Tag: Blog of the Year 2012

Blog of the Year 2012: My Cup Runneth Over with Stars

I’ve got to say a huge thank you to Kim at Tranquil Dreams for nominating me for my fifth star and to John at Written in Blood for nominating me for my sixth star on the Blog of the Year 2012!

Thanks guys! You gave me the award just in time for me to include it before the end of the year…with a day to spare, I might add!

Make sure you drop by Kim’s and John’s blogs, they are both entertaining and nice folks as well. Just click on the links above and you’ll get to their sites, pull up a chair and have a look around, you won’t regret it.

So without further ado (since I want to get this posted before the New Year) I’ll just relay the rules to everyone once again:

1 Select the blog(s) you think deserve the ‘Blog of the Year 2012’ Award

2 Write a blog post and tell us about the blog(s) you have chosen – there’s no minimum or maximum number of blogs required – and ‘present’ them with their award.

3 Please include a link back to this page ‘Blog of the Year 2012’ Award –  http://thethoughtpalette.co.uk/our-awards/blog-of-the-year-2012-award/ and include these ‘rules’ in your post (please don’t alter the rules or the badges!)

4 Let the blog(s) you have chosen know that you have given them this award and share the ‘rules’ with them.

5 You can now also join our Facebook group – click ‘like’ on this page ‘Blog of the Year 2012’ Award Facebook group and then you can share your blog with an even wider audience.

6 As a winner of the award – please add a link back to the blog that presented you with the award – and then proudly display the award on your blog and sidebar … and start collecting stars…

I would also like to nominate the following blogs (very quickly since it is the very tail-end of the year) for this great award:

Head in a Vice, Written in Blood, Andy Watches Movies, Tranquil Dreams, Mad Ramblings and Assorted Musings, It Rains… You Get Wet, My Favorite Westerns, Hard Ticket To Home Video and Myfilmviews. These guys all write some brilliant blogs and both Kim from Tranquil Dreams and John from Written in Blood have to have a nomination back, they are some sweet bloggers, hmmmm seems like there should be an award for that…

So that’s it from me on the award front in 2012. At least I think it is…

But I’d like to thank Kim and John once more for making my year and helping me to get six stars on my Blog of the Year 2012! Happy New Year folks and remember, “If you are celebrating New Year’s and the room starts spinning, you’re either re-creating a scene from The Exorcist or you’re drunk.” Enjoy!

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The Fourth Star on my Blog of the Year 2012 Award and Gifts for All!

That’s right; I’m closing in on the New Year with a snappy 4 star award from that great lady, Marilyn over at Serendipity. It’s actually just one of several that Marilyn has bestowed on not just me but several other bloggers as well. To say that my award cup runneth over would be an understatement.

I am going to list all the awards that she chucked my, and the other folk’s, way in the order that I like them in! I know, I’m funny like that. The next award that (and to be honest it is my very favourite just because of its title) is “The Don’t Do A Damn Thing Award…I Just Like Your Blog.”

This has to be my all time favourite award because (I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before) I am lazy and anytime I can get something with a minimum of effort required on my part is an epic win.

The next one is the Reality Award, not to be confused with the Realty Award which is a different property all together…Sorry I couldn’t resist!

As you can see, it’s a pretty big award! But wait! That’s not all. For a limited time only, I’ve also been given the:

Not too small either, is it? Plus, the:

Another award that falls into the not very teeny category; and finally:

For the record, I’ve gotten the Liebster Award twice now and both the Inspirational Blogger and Versatile Blogger awards twice as well. Wow. I’m gonna need a bigger blog…

Marilyn states in her blog post that she used to search far and wide to find bloggers who would fit each category of blogging award being “passed around” (my phrasing, not hers. If you want to see her phrasing, follow the previous link titled blog post). She included the rules of the Blog of the Year 2012 and goes on to say just wing the rest.

I am going to go one step further and say, “Just wing it guys and gals; just wing it.” Furthermore, in the nature of these awards and in the sharing spirit of the season, if you are following me…Accept as many or as few (or hell, don’t choose any of them if you don’t want I’m not a bully) of the awards that you would like to see on your blog roll of honours.

The only requirement for accepting is that you follow me already. *See! I told you I was lazy!*

But laziness is not the reason I’m giving the awards this way. Any of you who have read my blog this year will know what a “rollercoaster ride” my life has been. I’d like to pay back the favour that you folks have done me by reading, liking and commenting on my little blog. So please accept this little token of appreciation.

Merry Christmas (or Happy Hanukah) my friends and neighbours in the Blogging verse; and may your New Year be happy and full of opportunity.

Merry Christmas from my family unit to yours!
Merry Christmas from my family unit to yours!
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Daisy Award: A Special Award for the Brave of Heart, & Not so Brave.

Before I go into thanking Marilyn over at Serendipity for nominating me for this award, I need to tell where how it got started. I will bow humbly to Marilyn’s apt description of the award and its inception by Subtle Kate – “It is on rare occasion that a connection is available to the creator of an award. This time the beginning link in a chain of unknown number of recipients is Subtle Kate.

In Kate’s own words on June 28, 2012, “I would like to start a new award. It’s called the Daisy Award.  Daisy’s are very sweet flowers, but they are stealth with hardiness. They’ll come up anywhere and beat the frost.  This award is for the brave.”

End of description.

To say that I am thrilled at being nominated for this is perhaps the biggest understatement in history. Sort of akin to Custer’s last words, “Wow, there sure are a lot of Indians over there.” I will apologise to any of Custer’s remaining family, but, I am a Native American descendant and I find the remark both amusing and apropos. Sorry.

The rules for the “new” award are simple, there are but three and they are, like most of these awards, easy to do and not too labour intensive. So here they are:

  1. Thank the person who nominated you.

  2. Tell your readers seven unusual things about yourself.

  3. Nominate several worthy Bloggers.

And that’s it, just three little actions that do not require any type of perspiration to perform; just the kind of award that I like to receive.

Now for the first part; the thanking part: I have to thank Marilyn over at Serendipity for including my in this list of brave folks. I have met some truly wonderful folks in the blogging community and Marilyn and her other half (is that still okay to say?) Gary have been special and supportive and damned inspirational to me. For folks I’ve never actually met in person, they have easily become what I consider to be friends. So thank you Marilyn!

Now for the second part: This is the hard one. I have done so many of these “7 things you didn’t know about me” lists, I think I’ll be hard pressed to come up with that many, but here goes.

  1. I am a natural-born pessimist. I expect the worst and if I get anything less than the worst, I am pleasantly surprised.
  2. My great great grandmother (or grandfather, I am a bit hazy on this one) was found by the Trail of Tears by a Calvary patrol as an abandoned papoose (baby). Since his or her parents had obviously died on the trail as so many others did, one of the Calvary patrol riders took him or her in. His name was Sallee and he was French.
  3. My great-grandmother lived to be 93 years old; her daughter (my grandmother) lived to be 101. I’m kind of hoping that longevity is a gene that has been passed on to me.
  4. My father almost died from a tick-bite; he was misdiagnosed and it’s a miracle he is still around.
  5. I have more than 13 scars on my body. I’ve only just discovered another one from when a .22 calibre cartridge exploded while I was (stupidly) trying to force it into a chamber. The copper cartridge case became shrapnel and one bit piece (about a quarter of an inch long) went under my left nipple. While looking at my “new” scars I found where the shrapnel went. The scar is about a quarter to a half-inch long.
  6. Since I have quit smoking – last cigarette on 30 August 2012 – I dream smoke every night.
  7. I’m not really all that brave.

Now for the third part: This was is the impossibly hard one. I would of course nominate Marilyn from Serendipity (and will still mention this fact) although she did not mention any restrictions on nominating the person who nominated you, but this lady has gone through the wars and still has an optimism and outlook that is to be envied. I wish I had her strength. I really do.

I would also nominate the lovely Lorna over at Gin & Lemonade take a look at her site and you’ll see why I think she’s one of the brave. She made a list and she’s checking it more than twice to see if she’s accomplishing any of the landmarks she set herself. She writes a mean blog and I don’t visit often enough. I hope this makes up for my lack of visits, Lorna.

I would also like to nominate Chris over at True Mister Six who started his blog while he was looking for work. He now has work but continues to write his blog as well as being a husband and father. Another blogger that I don’t visit enough; stop on by and have a look, say I sent you.

That’s it for now, I would nominate more but, as I’ve said in the past I’m lazy. All kidding aside, I have accepted the award in the spirit in which it was given and I thank anyone who thinks I am brave.

I do joke a lot about my life and the direction it has veered off into. But that jokey laughing narrative feels to me a little like whistling past the graveyard. It has the tendency to, sometimes, feel like the edge of it is blurring into another feeling altogether. Still, as a wise man once said, “And if I laugh at any mortal thing, tis that I may not weep.” By Byron I think, it was part of a radio spot I did about a million lifetimes ago for a high school play I was in.

The play was The Curious Savage and I played the only straight-man in a play full of lunatics. Kind of how I feel now, the straight-man waiting for the punch line that will conclude my situation and trying to make sure I’ve got the timing right. Because in comedy, like life, timing is everything.

Humour has helped me throughout my entire life. My comic influences in no particular order are: ~George Carlin, The Marx Brothers (especially Groucho), Robin Williams, Steve Martin, Chris Rock… Hell, too damn many for me to list, though I will make sure I get Billy Crystal on the list, because damn it, I just have to. Besides, he looks MAHVELLOUS!

And since I lacked the cojones to actually do stand up comedy, I’ve settled with being able to see the funny side of life.

I also have to add another “thank you” to Serendipity for nominating me for the Blog of the Year 2012. Like I said…I’m lazy!

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Blogger of the Year 2012 Nomination? Wow…

I’ve just been notified by Tyson over at Head In A Vice that he has nominated me (or more accurately my blog) for “Blog of the Year 2012” award. *again, just hear announcer Gary Owens (Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In) saying the words quoted.*

Wow.

This has to be my favourite award nomination. Although it has a bittersweet tang to it, because Tyson also nominated Marilyn over at Serendipity and John over at WRITTEN IN BLOOD which are two of the nominees I would have chosen. Cue face palm.

I should quickly explain that the  nomination is my favourite not because of the award itself – which is grand, don’t get me wrong here – but because the “penalty” for accepting the award is that you have to pass it on to three more bloggers who deserve it. When I read the rules that Tyson provided I was surprised and pleased. I have explained before that I am basically a lazy person, hence the surprise and elation.

“What?” I asked myself. “No 50 interesting and fascinating facts about moi? No asking 50 interesting and fascinating questions of the 50 nominees you’ve chosen? And most important of all, no contacting 50 bloggers to let them know I’ve nominated them?” I did a little Snoopy happy dance (very little, I did just have a heart attack you know) and then sat and pondered who I could possibly chose.

I then realised that I could also nominate Marilyn and John as Tyson did. I did notice, when I re-read his nominating post, that several folks had nominated him for The Very Inspiring Blogger Award! Brilliant! Of course I would say that as I was one of the folks who nominated Tyson.

That still left the question of who should I nominate for the third and final nominee? As I poured the first cup of coffee down my parched throat, it came to me, Andy! Problem solved.

So in a nutshell, here are my three nominees for Blog of the Year 2012 – in no particular order:

andywatchesmovies

Serendipity

WRITTEN IN BLOOD

So there you have it. Of course I now have guilt issues about all the great bloggers I did not nominate. As Rex says in Toy Story, “Now I have guilt!” But in the nomination game someone is always left out, it is the nature of the beast. But my fellow bloggers, I will come back for you. Oh yes, sooner or later I’ll get another award and I’ll try to include those of you I’ve had to abandon in the past. Like Arnie in The Terminator or MacArthur in the Philippines, “I’ll be back.”

I am not new to guilt at any rate. I always feel very guilty when I don’t check the blogs I follow as often as I feel I should – daily, if I’m being honest, I write almost daily and should read daily as well – and I therefore don’t ‘like’ or comment enough either. I am pretty crap at admin to be honest and reading falls under admin. Not an excuse, friends and neighbours, just a fact. I am trying to do better.

So I’ll hang my head in shame at my poor admin skill and promise to do better in future.

Back to the award!

So guys, you’ve been nominated (a couple of you at least twice) so it’s your turn to enjoy this non-labour intensive award. Oh and Andy? I know you are on vacation dude so I’ll expect to hear from you a lot later about the award nomination.

In the spirit of the season, I’ll close by humming Rudolph the red-nosed Reindeer through my left nostril as I rap out Jingle Bells with my right index finger. Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah to all.

While performing the above medley, I realised that I had not profusely thanked Tyson for his nomination, I mention it but I don’t actually thank him. So in an effort to rectify this horrendous faux pa I will thank him, “Thank you Tyson, very much,” and link to his site once more. And yes I have re-edited this “on-the-fly,” Mea Culpa!

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