As of July 14, 2008, Candleblog has relocated to candleboy.com.  Please update your bookmarks, links and/or feed subscriptions.  It's the same blog, written by the same guy, but it's got better blog guts at the new home.  The 2,326 posts at this url will remain up indefinitely for posterity and for my own research reasons.  Please email me <billsimmon@gmail.com> with any questions.  Candleblog is dead.  Long live Candleblog.

-Bill Simmon 
 

I was going to wait until Monday to announce this, and the "official" launch won't happen until then, but Candleblog is moving.  I've been done with GeekLog (Candleblog's engine) for a long time now, and after four years, I'm finally biting the bullet and jumping ship over to Wordpress (oh, the mixed metaphors).  The final straw (hee!) was the release of Firefox 3, which not only rendered Candleblog's left sidebar all wrong, but it also broke my ability to use the quick link functionality in the post editor -- not that it's Firefox's fault -- I'm sure the problem lay somewhere within the bowls of Candleblog and it was just above my pay grade to fix.

The new Candleblog will live at a different url, but never fear, it's a really easy change to make.  Instead of www.candleboy.com/candleblog, you will find the blog at www.candleboy.com.  Yup, it's the root directory, baby!  The blog is up now but there isn't really any content there yet.  But as of Monday, it will be the official new home of Candleblog.  w00t!

I'm leaving this GeekLog site up for posterity (though I'll kill all of the user accounts, etc. and close commenting) so all of the permalinks will remain intact.  I'll add a top post sending folks over to the new digs.

In the meantime, please help me out and peruse the new site, test it out, and report any problems or design shenanigans to me. 

Regular commenters take note: all comments at the site go into moderation the first time.  Once one comment has been approved, the next should post automatically.

Fellow bloggers: please go ahead and update your links and blogrolls to reflect the new address.

Everyone else: please bookmark the new site or, even better, subscribe to the feeds!

See you over at the new house! 

Messner, Messner. 

I'm dealing with some design issues today.  Please excuse odd changes to Candleblog's appearance.  Just keep smiling like Messner... 

Yes, it's Daysie time again.  I'm only going to do two shameless please-vote-for-me posts -- this one, and one more shortly before the June 27th voting deadline.  As with last year, in order for your vote to count, you must fill out at least 1/3 of the 100-question ballot -- so you can't just click through and vote for just the blogs.  I won't tell you how to vote in 33 categories, but I will gently suggest a few possibilities in a few of the categories -- specifically those that you can click to and judge for yourselves.  These are just my recommendations... I'm not offering any bribes or sexual favors (that you know of) in exchange for votes (nor have I [yet] received such compensation for my pimping votes on behalf of others).



First up, I do hope you vote for Candleblog in the Best Vermont (non-political) Blog category.  Please note that you need to type or paste in the complete url, which is: "http://candleboy.com/candleblog/."  If you don't want to vote for Candleblog, might I suggest another fine non-political blog like Undead Molly or S.R. Wild's blog?  Both are examples of outstanding non-political Vermont blogs, IMHO.  There are many others as well.  Just peruse the "blog friends" blogroll on the right for some great options.

In the Best Vermont (political) Blog category, I do strongly endorse last year's winner, Vermont Daily Briefing.  Philip is witty and insightful and his blog is fun to read and even occasionally informative!  In the past I've pimped my good friend NTodd's excellent blog, Dohiyi Mir, and I've been sorely tempted to vote for The Carpetbagger Report, both because it's a great political blog and because Steve is a good friend, but the fact is neither NTodd nor Steve do very much blogging about Vermont politics -- they mainly focus on the national scene (or the hyper-local scene of household pets in NTodd's case).  Philip blogs about national politics too, but he cuts his blog with a healthy dose of Vermont.  It's that Vermont perspective that makes VDB a great choice in this category.  Now Philip just needs to open a comments section already.

Some other suggestions...

Best Visual Artist: I've got to go with EITHER S.R. Wild or Flameape himself, Gregory Giordano.  Both are under appreciated in this burg and fantastically talented.  Click through and see for yoursleves.

Best Craftsperson: It should come as no surprise that I think that Crafty Hedgehog, Emily Stoneking, is deserving of this award.  Her knitted dissected frog was featured on BoingBoing and had its 15 minutes of viral fame, her stained glass work is wonderful and all of her other knitted creatures and crafty creations are teh awesome.  She's considering making knitted portraits of assassinated presidents -- how cool is that???

Back in the media section, if you're wondering which spot on the dial you'll favor with a vote in the Best Radio Station category, look no further than the brand spanking new low power community radio station, The Radiator -- WOMM-LP. 

And finally, do you really even need to think about who the Best Meteorologist is?  Step aside Mark Breen, meteorologist Tom Messner's weather kung fu is strong!

Click here to vote. 

Here it is: the 2008 Candleblog is People annual reader collage...


It's much better a little bigger but it wouldn't fit in the post full size.  Click here to see the full resolution image.

Deciding on the winner was tough.  There were several leading contenders, including last year's winner, Undead Molly, who's Mrs. Lovett impersonation is uncanny.  Here it is a little bigger so you can revel in the bloody horror...



Other notable contenders included an anonymous entry who is proud of his enormous... fondness for Candleblog, as well as Scott Wild's disturbing naked Barbie doll submission.  Emily and I also wanted to make special mention of John Douglas' toothy grin, XJ3's dastardly mustache, Spine's lovely silhouette, Brad Searles' Deadwood mug, Meghan Dewald's candle, JD Ryan's feline facial eruption, Rob Simmon's stubby middle finger, Reba's enormous baby-belly, Matty the Greek's Photoshop chops, Neil Cleary's crafty pen, and all of the other awesome self portraits.  I have to say, Candleblog's readers are without question the best looking blog readers in the blogosphere!

Our winning entry this year is Philadelphia-based artist, Kasten Searles.  She's the redhead with the iPhone in her mouth in the upper right corner of the collage.  Emily and I each picked three winners silently and then said them out loud to each other.  We both picked Kasten's shot in our three (we also both picked another one -- the ultimate decision came down to a coin toss between the two).  We liked Kasten's shot because it so exemplified the spirit of the collage, which is impromptu self-shots of Candleblog readers.  It also features technology, is particularly relevant to Candleblog, and the image itself is striking and artful while also seeming entirely off-the-cuff.  Kasten's prize was decided in part by her own suggestion in her emailed photo submission.  She will also get a week of free advertising in the coveted Obama spot on Candleblog's front page.



BTW, I'm also quite pleased the Democratic presumptive nominee made this year's collage, though Senator Obama did not submit the photo himself, his Vermont surrogate Neil Jensen did (that's Neil getting mind-controlled by Obama).

Here's a little Candleblog test for you:  Other than Emily and me, there are four people who have been in all four Candleblog collages to date.  Can you identify all of them?  You can see the last three years' collages here.

UPDATE: See an index of all of the original images here. 

Today is your last chance to get in on the 2008 Candleblog is People photo collage/time capsule.  I need to build the collage sometime on Sunday and submissions I receive after it's made can't be added to the mix, so make sure you email me your photo by Sunday morning at the latest.  I'll post the finished collage on Monday.  Go here for the rules (there aren't too many -- basically just take a picture of yourself and send it --  but it is a contest so make sure you read the rules anyway).

We've been getting some really good shots and Emily and I are already scratching our heads about which one we'll pick as the winner -- several rate so far.  We may have to have a runner up or three this year.  But don't let creativity get in your way!  The more people there are in the collage, the better it is, so get snapping, even if it's just a quick flash-burned shot in the mirror with red-eye -- send it in.

Send your photos to billsimmon ar gmail dot com. 

This is a reminder to get your photos to me ASAP if you want to be immortalized in the 2008 Candleblog reader collage.  It's a veritable time capsule of the state of Candleblog, circa 2008.  Plus it's a contest and you might win something really cool.  I can tell you right now that Casey the Contrarian is in the lead for winning the contest.  I know this because he's the only reader who has submitted a photo so far.  Your deadline is Saturday (the day after tomorrow) so I can have time to make the collage and post it on Monday.  Read the "rules" and get snapping!

Send photos to billsimmon at gmail dot com.

UPDATE: Okay, a few others have sent me photos now, so the contest is on! 

It's that time of year again.  I am preparing my annual "Candleblog is People" collage of Candleblog readers and contributors.  Here's the deal...

Take a photo of yourself and send it to me (billsimmon at gmail dot com).  I will include it in a collage of Candlebloggers and post the results on Monday June 9th.  The best photo in the collage will win a prize (TBD).

The rules:

• you must take a new photo just for this project -- no using old photos languishing on your hard drive -- we want original photos made exclusively for this collage (though you can feel free to re-use them as you see fit afterwards).
• The photo must be "of you" in the sense that some portion of your body must be visible in the frame.  Beyond that, anything goes.  Masks, costumes, photoshop effects, whatever is fine.
• You do not have to be a registered user, a commenter, or anyone I've ever met.  Simply reading this post qualifies you for entry.
• Anonymity is okay.  Just let me know that you want to remain anonymous and I won't let the cat out of the bag.
• The winner will be judged (by Emily and me) based on creativity, relevance to Candleblog and artfulness.
• Nudity, like neatness, counts.

So get shooting!  Here are the collages from the last three years to get your creative juices flowing...





 

I'm turning off the Twitter feed block in the left sidebar for the time being.  A few days ago it stopped showing the tweets of those I'm following and started only showing my own.  My avatar photo was all messed up too.  Now it's asking for people to login to Twitter when they load Candleblog in their browsers and that officially has lost them this bit of free advertising.  Once Twitter is useful again, I'll put it back up.