G'Day Mate MkII

Merry Christmas

To you and yours, wishing you a very Merry Christmas. Thank you all for your contributions this year.

Christmas Jokes

Last year there was a marathon posting session with a joke every half hour on Christmas Eve. This annoyed some readers because they had to keep coming back to see the next joke (suggesting that they come back the next day and read all of the jokes did not go down well). This year, there may be a few extra jokes but I figured that it might be better to post an index of all the jokes from last year (which are still available in the archives). These links will open in a new window.

Loosely sorted by title* we have:

Beery Christmas
Christmas Diet
Christmas Email
Christmas Grinch Test
Christmas Letters (12 Days)
Christmas Parrot
Christmas Riddles I
Christmas Riddles II
Christmas Riddles III
Christmas Riddles IV
Christmas Symbols
Christmas Trolls
Do Threats Work?
Downsizing Christmas
Gifts For Men
How To Confuse Santa
Immaculate Conception
Is Santa a Woman? (Part 1)
Is Santa a Woman? (Part 2)
Legal Greetings
Microsoft buys Christmas
Office Memo
Optimist vs Pessimist
PC Santa
Perfect Couple, The
Post Party Apology
Psych Christmas
Reindeer Facts
Rudolph the Weatherman
Santa: Flight Exam
Santa: Meets Plane
Santa: Scientific Santa
Three Wise (Fire) Men
Top 10 Gift Responses
Totally Addicted to My Blog
Traditions: The Angel
Twas the Fight Before Christmas
Twas the Night After Christmas
Twas the Night Before Christmas (Academic Version)
Twas the Night Before Christmas (Brooklyn Version)
Twas the Night Before Christmas (Internet Version)
Twas the Night Before Christmas (Legal Version)
Twas the Night Before Christmas (Parents Version)
Twas the Night Before Solstice (PC Version)
Twas the Week Before Christmas
Twelve Days (90's Style)
Union Clause
University vs Santa
Unix Admins vs Santa
You know you've had too much when...

I finished the joke posting last year with a joke that is more thought provoking than it is funny:
Jesus vs Santa

[* In some cases, I have adjusted the title to match the story in the entry.]

Half-Blood Prince

According to the SMH:

Author J.K. Rowling has announced that she has completed the sixth Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. "I know you all expected this to happen on Christmas Day, but I was sure that those of you who celebrate Christmas have better things to do on the day itself than fight your way into my study, whereas those of you who DON'T celebrate Christmas would definitely prefer not to wait until the 25th," the British author wrote in a message posted yesterday on her Web site. ... Rowling's US publisher, Scholastic Inc., said a release date would be announced on Tuesday morning. With the new Potter book almost certain to come out in 2005, fans should be spared the seemingly interminable three-year wait between Potter IV, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, and Potter V, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which came out in the summer of 2003. ... Rowling has said that one of her characters will not survive her sixth book, but she refused to identify that character.

In a coup for the internet and blogging in general I can reveal two bits of juicy information. Firstly the character who is kill is not Harry Potter (at least not in this book). The second juicy bit of information is that the early completion is actually because Ms. Rowling is worried about a rival publication which has just been sent for final review. The author of the rival series, a modest man, outlines the premise behind the series:

Three days before Alura's 17th birthday, the strange death of her grandfather cascades into a wild adventure that forever alters the universe.

Sounds more interesting than a school for underage wizards...

Weblog Awards (Final)

I guess everyone is aware that the 2004 Weblog Awards are over. You can find a list of the winners here. By looking through the category sections, you may also find the finalists (including me). There were, in the end, more than 366,000 votes (more than three times my annual visitor turnout :-) ). It would not have been possible without all the work done by Kev.

I am thinking of running an anniversary (February 2005) blog poll here - it would be a bake-off competition between random pairings on the blog-roll. Whaddya reckon?

Letters to the Editor

I am not sure how many people actually read the comments below the polls but as a minor assistant in the process I do read them and what worries me is that some of these people vote in real elections...

Let me take one heavily edited example to show you what I mean:

What moron picked these blogs. None of them are worth anything. You ignored BlogX and BlogY (not to mention my personal blog which is the best in the world). In fact this is the lamest representation of CategoryX blogs I've ever seen. Not a single one is worth reading and there are so many great blogs in this category that are not listed.

This was not an individual complaint, it was made by collecting a few complaints together but you can understand the general thrust of the argument.

Well I helped with four categories. In each case the starting point was the nomination list. Some of the nominations were obvious (they included links), some were not (Google search required). Some blogs got nominated lots of times but didn't actually fit the category. Some websites got listed that didn't (on inspection) apepar to even be blogs. OK, you work through it and you end up with maybe 40 sites (after elimination). Now you need to try and add a little balance - say you get all right wing sites or maybe all from one country. To leaven the mixture you check out one of the blog aggregators that does regional lists (like Globe of Blogs. If it was relevant, check who was in this category last year. Finally use a webring or local site listing. If you can't find one, use the blogs highest on the ecosystem in the list youy have and check their blogrolls. Now you should have about 60 sites (or thereabouts). Check them all. Eliminate ones that appear to be dead (e.g. they have a farewell message, you can't resolve the site name, 404 error). Maybe 45 in the list. Try to achieve some balance - if the majority of the blogs are say left-handed, overweight, white males who can't spell - eliminate some (at random if necessary). I tried here to be very careful about my own bias. The fact that I don't like author T or disagree with the political opinions of S or the moral stance of R should not be a reason for rejecting them. In most cases this cuts the list to about 30. Now go through them again, if two are very similar in look/feel/approach - drop one (at random if there is no other reason) to provide variety. If some are mainly copies or links while others have more original content - drop them. Keep pruning until you reach twenty. Now try to sort them in a way that makes sense (I tended to use visitors per day) because blogs with more visitors are more likely to get votes. Now you send the list of to Wizbang with those most likely to win at the top.

Wizbang now culls further based on matters like duplicate blogs (although in the end a number of people were checking for that). This final cull is why the submitted lists have 20 names on them - some can be culled and still have 15 for the vote. In some cases Wizbang may add or change things if he feels the balance is not quite there (I know he added a couple of good ones I missed to one list and he rearranged a blog from last spot so that it didn't drop off the list). The lists are circulated around the assistants (see this post for a list of helpers) to check for doubles - we found a lot but we still missed a few - possibly because we are only human :-)

Now let me deal with the specifics of the complaint:

- What moron picked these blogs? - Well actually I am one of the people who picked these blogs (at least in four categories). The other people can be found in the post linked above.

- None of them are worth anything. - That is a pretty brave opinion. Many of the blogs (including my own) are at Mammal level or above - are you really so confident that they are worthless. Maybe not your favourites but somebody must like them.

- You ignored BlogX and BlogY - Did you bother to nominate them? Did you include a link in the nomination or did you expect me to use ESP to discover it. Is the blog registered with a blogring or an blog aggregator. Is it widely linked among it's peers. Is it obvious from reading the front page that it fits into the category.*

- Not a single one is worth reading - fine. Don't read them. With any luck they won't read you either. No worries. Oh, and don't vote for them while you are at it because that would be accepting that you might be wrong.

- there are so many great blogs in this category that are not listed - Absolutely. This is the first true and honest comment in the complaint. There are two options open to you - whinge and complain about it OR do something next year - nominate the great blogs, help to organise things (and give up 10 - 20 hours of your life to do a category), even better - start your own blog contest where you make the rules.

The idea of the Blog Awards is that they are supposed to be fun. I got nominated out of the blue last year and came second so this year I volunteered to help out. I happen to be in the listing again this year but I am up against some seriously heavy characters - so what - it doesn't mean the difference between life and death. It is a chance to get out and read some blogs you haven't read before. You might like them, you might hate them but at least you know more blogs than you did before. Could come in handy next year because here is the deal - you do the work, you can complain. You don't do the work then, in the immortal words of Joe Dolce: Ah, shaddap you face!.

[* This is my favourite peeve - take BlogW for example. Someone has complained that it should have been included in RegionX. When I look at BlogW there is absolutely nothing to tell me that the author lives in RegionX or was born in RegionX or writes about RegionX. In fact the blog seems to consist of regurgitated newspaper and blog articles and stuff about the US election. The URL is .com, the email address is a gmail.com one - just how in the h*ll am I supposed to know this belongs in RegionX?]

Weblog Awards 2004

It is that time again - time to vote...

Conservatives: You want to get a good result again don't you - feels good to support a winner - well this is you chance to go and vote on the winning side again ...

Liberals: You might not have won the last election but you could try winning this one instead ...

There are only two things to keep in mind. Firstly, you are not supposed to cheat (well you aren't supposed to cheat in presidential elections either) and if you get caught your ip will be banned and then you won't know who won :-) Secondly, the results will only last for a year which means you don't have to wait four years to do it again :-)

In case you have no idea who to vote for, I thought I'd tell you my choices*. That way if you are too lazy to choose your own but motivated enough to click on a few links then you can make a difference :-)

Best Overall Blog - Wizbang (of course)

Best Group Blog - Command Post because of A.E. Brain

Best Humour Blog - Hog On Ice

Best Sport Blog - this guy (because he asked me nicely)

Best Online Community - Munuviana (for very obvious reasons)

Best Essayist - USS Clueless

Best Canadian Blog - All AgitProp - one of my earliest blog friends

Best Asian Blog - Simon World - an Aussie living in Hong Kong

Best Aussie Blog - Ambient Irony, DramaQueen or me.

Best of the Top: 250 - 500 - On the Third Hand

Now if I have missed any regulars from the blogroll - let me know and I'll update this list :-) You may also notice that there are a lot of blanks where I didn't have a preferred choice. Given that I will be voting once every 24 hours (as allowed by the rules) I am happy to trade votes with you if your blog is in one of the other categories. Leave your details in the comments and I'll trust you to fill any blanks in your voting list from the list above. First come, first served... (with the exception of blogroll people that I may have accidentally overlooked).

Stop the presses: There is a detailed How to Vote guide for munuvians ...

[* If the category is not listed it means I don't know who to vote for yet...]