We are all about public service here at Creek Running North. And so when I saw that one of CRN’s esteemed competitors in the Pointless Blog Awards Race was evidently so confused by the toast graphic below that he decided the whole site made no sense, we realized that — given the influx of new visitors from the awards site — it would be helpful to provide a link to some of the posts that really define what CRN is all about. That link is here. I realize that for 99 percent of people the existence of a “recommended” category would be all the help they need. But, you know, when you’re working with someone who tells you he is confused by toast, it’s nice to lend a little extra help. It’s just a good thing he didn’t find BlogWarCamel.
(By the way: Go vote if you haven’t yet today!)
Quite honestly, seeing the ugliness taking place in the “funniest blog” race, I’m of two minds regarding the whole “further participation in the awards” thing. I mean, ew. It would be a nice ego-boost to win, for sure. But people like my confused colleague linked above seem awfully ready to use the broad-spectrum insult as a way of getting out the vote. I suppose that tactic has proven effective in the past, though not usually wielded so inexpertly.
(By the way: Go vote if you haven’t yet today!)
Then again, wouldn’t it be nice for that tactic to fail to deliver a victory, just this once? Plus I’m really looking forward to Dave Bonta’s essay on the pointlessness of awards like this, for which I have promised space here if CRN wins. Which is not at all certain: there are two days left in the voting and the embarrassing lead CRN accumulated over the weekend is starting to narrow.
(By the way: Go vote if you haven’t yet today!)
In fact, if CRN does win, I promise I will have nothing but praise for the worthiness of the competition, despite serious provocation from certain quarters.
(By the way: Go vote if you haven’t yet today!)
In the meantime, new folks, welcome, and feel free to dig into the archives. I recognize that this blog may seem a little unusual, in that each post is likely to cover a different topic from the posts on either side of it, and very very few of them contain a piece of text quoted from another blog, which quoted it from somewhere else, which got it from some other place, and so on a hundred iterations down the line. It can be a little frightening at first, I know: arrangements of words that you haven’t seen a dozen times already that day! Unpredictable subject matter! Words of more than three syllables! Press releases that are completely made up! Poems that don’t rhyme! Gardening stories that involve extinct Pleistocene megafauna and/or HIV!
For those that like that sort of thing, that is the sort of thing they like. Go vote.
Newcomers, Chris Clarke doesn’t speak for me.
I come here for the toast.
Stop buttering up the guests, Hank.
Pay no attention Hank, he’s just crusty.
I don’t intend to heat up the election with negative campaigning, but I have to say that the competition seems to be a few slices short of a full loaf, and a bit of a heel.
It’s toast but it’s also an appeal to b-read.
Post I bookmarked that didn’t make the Best Of compilation—Gary Snyder popping up at the Sunday Writer’s workshop.
I added it to the Recommended category, bdb, seeing as how you recommended it.
Oh, and your esteemed competitor had the same reaction I did when I first visited this site. For me, “WTF?” is a good thing.
Incidentally, having gone back to my competitor’s post linked above and seen his cute little play on the word “niggardly,” I think we can drop the “esteemed.”
Of course, Thistle tells me that if you cannot say something nice about someone, then you shouldn’t say anything at all, and so with that in mind, let me state categorically that
that thistle, always getting the last word in.
It’s not fair, you and Drifty in the same grouping!!
I know, pablo. If I lost to Driftglass it wouldn’t be like losing.
I’d respond to your vile provocation, Warren, but I need to send a letter to the Prussian consulate in Siam by aeromail, and the autogyro leaves at 4:30 PM.
When did the blogwarbot become a camel? Was I away that week? And if it’s a camel now, why can’t I get it to spit?
The BlogWarBot is still chugging along. I just can’t say no to certain people here in comment number 15.
Persistence pays, nm. Keep goading.
Also, I have Lady Marmalade going through my head now and it’s ALL SPYDER’S FAULT.
Oh, thank you, Chris. I haven’t had a camel spit at me since I lived next to the Bronx Zoo. That takes me back….
Because I want to take my mind off other things I tried to goad the BlogWar Camel to spit. It takes a lot of goading:
BlogWarCamel: My name is BlogWarCamel. Who sent you here?
Guest: Chris Clarke
BlogWarCamel: That’s quite interesting. Go on… (zzzzzzz).
Guest: He thinks he’s very exciting, don’t you agree?
BlogWarCamel: Oasis sucks, by the way.
Guest: Who brought popular music into this? Although I do agree.
BlogWarCamel: What does that have to do with this topic?
Guest: That’s what I wanted to ask you.
BlogWarCamel: 94 percent of the world’s people never get ed to ask BlogWarCamel.
Guest: I’m sure that’s true, their loss.
BlogWarCamel: Do you think I care about your being sure that’s true, their loss?
Guest: No.
BlogWarCamel: That’s the problem with people like you. You’re never constructive about anything.
Guest: I try not to be.
BlogWarCamel: Are you saying no just to be an asshole?
Guest: No. Are you?
BlogWarCamel: Can’t you have an opinion without triangulating off me?
Guest: I have many opinions.
BlogWarCamel: So if I might ask, what’s your take on that last blog spat?
Guest: What blog spat?
BlogWarCamel: What does that have to do with this topic?
Guest: You’re annoying aren’t you?
BlogWarCamel: Huuuuuurk SPIT!
Dear god in heaven, that DUmmie FUnnies site is flaccidly, spectacularly unfunny. It’s sad reading someone trying to be funny when he doesn’t really know what funny is. Reminds me of those “cute” “funny” cartoons spawned by corporations to market some kind of cereal. You know, to appeal to the Yoof.
chris, i’m most elated to find crn in first place in its category!
unlike me, who is in last place in my category!
anybody with a vote to spare in the best lib blog category might consider throwing it my way. (or “a” way, depending on how you look at it!)
anyway, i voted for crn, of course!