Premio Dardos Award

Dear Gentle Reader,

Last week I received an award from Barbara Martin.

The Premio Dardos award, Barbara told me, is for the appreciation of merits—cultural, literary and individual—of every blogger who expresses him/herself on his/her blog.

I was tickled pink and I replicated the very interesting selection that Barbara had made, on my blog.

I remained tickled pink. 

And I wanted to share that feeling.

After careful thought, I would like to nominate the following 14 blogs for this award, because it seems like a fun idea, and because they are all worth it:

1. OxyJen - OxyJen is currently on a Haiku binge rather than writing, which she alleges she will do soon. Or a koala will get her. (?) Of course, your humble scribe is still waiting for the European trip report that was promised a (long) while ago...

2. Comfort Spiral  - Cloudia takes us to explore her diverse Hawaii, through her prose and through her pictures, too. Cloudia starts every day with an eclectic and thought-provoking collection of  quotes. Any one of these three components makes the visit worthwhile.

3. Lifetime Learnings - Junosmom in Kentucky is a near-daily updater and quietly offers her perspectives on the world, along with prose snapshots of her world. Concise, clean, and wittier than any webcam.

4. Strikkepinner og andre pinner... (Knitting and some more) - Bea from Norway writes super small blogs on her world in Norwegian and English. She invents great designs for her knitting (your humble scribe is in love with her monster patterns) and is currently on a mission to satisfy foot fetishists around the web (meant tongue-in-cheek, Bea.)

5. The Tainted Archive - I discovered Archavist recently. He writes about writing genres that are not my genres, and he writes very well, and draws me in. He also conducts an excellent interview and has acted in Dr. Who. 'Nuff said; talented guy.

6. Pattinase - Pattinase writes well on an interesting collection of topics. Pattinase has mastered brevity, with content, in a way that I doubt I ever shall. She also attracts readers that leaver longer messages and appear to have short conversations with each other. That takes a special knack. Finally, she wrote the blog I sent you too last week when I found out I had received this award.

7. Volatile Rune - Another recent discovery, Frances is a poet, a copywriter and a hoarder of books. Need I say more? Well, she possesses a wry wit and both a deft ability and agility with English. I have just started perusing her archives; so far so very good.

8. Pics and Poems - David King is a retired teacher who has given a lot of thought to words in his life. I was convinced he was an Anglican or Roman Catholic priest, for some reason, mostly his erudite eloquence that normally comes from years of making presentations. His posts are not that lengthy, but they sometimes require time to read and to digest. Always a nice visit. 

9. Abrideira - Is from Spain and write micro-posts in Spanish. But what you visit for are the pictures of unusual industrial design, and design art, that she finds and purveys at no cost but your time. 

10. Mind the Gap please - Audrey is a young French woman who is studying and living in London, and falling in love with the city. She does not post often, but her quirky photos of what entrance her, and her descriptions of London life (in French) remind me strongly of discovering new cities and new loves and new cultures ... and of youth. A treat, for your humble scribe at least.

11. Nidosenlamiel - Pica Miel is from Argentina and this little Honey writes a plethora of blogs in Spanish. Your humble scribe's Spanish is really Latin crossed with French, and google translate is really not that useful when people play with language and write poetry. But I persevere as I am usually amply rewarded.

12. Patchwork Quilt - Lorie from Massachusetts updates when the mood strikes her. And she has a fine eye for composition and detail for her artwork and her perspectives which she shares when she does update. So, she is an occasional read, and well worth the wait.

13. Stix and String - Heidelweiss at Stix and String out of Utah does not believe in awards. Which is fine. And she proclaims that she does not post frequently, which is true, although there is no pretense about her posts when they come. But you really want her to visit you; if she returns, she leaves stellar comments on a regular basis. It is always a treat to see what she leaves behind after a visit.

14. EyeCandy - Candace is creative, funky, and fun. She does great things over on her blog and I like popping by to see what is what in her world. Her blog lives up to, and exceeds, her title. 

There you go. Lucky 14. One more than 13, which has been unlucky ever since the Bartholomew Day Massacre on Friday, 13 October, 1307. And one less than 15, so I am surely breaking any chain-letter pretensions of the award...

Nominees, there is absolutely no need to send out further nominations or do anything except bask in the glow of appreciation because I wanted to say thank you to some bloggers whose work I enjoy. 

I bet a third of you do not even know I exist, which is totally fine with me.

For legalistic propriety, the rules for acceptance, which I feel morally bound to replicate (but not follow), are:

1. be tickled pink;

2. copy and paste the award picture to your blog;
3. write down the regulations;
4. link to the blog who bestowed you the Award; and, finally,
5. nominate 15 blogs for the Award.

The perceptive and sensitive reader (Barbara Martin!) who nominated me states that she generally does not pass awards on to others as there have been comments that the awards are like chain mail letters. (Flexible yet heavy and hard to write upon?) 

So instead of passing the award onto 15 nominees, Barbara chose 11.

Yes, the logic is a bit scanty, but it was my first award on the web... 

Who am I to quibble? 

Me, I have chosen 14 including e-people whom I have just encountered, e-people who do not know I exist, and e-people whom I know dislike awards.

I am contrarian. 

As mentioned, I initially chose zero new people and replicated Barbara's list because it was populated with such nice people (I feel a tremendous affection and affinity to two utterly new discoveries via Barbara; Raph's Ramblings and Bindu's Transient Lives). 

From my perspective, this is another way to say thanks.

Thank you all for (e-)enriching the web.

Tschuess,

Chris

Postscript: 

For those in the mood to play along, I was tagged by EyeCandy's Candace in the "six things meme game" and responded yesterday. You could consider yourselves tagged too, if you wanted to play. By you, that means you, Gentle Reader...