As Dylan mentioned, we are having the Blarch Badness Awards Ceremony this Friday, March 14th.

We’re sorry for the short notice, but we had some technical difficulties. (Which of course translates to me being lazy. Sorry!) In any case, we really hope you’ll come. Not only will the winner be announced, but they will be showered with fantastic prizes. Oh yes, prizes*!

For the non-champions, there will be snacks! And Dylan to abuse! And I owe several people beers (maybe you’re one of them)! And really, it’s 6:30-8:30, so it’s before you were going to go out anyway (and/or before your bedtime). So no excuses!

Skylark Cafe (all-ages)
Friday, Mar 14, 2008 ~ 6:30 p.m. - 8:30 p.m.
3803 Delridge Way, Seattle
RSVP

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* Thanks to our very generous sponsors: The Hotel Max, Sub Pop, Neumo’s, and the Northwest Film Forum.

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Image above is entitled, “Mob Games,” and is Docutorial?’s winning NYE photo-contest entry. Will our party be as cool? Maybe not, but you won’t know unless you’re there.

So, it hasn’t exactly been a rosy ending to what was a promising start and what can only be called a mid-level debacle. But we have to finish the damn thing, don’t we? (According to the other Metblog authors waving sharpened sticks at me, yes, we do.)

To deal with the blown brackets and broken sites, I’ll just put the last three blogs that appear to be standing in the final:

Accidental Hedonist (the only blog left from the Squirrel Bracket)
Seattle Daily Photo (which got caught up in the site shutdown mess)
West Seattle Blog (who has the most votes of the non-cheating blogs)

And the site still won’t let me embed stuff (good job on the design, Head Office), so you’ll just have to go elsewhere to vote:

VOTE IN THE GRAND FINAL

VOTING CLOSES 5PM ON FRIDAY.

And then at 6:30pm on Friday… The Trophy Presentation at the Skylark Cafe, 3803 Delridge Way in beautiful West Seattle. Come meet bloggers and their spawn. Heckle me! And drink our beer (if we have any).

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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Last of the quarterfinals now. Seattle Daily Photo held off a late challenge by Blogging Georgetown, while Glitter Pissing continues its Cinderella run.

Did Cinderella piss glitter? Or was that Snow White?

Hurry, sale ends Wednesday night at 9pm.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch:
Seattle Bubble/Accidental Hedonist (closes Sunday night)
Lookout Landing/Huskies Fan (closes Monday night)
West Seattle Blog/Kirida (closes Tuesday night)

The original bracket post

And that’s the quarterfinals. Just two rounds to go, starting with the first semifinal on Tuesday. I really need to shorten the time periods up next year.

Defective Yeti was one of the four sites picked to receive an automatic bid during our Blarch Badness author caucus and for good reason: Matthew Baldwin, the man behind the Yeti, is quite possibly the best humorist writing in Seattle. (So much so that I can even forgive him for getting that damn Thank you for being a friend song stuck in my head for a week.) After threatening to debase myself further with pathetic begging, he kindly agreed to answer a couple of questions about his site and the Badness.

With the fact that we didn’t formally inform people last year that they had been entered into our little tournament, did you even know you were in it?

Oh my goodness, of course. I’m as obsessive about my referral logs as the next self-absorbed blogger, so as soon as the first person clicked over from your joint I was all over it like hollandaise sauce on Eggs Benedict. Disgusting, disgusting hollandaise sauce.

But, you know, I was nominated for a few Bloggies there back in Ye Olde Olden Dayes of blogging and was soundly beaten by a newcomer with name recognition in his corner, a pivotal moment in my life that engendered in me both a healthy wariness of Internet-related awards and a lifelong vendetta against Wil Wheaton.

You put up a pretty good showing considering your competition, West Seattle Blog, is - in my opinion - the Mafia. How do you deal with your popularity?

Ignore it, when possible.

In the wake of losing the aforementioned Bloggie, I resolved to make my site as popular as possible, and spent the following year trying to write memetic posts rather than writing about the things I cared about. Twelve months of that was quite enough, thank you.

Since then I’ve done pretty well at not giving a rat’s ass about readership (as is probably evident in my rather desultory posting schedule of late)(where “of late” = “since 2003″). At this point I’m not even sure if I still have one, though dozens of people still comment on each and every one of my posts to point out my copious grammatical errors.
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And now, the Battle of West Seattle. In one corner is last year’s semifinalist West Seattle Blog, wielding its mighty Westside user base. In the other corner, you have Kirida, who was nominated for the tournament by West Seattle Blog. The student now faces the master. And since West Seattle Blog is involved, you just know the polling system is going to crash.

Open polls blah blah blah:
Seattle Daily Photo/Blogging Georgetown/Mid Beacon Hill - Defective Yeti/Glitter Pissing (closes Wednesday night)
Seattle Bubble/Accidental Hedonist (closes Sunday night)
Lookout Landing/Huskies Fan (closes Monday night)

The original bracket post

Tomorrow, the last of the quarterfinal brackets.

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.

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The main reason why I love Blarch Badness is the exposure to local blogs that otherwise might not catch my attention. Glitter Pissing a perfect example of a blog that is new to me that I will keep tabs on from this point forward. I interviewed Kris, the producer of Glitter Pissing tonight and seriously, anyone who loves Murder, She Wrote is A-OK in my book! The polls are still open!

MB: When did you start Glitter Pissing?
I started the gpiss in 2004 after splitting from a group blog. It was best for all involved, trust me on that one.

MB: How many contributors?
Just me. which is why it’s on a mwf posting schedule.
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As the action heats up in this, Metroblogging Seattle’s second annual Clash of the Titans Tournament of Blogs, those of you in the home audience might be wondering what exactly lies at the end of this conflict-worn road for the eventual champion. Well, aside from the glory that comes with the victory of several rounds of single-elimination combat and the sure-to-be-awesome homemade trophy that we’ll be constructing, a few very generous local institutions have kicked in some fantastic prizes.

Hotel Max took over the 20th century neon-emblazoned landmark Hotel Vance in 2005 and turned it into “the most artistic downtown Seattle hotel” by featuring local artists and painters throughout the premises. They’ve offered a night of luxe accommodations for the winners of the tournament to celebrate their well-deserved victory.

Sub Pop is among Seattle’s most venerable and celebrated record labels. They were instrumental in putting our city on the map musically, and they’ve kindly provided a huge gift box for the blog that comes out on top of the tournament featuring a stack of fresh music, stickers, buttons, and other tokens of musical credibility.

Since reclaiming the beleaguered property whose ownership cycled seasonally since the closure of (old) Moe’s a few years ago Neumo’s has consistently booked an eclectic calendar of some of the best local and national acts. In the process, they’ve strengthened Capitol Hill’s live music scene and helped to form a new center of gravity for the nightlife in the neighborhood. To congratulate the eventual best blog in the city, they’ve offered to do their best to get the winners into the show of their choice.

Northwest Film Forum, a membership-based regional non-profit center for the film arts, exhibits an eclectic collection of local, national, international, and archival selections 360 days per year, maintains an extensive film library, has onsite production facilities, and throws exceptional parties. They’ve donated a pack of tickets so that whomever wins this contest can take a break from electioneering and typing to catch a movie or two to relax.

A million thanks to these folks for their participation in our little contest to recognize some of our favorite weblogs in the city. Now, back to your campaign speeches and voting booths!

Polls are open for: Seattle Bubble vs. U.S.S. Mariner , Vintage Seattle vs. Accidental Hedonist, Lookout Landing vs. Three Imaginary Girls , Capitol Hill Seattle vs. Huskies Fan , West Seattle Blog vs. Citizen Rain , Hillku vs. Kirida , Seattle Daily Photo vs. Blogging Georgetown vs. Mid Beacon Hill , and Defective Yeti vs. Glitter Pissing

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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