The Winners! Thanks to Mona @ kirida for sharing your picture.

So yeah, it’s been a good week and a half since we hosted the blarch badness awards ceremony at the Skylark Cafe. We’ve been meaning to get the final results up since then, but our esteemed tournament organizer has been caught up in work. I guess we’ll have to give him a pass…this time!

Before I announce the winners of the 2008 Seattle Metblogs Blarch Badness Tournament of Blogs, I’d like to again thank our sponsors for the fabulous prizes. Hotel Max donated a night’s stay at their property, Sub Pop threw in a bunch of cds (including the Flight of the Conchords ep that I am so coveting right now), Neumo’s gave away two tickets to a show of the winner’s choice and accoutremonts, and Northwest Film Forum ponied up tickets for a show at their establishment. Oh and thanks to Wesa for finding the super-sweet trophy as well. All in all, quite a bag of goodies for our winners.

This year might have had a tiny bit of controversy, but I think the ultimate winners were inevitable (and well deserved!). And so, without further ado, the winning blog of this year’s crazy tournament: West Seattle Blog! Who, in a fitting touch, live blogged the party. Congratulations, WSB!

Thanks also to the bloggers who attended the ceremony, all the bloggers who participated in the tournament, as well as the fine folks from Skylark who took care of us and fed us (among other things) pie and ice cream. (Pam @ Nerd’s Eye View has a great shot and recap of the ceremony at her blog.) I hope everyone had a good time. I’m already looking forward to next year!

2 comments

I think I speak for most of us here at Seattle Metblogs when I say that Hillku is one of our favorites. Shrouded in mystery, they appeared out of the blue and charmed us with their haiku poetry about Capitol Hill. Below is a Q&A I did via email with City and Final, the two gracious purveyors of Hillku.

(Note: Hillku is facing a tough Round 2 charm-off with Kirida; voting is still open [m-b].)

Q:
who are you really?
the mystery confounds me.
at least: girl or guy?

A:
Straight Obama girl,
Homo Hills boy. Politics
Won’t divide us, though.

Read more

3 comments

Huskies Fan Nathan Ware, of The Original DawgBlawg, was good enough to answer a few questions for us today. He’s gunning to take #1 seed Capitol Hill Seattle out of the running, and the competition between the two blogs has been fierce, and full of fan trash talking. It may be a groundbreaking battle, here at Blarch Badness. Let’s hear what Ware has to say.

MB: What was your impetus for starting up Huskies Fan?

NW: The main goal of starting the Blawg was to counter balance the anti-Huskies propaganda written by Jim Moore at the P-I. Ever since starting the Blawg, the planet seems like a better place. Kidding, of course, well, sort of. It’s kind of funny, too, because when I started the Blawg, I had no idea that it would take off the way it has. It’s been crazy. I could spend 80 hours a week writing.

MB: Are you from Seattle?

NW: I am from Seattle. Born and raised. I’ll probably live here my whole life, too, as I just can’t seem to find a place that feels like home to me the way Seattle does. This city is one of a kind.

MB: Where do you find your content?

NW: I get content from many different places. Much of it is just my personal thoughts on the team. I intently follow the players, the games, the coaches, etc. I’m a season ticket holder for football and basketball so I attend a lot of games and different functions. And, I’m kind of the world’s greatest “fly on the wall.” I find my own ways of hanging out with different people and gleaning information. I always tried to bring something a little different than the other news sources just to give people something unique. There’s never a lack of topics to discuss when you’re talking about UW football and basketball. As a school, we may not win a lot of games but we’re never boring.
Read more

Comments are off for this post

I had a quick chat with Justin Carder about Capitol Hill Seattle, a front runner in this year’s Blarch Badness tournament.

MB: When did you start CHS?
Shortly after we received the magic beans in January 2006. We moved to Capitol Hill on the edge of a richie rich neighborhood and said jeez, better start a neighborhood blog so we can get some respect from these people and they stop asking us to wash their boats. The rest is history.

MB: How many contributors?
Two. Me and my poor darling wife who has to suffer through my criticism and advice for her every post. Not sure why she continues to participate, really. She might move and get her own neighborhood blog. We’re trying to work through it.

MB: What’s your mission statement? (Why does this blog exist?)
I’ve stated our goals thusly:
1. Get to know our new neighborhood
2. Write about the good stuff in hopes that more good stuff will happen
3. Sometimes write about the bad stuff in hopes that less bad stuff will happen
4. Learn about how the Internet is put together and how people interact with it
5. Make it all last

But that only tells part of the story.
Read more

8 comments

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].

1 comment

Two baseball blogs. One photo blog. And a dark horse neighborhood blog that survived a round only Richard Daley would have liked. But we’re almost done. We’ve reached the Final Four.

SEMIFINALS
March 2
#1:
Seattle Daily Photo vs Lookout Landing

I’m running out of things to say, again. But we could be looking at an all-baseball final. Or not. SDP is the highest seeded blog left.

Take Our Poll from PollDaddy.com

#2:
West Seattle Blog vs USS Mariner

Don’t ask me how West Seattle Blog survived the two restarts of the Ballard final and scraped their way into the semifinal. They have a lot of moxie.

Take Our Poll from PollDaddy.com

One week to vote. The finals will happen on March 9, live from SXSW Interactive in Austin (rather, live from my hotel room there).

12 comments

The last regional final starts now. Not Martha is not not done. Horse’s Ass becomes the last political blog to exit. So now….

U DISTRICT REGIONAL
Regional Finals
February 23
#4 USS Mariner vs #6 izzlepfaff
USS Mariner continues to move on. There could be two baseball blogs in the finals — and we thought support for the Mariners was dead. Meanwhile, izzlepfaff keeps right on going, further than three of the #1 seeds.

UPDATE: dpolls croaked. Switching providers. Hopefully, this will hold out. Keep in mind that with this new system you can vote as many times as you want, but PLEASE DO NOT ABUSE THIS. If you do, I’ll stop the contest and we’ll settle it with a coin flip. Please only vote three times. Be a good ballot box stuffer and know when to say when.

Take Our Poll from PollDaddy.com

And, of course, the perfunctory reminder of the other three regional finals: West Seattle, Capitol Hill, and Ballard.

Comments are off for this post

And it’s official — this bracket is busted beyond all recognition. West Seattle keeps bringing the upsets, short-circuiting Electrolicious, while the usr/bin/girl robots stuff a sock in BlatherWatch. And now, the thrilling conclusion.

BALLARD REGIONAL
Regional Finals
February 22
#7 #!/usr/bin/girl vs #8 West Seattle Blog
And what’s remarkable is that for all the bellyaching about the “Ballard Regional” the West Seattleites are now just one vote away from the Final Four. But now, can the flannel-wearing, Admiral movie watching, Spud eating insurgency prevail over an anime army? The suspense is… no, that’s not a “killing me” feeling. I think that’s a kidney stone.

---

UPDATE:
Dpolls apparently has given up the ghost. I’m not exactly sure who was leading at the time the poll stopped worked. In fact, WSB thinks /usr/bin/girl was winning and vice versa. So, at least this is easy.

Here’s a new poll. Cross your fingers that PollDaddy isn’t floating in the virtual fishtank tomorrow. Two things:

1. I’m extending the deadline one day — to Thursday. It will now close at the same time the U District closes. Hopefully.

2. To maintain the “vote once-per-day” attitude I elected to NOT cookie-lock the poll. That means you can vote as many times as you like. HOWEVER… since this will run three more days I ask you to please keep it to three votes per person. In fact, if I see clear evidence that someone’s been flooding the poll, I’ll kill it and we’ll draw a name from a hat. Got it? Be polite in your ballot box stuffing, please.

UPDATE #2:
What did I say up there? That if you start flooding it I’ll be pissy? Well, someone did. So, I blew away the results, and it’s now cookie-locked. Please act like grownups, OK? It’s just a stupid poll.

Take Our Poll from PollDaddy.com

Voting is still open in the second round of theU District regional, and also in the West Seattle and Capitol Hill regional finals. Tomorrow, on to the U District for the last of the regionals.

29 comments

The Ballard bracket is effectively busted. My $20 was on Defective Yeti going all the way, but that’s money wasted. Strangely, this is going the way my March Madness picks usually go — with my national champ pick going out in the round of 32.

But on to Round Two.

BALLARD REGIONAL
Regional Semifinals
February 15
#4 Electrolicious vs #8 West Seattle Blog
West Seattle Blog won going away in the biggest upset so far. Can they get past Ariel’s wedding-addled minions? Will they continue to annoy me with The Question? Signs point to yes… on both counts.

#6 BlatherWatch vs #7 #!/usr/bin/girl
The rumors of Zannah’s demise were greatly exaggerated, as her readers came through in a big way. Meanwhile, BlatherWatch comes through to meet her.

Tomorrow, Round Two wraps up with the U District regional. Reminder, you can still vote in the Capitol Hill and West Seattle Regionals.

Comments are off for this post

We took your input. We haggled over who should be in or out. And now, it’s time to announce the brackets for Blarch Badness. Who has the Best Blog In Seattle? Let’s find out.

Originally, it was going to be 32 blogs, but after some talking we decided to add three “play-in” rounds, bumping the total number of blogs to 38. We’ve grouped the extras into certain classes you’ll see in a moment.

And an apology to the 30 or so we also considered that didn’t make it, in addition to the thousands around the area we just didn’t know about. We’ll do better next year.

So, without further ado, let’s warm up Billy Packer, cue the theme music, and unveil the brackets!
Read more

14 comments