Award Season is Here

Blogger awards. When I was first introduced to them I thought there was some secret panel of judges, similar to the Miss America pageant I suppose, or maybe the panel that chooses Nobel winners. The thought of winning an award was akin to fortune, fame, and of course, critical notoriety. Yes, once you’ve won a blogger award you can quit your day job and rest on your laurels.

I would like to think Deborah Walker - who awarded me the One Lovely Blog Award early in March. If she realized how lame I was then I doubt she would have bestowed it. But no take backs are allowed.

Her's was the award that led me down the rabbit hole of discovery and I slowly found out that it didn’t exactly work the way I thought. So what happened? The awards started rolling in. I’m glad there isn’t an inconsiderate blogger award, or I’d have already hit the max bandwidth allowed by blogger with the hordes rushing to give me that one. As it stands though, I’m reminded of the episode of Psych where Shaun says something along the lines of, “Any club that would allow me to become a member, I want no part of, for allowing a man of my caliber in shows their subpar standards. Any person that voted to accept me I would expel, for their lack of good taste.”

A lot of wisdom there. However, I won’t punish others for taking pity on me, so I’ll partake with good grace. And do my best to act like I belong before I’m exposed as a fraud.

I should also thank Zan Marie, who gave me the Stylish Blogger Award AND a Lovely Blogger Award. 

By the time I got these, I discovered that with the awards, there comes responsibility. I believe part of the rules of winning are to mention some things about myself that others may not know. Seven to be exact, so here goes.

·         At 200 pounds, I’m still wearing the same clothes I had when my weight was 155 a few years ago. I don’t wear sweat pants to work, I wear normal people clothes. It’s a mystery to me how they can stretch so far.

·         I was in a semi-famous band as a bass player. Only for a week, and it was before they got big. I pouted about not playing the guitar and was kindly showed the door. If I knew they would have gotten bigger I may have sucked it up and actually learned the songs.  Turns out no one wanted to hear a four minute bass solo in every song. But name even one 80’s era power ballad that wouldn’t have sounded better with a Seinfeld-esque bass line that changed with every rendition. Weird that no one seemed to enjoy that.

·          I was once arrested in a foreign country for some minor passport violation. I spent a few days restricted to my Hotel with a machine gun wielding military guy as a guard. A carry over from Soviet era paranoia I think.

·         My four year old (at the time) niece and I once had an incident on the White House lawn, involving her Teddy bear and several antsy, gun wielding uniformed persons. Post 9/11 paranoia I think.

·         The Van Damn type of Karate works much better in the movies than in real life… trust me on this, I know from experience.

·         A continuation from the previous point above – it’s surprising how well one can function with two broken arms.

·         The myth that you only use 10 – 20% of your brain is just that, a myth. But, I’m pretty sure I spend 80 – 90% of my brain power thinking how I would spend my time if I was forced to repeat the same day over and over again like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day.

Of course, an enterprising blogger, Rogue Mutt, awarded me with the inaugural Your Blog Doesn't Suck Award. I believe this one was awarded as part of a larger social experiment, and has a slightly different criteria. I must answer only these three questions. 



Favorite Condiment? Salsa


Favorite 80's Song? "Still of the Night" by Whitesnake


Which Simpson's Character Do I Most Identify With? Milhouse, because he once said, "Hey, I'm not a nerd!..." then he looked at the ground dejectedly, "Nerds are smart."

And finally, Andrew Leon handed to me The Versatile Blogger Award just this past week. I think it also asked for some facts about myself, which I shared above. I have just discovered his blog, and I think it goes hand in hand with the release of his new book. So please go and check out his site. 

Now, here comes the part where I break the rules. I'm not passing along this award to 5 folks, or 15... I'm going to pass all these along to one very lucky recipient. Not because I'm stingy, or mean, selfish, any of those things. 


I'm just lazy.


But I'm not going to inform the winner that they've won. They'll have to stumble upon this on their own. Then I will task them with passing along their winnings to others. I don't want to dishonor the hard work of others that were thoughtful enough to think of me. I just have a hard time following the rules.


The winner?


A Beer for the Shower. Why them? Look, I'm not one of those people who likes to say things like, "I was listening to that band way before they got popular" That sort of stuff annoys me. However, if you look very carefully, I think you will see that I was their very first follower. That's right, I was reading them all the way back before anyone  knew who they were. 


So, there you have it. I hope you all have a great weekend.