The 2006 Blogging Awards

It's nearly the end of the year and I thought I'd come up with my very own awards for the blogs I've been having so much fun reading during 2006. If you're a winner, then congratulations. My decision is final unless I change my mind.

First I present to you the specialist categories:

Best Photo blog (sponsored by Barefoot)

The nominations:

Alefiya Akbarally
Dominic Sansoni
Sebastian Posingis
My halflife: on photography and also cooking

The winner:

Dominic Sansoni

The Judge said: Stunning photography and a mixture of people, places and regular updates makes this colourful photoblog this year's runaway winner.

Best Newcomer

The nominees:

Ephemeral Ruminations
Married with kids

The winner is:

Married with kids.

The judge, jury and hangman said: Indyana only arrived on the scene a few months ago and has made us smile and laugh with her anecdotes on everyday life that every parent can relate to. We like.

Shortest living blog with the longest title

There could only be one candidate for this prestigious award:

Dutch Sri Lankan entrepreneur living in Melbourne whose soul remains in Colombo

I say: It all started so promisingly then, after three nicely written posts, just died. I hope he didn't.

Funniest Post

One nominee, one winner:

The one and only 1truecoolguy with this beauty. Well it cracked me up anyway, the one called "scaring pedestrians".

Best overseas blog

Of course, this is overseas if you live in Sri Lanka. You know, blogs written by people who live outside Sri Lanka. It would have been silly any other way really.

The esteemed and worthy nominees are:

The Life and Times of Mr Selvarajah
Tiny Little Fractures
Lady Luck Speaks
The Darwin Awards

The winner is:

Tiny Little Fractures

I say: A nicely written blog that has a mix of photographic treasures and good words. The only big negative is Cof25's liking for Snow Patrol. Actually I couldn't decide between them but Cof25, who is probably more like Manof38 by now, was one of my very first readers as well as the first person to link to my blog from his. And he's got rid of his beard now too. Unlike Lady Luck and Darwin.

Best regular commenter who doesn't have their own blog

The nominees:

Savi3
Mala
T

The winner:

Mala - Because she's nice. So are the other two actually. Her comments are always carefully thought out and elegantly worded. Get well soon T.

The "Nice blog but I wish you'd write it in proper English" award

Nominees:

Chathuranga
Mr Evil

The winner:

Chathuranga

Guest judge Sylvester Stallone said: "Frankly Mr Evil was just making up the numbers in this category. He uses too many real words and constructs too many proper sentences to be a real contender. I like his blog though, me and my Mum often read it."

Chathuranga can't be with us tonight, as he is on location in a place called "Txtspk" He asked to pass on these words:

"dats wikd guys. wtf did i do 2 win da dam ting? ma bad ass is plsd wid dis. tks n respek ma bitchin frnds"

Best written blog

One of the highly coveted awards, previous winners include George Bernard Shaw, Kylie Mynogue and Borat Sagdiyev. The nominees are:

Cynically yours
Ephemeral Ruminations
The Darwin Awards
Lady Luck Speaks
Indi.ca
Portrait
One One Things

The joint winners are:

Lady Luck Speaks
Portrait


Guest judge Princess Stephanie of Monaco said: "In an unprecedented move we decided to award the title to two blogs this year. They are both eloquently written with nice long sentences and lots of interesting words and concepts. They should both be very proud. Ephemeral Ruminations deserves special mention just for the great title."

The Shitloads of comments whenever they post award

The Nominees:

Indi.ca

Portrait

Nazreen Sansoni

The winner is:

Nazreen Sansoni

There was only ever going to be one winner here. The Queen of the Sri Lankan blogosphere, she can write a seemingly innocent post and get over 50 comments. Statistics have shown that Naz's average comment per post ratio is currently running at 48.63, a commendable figure indeed. On one occasion earlier in July she posted one word by accident and got 81 comments. Indi and Electra are catching up fast but they're just not there yet.

As we conclude the "specialist" section and move on to the main event we ask you to take a moment to remember one of the older and more interesting blogs that sadly passed away this year. One which many looked to as a point of reference and a shining example. Sadly, old age, or just plain "better things to do" got the better of In search of Utopia and it passed away peacefully.

We should also give a thought to Hot Chocolate. It appears to be suffering a terminal illness. There was a brief respite during November but it looks to have relapsed. We hope it can pull through and return to its former glories.

The Big One

Blog of the Year 2006

This is the one that you have all been waiting for. Previous winners include Ranil Wickremasinghe, Gunther from Friends and Dave Grohl. This is the best overall blog and is judged on a combination of literary content, humour, use of images and use of rude words, only in the right fucking context though.

The nominees are:

Lady Luck Speaks
The Darwin Awards
Portrait
Indi.ca
One One Things
The Life and Times of Mr Selvarajah
Nazreen Sansoni

The winner is:

The Darwin Awards

Our guest judge Professor Stephen Hawkins said:

"A few of the nominees fell at the first hurdle because of little, or even no, bad language. Darwin has impressed this year with her humour, her vocabulary and her liberal, though never gratuitous, use of swear words. I was particularly impressed with her post on Britney Spears' vajayjay and now try to use the word whenever possible. She can swear, she can be imaginative and she can be intelligent and write about God and machinery and stuff. I liked her one about cockpunching too."

That concludes this year's awards brought to you from London. If you're one of the winners then an acceptance speech would be nice, just a few paragraphs, preferably with some tears.

A very merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone who has read my blog this year. And to everyone else too!

RD

The 2007 Blogging Awards

About this time last year I put out a little post, with links and humour and stuff, called the 2006 blogging awards. I've decided to do a follow up, again with links but I've left out the humour. You may have guessed all that from the title.

I predict that the post will be long one, I'll ramble on about nothing at times and in all likelihood, unless you're a nominee or a winner, you'll probably lose interest. So here's a link to Kottu and here's another to Achcharu where you can access lots and lots of other Sri Lankan blogs easily.

Everything will be biased, subjective and wholly based around the blogs I like and read. So there. Let's go.

Best Photo Blog

The nominations:

Alefiya Akbarally
Dominic Sansoni
Sebastian Posingis
Pradeep Jeganathan
Naren Gunasekera
Anushka Wijesinha

The winner:

Anushka Wijesinha

I don't know much about the fellow's background nor do I know him personally but I've admired his photography for a while. Whether it's London or Sri Lanka he has an incredible eye for a great picture and a knack for transforming an everyday scene into a gorgeous image. Class. Check out his stuff.

Best Newcomer

The nominations are:

Westcountry Life
Midnight Margaritas
Gallicissa

Four very contrasting blogs with different approaches. Westcountry life tells the story of Bea, her discovery of Sri Lanka and then her return to the UK and release back into society. It's always interesting to see Sri Lanka through the eyes of a Suddha.

Midnight Margaritas, by T, is an eclectric mix of bits and pieces. From music to finely written prose to thought provoking pieces on identity to girly stuff about love and boys, it's all here.

Gallicissa is a blog by a chap called Amila Salgado, a bird watching scrabble player. I use his name because he uses it, so hope he doesn't mind. It's a haven of stories and stunning pictures of Sri Lankan birds, snakes and other creepy crawly things that can be seen in any one of Colombo's 5 star hotel restaurants. I'm no bird watcher but this blog has grabbed my attention by the gonads and I read it with interest and intrigue.

The winner:

Gallicissa. Guest judge Britney Spears said:

"Along with Stephen Fry's blog this is one of the few that I check regularly. I've always been interested in scrabble and Amila's beautiful photographs have inspired several of my videos. Before I went mad and ropey I used to want to sleep with Rhythmic Diaspora"

Best Overseas Blog

Let me explain. I live in the UK but am classing overseas as anything outside Sri Lanka. It's illogical and simple, in a strangely logical way.

The nominations:

Disordered Thoughts
The Darwin Awards
Lady Luck Speaks
Life on Leave

The winner is:

Disordered Thoughts. The well deserved winner is a pot pourri of subjects and views. Not to be confused with a pot noodle, which tastes lovely but is made from rubbish.

Guest Judge Mervyn Silva said:

I lead a quiet and humble life, keeping myself to myself and focussing on acts of kindness. I pay close attention to the people of Canada and those marvellous people at Rupavahini, who I have been bonding with in recent months. Often, after a hard day of charity work I like to go home and read Disordered Thoughts to help me relax. Entrpy thoroughly deserves this award.


Funniest Blog

This award doesn't need a lot of explanation, so I won't give one. The Sri Lankan related blogs that made me laugh heartily are disappointingly low in number but still very funny.

The nominations:

Ravana
Mahinda Rajapakse

The winner is:

Mahinda Rajapakse. The only question I had in deciding this was which site to point the link to, whether it should head in the direction of the mocking comedy site that takes the piss and is so brilliantly written or whether it should have pointed in the direction of the official one that has about as the same amount of humour.

A deserved winner. Ravana came a close second but was let down by his tendency to bung in a serious and thought provoking post every so often. Mr Pres, whoever you really are, please update your blog more regularly.

Funniest Post

There's one nominee and there's one winner. The undisputed champion is this piece of brilliance by Ravana. Written in what, to most, was a clear and blatantly humourous mode, this post has caused outcry and bitch slapping among many Maldivians. Ravana has probably ruled himself out of the running for the post of Sri Lanka's next High Commissioner to the Maldives in the process. Believe me, this post was so funny that it almost made one of the immigration passport checking chaps at BIA break into a smile. Almost.


The shitload of comments whenever they post award

The nominees are:

Indi.ca
A Voice In Colombo

The winner is:

Indi. He's a sort of King of the Sri Lankan blogosphere, he's that geezer what started Kottu and when he speaks, or writes, people read and comment. Like Voice in Colombo he's a man who clearly feels passionately about the things he writes about and is never afraid to say what he thinks. Of course I wouldn't know about the things that they are too afraid to say, because they don't say them.

We're moving on rapidly now and have come to the penultimate award, which is almost the one before the final one. It's the award for the blog that the panel think is the best written blog, it's not so much about content as about flowery and poncey use of language, big words and plenty of nouns and things.

Best Written Blog

The nominations are:

Tiny Little Fascist
The Missing Sandwich
One One Things
Ravana
Poetlost
Ephemeral Ruminations

These blogs have a common thread for me; I read all of them and, at times, I marvel at the writer's use of language. They're ones that make me realise just how much I can work on writing and that going to bed and reading a dictionary isn't so sad after all.

The winner:

Ephemeral Ruminations


Java's blog, known and loved by so many, is always the epitome of good writing and, like a Barefoot sarong, comes in many styles. There are posts which are novelettes, posts which are intellectually stimulating comments on the Sri Lankan political situation and posts that talk about dogs and music. Java is one of those proper writer fellows who can pick a style and write that way. Kind of cool.

The Big One

Blog of the Year 2007

And now, the end is near as we face the final curtain. Previous winners include Darwin and Dave Grohl. To be a nominee your blog has to be well written, it has to demonstrate humour, a nice wide spectrum of content and some choice swear words. Graphics and pictures are useful, but essential is the fact that you must publish regularly. I don't have a firm definition of regularly but these chaps who chuck out a post once a blue moon just don't make the grade.

The esteemed nominees are:

The Darwin Awards
The Missing Sandwich
Indi.ca
Ravana
Ephemeral Ruminations
Cerno

Unsurprisingly all these rather spiffing Sri Lankan blogs have been up for awards already. They're an eclectic mix, from the brazenness and sheer balls of The Darwin Awards to the humour of Ravana. I reckon if I only ever looked at six blogs a week then these ones would cover me, which of course isn't surprising as this is my blog and my awards ceremony.

The winner:

After much thought and deliberation this closely run contest has been won by:

Cerno

It's a blog of infinite variety and Mr Cerno clearly puts a good healthy portion of effort and time into his online presence. There are Google Earth images of places we all know and love, there are entertaining posts with pictures galore about Sri Lankan grafitti, there are stories of Cerno turning into a transvestite. They're told with a mix of seriousness and wit and they keep coming at us, even while the newly married fellow is busy learning all about sex and things. The look of the blog is special too, I haven't seen another blog that looks similar and that's a pleasing change.

Last year's winner, Darwin, had this to say about Cerno

"Congratulations Cerno, in the struggle for the survival of the fittest you have been deemed worthy. So I hand over my darwin award to you, may it serve you well"

And she really did say that, it's not a made up quote like all my others.


That rounds up the awards for 2007. It's been another great year to read Sri Lankan blogs and I thank all those who have brightened up my working day.


Speeches are expected by all the winners of course.



RD

The 2009 Lankanosphere Awards - Ze Big One - Blog Of The Year 2009

It's been a long couple of weeks but thank you for holding on and standing firm, if you have done. We reach the climax, the big one, the title that everyone really wants, whilst pretending that they're pleased for all the other winners.

How does a blog get into the list of nominees for the Blog Of The Year Award? Well, in order to answer that you need to start by putting objectivity aside. It's all about blogs I read, people I like and things that fundamentally make me smile. There's no rhyme or reason, it's really just the blogs I find myself returning to time and time again.

Of course one of the major influences in this is the frequency of posting. Some blogs are fantastic but kick out a superb post every once in a while and then languish lazily in the recesses of Kottu for months before they put out the next. I crave satisfaction on a far more frequent basis than that.

Then there's the question of identity, blog identity, not the whole "is he really a Sri Lankan when he lives overseas and doesn't wear jeans with turn ups?" thing. There are some blogs that change their name, look or address more often than that Anarkali woman. That's all well and good if you are that Anarkali woman but it's not going to win you the Blog Of The Year Award.

No, I like to be able to read archives, to look at history and to not have to hunt for a blog's URL like a rare bird making its first appearance in Sri Lanka for several hundred years, finding that Amila Salgado has gone to the cinema for the afternoon and having to look everywhere for him.

The smiling thing has to happen too. Make me (and the guest judges) smile. It doesn't have to be cracking up with mirth and merriness smiling either. It might be a wry smile, like when I do a fart in my office and I'm the only one aware of it, or it might be a smile with a nod of the head for a bit of intelligent writing that I understand. Rare I know, but it has happened.

If I tell you that the previous winners are such legendary bloggers as Darwin, Cerno and The Missing Sandwich, then you'll have an idea of the high standards involved. So I will tell you. The previous winners are Darwin, Cerno and The Missing Sandwich.

I think that's enough rambling, I can get a bit excited sometimes. This year the nominees are:

1. Cerno - Yes, the winner of the award in 2007 is back and better than ever. Cerno's one of the old school now, but age only makes him better at blogging and giving us interesting things to ponder on. I've never actually met Cerno but, if I ever do, I'll be in awe and probably won't be able to talk properly. This post is proof of his genius. From the layout and look of his blog to the content itself there's something wonderfully imaginative and quirky going on there. He remains one of my heroes.

2. Ephemeral Ruminations - Or Java Jones as we know him. Or, to use Sittingnut's intelligent and eloquent approach, Chickenshit bitch Java Jones. Now I know Java and I can tell you that he's one of life's good guys. He's the sort of fellow who, were I living in that sort of environment, I'd allow to sleep with my girlfriend, assuming she wanted to of course. That's how nice he is. Really. Somewhere in there is a joke about wives and girlfriends, you know that insinuation that a fellow might have both. I'm not going there though, due to some thin ice re my previous statement.

On the blog side his outpourings are that delightfully witty yet slightly nutty with a woody aftertaste recipe that we've all got so used to, like woodapple jam actually. He makes me think does Java, with posts like this when he asks a relatively simple question and posts like this when he gets cleverer than a British MP filling out his expenses which are then going to be checked and authorised by a Sri Lankan one.

3. Life In Taprobane - I plead guilty here. Guilty to never having put a link to this blog up from mine. I don't know why, as I read it avidly, eagerly awaiting a new post like a dog with a bone being dangled just above its mouth. Serendib Isle, the author, is a divorced father of two who lives in Jeddah (I think). He's Sri Lankan and writes a lot about the motherland in that very diasporic way. As a fellow divorced and diasporic Dad I feel a great affinity towards him. This post is one such example where I really could relate to the feelings and thoughts described. Or have a glance at his post about Lebanon for an example of one of those make you think about things type of posts.

4. A Glimpse of Lady Divine's World - Our Lady D was pipped at the post last year in this very same category. How is a chap to describe her and her blog? Well, I hope she takes this in the good and positive way it's intended. She isn't the best writer out there, she doesn't tell the best stories, she's not the funniest nor does she take the best photos. But, put it all together and she's consistently one of everyone's favourite bloggers. She's got the X factor, though I've no idea what the X factor actually is. She's the Kylie Minogue of the Sri Lankan blogosphere.

It might be her honesty, the heart on sleeve element that goes on. I don't know, but check out her post about getting pissed and blood tests to get a dose of it. She just has this very clever way of living her life and making all of us, her readers, feel as if we're strolling along next to her and watching everything going on. Natural and cool I say.

5. Just About Anything - The winner of this year's best overseas blog. It's another Lankan diasporic one, this time coming from Japan. There are pictures, stories of Japanese life, stories of Sri Lankan life and the best clock in the Lankanosphere. What more could a reader want? Yes, drums. I know. Other than that it's all good over in the JapSach corner.

Those, my friends are the finalists. They all follow in some awesome footsteps but sadly there has to be a single winner. Yes, the winner, the Blog Of The Year for 2009 goes to............









.........................A Glimpse of Lady Divine's World.

I pass you over to our guest judge, last year's winner of the title who then went on to retire from blogging, it's The Missing Sandwich. She had these words to say of Lady D:

"D has been around the lankanosphere (term coined by RD) since 2006, quietly pattering away on her keyboard about a myriad subjects from mothers to burps, marriage proposals to poetry and the occasional post that delves right into the soul of her, reminding us just how real and passionate a person she is. The 'glimpse' she gives us of her divine world makes me envy her and the ease with which she invites us in to take peek. Congrats LD, you are indeed the 2009 Blogger and Blog of the year. I am not allowed to express my real sentiments, so the enraged exclamations of "give me back my award bitch!" will have to be put on the back burner especially since the missingsandwich is recently retired. Oh and the best part... Shhh! Come closer, I don't want to offend Cerno. Listen velly carefully for I shall zay zis only vunce - please take that bloody 16 tonne olmec head away from me! It was too much. Really. Here you go.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olmec) Good luck with trying to move it. (snigger) "

Congratulations and thanks to all. Tomorrow we wind things up with the closing ceremony.

RD