I give up. There’s just so much gaming and governing and finger-pointing that I don’t have a choice, regardless of whether Seattle Bubble already withdrew.

I said if anyone was cheating, I’d throw everyone out. So, everyone in that side is hereby disqualified. The other semifinal on the Coyote side continues, at least for the moment.

Honestly, I don’t feel much like continuing this tournament. This was supposed to be fun, and it’s far from fun now. I can’t deal with the melodrama, or chronological adults acting like a bunch of spoiled kids.

The antics of Lookout Landing have left me embarrassed to say I’m a Mariners fan. And considering the sort of crap the M’s have pulled the last 13 years, it’s awfully hard to get me embarrassed about being an M’s fan.

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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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.
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Last year, the two heavyweight sports blogs in town made it to the finals of Blarch Badness. Over 5,000 votes were cast and USS Mariner came out on top over Lookout Landing in what amounted to an easy victory [m-b]. Given their huge (and naturally competitive) readership, it wouldn’t be surprising to see these two blogs in the finals again (especially if SLOG continues to ignore us).

USS Mariner’s first match started this morning [m-b] and Lookout Landing’s first match will begin tomorrow. After the jump is the transcript of an email conversation I had with Dave and Jeff about last year’s experience, among other things.

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Ring the bells, throw the biodegradable confetti, ping your blogroll, for we finally have a winner in Blarch Badness 2007: USS Mariner, which eased past Lookout Landing to be crowned king of all Seattle blogs.

Here’s the final tally:

For All The Marbles...
USS Mariner  56% (3005 votes)
Lookout Landing  44% (2389 votes)
Total voters for this poll: 5393

The third place finisher was Seattle Daily Photo.

So, Derek, Dave, Jason, and Jeff (via live feed from Okinawa) will be able to hoist the Blarch Badness Trophy… just as soon as I get them one. Anyone want to make me one?

Will we do it again next year? Probably, but with some changes. But in the meantime, it was fun, right?

With something like 20,000 seconds left on the shot clock, Blarch Badness enters its final inning. Which Mariners weblog — USS Mariner or Lookout Landing — will win take home the cup and win Seattle’s Bestest Weblog of 2007, as determined by your votes, a few free polling systems, merciless campaigning, and Dylan’s amazing bracket-style competition of the seattle-tagged heroes of technorati?

You’ve voted against highways along the waterfront and are probably feeding an addiction to actual basketball bracket watching. Why not vote a few more times before this season of polling comes to an end?

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And finally, we close the first round with the U District Regional. I should make jokes about teriyaki and smack-addled homeless kids, but I had too much beer at the meetup.

U DISTRICT REGIONAL
Opening Round
Feb 9
#1 Not Martha vs #8 Monkey Disaster
And away we go. Not Martha, of course, is our sole Bloggies nominee, which should be worth 40% alone. John Moe pulled away in the prelims. I really have nothing more to say.

#4 USS Mariner vs #5 Ted Leung
I mean, why is it that two pints leave me completely floored nowadays? Anyway… I know Derek and Dave, and they tolerate me. Don’t ask me why. But they’re some of the smartest baseball people I know. Ted Leung might be the ultimate Seattle blogger — coder and photographer — only he lives on Bainbridge.

#2 Horse’s Ass vs #7 Capitol Hill Seattle
Look, for the millionth time, the brackets are just NAMES. At the same time, in keeping with NCAA rules, I’m shipping Capitol Hill Seattle out of the Capitol Hill bracket so they don’t have a home-court advantage. And they don’t, because a bracket is location-neutral. But look, next year I’ll call the brackets “Salmon,” “Latte,” “Ferry,” and “Elephant Super Wash.” That said, this is where Capitol Hill Seattle will bow into the tourney, against the flagship of the liberal blogs out here, lovingly named for everyone’s favorite political gadfly.

#3 Rain City Guide vs #6 izzlepfaff
And finally, real estate vs. humor. And with that, the opening 16 matchups are complete.

And that’s the first round. Keep voting; the second round starts Tuesday.