Stop your scrapbooking, pause Beaches and get out some powdered-sugary delicious Puppy Chow, because we have some exciting news! The Oklahoma Mommy Blog Awards are back...and they are now accepting nominations!
This year's awards are a lot different than previous years. They now have 24 categories, a sponsor, and are organized by Jenx67. Also, they have added some new rules to make the nomination and selection process more confusing and sillier than a Jenni Carlson sports column.
From the Oklahoma Blog Awards website:
The purpose of the Okie Blog Awards is to recognize the outstanding talent, creativity and hard work of Oklahoma bloggers, and to encourage excellence in blogging.
The program was founded five years ago and was originally based on peer-selection. Peer selection will continue as the core of the nominating process; however, final determination and selection of top winners in each category will be made by a panel of experts, all of whom are from Oklahoma.
Yes, you read that right; a panel of "experts" is going to select the winners of the Oklahoma Blog Awards. Who is included in this illustrious panel? Let's find out:
The panel includes experts in law, publishing, government, planning, writing, public relations, computer programming, advertising, small business, visual arts and more.
Ugh.
We've complained in the past that Mommy Bloggers have had too large of an influence on the Oklahoma Blog Awards, but this is a ridiculous swing in the opposite direction. Seriously, do we really need a group of self appointed "experts" to determine the best blogs in Oklahoma??? Unless that panel includes HoHo the Clown, Ranger Roger and Jack Bowen, the answer is a resounding "NO!"
What we need instead are the people who read blogs (a.k.a. you, me, that weird IT guy who wears a flash drive necklace) to determine the "best" blogs in Oklahoma. It seems pretty easy, still have the bloggers vote on and determine the finalists, but let the masses determine the deserving winners. That way, the best blogs will be recognized, and Mike Koehler and Jim Roth can debate more important things than what's the best rural blog in Oklahoma.
Anyway, the silliness of this year's selection process "” plus the fact that we've already received more recognition than we've ever deserved "“ kind of makes us want to boycott the Oklahoma Blog Awards, but that would require us to be noble, gracious and humble. As you know, we're anything but that. The last time we made a gracious gesture was when we volunteered to be the judges at the Club Infiniti Wet T-Shirt contest. Granted, we were only 18 and they turned down our request, but it was thought that counted.
