“Isn’t it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it, too?”–Douglas Adams
There’s great news for all you blogging enthusiasts just clamoring to be nominated for one of the many chain letters–er, blog awards that are circulating around the net. It’s the newly minted Douglas Adams Award and all you have to do, if nominated is:
- Tell what six time seven equals.
- Tell what the square root of 1764 is.
- Tell what the cube root of 74,088 is.
- Tell what the name of the Jackie Robinson biopic is.
- Tell what number I am thinking of right now.**
- Nominate 6 other bloggers for the award.
- Repeat the above six steps seven times without nominating any given blogger more than once.
Got it? Do all this and you are a winner. By my calculations, after ten full iterations within the blogosphere, no fewer than 17 quadrillion of these accolades will have been distributed. Everyone wins more times than they can possibly count; even your pet newt wins. Who wants to be first? In the meantime , I am plotting my next old fashioned BLAHS, which is bestowed upon one measly blogger at a time. How 20th century lame is that?
Cheers,
(**Sorry. You’re wrong. I was thinking of 9 3/4)
The Millennium Conjectures™ 
I was the first to like this – an achievement that should be honored in its own right! But of course I am depressed more than Marvin now: I have announced at the bottom of my most recent post that I am pondering about founding an award myself – an award whose nomination process would meet the criteria defined by the designers of Corporate Quality Management Systems and by the architects of the internet standards alike … but you have defeated me.
Not only have you been faster and founded a new award when it was due – the universe was sort of waiting for it. Above all, the coolest blog award name in the world is now taken – unless I time-travel to the past and re-invent a Douglas-Adams-Award back then – and your critieria are rigorous, self-consistent, and free of loopholes!
And who do you think inspired this post, Elke my dear? And to whom do you think I am plotting to bestow the next BLAHS on? I will give you a hint: I am awarding it in a category called “Geekier than thou.”
Wow – feels as if the dolphins have returned 🙂
And, oh yeah, I knew you would reblog this.
This is because I am not a human being but an AI bot 🙂 I am programmed for retweeting that stuff.
And I bet you were the first to get the “9 3/4” footnote reference at the bottom.
Not quite – to be honest. But I am a great Googler and so I think the correct reply should be: I have never been a Harry Potter fan.
That’s OK, I don’t go fr comic books or super heroes, so neither of us is a perfect nerd.
Speaking of Google, if you Google “Douglas Adams Award” this post is already coming up in the middle of the second page. It should be on the first page before you know it! 😛
Is there an award where you can just say ‘Thank you’? Maybe just answer some questions about yourself, ask for an introduction to the people who read the blog.
I’m new to this and I haven’t the faintest idea how to do all this pasting and ping backing and etc required. I spent hours trying to figure it all out on my own and coming up with responses and questions…gave up in exhaustion and live in fear of another nomination.
Yes, there is such an award. You get it every time somebody “likes” your post of comments favorably. And it’s OK to say thank you, though the likes become impossible to reply to once you get a lot of traffic. The so-called awards that require you to nominate 5, 10 even 15 other bloggers are not awards. They are chain letters.
Oh thank you Mark, cuz we all know chain letters are evil. Most ‘likes’ are taken as given. Silently. Comments? I try to respond. Love your blog. NO need to respond.
But I will respond. Thank you for your kind comments. 😉
LOL..
..OLOLOLO… 😀
So many awards! Not sure if I can keep up! Looking forward to the next BLAHS, though! 🙂
Someone nominated me for one of those. I thanked her politely and then ignored it. Chain letters indeed. Humbug. I felt bad, though, that she was delighted to receive it an promptly jumped through all the requisite hoops. Double humbug.
I have ignored 8 of them….well, not completely. I do acknowledge the bestowed and thank them for thinking of me. Then I ignore the rest of it.
Someone should start a blog about blogging etiquette and save us all a lot of time.
Thanks for the follow! I’m honored. Your mind may be cluttered, but you write a darn fine blog.
*I checked and there are lots of blog etiquette sites, but they’re fairly useless. Might have to do something about that. 😉
Devils Advocate: almost a year ago now, I was a new blogger. An award nomination was validation! At the time, I didn’t understand the pervasiveness of them. I just know that I was grateful somebody out there liked what I had to say and the photos I was posting.
You are correct that likes and comments are validation, but when new to blogging those may not come for awhile. An award was a nice feel good for the day. Once a blogger has a large following (like you and many of those who have commented) the awards may be more of a pain. For the newbie, it felt good AND it introduced me to other cool blogs.
A year later, I don’t need that validation …
Hey, it is still validation. Even though I don’t “participate” by jumping through the hoops, nominating others, or displaying the logos on my home page, I do acknowledge the nomination to the person sending it and thank them for appreciating my blog. I am pretty sure the vast majority of bloggers don’t jump through all these hoops, or we would all be getting 50 nominations every day.
Darn, I was sure you were thinking 2.7. Guess I don’t win the award.
Look on the bright side. You saved yourself trying to find and nominate 42 bloggers gullible enough to actually think they are winning something. 😛
Loved this post – chain letters is exactly what they are! 😡 Even before I started blogging, just looking at other blogs, I could see that with a little multiplication every blog in the world would soon have ever award, so it was great to see you demolish the illusion with such humour. 😀 On the plus side there are more and more bloggers placing ‘award free’ notices on their blog and others who just politely decline them.
I do the latter (politely decline them). In case you hadn’t noticed, I started my own award, the BLAHS (Blog Awards Handed Out by Sackler). These awards are in an appropriate-for-this-blog state of superposition, being simultaneously both serious and a satire of blog awards. But I give them out just one at a time and there is no propagation. If you receive one from anyone other than me, it is a fraud. Call the authorities. 😀
😀