Authored by: cresmer on Thursday, June 07 2007 @ 04:05 PM

Don't vote often, or I'll disqualify your bloggy ass.

On another, less bitchy note, do you think I should have divided the categories differently?

I just didn't feel like there were enough "non-political" blogs to field meaningful categories. And I definitely wanted to separate the politicos.

Thoughts for next year?

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Don't give the devil a ride--he will want to drive.

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Authored by: billsimmon on Thursday, June 07 2007 @ 04:19 PM

No, I think dividing it the way you did makes the most sense. Otherwise you wind up with tons of categories. I guess you could break it into linkfarms, professional journals, catblogs (meaning any kind of blogging about personal home life), hobby blogs, (knitters, photo blogs, etc.), political blogs and journalism blogs (both pro and citizen). It's just that you'll always be leaving someone out. For instance, I'm not sure Canldeblog fits into any of those categories all that neatly. Yeah, forget all that. Political and non-political, or no distinction at all.

I do think that if someone fails to paste a specific url, but the intent of the voter is unambiguous, you should count the vote. Some urls don't lend themselves to easy memorization. Someone might type "candleblog.com," for instance, when they mean "candleboy.com/candleblog." Just a thought.

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Authored by: Ntodd on Thursday, June 07 2007 @ 05:59 PM

I'd recommend Best NTodd Blog and Best Non-NTodd Blog for next year.

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Don't mess with a man with a Wayback Machine. I can make it so you were never born.

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Authored by: Libbylu99 on Thursday, June 07 2007 @ 07:09 PM

After completing the survey (you're welcome!), I was brought to the Seven Days home page, which features a link to your Youtube Pants video.
Very slick!

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Authored by: urbanrhino on Thursday, June 07 2007 @ 10:25 PM

I suggest that everyone nominate me for something. I like daisies and I
want one.
just pick something and write me in, like ... a lot.

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Authored by: billsimmon on Friday, June 08 2007 @ 12:32 AM

There's a question about the Vermonter you most want to see naked. Everyone could write in "Nate Beaman." Even if you didn't win, the 7D vote counters would be all, "who the hell is Nate Beaman?"

I actually tried to think of a Vermonter I want to see naked and had some trouble. That is, there are plenty of Vermonters I want to see naked, but I think they're looking for VT celebrities, not the random attractive women I see walking down the street, and it's a little too precious to write "my wife" on the ballot. There are a couple of "hunky" guys that I can think of, but being the straight-but-not-narrow guy that I am, seeing them naked isn't really a goal of mine. Can it be that there are no super-fine female Vermont celebrities? Can anyone name some? For guys there's Rusty DeWees -- he's considered hot, right? Tom Messner? I dunno. But women? Help me out here, people.

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Authored by: urbanrhino on Friday, June 08 2007 @ 06:18 AM

i actually think that the full correect response would be, "Who the hell is
Nate Beaman, and why can't I stop dreaming about him?"

I could probably say a handfull of Vermont women to see naked here
that would sound witty and potentially funny, but I would be opening
myself to a full onslaught of badgering from my significant other, so "my
precious wife" is my answer

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Authored by: DanZ on Friday, June 08 2007 @ 07:02 AM

Interesting question. Uhh, mrs. simmon, could you shove over a bit so I can get my typing hand out .. great .. thanks.. uh, please don't touch the Rothko.

So, as I was saying, yes, hrrrm, uhhhh.... wait, what?

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Authored by: DanZ on Friday, June 08 2007 @ 07:46 AM

I just had a lame experience with the survey. I'm not enough of a consumer to have an opinion on most of those questions. I buy a lot fo stuff at Wal~Mart, like socks, and that's really important to me. WCAX vs. WPTZ? Neither. Who watches that crap. Best lunch? My diet is too rarified to go to restaurants much. I realize there was an outdoor recreation and an elected official question, but what was really missing was all the experiences of being in Vermont that are unrelated to buying comsumer goods and eating in restaurants. I won't bother listing them but they made up such a small portion of the survey I felt that experiencing Vermont was poorly mapped.

Also, what about personal experiences that are tough to categorize: "Favorite place to spend idle time" or "Best place to chill and relax" or "Favorite place to have a cup of coffee and read a book" or other things that speak to daily living outside of one's home?

And what about Lake Champlain? Best place to get a staph infection or Best place to swim and then deal with the skin infections, parasites and eyeball-eating algae, not to mention lung-infections and bears.

Additionally, there are a lot of things to do, see and buy that are in neighboring states. So what about "Best place to have lunch outside of Vermont if you live in Vermont."? Or "Favorite place to shop with no sales tax". I know that seems like a reach, but the lakes, rivers, bordering states and people have a lot to offer and make our state more of what it is.

I guess the questions just made me feel like they were really for Burlingtonians or other more urban dwellers - not Vermonters in general.

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Authored by: Pam on Friday, June 08 2007 @ 10:10 AM

I was the one who said "Why do you want to know the best Real Estate and Golfcourse?" From a non-readers input I assume or did advertisers insist - you don't have to answer that. Wouldn't Sharon Meyer be a better option than Tom Messner? Sharon I didn't know what to put for a lot of the questions either - including that one. Some of Dan's ideas sound great... Umm, Favorite street OTHER than Church Street - hoping some cool obscure street would win.

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Authored by: cresmer on Friday, June 08 2007 @ 02:47 PM

Dan,
Interesting feedback. I've passed it along to the folks who create the Daysie survey, but I'll respond to some of your comments, as I think I know what they would say.

I guess the first thing I should point out is that the Daysies are a way of recognizing the best Vermont businesses and restaurants, the kind of places you can't find anywhere else. That's why so many of the questions relate to them. It's also why we don't rate things from out of state.

Often the places that win are small and locally owned. Winning a Daysie can help them set themselves apart from larger chain establishments. I don't have to shop at those stores (or, ahem, work for a locally owned media company) to appreciate the impact they have on the local economy. So giving the best local folks a boost seems like a good thing to do.

It's also a way of rewarding good work, and helping consumers identify folks who are really outstanding in their fields. Real estate agents, for example. There are a ton of them out there. But if someone wins a Daysie, you figure a bunch of people had to vote for them, so maybe they're good at what they do.

As for questions about personal experiences, you're right. We wish we had more of those questions, too. But ultimately, the Daysies are a contest. There are winners and losers. And hundreds upon hundreds of voteers. Which means that the data needs to be as quantifiable as possible. We used to have more qualitative questions, but it was incredibly difficult to tabulate the votes, and impossible to pick a real winner.

But it would be nice to have more of that stuff in there. Best street other than Church Street would be fun. I would vote for "Star Pudding Farm Road," which I think is off Route 2 somewhere past Montpelier.

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Don't give the devil a ride--he will want to drive.

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Authored by: DanZ on Friday, June 08 2007 @ 11:41 PM

Thanks for the comments cathy. Some people wake up to realize they've hit mid-life hard, some wake up to wonder just what they've done with their lives. I took the survey and 'woke up' to realize that for some inexplicable reason, there is little in my day-to-day experience to allow me to complete most of the questions and then groped around in the dark looking for an explanation. I came across as critical of the survey (it seemed like that was the problem at first) but it turns out that what I thought was applicable to all 7d readers (i read it every week, almost cover-to-cover) wasn't. It's less of an existential crisis and more of a rebirth of ironic cross-cultural irrelevancy... A Danville Yankee in King Kiss's Court.

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Authored by: cresmer on Sunday, June 10 2007 @ 04:08 PM

Dan, I <em>am</em> glad you raised those questions. I really do want more people to know about Star Pudding Farm Road.

And for the record, I have a tough time voting for most of the stuff, too. My partner and I are really cheap (and like many young families, not exactly rolling in dough), so I don't have much of an opinion in many of these categories. I manage to make it past the threshold, though.

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Don't give the devil a ride--he will want to drive.

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Authored by: cresmer on Sunday, June 10 2007 @ 04:09 PM

Stupid Plain Old Text setting.

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Don't give the devil a ride--he will want to drive.

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Authored by: billsimmon on Sunday, June 10 2007 @ 07:18 PM

I wonder at what point raw html tags will work just as well as far as modifying plaintext as anything else. Because even though the emphasis tags didn't translate into html, I still understood your intent perfectly. You already see people doing stuff like...

<digression>and here I write an only-sort-of-related aside</digression>

...and maybe only web nerds get it, but others can grok it from context. "Here I am beginning my digression" and "here I am ending my digression."

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Authored by: DanZ on Monday, June 11 2007 @ 07:13 AM

it's not a far stretch from what's already done with punctuation - it's like an extended punctuation set. I often wonder if the true art of writing is to convey digressions, sarcasm, snarkiness, etc. without a big neon sign pointing it out. I guess if there's always either a tongue-in-cheek element or alternatively there is a need for brevity w/ no time wasted on literary excellence we won't find ourselves culturally (linquistically) <yer_mom> screwed </yer_mom>.

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Authored by: Pam on Monday, June 11 2007 @ 10:16 AM

Or you can just repeat consonants - like screwwwwwed.

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