West Seattle Blog launches their Blarch Badness campaign tomorrow, facing the winner of a Friends/Enemies group contest that’s down to the wire. So I pinged them on The Facebook and they obliged an interview in the midst of their plans for global domination.

MB: How did your fourth place finish last year change your life? Or are you still mad over the voter impropriety?

Our traffic for January 2008 is 400% what our traffic was in January 2007. (And no, smart alecks, that doesn’t mean 40 pageviews last month compared to 10 in 1/07.) So perhaps our fourth-place finish is what changed the world for us. Then again, we also took #4 in the Evening Magazine regional list of Best Local Blogs. So who’s to say?

MB: How has your decision to drop your anonymity affected you?

Going public has been fabulous. After almost 2 years of what we called drive-by journalism - pulling up to events or sites, aiming a camera out the car window, and screeching away, or sitting in the back row at a meeting NOT taking notes and trying to remember it all for immediate regurgitation when we got home - it was a relief more than anything else.

MB: What’s your mission statement?

Mission statement: “West Seattle’s 24/7/365 news, information, discussion source.”

MB: What was your favorite WSB post of the last year?

Honest, it’s a tie. One was a series of posts about “West Seattle Art Attack,” a local glass artist who decided to go around and leave some of his work in deserving local yards - this was the last post of the series, with a very touching twist. We also just loved the family who put up humorous yard-sale signs - so much, we are now the official sponsor for the 2008 West Seattle Community Garage Sale Day (shameless plug) and we are going to include a “best sign” contest.

MB: It’s looking like a three-blog race to the end for your potential opponents. Which blog would you rather face: Citizen Rain, Big Blog, or Field Gulls?

We know Cory from CR and Monica from BB so that would be tough - I’ll pick Field Gulls because (a) don’t know ‘em personally and (b) honest to God, I have never heard of that site before. (I am not cheating - so not Googling them till the second I send you these answers - then I suppose I will find out it’s got a million pageviews a day and I’m the last person in Seattle who isn’t a devotee.)

MB: One more question: What are you going to do about getting back in Carolyn’s good graces? She’s still a little incensed about that story about her back alley.

We’d buy her coffee and a cupcake if she ever wanted to meet us. But we may be too far out of her generation - I swear I came across something she wrote somewhere asking someone once if there was anyplace to find West Seattle information that wasn’t so boring and middle-age like those WSB people. (Paraphrasing, now.) If she wants to be our Young and Still Having a Vibrant Social Life (YSHVSL) correspondent, the job’s open. God knows it’s too late for us.

West Seattle Blog faces off against the Friends/Enemies group winner starting tomorrow.