Wednesday, August 01, 2007

Announcing: The Partisan Reflections on Pissant Provocateurs Award

UPDATED:
I've been blogging for over a year now and I still regularly feel like I'm the last one to get invited to the party. The latest thing I've managed to completely miss is this whole blogging Award/Tag/Meme chain link thing. My first inkling occurred a couple of weeks ago when Pete Abel announced on his blog Central Sanity that he was not tagging me with the Thinking Blogger Award. Well, thanks all the same Pete. What a guy. Actually, he put me in some very impressive company with some other losers, saying that while the DWSUWF blog did indeed make him think, it just didn't make him think as much as five other blogs did. Or something. Then I look at the actual Thinking Blogger Award badge, and there is a picture of an alien on it. So what is that all about? Is the alien thinking about me or am I supposed to be thinking about aliens or what? I mean, I don't even believe there are any thinking aliens out there (See Fermi Paradox), so why would I want a Thinking Blogger award with a graphic of an alien on it? How about a graphic of Rodin's "The Thinker" or Albert Einstein or Stephen Hawking or Lisa from The Simpsons? That I could understand. I checked out the source of the Thinking Blogger award at the not surprisingly named Thinking Blog. There I learned that Ilker Yoldas was unhappy about being tagged with memes that were not relevant to his blog, as he does a lot of thinking on his blog. Much of that thinking is about how to get more links and make more money on his blog. So he started his own Award/Tag/Meme for blogs that made him think. The alien is there on his blog too, but there is still no explanation to the mystery of what the alien is thinking about.

Now some might think this has something to do with a pyramid type scheme for trafficking in the primary currency of the blogosphere - links. But as any thinking blogger knows, these schemes are unsustainable due to the mathematics of geometric progression.This chart from Wikipedia illustrates the problem of geometric progression when one "thinking blogger" tags six other bloggers and asking each blogger to tag six more - etc. If each blogger acts within one day of getting tagged, then inside of two weeks the entire population of the earth will be tagged as "thinking bloggers". Ilker cleverly avoided this problem by asking thinking bloggers to only tag five other bloggers, so - no problem. He selflessly did this despite the obvious detrimental effect to his position at the top of the blogging link chain, which explains why his linkback performance is falling so far short of the optimal result of links from the entire population of the globe. Although DWSUWF remains the only blog on the planet that has not been tagged as a Thinking Blogger, it did made me think anyway.

Then yesterday I find I am honored by Steph, The Queen of Dysfunction who bestowed upon the undeserving DWSUWF the prestigious "Reflections" Award...

reflection.jpg

...saying some really nice things about our humble efforts here including: "This is my oasis of thoughtful libertarianism."

Obviously a very intelligent and discerning mind is at work over at The Queen of Dysfunction. The "Reflections" Award (like the "Thinking Blogger" Award) comes packaged with some rules (but no aliens):
1. Copy this post (meaning the rules).
2. Reflect on five bloggers and write a least a paragraph about each one.
3. Make sure you link this post so others can read it and the rules.
4. Go leave your chosen bloggers a comment and let them know they’ve been given the award.
5. Put the award icon on your site.

“This award should make you reflect on five bloggers who have been an encouragement, a source of love, impacted you in some way, and have been a Godly example to you. Five Bloggers who when you reflect on them you get a sense of pride and joy . . . of knowing them and being blessed by them.”

Hmm. Now Steph herself was somewhat bemused by that "godly example" requirement, but she just went with the spirit of the thing and identified five blogs that met the criteria of "impacted you in some way" and I'm glad she did. I was introduced to some fine blogs as a result. Now the right thing for me to do is just go with the flow, pass the favor forward, and highlight five blogs that deserve some recognition. That would be the right thing for me to do.

God, I hate myself sometimes. Just can't do it.

Having learned about the origin of "The Thinking Blogger" Award, I was curious to find out more about the Reflections Award and how it started. It took a little back-tracking on the link chain, as well as a little googling but I soon found the source. The "Reflections" Award was started by a precocious home-schooled sixteen year old girl named Jocelyn. Jocelyn is a Lord of the Rings fan, and lives on a farm in Indiana. She just finished writing her first book, which really makes me feel great, because I am staring at my 55th birthday in a few months and still working on getting my first book started. Maybe I should have been home schooled. Anyway this is Jocelyn's reason for the "Reflection" Award:
"I was given the Thinking Blogger Award several times (five times to be exact) but I didn't know too much about the site it was from. My good friends, Eric and Paulie, informed about the secular and ungodly things posted at the point of origin. They also informed me that they would not accept the award so I decided to start my own. We need to be aware who we are linking and get away from the worldliness of non-believers and not endorse that site. "
Well, that kind of explains the rules of the award. So - Ilker started the Thinking Bloggers Award because he didn't like the memes he was being tagged with. And Jocelyn started the Reflections Award, because she didn't like being tagged with the Thinking Bloggers Award. And DWSUWF, being the cynical sort, thinks, well its probably just a coincidence that starting a new award also puts them both on the top of a new link chain pyramid, so he checks out Jocelyns technorati stats - and JESUS H CHRIST! This kid already has 200 unique links from this award scam just since starting in in June!

-----------------

DIVIDED WE STAND UNITED WE FALL is proud to announce a new Blogging
Award, designed to advance the divided government voting heuristic - The ...

Partisan Reflection on a Pissant Provocateur Award.

The Pissy Blog Award
Let's get the terminology straight. We are not using the Merriam Webster definition of a pissant. We are instead using the Urban Dictionary's second definition:
Pissant - Little person blog with big attitude.
Which I think, pretty much covers the entire blogosphere. Recipients should also feel free to substitute, at their discretion, definition 3:
Pissant - Any person who is incapable of consuming as much alcohol as you can. Generally someone who has arrogantly been boasting about how much alcohol they can consume but then falls far short of the trumped up expectations.
That cleared up - on to the rationale for the award. This blog is in the service of promoting the notion that our government runs better when congress and the executive branches are divided between the major parties, and that people should vote to keep it that way. Further, we have refined this notion to assert that if the electorate remains polarized, and equally divided, a relatively small number of libertarian or independent swing voters can have a disproportionate impact by consistently voting for divided government. To that end, it is in our enlightened voting interest, to insure that the electorate remain polarized along partisan lines. This was explained in one of my early posts "Why You Should Vote Like Me":
In fact, a nuance of Dividist party membership is recognition that a polarized, partisan, evenly divided electorate is a positive good thing for the party and should be encouraged. This means, that when a Dividist party member is not voting, he/she should be actively working to stir the pot by antagonizing partisans of either (or both) sides. This is good sport, and it permits the Dividist to vent their personal partisan spleen throughout the campaign, knowing they are helping the Divdist party maintain its delicate leverage, by maximizing the size and stability of the Partisan Dead Weight. This venting of the partisan spleen, is also therapeutic and will leave a clear thinking Dividist voter at the poll to make that logical decision to vote for the positive good of divided government."
The Rules of the Partisan Pissant Provocateur Award:
  1. Copy and link to this post (meaning these rules and the Award icon).
  2. Reflect on five bloggers who cause you to gnash your teeth when reading their posts, but who you nevertheless feel compelled to return to and read time and again. Write a short sincere (or not) paragraph about each one.
  3. Make sure you link this post so others can read it and the rules.
  4. Go leave your chosen bloggers a comment and let them know they’ve been given the award.
  5. Put the award icon on your site.
  6. Did I mention you should link this post?
This award should make you reflect on five bloggers who have motivated you to unleash fire breathing partisan posts of your own. Carefully crafted logical arguments and good writing are a bonus but don't overlook particularly sharp satire, biting snark, or a high octane flamer. Try to keep the quality high, but in a pinch, feel free to substitute your basic journeyman partisan hack.
Without further ado - The first five recipients of the Award:

1- Divided We Stand United We Fall. - We are on a roll. After 15 months with no awards, we've now won two in three days. This is a blog I return to time and time again, often re-reading the same favorite posts 12 or more times. I just cannot get enough of it. The blogging frequency is a little spotty, and the posts are almost always too long. Otherwise it is flawless.

2 -
Queen of Dysfunction - An honest, humorous, entertaining well written blog, hosted by Steph, a discerning gourmand of fine blogging talent. She also has a finely tuned sense of irony, after writing this amusing screed:
"This was another reader who, like the guy mentioned beforehand, heartily disliked my recent post about a squabble I had with my husband and felt it necessary to set me on the straight and narrow path of feminine obedience. For the sake of brevity I will not post the e-mail in its entirety, but I found it quite interesting that he felt the need to copy and paste just about every verse in the Bible about "a woman's place" and seemed particularly smitten with the apostle Paul (why is it that every misogynist jerk has a hard-on for Paul? "
She then tags me with an award started by blogger Jocelyn with this gem in the sidebar:
"I am a Keeper At Home, this is a term used to describe women following the Biblical laws by staying home (Psalm 113:9, Proverbs 31:10), teaching their children, and serving their husbands just as the Church, the Bride, serves Christ. Titus 2:3-5 is very, very clear on this as it states what a woman is suppose to do with her time and life."
At least I think she was being ironic.

3 - Central Sanity - this is just to show you there are no hard feelings about that Thinking Blogger Award business Pete. Really. Enjoy your Partisan Pissant Provocateur Award, buddy. All kidding aside, Central Sanity is a great blog. Pete has taken on the Herculean task of trying to save the Republican Party from itself. This is an important and necessary task if we are to avoid single party Democratically controlled government in 2009, which I can guarantee will be just as bad the last six years of single party Republican control. Godspeed Pete Abel.

4-
Moonage Political Webdream - Moon is an independent thinker that always brings a unique perspective to the issues and events of the day. He has been blogging since 2004, and we've had a few debates on his blog and mine. However, we have actually been arguing for at least two years before he started his blog, and are really just continuing a debate from a political message board we both used to frequent after 9/11. I am giving him this award because it gives me an opportunity to point out once again that I was right and he was wrong about the 2006 mid-term elections. God that feels good.

5 - Jon Swift - A "reasonable conservative" whose modest blog posts manage to somehow simultaneously amuse, enlighten and enrage partisans of both the red and blue variety. The comment threads are often unintentionally as funny as the satiric humor of posts themselves. Which is saying a lot. Congratulations on being an inaugural Pissy Blog Award winner Jon.

Congratulations to all the winners. Don't forget to pick five more winners, include the rules and link back to this post. I am conservatively expecting six billion links by Labor Day.

UPDATE: Cripes, miss-spelled "provocateur". Title, graphics, text, everywhere. Spelling fixed now. Typos fixed. Trying to display working code for the graphic.

Pete asked for code to link to the Award image - Try this:
<a href="http://westanddivided.blogspot.com/2007/08/announcing-partisan-reflections-on.html" title="The Pissy Blog Award"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_LudJaqlGgFI/RrUQcYQPkyI/AAAAAAAAAUo/cHyB2Iofj-I/s320/PartisanPissant.jpg" alt="The Partisan Pissant Provocateur Blog Award" border="0" /></a>
This seems to work on my browser, but that may be because blogger recognizes my cookies. I'd appreciate any feedback on whether this code works for others. Otherwise, Moon has instructions in the comments.

UPDATE 2: Saturday August 4, 2007
Heh. It appears that people are actually forwarding this thing. Who knew? Well, the toothpaste is out of the tube, so lets roll with it. After several sleepless nights, Pete Abel finally decided to accept the award, but only after rewriting the description of the award, and doing a much better job of it than me:
"1. The award recipients are pissants – i.e., they're not the biggest bloggers in the 'sphere, they're not Kos or Hewitt or Sullivan, but they make up in attitude what they lack in size/readership.

2. They are provocateurs – i.e., they provoke other people into thinking about and responding to subjects they might not otherwise think about and respond to.

3. By virtue of the first two traits, they advance the intrinsic value of a government that is closely, evenly divided between partisans, so no one party has outright control of the outcomes, recognizing that (a) divided government honors the check-and-balance intent of the founding fathers; and (b) divided government tends to work better; reference the Reagan and Clinton years versus the Carter and Bush #43 years."
This is actually great. I am astonished that I thought of anything this good. I wouldn't even mind receiving an award like that. Pete's description is so much better than mine, that I am now declaring Pete's description to be the official description of "The Pissy." To keep things consistent, I've modified the definition of Pissant to be: "A small blog with a big attitude."

The most amusing gratifying aspect of this exercise are the emotional expressions of gushing appreciation from the early recipients:
"Well. Such an assignment. I'm honored, really."
"I'm a pissant provocateur.And I like it."
"...something that I’m not too sure I want. haha"
"I have no idea how well this award will go over with my readers."
"This award has been extended and accepted, with hesitation and a bevy of caveats"
"I guess it could be considered an award, it's called The Pissy..."
"I'm almost unsure if it's a compliment or not..."
"
at first I was like, “Damn dog you ain’t got to be calling me a Pissant and shit”
Then there is HDW Mobile Blog who in a comment in the next post says"I awarded myself a
pissy blog. Can't believe I didn't make your top five.... " Well, OK fine. Problem being, I have looked over his newbie blog, and there is not a bit of pissiness in it. The closest he comes is calling the New York Times "lame" over a truly lame article about fly fishing, and bitch-slapping bass fishermen in a post here. Being a a bass fisherman myself, it did piss me off, so I am going to let the whole self-award thing slide and drop the lawsuit. Besides, he is my brother.

Finally, I've decided that it was not appropriate to count awarding myself a "Pissy", as one of my five referrals, so I am adding one more charter recipient of the Pissant Provocateur Award:

6 - Dr. Sanity: Pat Santy, an Ann Arbor psychiatrist has defined her blogging mission as "Shining a psychological spotlight on a few of the insanities of life". She does seem to prefer to shine that "psychological spotlight" disproportionately (almost exclusively) on the "insanities" of the left. Examples being: The Political Paranoia of The Left, Let's Discuss Bush Derangement Syndrome Again, The Intellectual & Moral Bankruptcy of Today's Left. This last being a post that particularly meets my teeth-gnashing criteria for this award. Still I return time and again, and not only because she manages the popular weekly "Carnival of the Insanities" and has seen fit to regularly include my posts. Certainly that is not the only reason. I find that I completely agree with well over 12% of her blog. I hope no one thinks that my extending her this award has anything to do with the fact that I have submitted this very post for inclusion in her next carnival collection. Please. What do you think I am?

Congrats Doc, and I hope you are enjoying your vacation in Traverse City. I prefer the U.P. myself.

UPDATE 3: August 7, 2007
This is the last update. Really. I thought I was done, but I had to intervene. Chuck Butcher has sent this meme spinning out of control and I had to grab the wheel and put it back on track. I am adding a new rule:
7. The Chuck Butcher Rule. DO NOT DISTURB THE ORIGINATOR OF THIS MEME AND DO NOT GIVE THIS AWARD BACK TO THE ORIGINATOR, HE ALREADY HAS ONE. Just link to this post, send it along and get on with your life. Link to this post right here: http://westanddivided.blogspot.com/2007/08/announcing-partisan-reflections-on.html
Sure, this started as a sarcastic slap at memes, and we all got a good laugh at the expense of those link-whores who promote these things. But for god-knows-what reason, people are forwarding this thing, and my technorati rank is moving up. So now I need everyone to get serious and just FOLLOW THE FRIGGIN' RULES! At least until I get my technorati authority into triple digits. Thank you for your cooperation in this matter.

UPDATE 4: September 18, 2007
Fairlane at Jonestown (see comments) is bitching that my blogroll link is not showing up on his technorati rankings. Well that's just not right. I can't do anything about what technorati finds or doesn't find, but I'll add his acceptance quote above and another link here and if that doesn't work, I just can't help you dude.

Divided and Balanced.™ Now that is fair.

25 comments:

Pete Abel said...

I'm honored. I think. Question for you: How do we copy the Award Icon. I tried and it didn't work from this post. Probably need to put the logo up on Google images via Picasa or some other program?

mw said...

Pete,
Sorry about that. Not sure the best way to do this, but I have uploaded jpg, gif, and png versions of the image to my account on flickr here.

Flickr's embed code for the jpg cna be found here:

http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=975453480&size=o

I'll update the post itself with some standard code later.

Anonymous said...

I'm not sure what this has to do with pot, but I'll go along with it for chucks and giggles. For starters, I definitely prefer giggles. That means you prefer Chuck.

I have to mimic the Queen's thoughts almost verbatim. After all, whorage sounds a lot like Moonage don't it? I only request that you fix the numerous typos in my description. Other than that, it gives me great pleasure every single morning to know that I have pleased at least one person on this planet by letting them be right, once. It pleases me even more to know I was right all the rest of the times. ( big ego, yes, little person, no. Just ask my wife. )

I think, given my reply here, I should probably accept the Pissy Award. However, since Pete wants it on his blog more than I do apparently, I'll let him have it. I just want to be a judge for the Askmen's 2007 Best Cleavage award. As you should as well MW. It is after all, the only time that a perfect division is, well, perfect.

( Pete, right click on the icon, copy the image location, insert appropriately on your blog. If that don't do it, email me. )

mw said...

Whew. That was a whole lot harder than it should have been. I blame QoDys for starting me down this path. I think it's all fixed now.

QoDys - You are welcome. Pimping just comes naturally to me.

Pete - Some semblance of presumably working embed code is now on the post. I can't tell you what a pain it was to figure out how to put that code there without having it actually execute. If that code does not work I have uploaded correctly spelled badge images to flickr, also linked on the post. Otherwise just download to your PC as Moon suggests. Let me know if I can help.

Moon - Despite the evidence of typos and miss-spellings, this award is not related to Pot or your most recent post. Think of it as a Lifetime Achievement Award. This is not a unitary award. You are just a charter member of an exclusive club. You and Pete can both display it. You should then go forth and make it a lot less exclusive.

Everybody Else - Because I spent too much time messing around with this crap (I blame QofDys), the Carnival of Divided Government, originally scheduled for today, will be delayed a couple of days.

Pete Abel said...

OK -- code works. But now I'm a little confused by the title of the award. "Pissant Provocateur makes perfect sense to me, as does the desire to recognize others that fit that description. I'm good with all that. What confuses me is the "Partisan Reflection on a" part of the title.

First, should it be "Reflection" or "Reflections"? In text you pluraled the term, in the award you singularized it.

Second, does the title suggest we're reflecting "on" the award itself? Would "reflection(s) of" be more appropriate.

Finally, why not just call it the "Pissant Provocateur Award" or the "Pissant Partisan Provocateur Award" ... deleting the reflection part altogether?

(By this point, MW, if I were you, I'd rescind the award for Central Sanity. But you're clearly more level-headed than I am ... I hope.)

mw said...

Oh.

I forgot.

You are a lawyer.

I am going to have to think about this for a little while.

mw said...

Okay Counselor. I've prepared my testimony.

The Official Name of the Award is the:
Partisan Reflection on a Pissant Provocateur award.
Think of it as partisan blogger acknowledging the same in a fellow partisan blogger.

The title of the blog post is plural, because it is referring to the initial five recipients of the award.

As the name is admittedly unwieldy, many of the recipients refer to it by the more informal "Pissant Provocateur Award", "Pissant Partisan Provocateur Award", or just "The Pissy."

The reason why "Reflection" is in the name is because I started with the Reflection Award, and my limited photo editing skills mandated that the word stay in the name, so I worked around it.

Here is my real suggestion for you. Write a post expressing your righteous indignation at my blatant link-whoring and refuse the award as a matter of principle. Then announce a new award that looks exactly the same except it has your logo/picture pasted on it, and all the links stripped out and replaced with links to your blog. With great fanfare present the new award to five bloggers you like.

If everybody offered unique blog specific awards and links only to blogs they like, links would again be used primarily to link related and relevant content.

And us link-whores would have less competition and an easier time of it.

mw said...

QoDys,
Not at all. I like comments. It feeds my delusion that there are people out there that actually read this stuff.

Yeah, Jocelyn... What can you say? She was raised the way her parents wanted her to be raised. She is obviously intelligent, focused and creative, and she is at an age where she'll begin making her own decisions on how to live her life and what to believe, as opposed to what she has been told. I wish her well and I wish her happiness. I hope she chooses a path that permits her to use her intellect and her gifts.

Celestial Earth Woman said...

Hi, I am the creator of the Blogger Reflection Award. I see you used my copyrighted picture for your award icon, and I would like it to be removed as *your award* icon and from your site. If you would like someone else to make you your own icon, copyrighted, my friend at ericnovak.com makes them for $10.

And, as for "obviously intelligent, focused and creative, and she is at an age where she'll begin making her own decisions on how to live her life and what to believe." - well, yes, of course I am. I have parents who have kept me at home where I belong.

Sincerely,
Miss Jocelyn Dixon
http://homeschoolblogger.com/Jocelyndixon/

mw said...

Hi Jacque/Jocelyn,
Nice to meet you. I was "tagged" with the image in question per the instructions from your blog, where you specifically instruct others to post that image on their blogs. So, I will continue to display it as are many others. The "Pissant Reflection award" is a small part of the content of my post where I am making a satirical commentary on your (and everyone elses) blog Award/Meme/Tags. As such I am well within my rights under the "fair use" provisions of copyright law to use that modified image.

That said, I think you are a good kid (assuming you actually wrote this). It is not my intent to upset you, and I have no intention of getting into a disagreement with you over this. I am just not inclined to argue with a 16 year old girl. So, out of respect for your feelings, I have changed the background image of my satirical award, as you requested. There is not one pixel from your "reflections award" image in the "Pissant award" now.

One last bit of advice. If you don't want your images or words to be "quoted" by those who do not believe as you, then you should not put them on a public blog.

I wish you well, and a happy and fulfilling life.

Chuck Butcher said...

After Pete Martin tagged me I decided to see just exactly how insulted I should be...well...in the spirit of pissantness and in recognition of Pissantitudeness Par Excellance you are 1-5 tagged. I'm not sure my audience will understand that they're to hit you 5x but...what can you expect from people who read me and then follow a link like this?

Jim Martin said...

Pete Martin? Who the hell is that?
Sounds like Pete Abel's scariest nightmare.

mw said...

That is just great Chuck. Look, I am not ungrateful for the recognition of my "Pissantitudeness Par Excellance" - yadda yadda yadda. But, you are taking this meme in a dangerous new direction. As a consequence, I have been forced to update this over-long post YET AGAIN, specifically to add the Chuck Bucher Rule. It is fixed now, but lets not have any more screw-ups. You have a job to do. Just get back to your blog, and follow the friggin' rules. THANK YOU.

mw said...

Jim or Pete or Martin or whatever your name is...

You know - I never really trusted people with two first names. Anyway, I cannot tolerate any inaccuracies in this blog, and since I can't edit Chuck's post, I wonder if you or Pete would mind legally changing your name to "Pete Martin." this is important to me in order to maintain the integrity of the award, post, and blog. Thanks.

Pete Abel said...

I'm game if Jim is.

:-)

repsac3 said...

All I know is it's my first time here, and it's all due to somebody (I can't even recall who just now, but it's probably one of the folks in this stream) having a big ol' pissyfit on their blog...

Once I can breath again from laughing so hard as a result of reading this whole thing (post & comments all), perhaps I'll make it my life's... ...erb... ...next hour or so's work to visit every pissy recipient I can locate, just because.

I hope you're satisfied with yourself...

And the magic word is: zklmj jxfullge

Jim Martin said...

You know, I think that since Pete and I are so much alike, it could be doable.
I'm not too crazy about the name Pete even though it is the perfect name for a pissant.

mw said...

Oh God. She's back.

Hi Steph,
Lets just not go there - about this whole meme thing that YOU ARE 100% RESPONSIBLE FOR! Look I have a serious blog here, I have a country and party to save. My Divided Government Carnival is a week late because this post has taken over my blog and my life. I've got to move on.

All kidding aside, I'm glad you are back. I never really finished my thoughts on your blog about the whole Boomer/Gen-X/Gen-Y business. As I recall, we left off after I explained how our current project is to drive the value of all retirement/vacation property far beyond the means of your generation. Then, we are working on expensive life extension therapies that we are going make your generation pay for with "Health Care Reform" [snicker]. The combination of the therapy and crushing financial burden on Gen-x will pretty much guarantee that we will completely outlive Gen-x. Thats a given. I forgot to mention where we go from there. There is some very interesting neurological transplant research that we are funding with your tax dollars being diverted from stem cell research. Looks like just about the time that Gen-x is dying out, we will be able to transplant our brains into Gen-Y or Gen-Z. Ah - to have a young strong body again. So ... I was wondering...

How old are your kids?

mw said...

Martin, Pete, Jim, Abel,
You guys are just going to have to sort yourself out. I can't help you.

Repsac,
Welcome to the blog. Now go away. I have enough problems with thinking aliens, I don't need magic words.

All,
I've decided to walk down the hill, stand next to McCovey cove, and grab Barry's 756th when it bounces off of some kayakers head. Since I am afraid to turn off moderation on comments, things may look a little dark here. I'm not ignoring you, just working on my retirement plan.

NOTE:I may or may not do a little live blogging on my mobile blog while there. Its my other blog which you can find by clicking on the profile.

mw said...

Yeah - great park, terrible name. Not as good as Wrigley Field, but nothing is. The ball did not leave the park, but it was quite a scene and fun to be there.

I like you Steph. I may have some connections with the Boomer "Final Solution" Planning Committee. I think I can get an exception for you and yours, as long as you keep a low profile. No promises. You can keep the tax deduction though.

Just to drag this dying thread back to politics before it expires. There is a reason why Barack cannot be elected president this cycle. The Boomers are not ready to pass the baton. Somehow Clinton/Bush is just not a satisfactory legacy for Boomer leadership. We need another chance.

Anonymous said...

I have no idea who you are, but I recently received your prestigious award via so and so who got it from what's there name and so on and so forth.

Apparently your award has spread across the "blahgosphere" like HPV.

I just wanted to say,

Gee Fucking Thanks!

At last my anti-social ranting has paid off!

I think in the future to make memes more egalitarian, the progenitor should link to the recipients of said award/meme/incurable virus.

Can I get a whoop, Whoop?!!

mw said...

Mr. Fairlane, or can I call your Ford?,

Yes I've noticed that both my technorati rank and TTLB Ecosystem status has been increasing since this post. If you've read it, you can appreciate that no one was more surprised than me that anyone would actually forward this thing, but the worms are well out of the can at this point. That said, I am running far behind the pace needed to achieve my stated objective of one billion links by Labor Day. We may need to step up the game a bit. You can help. Since you have not forwarded the award yet, please adjust the rules to now forward the award to 10-20 other bloggers, and include at least one each in Inda and China. Don't forget the part about linking back to this post. That may help get to my goal.

Yes, I have been considering keeping a running blogroll of award recipients. It does seem fair. You may note that I have indeed updated this post with links and quotes back to some of the early honorees. The primary consideration right now, is whether I am motivated to do so. Complaining bitterly about receiving the award, yet forwarding it anyway will almost certainly compel me to update this post yet again in some unspecified future time frame.

Thanks for stopping by and updating us on the progression of the disease.

Anonymous said...

I had to return because I forgot the "updated" rules.

Your suggestion to hit India and China is brilliant.

I'll attach with the link a promise to send a bag of rice to everyone that responds.

Adieu

Anonymous said...

some bonehead named fairlane tagged me with this award. i had a wonderfully irresponsible time this morning preparing to flame fairlane for calling me a pissant and then researching this whole award thing. i took the original rules very seriously, so i hope that means i have successfully linked to you enough. it was at least 4 times. theoretically, if each one of my visitors clicks all 4 links to you, you'll have somewhere around 20 more visitors! w00t!

about these amended rules, though: i'm just a small-time pissant blogger/cynic. i'm not sure i know 10-20 other bloggers who are deserving of this award, but i'll try. i suppose my own wonderfully incredible technorati rating of considerably less than triple digits will be duly improved along with yours, right?

but seriously, this is a fun thing, and thanks for putting it out there.

mw said...

"i suppose my own wonderfully incredible technorati rating of considerably less than triple digits will be duly improved along with yours, right?" - commander

Well... Actually no. Although I will throw you a blogroll bone.

I think I explained quite clearly in the post (and at least twice in this comment thread) that the way to play this scam is to self-righteously denounce the award and the link-whore blogger that created it (moi), then create your own award, change all the links to yourself, and send it on. You know, pretty much exactly what I did. But people seem to like getting "Pissed" (UK definition), and for reasons that pass all understanding this thing continues to propagate. I can't explain it. However, I am knocking on the triple digit technorati rank door.