Archive for the 'Awards' Category

Thoughts on awards

March 20th, 2011

That’s the Irish Thingy Awards over.

When I say ‘over’, I mean just that.  It is a possibility, nay a probability that they won’t be held again.  Damien who has organised the Awards for the last six years is retiring.  He has announced this before, but I have a feeling in my waters that he means it this time.

Needless to say, I was robbed of my gong by that upstart Manuel, and I suppose I should pass on my grudging congratulations.  If I am to be denied what is rightfully mine, the he would be my choice of usurper.

The Awards this year were a bit of a catastrophe, as Beaut.ie weren’t in the running.  I was disgusted to learn this as one of the long standing traditions of the Awards is to rip the piss out of them after.  I have no one to slag off now.  I could pick a site at random, but somehow it isn’t the same.  It’s like Easter without an egg or Christmas without a bottle of whiskey.

I deliberately didn’t nominate myself this year.  I thought I would sit this one out and watch from the side-lines, but that wasn’t to be.  Somehow my name got into the hat but I knew I wouldn’t win.  You see, the votes are rigged.  They have to be, as if they weren’t I would win in every category every year.  That would be disheartening for all the others so they deliberately disbar me.  I don’t mind.  Not in the least.

Congratulations again, Manuel.

And I hope you have eyes in the back of your head.

You’ll need ‘em.

Ya little sleeveen, ya. 

Irish Thingy Awards strikes back

March 8th, 2011

I received an email this morning.

There is nothing unusual there.  I receive dozens of emails, offering me everything from Viagra to Russian brides [I usually order both.  Don’t need the Viagra but one can’t be too careful with those Russian women].  This email however was from the Irish Thingy Awards.

It told me I had been shortlisted in two categories.  [I knew that]

It told me I could only be  shortlisted in one category.  [I knew that too]

It told me that I had to decide which category to enter under.

Fuck!

I don’t know.

Is this a Personal Site or is it a Humour Site?  What differentiates a Personal Site from a Humour Site?  If it were a Personal Site, I would expect it to be all about me.  It isn’t.  If it were a Humour Site I would expect to laugh when I read it.  I don’t.

I’ll tell you what I’ll do…..

I’ll let you lot decide.

Personal or Humour?

?

That way I can blame you lot when I don’t win.

Hah!

Irish Thingy Awards

March 1st, 2011

I see the list of finalists for the Irish Blog Awards is up.

Through some strange quirk, I seem to be on the short lists.  I confess to being a tad flattered and a tad embarrassed.  You  see, I made a point of not nominating myself this year, so at least one misguided soul must have nominated me, for which I thank you.

One of the results of being short-listed is that I get quite a few visitors wandering in from the Awards site.  If you are one of those, then you are more than welcome.  If you haven’t visited before, then maybe a few ground rules should be explained?

For a start, this is a smoking area, as distinct from a no-smoking area, so if you are in a pub, or in your office, or indeed doing over eighty on the M1, then feel free to light up.  If anyone complains, just tell ‘em to fuck off, and that I said you could smoke.

And that brings me to my second ground rule…. language.  There has been a minor kerfuffle over Melissa Leo swearing on stage so it is important to understand that I am fussy about language on this site also.  Any fucker who swans in thinking he can swear all over the shop had better fucking think again. 

If you want to know who I am, then you had better ask someone else, as I’m not too sure myself.  The old memory isn’t as good as it used to be.  If you want to know what the site is about, then I’m afraid the only way is to read it.  There are only 1757 ramblings so  it shouldn’t take too long.  If you find the answer, then could you please let me know too?

Another drop of fall-out from being shortlisted is that I get to schlop another ink-blot on the side of the site.   Just to make sure they all matched each other, I had to redraw the images which was a bit of a hassle, but one must suffer for one’s art, I suppose.

One final note, if you are a new visitor – I fucking hate that word ‘Blog’.

I would much prefer an alternative name such as ‘On Line Diary’, or OLD for short.

I could relate to that.

And the winner is

February 6th, 2011

I see it’s time for the annual love-fest.

The Irish Blog Awards have come around again.

They are going all foreign this year and are going up to Belfast.  The Europa Hotel, no less.  The world’s most bombed hotel.  I hope hotel management learned from all that destruction because the awards mob are far more damaging than any bomb.  It’s no coincidence that the acronyms IBA and IRA are so similar.

I imagine it will be a fairly quiet affair this year though, as a shed-load of sites seem to have disappeared over the last twelve months.  I have 170 sites listed in my feed reader and it is scary when I check the inactive sites.  I keep telling myself to prune the dead sites out, but then I am afraid I will have very few left to read.

There are some really weird fucking categories this year.  “Best Outraged Blog Awards Post”?  What the fuck is that?  Maybe they mean “Best Outraged Blog Post Award”?  That doesn’t make much sense either.  Outraged at what?  God knows, there is enough to be outraged about so I can imagine there will be quite a few entries there.

I do wish they would change the name of the event though.  You know how I hate that word ‘blog’ and I refuse to call this site anything other than a site.  They should call it the Irish Awards For The Site That Is Not A Professional Website That Is Updated On A Regular Basis.  I would be more inclined to support the IAFTSTINAPWTIUOARB Awards as I would feel more at home there.

There would also be less chance of confusing them with the IRA

Beauty and the Best

March 28th, 2010

Last night I was not in the best of form.

It may have been a bad pint, or I may just have picked up a bug somewhere but I was a bit achy, with a sore throat and generally felt a bit washed out.  It was not a night for going out, that was for sure.

As usual there was fuck all on television, so in honour of Earth Hour, I left it switched on, but tuned to a blank channel.  I didn’t feel like reading or talking.  Herself had come out in sympathy with me and was complaining of a sore throat too [but of course her throat had to be worse than mine], so the silence was mutual, and punctuated with the occasional moan from Herself.

I switched the laptop on, and put it on the table beside me.  I had the Twitter thingy running so I could see what was going on.

For the laugh, I first tuned into Earth Hour to see if anyone was saying anything about it.

There were quite a few people prattling on about it, and the level of intelligence displayed was about on par with a cabinet meeting of our government.  There were actually fuckwits out there saying how amazingly romantic Earth Hour was.  Do these gobshites not realise that it is possible to switch off a light anytime they like?  Do they have to be led like fucking sheep all the time?  I despair of the human race sometimes.

I got bored with that and switched over to the Blog Awards.

I reasoned that with the Blog Awards, I would at least find a modicum of intelligence, and at first I was not disappointed.

Eventually, the awards got underway.  There were a lot of categories, so progress was slow.  I played a wee game with myself, placing bets on the winners.  I really did very well.  I now owe myself over €400, which will come in handy for the holidays.

There were a few winners that truly delighted me.  I gave a wee whoop when Eolai picked up an award for Bicyclistic and gave a loud yell when Xbox4NappyRash also won his category.  There were quite a few other winners that cheered me immensely too, I might add.

The night was ruined for me though.

There is a certain blog that has irritated me for a very long time.  I avoid it like the plague, as I find it insufferably shallow, pink, fluffy, and quite frankly, insulting to women.  If I didn’t know better, I would say it was written by a twelve year old, during detention.  What is worse, it has an enormous following, and the following seems to be as shallow as the site itself, judging by the comments [the last time I looked – I daren’t go in more than once a year for the sake of my sanity].  Are we really breeding a generation of girls whose primary objective in life is to find the right hair conditioner, and who have nightmares about their skin cream?

This site consistently picks up awards.  My argument [with some justification] is that they always win in the one category, which is a corner of the market they just about hold for themselves.  If there were a category for cranky old pensioners, doubtless I would win fairly consistently too?

There is no love lost between us, particularly since the time I beat them to the Best Blog Golden Spider Award back in 2007, which they bitched about for quite some time after.  Heh!

Up until now, I have been quite happy to leave them in their little corner of the Interweb, while I stalk mine.  Fair’s fair.  If they have a readership then someone must like them.

Last night all that changed.

They won Best Blog of 2010!

Best    fucking    BLOG?

BEST?

What in the name of sweet suffering polecats were the judges thinking?  Were they on crack cocaine?  Were the judges all pre-pubescent airhead girls?  What the fuck is going on?

Without thinking too hard [in fact, without thinking at all] I could pick thirty better sites from the finalists.  Actually, I could pick 110 better contenders from the list of finalists [I am not counting my own entry in the interest of fairness].

I am baffled.  There are sites out there that are innovative.  There are sites that are insightful.  There are sites that show intelligence.  There are sites that give hope in a dreary world.  There are sites that are extremely well written.

Yet that wins Best Blog.

Fuck!

Irish Blogging may not be dead, but it needs one hell of a blood transfusion.

-oOo-

The award winners.

and

Bock the Robber

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