One of the points of Blarch Badness is to get small good local bloggers more exposure in an increasingly noisy Seattle blogging world. Kirida, which is on a surprising run into the Final Eight, fits right into that model. Mona is a 25 year old native of Saipan who blogs about life as a sailor-mouthed mother in West Seattle. The folks over at West Seattle Blog nominated her for the tourney, saying that she’s the funniest blogger on the Westside. I would have to disagree — she’s one of the funniest this city has to offer, and it’s time she stopped being a West Seattle secret. Of course, now West Seattle Blog has to face the very blog they nominated. How ironic.

I pried an interview out of her while she was changing her husband’s adult diaper.
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Seattle Daily Photo enters the Blarch Badness competition tomorrow. I asked Kim some questions about her website, her favorite photos, and how the competition last year changed her Seattle outlook. Read on:

MB: When did you start Seattle Daily Photo? I starting contemplating doing SDP in October of 2005. I was at that time a daily visitor to a blog by Eric Tenin called Paris Daily Photo, and a few other loyal readers of his photoblog had contacted him and started similar blogs for their cities in Europe, Asia, and the US. My only digital camera at the time was in my Palm Zire which didn’t have the resolution for a photo blog, and our regular SLR was broken, so I couldn’t take and scan prints either. I was a full time student and working part time, and decided to save for a good digital SLR rather than invest in repairing our film camera. A lot of people were having similar thoughts because an explosion of affiliated new City Daily Photo Blogs took place over the next four months. I started laying out the blog template in November of 2005 and by February 2006 I had saved enough and started seriously camera shopping. Some other things came up that I had to focus on, and when I got back on track to launch the site I discovered another Seattlite named Rose had launched an affiliated blog for Seattle two days before. I was really disappointed. But, as luck would have it, after a couple months Rose stopped posting to her blog and Eric in Paris gave me the go ahead to start. I jumped in with a first post on July 8, 2006. I’ve been posting daily ever since, almost 600 posts now.
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So, the selection committee has met for the last few days trying to decide who is in and who is out of the tournament. There was the usual yelling, fighting, chair-throwing, and occasional moments of harmony. But finally, late last night, the committee emerged from their pizza-and-beer-induced stupor to put in my hands the lineup for this year’s Blarch Badness.
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photo by marksobba [flickr]

While war is still waging in the Blarch Badness Final it might be unethical of me to pimp one of the competing blogs — but I’m going to regardless. If you have a problem with that, watch out for a trident to the heart.

Lookout Landing’s Jeff Sullivan is the [way less nerdy] John Clayton of Mariners baseball. With spring training in full swing and Opening Day just a few weeks away, it’s definitely time for even the most casual of baseball fans to prepare for a long, dark, horribly depressing M’s season (thank you, Bill Bavasi!). In that spirit, I highly recommend listening to a very informative and insightful interview Jeff recently gave to Big League Baseball Report [blbr]. In it he recaps the wretched Mariners off-season (where art thee, Doyle!?) and their prospects for success in 2007. I’ll offer this hint: A certain member of Venezuela’s royal family needs to have a great year for the M’s to stand a chance.

Confidential to Jeff: Contrary to what you think, you absolutely did not sound like a douchebag [LL].

The Slog has been routed. Football season is over. And now, two remain, capturing two of Seattle’s undying passions — whining about traffic and whining about transit! Kidding.

CAPITOL HILL REGIONAL
Regional Finals
February 21
#4 Seattle Bon Vivant vs #7 Lookout Landing
That’s right, it’s food vs. baseball! Viv rode our readership’s anti-Slog sentiments into the regional finals, while Lookout Landing is doing better than the M’s have the last few years. Both find themselves on the doorstep of the final four. So, baseball, or hot dogs and apple pie? (Sorry, we’re not Chevy people.)

Voting is still open in the second round of other regionals: U District and Ballard, and also in the West Seattle Final. Tomorrow, one more time across the Ship Canal — the Ballard finals.

And then there were eight. Or about to be, anyway. And this week, we’ll pick the Final Four. Are you exciting? Tingling with anticipation? Then you should really see your doctor about getting your medication adjusted.

WEST SEATTLE REGIONAL
Regional Finals
February 20
#1 Chris Pirillo vs #3 Seattle Daily Photo
Neither Chris nor Kim have even been challenged, so now, as those English footie commentators would say, a lot will be asked of each of them. On one side, the ubergeek of Seattle (now that Bob Scoble has left town) who has not done a lick of campaigning. On the other side, Seattle’s premier photoblogger who has done nothing but flog this contest.

So, choose one. But choose wisely. You don’t want to piss off anyone with a camera or a website now, would you?

And remember, voting is still open in the second round of other regionals: U District, Capitol Hill, Ballard. Tomorrow, the Capitol Hill Regional finals.

We close out Round Two with the U District Regional, which goes on Friday, the day of the week I’m most tired. So I end up writing pithier comments. Given my penchant for Faulkneresque 100 word monster sentences, this is probably the day to ask me to write something for you that’s under 500 words and over 4 sentences.

U DISTRICT REGIONAL
Regional Semifinals
February 16
#1 Not Martha vs #4 USS Mariner
Someone paged Megan earlier this week, and her readers showed up. She had more votes than the entire Capitol Hill regional. And now, she has USS Mariner — and its vast collection of Mariner fans and scalliwags — in her sights. But knowing Derek, he probably doesn’t give a rat patootie about this contest. Unless, of course, I mention his new book, The Cheater’s Guide to Baseball, which you should pre-order a copy of today.

#2 Horse’s Ass vs #6 izzlepfaff
Capitol Hill Seattle played with fire. And they got burned. Bad. And hoisted on their own petard. And let’s assume there’s another military cliche here, because I’ve run out of them. Now it’s Goldie vs. Skot. Liberals vs. humorists. But aren’t most humorists liberals?

And here are links to the other three regionals: West Seattle, Capitol Hill, Ballard.

Next week, the Regional Finals. We’re getting closer to wherever the fictional finals site would be. The Space Needle? Elephant Super Wash? Dick’s?

A quick Sunday afternoon whip-around of how things are going with Round 1 of Blarch Badness:

WEST SEATTLE
On the whole, this bracket has featured no surprises, unless you want to say Anita Rowland leading Seattlest is an upset. Which it’s not, as Seattlest effectively conceded last week.

Oh, and Dave Postman looks like he’s moving on. The P-I’s blogs are on course for an 0-3 finish in the tournament, while the Times’ singular blog in this pageant looks to be moving on. And the Times has been much slower on the uptake with blogs compared to the P-I. Go figure.

CAPITOL HILL
Hard to say what the bigger story is — the Slog trying to hang on to a slim lead over jameth, or the absolute shellacking Sound Politics is receiving from Lookout Landing. But let’s talk about this rout. Sharkansky and others have this large reader base, right? So why can’t they show up on here and vote? At this point, they’re down 212-19. That margin is wider than the total number of votes in the Slog-Jameth battle. Yearrgh. Stick a fork in ‘em. They’re done. Just like they were last November. A baseball-football showdown looms in Round 2.

BALLARD
It’s pretty clear now that West Seattle Blog has a posse. But is the Yeti just lying in wait, getting ready to unleash his tens of thousands of readers upon the ballot box? Or is he just ignoring us in the name of The Stranger Hates Us?

Meanwhile, the rest of the bracket is effectively busted, with only Electrolicious winning as a high seed. The path may be clear for West Seattle to get to the final, taking their annoying “Why are we in Ballard I know it’s been explained a thousand times by you and on WSB but I don’t know how to read so why why why” readership with them.

U DISTRICT
And over in The Bracket No One Is Voting In, it’s really quiet. Well, except for Capitol Hill Seattle reaping what it sowed. Good job, guys. And our lone Bloggie nominee Not Martha is looking like toast against John Moe. Not good, Not Martha.

Again, voting in Round One ends on different days in different brackets.
West Seattle: Monday night
Capitol Hill: Tuesday night
Ballard: Wednesday night
U District: Thursday night

And to make life easier for you, all sixteen polls are after the cut. And feel free to use the comments to say whatever you want about the tournament so far.
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• There are probably plenty of other things to keep you entertained tonight, but none of them quite as fascinating as the authors of this site sitting around a table talking about random topics. And you can be a part of the fun. Join Metroblogging Seattle’s finest tonight at the Elysian (Capitol Hill) at 6 pm. Gossip about the thrilling ongoing “Blarch Badness” tournament, who you think will win, who should lose, and if we might have come up with a better title. Maybe we’ll buy you a frosty beverage. [6 pm; 1221 E. Pike Street]