The House Rock Built

College football bloggers spend a frightening amount of time laboring over their online projects and, in doing so, almost certainly do it at the expense of alienating their employers, their loved ones, and that sink full of dirty dishes that each day becomes more and more overrun with botulism cultures. Nonetheless, they persevere and continue writing, almost entirely motivited by some slightly misguided altruism and a passionate dream to entertain, inform, and make jokes about mustaches and farts for their loyal readers who, ironically enough, alienate their employers and loved ones by spending an inordinate amount of time surfing the internet and laughing at jokes about mustaches and farts.

Nevertheless, it doesn't hurt to set aside a week or so at the end of the season to be self-indulgent and hold a little awards ceremony to congratulate themselves on the hard work they are doing for free or the random pennies they get from Google Ads. The fine lads at Rocky Top Talk have set up and hosted the poigniantly un-snappily named "2006 College Football Blogger Awards". And while I would prefer a more endearing sobriquet for the award (like, say, the Bloggies or the CoFoBAs), I still value the concept. Furthermore, I think that the actual hardware should look a lot like the 2005 Fiesta Bowl Trophy, as you can see on your right here. Alas, I'm not the boss.

Anyway, the House has made the ballot for two of these lovely awards, so I thought I'd take a minute to plug my viability as a candidate... the people's candidate.

First up is a nomination for Friday Night Lites for Best Podcast/Audio Thingy. FNL was a really fun project to bring together bloggers and talk shop which, unfortunately, came derailed at the end of the season due to massive technological failure (long story short, I had to put down most of my machinery with a shotgun after it became self-aware and tried to kill me in my sleep).

If you want to get a smattering of FNL, you can listen to some sample episodes, like this one, where I interviewed Michigan bloggers, or this one, where I yapped with Jay from Blue-Gray Sky and Orson from EDSBS. And finally, although it wasn't on a normally-scheduled show, I think that Mike Valenti's timeless rant was a staple of the HRB's audio content, so it probably deserves another listening anyway.

Next up is a nomination for Best Big East/Notre Dame Blog. While it's flattering to make it to the finalists, most right-minded readers (including myself) will be casting their lot with Blue Gray Sky, who are (in the words of my sidebar link to them) the "one and only warlords of Notre Dame football".

So get out there and stuff the box. It's an honor to get this recognition and I'd like to thank my loyal readers for their nominations in the initial poll. I'm hitting the campaign trail these next two weeks, so if you see a 79 Chevy Nova painted blue and gold blasting the Notre Dame fight song in your city, come on by and I'll squirt you in the mouth with a super soaker full of Rumpleminze!