I Got An Award!

Dunno about you lot, but I had another bizarre weekend! Well, maybe "bizarre" is quite a strong term in the World view of things bizarre, but for someone living in the fictitious town of Trumpton, it was pretty full-on, and included GETTING AN AWARD, BEING MENTIONED ON NATIONAL RADIO, and HAVING MI5 ADDING ME AS A FRIEND!

It all began relatively quietly.

Friday evening, after posting Feelgood Friday, I decided it was time to up my site traffic hits from "some" to into "double figures", so I did some very shallow research on blog directories, and submitted my blog URL to a few of them (you will see the little voting box things of some of them way down somewhere near the bottom of the page. Some didn't make it, 'cos the whole process is a bit boring/confusing - too bad, their loss), ignoring in the process one of my favourite Groucho Marx  quotes "I don't care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members".

Groucho (with mum) as a child

Then I checked my email In box and discovered that my activities on Yahoo!Answers had resulted in my getting a Violation notice for incorrect usage of the question/answer forum (that was in response to a question I had answered in the "Entertainment > Jokes and Riddles" section (those guys have NO sense of humour), and yet another one of my answers being "reported" (had posted that one in the very serious "Gaming" section, so I didn't really expect them to take it as a joke). The guy in the "Cars + Automobiles" section (who was asking for reviews of a Citroen blahblahnumbersanstuff that he was thinking of buying) hadn't reported me though ("Hi!" if he's reading), so that was a plus. I suppose it balanced out the karma of DreamCat voting mine the best answer to her "It's raining, I'm bored" question on Friday (hope you're still reading, DreamCat!).


Having had my wrists slapped by Yahoo!Answers, and actually feeling somehow pleased with myself for my carefree rebelliousness, I continued on my random surfing crusade, only to be stopped in my tracks on the BoingBoing website by the Battle of the Cheetos game. I don't know if Cheetos are actually on sale in the UK, certainly they aren't available in Trumpton (but then, not much is), but they look like the US equivalent of the UK's Cheesy Wotsits crisps. Anyway, it was a full-on war game, with some kind of puffed wheat snack food wearing full body armour. I'm a Scot, and us Scots love fighting, especially battles, so I had to join in. That was my justification for spending the next 20 minutes choosing my flag design and colours. The fact that I'm a Scot was also my justification of why it took me less than 60 seconds to loose. I have no justification at all for the fact that I lost BECAUSE I SHOT MY OWN CHEETO FOOT SOLDIERS! I could only look on in despair as my brave Cheeto soldiers were blasted into clouds of orange-tinged wheaty-puff oblivion by the missile I had launched only seconds earlier. Call them Cheetos or call them Cheesy Wotists, those little guys may have been puffs, but they were brave puffs, nonetheless. (SFX "Reveille" "Taps").

Yanking myself back to work (but with a heavy heart), I went over to Exposeyourblog and did my blogsurfing duty, visiting other bloggers pages. Among the blogs that came up during my surf, was a particularly notable one "Nascont Benedictine" by a benedictine monk. As the surf portal doesn't let you see the URL address, and as Mr Monk [N.B. no disrespect intended by that link, only a questionable sense of humour] doesn't have a followers button, I couldn't find the site again. I couldn't even leave a comment, as they all seemed to be in Latin (I was gonna say "Hi! I'm a Dudeist priest - like your prayers!"). Cool site to end my evening on, though, which was exactly what I did.

Saturday, I was giving my eyes a rest (hoping they would return to being round, and loose the square shape that they're beginning to assume). So I went out and had a wild night on the town* (*that's a complete lie - I went down to my mum's, had dinner, and watched "The Boat That Rocks" with her - good film). But, on returning home, I couldn't resist turning on my overworked laptop to see if I had any emails, or if any more followers had joined my site, or if my blog happened to have caught the attention of anyone which then resulted in them giving me an award..... or anything.

I had! They did! It did! It had! (This is me trying to condense the story from "long winded" to merely "lengthy")

WOOP WOOP WOOP!

My new follower is a real person, who I actually know in real life, who thinks my blog is funny (mind you, she is on the verge of being certifiable). Hello Itchin Stitchin! Welcome to Madness - your home planet!

The Award is from an employee of blog directory AddYourBlog (I haven't -yet!) who obviously has far to much time on her hands, but who equally obviously has a superb taste in humour blogs! I don't know how she (Alessandra - I'm presuming that's the female version of the name???) found my site, 'cos I didn't submit my blog to AddYourBlog (mebbe she was thinking of buying a Citroen blahblahnumbersanstuff and saw my witty, yet irrelevant reply on Yahoo!Answers???).

Apparently my blog was hand selected to receive the Award:

...... to honor your hard
work and dedication in providing a quality web log.
Requirements:

1)Quality Web Content.

2)Great Design .

3)Web Log Everyone Will Love To Read .

My first reaction was to be deeply suspicious that this was some clever marketing ploy to encourage me to join their directory (a bit rich on my part considering I had spent several hours the previous day trying to do exactly that with other directories!). My second reaction was "Who cares, even if it is a clever marketing ploy? I've won an Award - and it's shiny, almost!" My third reaction was "How can I discover the technology to cleverly market my blog by running round giving (almost) shiny awards to big, popular blog sites? (still working on that one).  

My final reaction was to wait until today (Monday) to follow the link which would allow me to collect my Award badge, turn off my tired computer, and go to bed, with a smile on my face!

But it didn't end there.........

The time was 3.30am (Brit time), and the Richard Allinson Show was on BBC Radio 2. I'm usually just getting off to bed at the time, so I am a regular listener. I had just turned the radio on, when Richard announced that submissions for inclusion into the 3.46 club were being accepted by text and email. The 3.46 club is where you text/email in with an explanation of why you are up at that time in the morning. If your reason is interesting enough, Richard gives a shout-out to you on his show. I had often heard this feature, but never thought to call in......

Until now.....

I only had 15 minutes to submit my reason for being up at such an hour.......

I texted that I was up 'cos I had been working on my blog, and that I was dancing around my room 'cos it had just won an Award. I cheekily included my blog name, just in case.

Then I decided that it would probably be a good idea to go back downstairs and add the Award badge to my blog, on the off chance that a researcher for Richard's show would look up my blog to check it out (I can dream, can't I?), or that a bored listener would surf by to see it. By this time it was 3.33. I had no time to loose.

I managed to coerce my computer into booting-up in far less time than it usually takes (I say computer, it's actually a little laptop, with no memory - a fact that it consistently reminds me of, which is probably a good thing, otherwise it might start suffering from some kind of laptop trauma as a result of my surfing habits, and I'd have to get it special treatment). It gets very tired, especially when it's had a busy night, but I coaxed it by telling it that this was an amazing opportunity that could make me, and vicariously it ("her" actually, she's a Goddess even though she doesn't have a name) famous. Amazingly enough, she co-operated (DON'T try to tell me that inanimate objects have no feelings - they DO, and often they're feelings are VENGEFUL).

My laptop and I managed to get the Award sewn-onto my blog page at 3.46am ....... finishing at the exact same moment Richard Allinson chose to give me a shout out THAT INCLUDED MY BLOG NAME!!!!!!

ON BRITAIN'S MOST LISTENED TO RADIO STATION!!!!!!!

DOUBLE WOOP WOOP WOOP-DE-WOOP!!!!!!!!

Now I was dancing around the room again!

Too much excitement!

I went back to bed, happy in the knowledge that, not only had my blog won an Award, but it had succeeded in gaining National recognition, finally, after [checks watch] almost five weeks of hard graft. 

Thank you Richard Allinson. This post is dedicated to you. You are my Hero!

My Hero!

P.S. To those of you who are paying attention rather than drifting off to sleep, I know I haven't mentioned how it came about that MI5 have added me as their friend. But it's true. I'm just exhausted after re-living the events of the last two days, so have to rest now. With a nice cup of tea. I will, however, explain all about it in another post. I promise (no, it doesn't matter how much you all protest, dear readers, you will get an explanation at some future date, whether you want it or not!).