11.10.99

    It seems everywhere I go in the "journalling community" these days there is much whining and gnashing of teeth over this most current round of Diarist.net awards. So, for the record, I like Diarist.net. I think they do a good thing. They catalog, they link, they provide a valuable service. The kids that run that thing decided they wanted to start recognizing a few of the journals out of the hundreds that are doing something right. I'm not going to go into some sort of ridiculous dissection of what's right or what isn't. You know the good stuff when you see it. Those that complain that they're never recognized for their good stuff or that the winners of the good stuff really shouldn't be winners are just having sour grapes.

    I also keep reading that some people think other people who change how they do things just to get an award are stupid/silly/wrong/etc. Well, duh. Life isn't fair and if something is in vogue and what you're doing isn't then you can either decide to go with the vogue and go against it and do your own thing but don't get into hysterics that your un-vogue tripe isn't beating out the vogue tripe. What's good does not have to be declared as a universal truth and neither does what's bad in order for there to be acknowledgement. Hopping up and down over it is simply poor sportsmanship. You like my design? You have an online journal? Then, as my peer, go vote for it and give me a little acknowledgement. You think awards are piffle and that I don't deserve an award? Well, just go write a poem or something but shaddup already!

    And, on a side note, if you're one of those people who keeps up with these things, I think that Chuck's entry entitled Father's Day is the funniest thing. I don't know whether or not he ended up winning the award last session for best comedic entry but there was a whole hoo-ha because Chuck said it wasn't funny. A lot of people wrote in to say that he was right, it wasn't funny, it was painful and took a lot to write and shouldn't be up as comedic. I know what they're getting at but it is funny. Not in a funny-ha-ha sort of way but sort of an oh-god-that-sounds-just-terrible-but-aint-it-the-truth kind of way. I listened to an archived NPR Fresh Air thing with Julia Sweeney recently who used to play Pat on Saturday Night Live. She talked about her brother and how she was doing stand-up shows during the time that her brother had terminal cancer. She took stories from the hospital room about the ordeal and turned them into laughter. The humor wasn't at his expense and it wasn't about how funny cancer is but it was a way to laugh during a hard situation. You can listen to it and see if you don't find the anecdote about her brother really hilarious. I'm still laughing about it. If you have Real Audio, you can listen, too.

    In work-related news, our company just hired a couple PR hacks to work on our mission statement and create some copy all about us. This is a very good thing. I'm looking forward to reading it and it just gives me a good warm glow all over. I just hope that this doesn't push the site redesign out too long because that still is aching to get done.

*and really bad puns