This post might baffle readers that come here for: science / physics / book reviews / corporate world dark satire / search term poetry / navel-gazing / self-destruction … and the other genres I have forgotten.
However, I’d argue that this post covers all of those – in a subtle way.
My blog has a long tradition of dealing with blogging award nominations in a very very weird way. Still exhausted from our mad hatter’s tea party of a nomination (I also call it award crowd-sourcing) I had decided to found an award myself. Rules related to it should be bullet-proof, unassailable for logicians and corporate policy nitpickers. Above all, they should prevent exponential inflation.
Now is the time to bestow it upon a fellow blogger victim again!
I herewith nominate for the ILFB award – Intelligent Life-Forms in the Blogosphere:
Judy blogging at Raising the Curtain.
This is the description and the rules. Standards aficionados MAY recognize the format and SHOULD smile now.
The ILFB Award (Intelligent Life-Forms in the Blogosphere) rewards bloggers who are able to cover diverse subjects in a thoughtful and entertaining way. There are no other constraints such as a maximum number of followers.
- You are bestowed upon this award no matter what you do. You MAY deny passing on the award, the award will die out – as many life-forms did. You SHOULD nominate at least one blogger, you MAY nominate two bloggers. There is no deadline – you MAY wait for years if you pass on the award, but you MUST NOT nominate somebody if you haven’t been nominated. The founder of the award is exempt from the latter.
- You MAY nominate the blogger who has nominated you – the award MAY bounce back and forth between two bloggers forever. However, you MUST change the reason for the nomination every time.
- You MUST explain in more than one full sentence why you have nominated the nominee. You SHOULD reward bloggers who are able to write about at least two seemingly diverse subjects.
- You SHOULD reblog or pingback one of the nominee’s posts that has been published within the past year. The linked post SHOULD reflect key characteristics of the nominated blog.
- You MUST display the award’s logo, and you MAY change the title of the award as well as the logo. They would mutate anyway.
- If you find any inconsistency or loophole you SHOULD amend these rules to fix them.
- If the award title results in copyright infringements or any violation of any rights you MAY modify it. You MUST NOT hold the award’s founder liable.
- You MAY modify and amend rules 1.-7. to your liking as long as the changes
– reflect your being an intelligent life-form in the blogosphere
– are in line with the Prime Directive of this award – item no.0.- Include this set of rules 0.-9. in your nomination speech post.
Compliance with the three MUST conditions as stated in 1., 2., and 5. will be checked by the founder of this award using his/her infamous googling skills at random. Any violation will be prosecuted and punished by a making the guilty party subject to a satirical blog post. Any blogger who had once been bestowed the award and who has proved to be compliant with the rules is entitled and encouraged to do the same (Google for non-compliant nominees and ridicule them)
This is the logo.
I think it is more than obvious why Judy is an intelligent life-form in the blogosphere. But in order to comply with my own rules I herewith state:
Judy writes about Life, the Universe and Everything so it is very easy to find posts on diverse subjects. She mulls about existential deep questions of life – see here Existential Guide to What I Am Doing Here – as wells as tracks down the illogicity of corporate animals’ behaviours – see her analysis of e-mail politics: Stop Using The “CC” As A Weapon.
Her writing shows a qualities that I admire most, especially when combined with sharp analysis – self-irony and humor.
But of course I have decided on that nomination intuitively. Off-the-records I tell you:
Judy has been the first person who has ever dared to comment on my blog. That point of time was several months after the blog went public, so commenting must have felt like entering an eerie ghost ship.
I also have a strong gut feeling that her professional self MAY appreciate the legal lingo of the rules. (On proof-reading I misread now: lethal lingo)
This post is also a subversive attempt of mine to deal with her – still ‘open’ – nomination of myself. So, thanks again, Judy!
And finally: Judy is from Australia, that means she is my blogging antipode, we are separated by 12 time zones and our countries are linguistically entangled by the Austrian-Australian confusion.
We should try to make an earth sandwich! (I did not check co-ordinates – hopefully I will be forced to travel to the Canary Islands.) Here is the obligatory education youtube video about the Earth Sandwich!
elkemental Force 
Oh, come on. You know you’d rather get my Douglas Adams award, even if 10 to 5 zillionth power of them have been awarded…. ;)
But I want to leave my mark on that world, too (pun not intended), by founding an award of my own. I hope I can retire now from active participation in the award business altogether – I will just keep reporting on the mutations.
Fair enough
If I nominated myself for this award, would that make me a brain tumor?
I really like the subversive twist of this comment thread:
…following rules lethally, creating a steampunk snow globe similar to the logo… and now you have probably found the only loophole: I cannot prevent you from nominating – but I think I would need to apply this rule then ;-):
Any violation will be prosecuted and punished by a making the guilty party subject to a satirical blog post.
I’ll gladly take that satirical blog post ;)
And hey, you two: “lethally follow the rules” is going to be said in a meeting by me, sooner or later.
I am thrilled – I always wanted to create a meme!!!
Love the idea of passing on the award in a random, non-calendar sense – in the meantime I look foward to reading words written by those who are nominated and accept the ILFB. Will you keep a running list somewhere on your blog, or post when a new person receives it down the road?
Of course, the most difficult thing for me is that your circular ILFB logo is CRYING out to be made into a snow globe. I … shall … try … to control myself …
Thanks – and you are right … I should add a page listing the nominees or run some regular series. If Judy passes on the award I will watch the mutations and report on them.
As for the snow globe… the image is a Microsoft Office Clipart, I just added the colors. So – I think – it should be in the public domain anyway even if your globes are commercial ;-) But I don’t think somebody will make the connection between a steampunk snow globe and that drawing anyway. So go ahead – I would link to your post about an ILFB globe when reporting on award propagation … so that fans can purchase the real thing ;-)
I added the proper image credits now – however, I don’t know if mentioning ‘Office Clipart’ is good or bad. The spaceship was a clipart, I added the blogosphere and the colors. But I released in into the Wild Wild Web anyway now ;-)
Oh, my goodness! Wasn’t at all worried about credits or commercial this and that, I just saying when I see orb-shaped art, it sends my mind into “how would that fit in a snow globe?” It’s a sad, sad side effect I call circular logic. ;-) (Get it? Circular … I guess it could be “Orbital Logic” instead. )
I just thought the little ship and the man in the doorway was inspiring. I’ve done a lot of airships, but one with a ramp… it called to me. Good job on the logo, free clipart or not. I like it!
“Orbital Logic” is so cool – it has a touch of quantum chemistry … an orbital is the wave-function that describes where electrons can be found in atoms.
As I said – go ahead with building a snow globe; this would really be cool! My obsession with image credits etc. is probably due to too much immersion in “standards and rules thinking”. I needed that in order to list my award rules properly :-))
[Smiles insanely and trips on the stairs on the way to the podium]. Elke, this is indeed an esteemed honour and I humbly accept the gift you have most graciously bestowed on me. I had not realised that I was your first commentator, it was your writing and content that drew me, not the presence of others. Most significantly, I am not your last commentator and I am so glad that your blog has been discovered by a band of discerning followers. To think that I could be regarded as intelligent life amongst those that read your blog is amazing . I will of course lethally follow your rules as you are dealing with a professional :). The title of your blog says it all, a range of topics, intelligent insight and a wonderful ability to move science from the purely theoretical to the accessible and personally relevant. All with a touch of humour. This takes skill.
So let’s take a bite out of that earth sandwich. What’s a few time zones between friends, anyway?
Thank you, Elke. You are an integral part of my blogging experience.
Thanks for your acceptance speech, Judy :-) … and especially your promise to lethally follow the rules ;-) :-) The blogosphere will collapse!
I had planned this for a long time … actually since your nominating me months ago.
I just waited for the right moment, that is: when I have started lots of other “series” so that finally my blogs consist just of loose ends, messy tags, and is all over the place.
But I learned from The Curtain Raiser that you should (SHOULD) never resist the challenge of tackling new topics and formats ;-)
Looking forward to many more intelligent and witty posts of yours!
I very much enjoyed the Earth Sandwich! D
Researching earth sandwich experiments I learned that are not that much “workable” combinations for the US. I guess you would need to find a ship’s captain ;-)