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Call to Action:

Please provide song suggestions for Scott and Courtney's first dance at their wedding. They have questionable taste in music (They've been thinking country songs. Yuk.) and need some help. I was thinking "Let's Stay Together" by Al Green...

Although I would prefer something like this:

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It's time to celebrate the good, bad and terrible content that we all spent more time than we'd like to admit reading on this amateur blog in the last year. This undefinable blog produced news (original and unoriginal), editorials, rants, raves, original photography, original videos, a lot of copied content (with and without permissions), missed humor, anger, frustration, and a prolonged travel blog series. T'was a good year.

Best Author: Paolo
Paolo remains the pinnacle author of this blog, and his achievements will only be fully realized and celebrated long after his time.

Best Series: Head of Class
In this two-part series, guest blogger Matt described his trials as a student teacher. Read Part 1 and Part 2.

Most Prolonged Series: Paolo Does Europe
Three months' time documented a three-week trip. WIB published a total 17 blog posts, starting Sept. 21 and commencing Dec. 18.

Best Guest Author: Ra Scion
Ra wrote a hilarious blog that simultaneously explained and announced the Vince's Italian Restaurant 50th anniversary and bitch-slapped Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels.

Happiest Blog: Kenna and Beard Bumming It at Westlake Center
Angriest Blog: Regina Spektor is Overrated
I still don't like Regina Spektor much.

Best Rant: The Jeff Renner/Snow Blog
Most Educational: The HPV/Gardasil Blog
Most Alcoholic: The 3-buck Chuck Blog
Worst Experiment Quasi-Documented on the Blog: Online Dating

Most Original: Dissing the 365 Project
Does anyone else get the irony of this award?

Best Blog Written for Women: Starbucks Holiday Drinks
Best Blog Written to Agitate Women: Online Dating Blows
Best Creative Writing: The Salumi's Experience
Most Vain: Online Dating Blows

Most Commented: The Craigslist Personal Ad Blog and the Announcement of Scott and Courtney's Wedding Blog

Each post drew 16 comments.

Scott's decision to post personal ad on Craigslist on my behalf attracted a legion of voyeuristic blog stalkers to come out of the woodwork and vicariously follow the lifetime of that personal ad and its responses.

The announcement that Scott and Courtney started their own wedding blog evolved into a fierce argument between Scott's sister Caitlin and my little brother, Sergio. Low blows included, "Caitlin, the photos proudly displayed on your MySpace and Facebook hardly embody what you call 'class and character.' Please stop kidding yourself."

Best Comment:
This one's a no-brainer. On Friday, Nov. 30, Allegories in Life wrote,

"If I lived in Seattle, I would stalk you the old-fashioned way. I would build a shrine out of partially eaten bagels, locks of hair, and mail I'd find in your trash. I would buy a focuspoint shirt in every color and go to every show.

Stalking like this is a lost art form. Facebook and MySpace stalking is just plain lazy.

For now, I'll just have to blog-stalk you."

Most Ripped Off Content in a Blog: Understanding the Strike
I stole 468 words from Jenna Fischer's MySpace blog explaining the ongoing writer's strike. I even stole the headline from her blog. Classy.

Most Likely to Read the Blog First: Cari
Cari's the only loyal blog reader on the East Coast, so she has a three-hour jump on everyone to read crap on the blog everyday.

Most Likely to Disagree With Your Comment: Chris Brown
He's the devil AND and an advocate, which is why we love him.

Best "Under the Radar" Avid Reader: Katrine's Mom
Katrine gets her news about the blog... from her mom.

Best Video in a Blog: Moos Drunk
Best Actor, Director and Producer in an Original Blog Video: Paolo in "Scott's Infamous Palm Desert Hangover"
Best Dancer in an Original Blog Video: Sergio in "The Soulja Boy Dance"

Coolest Original Picture in a Blog: Sabzi at the Big Tunes Final
Best Blog Photostory: UW-Arizona football game
Most Disgusting Photo Sequence: Matt Eating a Burger
Worst Photoshop Job: Paolo on Burt Reynolds' Hairy, Naked Body

Happy New Year, everyone! Sayonara, 2007!

Wives Shed Like Cats

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I have many nicknames for my roommates, Katrine and Moos. Collectively, I call them The Wives. Individually, I call Katrine the "Queen of Ballard," and Moos "The Dark Lord."
Alas, I have new nicknames for Katrine and Moos: "Tabby" and "Himalayan," respectively. You see, The Wives shed like cats. To live with them is to be surrounded by tumbleweeds of hair.

I've grown accustomed to the lifestyle, but the occasional visitor will find the clumps of hair that collect unusual. After Sergio's extended stay in the Ballard Burrow last week, he said he couldn't believe the masses of hair in the bathroom, kitchen and bedrooms. True, we do challenge the average barber shop for most hair on the floor. I actually had to re-tape most of my Christmas presents because hair got under the tape. I really shouldn't have wrapped presents sitting on the family room carpet.

I know, I know. Vacuum frequently, you suggest. Unfortunately, our vacuum recently passed away - strangled to death by a cord of the combined Tabby and Himalayan hair. I'm off to Fred Meyer today to buy a new one. If this one dies, I'm going to the pet store to buy cat brushes.

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Jeff Renner, you son of a bitch.

You, the "chief meteorologist of King 5," told me it was supposed to snow yesterday. It didn't. One to 3-inches of accumulation in the Seattle area, you said. Blasphamy. I'm about to go old school on your ass and cut off your tongue (with the machete Scott gave me for Christmas) for the blatant lie you told.

Even King 5 meteorologist Shannon O'Donnell, the Vanna White to your Pat Sajak, said it was going to snow us into a new Ice Age yesterday, but instead it just rained. And rained. The only thing worse than a dick tease is a snow tease, and Shannon O'Donnell is Queen Snow Tease.

Weatherpeople piss me off. They seek to fill their audience with disappointment under the veil of forecasting weather.

Ever since I can remember, I fell for all the commercial teasers by local broadcast stations claiming that snow was on the way. What a ratings scam. I stayed up late for the 11 o'clock news every time, wading through the sports, politics and untimely death reports to learn if and when snow would arrive. Yes, snow is on the way, the weatherperson would say. I'd then go to sleep, anxious to frolic in the snow the following morning. I'd dream of snowmen, snow angels, sledding and making yellow snowcones. Yet, in the morning, I would look out the window and see the same grass and concrete I saw every non-snowy morning. The grief and disappoint was unbearable. At age 5, I didn't have the diction I would later developed as a teenager, otherwise I would have said, "Fuck this."

I'm convinced that at least half the children in juvenile detention centers must be disturbed and angered by false snow forecasts. Thankfully, I had the outlet of playing mildly violent 8-bit Nintendo video games or tracing Cookie Monster and Elmo to calm my nerves, otherwise I'd probably be selling crack today.

"Weatherpeople" is the modern, politically-correct term for what people used to call "prophets" back in the day. Just like weatherpeople, prophets thought they knew what would happen in the future, but were usually wrong. Most of them did it for the attention. Sure some of them had God on their side, but today's weatherpeople have science on their side. Close enough.

I can only pray that, hundreds of years from now, some lunatic doesn't start a religion worshipping Jeff Renner.