People are so touchy these days!

One of the classic strategies of the no-holds barred comic blogger is subversion. This is right after "flatulence humour" and just before "sexual euphemisms."

Thus, I've been taking my mild disappointment (but not surprise) at our site's failing to get nominated for a 2006 Weblog Awards and channeling it into a message board thread associated with the site. Why? Boredom, my own personal amusement, the amusement of like-minded people exploring the site, and most of all "the classic strategy of comic bloggers - subversion," but I'm repeating myself, of course. Admittedly, it's a diversion and not my best work, but it has been an interesting exercise in much the same way as throwing poker chips into a pack of squirrels at the park is interesting. Most of them don't know what to do with them, but they rush for them anyway, thinking they just might be food.

I think my favourite response was the person who referred to me as a "pompous, whiny douche." I couldn't begin to give such a person enough rope to hang themselves with. I'd pull a muscle trying to unwind the stuff.

What's interesting is that, while I am somewhat disappointed at the majority of the nominations, that the assumption is that I'm complaining solely on the grounds that we didn't get nominated, even though I only alluded to that once at the beginning - which should be quite natural anyway, given that most people like some recognition. Actually, apart from posting for the fun of it, I was complaining somewhat (once, on the thread I think) that the humour blogs weren't for the most part actual dedicated humour blogs (which, BTW, has nothing to do regarding the individual quality of the blogs in question). Considering that the "Best Religious Blogs" category was pulled for that very same reason, it's quite alarming to us dedicated humour bloggers.

I for one would be happy to be beaten senseless in an awards programme by a collection of really funny, well-written, well-designed blogs (and there are a couple in the list that I've mentioned that fit the description, regardless of your political point of view).

Apparently though there is a political divide, at least according to someone at the Bloggies, who suggested once that the Weblog Awards were founded to present a conservative alternative to the Bloggies.

[WARNING! WARNING! - Serious quotient too high!]

(Oops! The humour meter's been set off.) Erm...The sense I've come away with is that there is a great deal of inbrededness to the blogosphere, and that much of it is political. It's a bit like the Iraq Study Group:

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Congressman #1 (R): Mr. President, we need to study the Iraq situation.

President Bush: That's a good idea Congressman #1. Who can we get to form the study group? We need some people who know Iraq, who've studied the Middle East. We need people who know military tactics and strategy. We need intelligence experts, who can get to the details of why we're unable to get better information on the insurgents...

Congressman #2 (D): Actually, Mr. President, we were thinking we should tab a bunch of ex-Congressmen and executive officials to do the job, as all those other people have day jobs. Plus, the people we have in mind really enjoy being on television...A lot!

Congressman #1 (R): And it would be BI-PARTISAN!!!

President Bush: Well, that certainly sounds like an impressive word. You people get on that, so I can ignore it later and make you all look like asshats*.

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Well, perhaps the Weblog Awards aren't quite like that. There are some rather nice people there working hard to recognise some interesting blogs (despite one or two of them being rather a touch sensitive). Just don't let on to that on the message board...

[WARNING! WARNING!...]

Stew, how do I turn off this bloody thing!

*The word "asshat" is brought to you in part by the people at FARK