It's Official! And I'd Like to Thank the Academy ...

I had so much fun with those blog awards and I hope that y'all did too! Certainly everybody was quite gracious in letting me talk about that darned egg so much. Thanks y'all!

Amy Welborn showed what a lady she is by not flogging the vote at all. We all know that if she was even half as shameless as I was in getting the vote out ... well, the term "crushing victory" would have a new definition. As Der Tommissar said, "Someone in Vegas just made a ton of money on that one." The sheer excitement I felt in seeing our blog votes come even to each other couldn't have been matched. (Yes, that's how very sad and void of real forms of entertainment my life can be ... and still I'm happy! I'm not going to dwell on that right now.)

Josh LeBlanc deserves a huge thanks from everyone ... and if that was expressed by helping with bandwidth costs via PayPal (check at the bottom of the votes page) I'm sure he'd appreciate it.

For those who wanted things changed with the awards please do go to the forums that Joshua set up. There are some very good suggestions being made and that's the perfect place to have ideas mulled over for practicality and fairness.

Seeing some of the response around St. Blogs makes me more convinced than ever that the Catholic Blog Awards are not just fun, they also are a valuable litmus test for humility and sense of proportion. I continue to think that Owen nailed it with this:

If Catholic bloggers complain about their awards now, one can only imagine what it's gonna be like at the General Judgment. Sheesh, hope St. Peter's got big ear plugs. And, one is afraid to imagine what kind of witness they are providing in the mean time; mean being the byword.

luminous miseries

Speaking of new categories ... this has convinced me that there really needs to be a category for best acceptance of an award. (And while you're at it, don't miss this candidate for best awards wrap-up post.)

UPDATE
The Curt Jester has a nice summary of winners. I agree with his analogy that voting this year was like Sophie's Choice ... it's practically impossible to choose one over the other from among so many great blogs.