The Canadian Blogging Awards were a few weeks ago and, unsurprisingly, I didn't win anything. Despite my little boasting yesterday, my blog traffic is minor compared to some of the blog in contention (although after weeks of slow numbers during the Christmas break, the numbers exploded yesterday, which confirms my belief that most people read this blog at work). Plus, nobody knows where to categorize my blog. It's kind of all over the place, which is the way I like it, but it is a pain in the ass during blog awards season. Is it a personal blog? A political blog? A cultural blog? Well, no, but I do touch on all of those things.
Anyway, we're now onto the next phase of blogging awards season. First up is the third annual Nunies run by Clare. And I will reiterate what I say each year when he puts off these awards - I call shenanigans on him for excluding his own blog, which is one of the most important in all of northern Canada.
As I know I'm going to lose that argument, I'll move onto to the rules. There are three categories. For Best Blog, you can nominate up to five blogs and send your nominations to nunavutblogs AT yahoo DOT ca. The blogger doesn't even have to live in Nunavut, as long as the blog is written primarily about Nunavut. You can also nominate up to five blogs in the Best New Blog category, however the blog did need to start in 2009. All of those nominated will be whittled down to five finalists. The voting on those will start next week.
Finally, there is the Best Blog post category, which each blogger is responsible for picking one from his or her own blog. I currently have no idea which one to pick. I was thinking about the one I wrote when I was in Toronto, but I think sleep deprivation made that one seem more clever than it actually was. There is the Moving to Iqaluit FAQ, but there's nothing funny or clever about that, it's just a lot of valuable information. So we'll see. I'm open to suggestions as I start to go back through 356 posts to find the best of the bunch.
I like the Nunies and won Best Post last year, and lost Best Blog in a sudden death tiebreaker with Port Town Ghosts. It was very dramatic. So we'll see what this year's awards bring. And yes, while I would obviously like to be nominated and win, I strongly encourage you to read the sidebar and check out the many excellent Nunavut blogs. It's a great community we have so go and explore.
There is also the Newfoundland and Labrador Bloggers Choice Awards. It's a bit different than the Nunies. I'm nominated along with 23 other bloggers. You can vote in the poll, which counts as one vote or say in the comments section who you're voting for and get two votes. And voting will be lasting for another two weeks.
It's an...odd way to do this. And I don't mean to be critical of Eli, who takes on the thankless task of herding Newfoundland and Labrador bloggers. I would have thought he would do something a bit more straight forward and just look for nominations in different categories and then pick a top 3 or so for voting. I can even think of a few categories, such as Best Blog, Best New Blog, Best Political, Best Cultural, Best Ex-Pat, etc. But this is his baby, and this is the way he wants to do it, so more power to him.
So go here if you want to vote for me. I doubt my chances as this already appears to be a three way race with Karen Chappell's Bitstop, Rock Recipes and Dot Dot Dot by John Gushue far and away in the lead. Still, if you want to take a minute to drop me a vote, I wouldn't say no. Although as Cathy pointed out last night when I was talking about this to her, it's not like this is really a pure Newfoundland blog anymore.
See, my inability to focus on one thing screws me again. Ah well...
Last Five
1. Brazil - Lloyd Cole
2. I hope I don't fall in love with you - Natalie Merchant
3. Someday you will be loved - Death Cab For Cutie
4. DIY (live) - Peter Gabriel
5. Where did the good go - Tegan and Sara*
7 comments:
Heya TB, perhaps you're right that it's an odd way to handle things, but there is nothing stopping me from doing awards much like you suggested in this post sometime in the future.
Right now though, this initiative (which is essentially a Peoples Choice award and not a best of award) will be a bi monthly (and a half) thing and will feature the past 10 Blog of the Weeks. Because I didn't start until now, I'm doing the past (and currently only) 24 BOTW's.
Either way, thanks for your opinions and I hope you continue to enjoy the Blogroll in the future.
Hi Townie, I think your best post of the year was the one where you explained the origin of your title. I had a smile on my face for a week after that one. Paul
Oh, don't throw in the towel so easily. I think Karen, Barry and I are making use of various means (in my case, Twitter, Facebook and a few dozen of the nearest and dearest, um, associates in my email contact list; Barry has a whopper of a Facebook group, and Karen is obviously quite well connected too). Send out a pitch!
Cheers, John
Chin up Craig and take John's advice.
The popular voting method of selecting a winner is based on how well you market yourself and stir up people to go out and vote.
Best post? The one about your grandfather. Hands down!
John and Ed, I think I'm going to save my lobbying fire for the Nunies. You can only bug people to vote for you so much, and I'd really like to win the Nunie for Best Blog this year.
Lisa, I agree, I'm just not certain I should put a post up for an award where I write about my grandfather's death. I stand to be corrected, but it doesn't feel....right. But I'll think about it.
Best blog post, either about your grandfather, or actually I can't stop thinking about one of your most recent posts "Home again, Home again" I loved the simple message of putting things into perspective and reminding oneself that vacation is not reality, hence why it is called a vacation. I also loved some of the Toronto posts, hmmm, so many good posts, so hard to choose.
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