put up with the weblog site. The competition had no such masochistic traits.
Now that we’re spoiled whiny bitches, not so much.
Punchy
nfl! nfL! nFL! NFL! NFL! NFL! Give us plebes a damn bone and football thread us pleaz! kthxbouy
Tsulagi
Well, Tim, if you get into the enforcement phase, here’s a weapon you might use if it comes to that. A vid sent to me last week by someone in Spain. It is in Spanish, but I think the context can be clearly seen by all. RedState Strike Force types in Spain setting one of their strategic planning sessions to song and dance. It aint pretty. Well, maybe to some.
D-Chance.
Another vote for Instapundit!
Thank for the linky, Timmeh!
MAX HATS
After checking out some of the links I regret not voting for Cjane. I want nothing more than for Instapundit to lose to. . .whatever the hell her site is, and lose in a landslide.
Cain
@Alex:
I got to admit Alex, you write well. You should consider writing a novel or something.
cain
Alex
@Cain:
Winning this award an only help that possibility. Some bloggers see the award as a traffic booster, but a win for me can pave the way to a writing career. I’m trying to get an intern position at a media company and an extra bullet point on my resume could help me get chosen over some Ivy League douche. So a lot is riding on this.
Jeff
Another reason to vote for Alex, get him ahead of Blackfive.
r€nato
drive-by blogwhore:
I will be photoblogging the inauguration beginning Friday January 16:
http://www.30fps.com/f-stop/
come on by!
I have enabled Twitter and Flickr so that I can post to the blog while away from the computer on the evening of the 19th and all day on the 20th.
Kevin K.
Alex, you should do a Kos diary. I’ll get the Rumproast crew to run over and recommend it. Might get a pretty good response from the Kossacks.
Laura W
@r€nato: Great fun. Thanks for the notice. Bookmarked. (Be sure to come back and remind us. You know how addled "some" of our brains are.)
Alex
I posted the link to a diary on your main digs, Kevin.
Walker
Those awards are a joke. Have you seen the business blogs listed? Those blogs are nobodies on the Gongol rankings.
Frank
I’m a Democrat. I do lost causes. Balloon Juice all the way, baby!
Cain
@Alex:
Well then allow me to help your career some and vote. :-)
cain
Jane2
Celine Dion is harsh…I swear I’m voting tbogg all the way…he needs to meet his goal to beat that awful, untalented, unfunny Chris Muir in total # of votes.
[delurk]...[/delurk]
I was totally torn…because I’m a cat lover, but also a basset hound lover.
(Anyone my age who grew up in Seattle will remember why: because of a certain kiddie show we had here.)
However, you resolved my dilemma, and I will now be voting early and often for TBogg. (Any typos in this post are due to a basset hound, a miniature fox terrier, a yellow tabby, and a black tabby restricting my range of movement.)
norma
I am torn, I tell you torn! Yesterday I voted for Tbogg, today I voted for you. This is hell you both have cute doggie pictures, you both have ripping senses of humor, God, what to do, what to do? Norma