Stylish with Substance

Remember when shoes were supposed to fit? We were little girls, and stylish meant Mary Janes when youngest and sneakers, when a little older. Your mum or the store clerk would push down on your toe, after trying on a pretty pair. If you yelped in always-surprised pain, then it meant you would outgrow the shoe too quickly. A good fit meant room to breathe, room for freedom.

Today, we still prefer toe room, but in the form of points, with yet narrow and ever-narrowing sides. Pointy-toed shoes. Often the torture device, yet sometimes still "doable". Our adult shoes, today, leave no consideration for realistic lifestyles.

And still we love shoes. We especially like buying new shoes. No one pokes at us any longer. We have the legs to show off struts in the mirror, and feel high while heels seem to float us across the carpeted rows of stands and seats. And -- and our credit cards always seem so forgiving at the register. Then we breeze out of the stores, on an energetic high; we can carry any amount of bags, a coat, and do a little more walking to ensure our designer purse is seen. Retail therapy is real, and lasts through surveying our catch once in our bedrooms.

Ah, yes. Then, when these shoes meet reality and test uncomfortable, they stay as displays on shelves in our closets.

But we still love them.

Ella's Votes for the 2006 Weblog Awards, or Elle's, cause I'm getting serious!

• Best Application for Weblogs: Word Press, natch. Flickr is close, but it's more of a fun service, and that alone. The tool for blog publishing creates posts with the entry automatically in the default template. So it might be "general" instead of "photos." When this is fixed, it'll be a contender.


• Best Australian or New Zealand Weblog: First of all, I don't agree with splitting us between country, and putting more emphasis on that over niches. But I voted for Karen Cheng for her kicky old-school layout and one particularly moving entry (no permalinks).


• Best Asian Weblog: Sorry, but I can't relate to a thing in most Asian weblogs, but I did love Tokyo Times. Same goes for Baghdad's blogs, I can't understand the politic talk, there's not one I want to promote.


• Best European Weblog: This was tough, but I was most impressed with Vitrolica Webb's Ite for her amazing artwork and a piece pointing out the fault in fashion.


• Best UK Weblog: (They're so brilliantly written, they don't count as European.) I liked Little Red Boat for its quality writing.


• Best Latin American Blog: What's there to pick from among foreign language blogs (unjudgeable even in translation) and sentences in broken English (inexcusable by moi, of course)? Well, Cooking Diva is cute and quality.


• Best Canadian Weblog: I don't want to vote for a photo blog in this general content topic, sorry. Does that say "Canada" to me? I want writing. Instead, I went for graphics and humor at Rick Mercer's Blog.


• Best American Weblog: The nominees didn't give me that American Oomph I was looking for. I didn't want to vote for wittie aminals to represent America, so I went for the waiter. Waiter Rant has creative writing and represents A) America's employment and B) America likes to eat.

• Best Tagline of a Weblog: I didn't personally feel it with the taglines nominated. But come onnnn: "I make out with geeks" from Geeks Make me Hot. (I can't vouch for site content, though.)


• Podcasts: I don't yet understand podcasts, and I don't think it's practical in this life to record 30 minutes of them. I won't listen to all of them, I couldn't even find a podcast on most of the nominated blogs, so I skipped this topic. (The one of which I listened to a few seconds was just a random song, anyway; no big there.)


• Best Photography of a Weblog: Most photo blogs are excellent; Photo Junkie impressed me the most.

  And for the record, I wouldn't vote for Flickr on principal, even though it is clearly the best. It is a corporate pool of other photographers' work, am I mistaken?



• Best Crafts Weblog: (Who knew crafts were so big?) This was a very close call. Down to the wire. Angry Chicken has great photos, but Loobylu's writing struck me.


• Best Food Weblog: I love eating. Too bad not one of these blogs focused on this fave pastime of mine. I'm not a cook, therefore I found this category difficult. But The Domestic Goddess had writing that spoke to me.


• Best Entertainment Blog: This one holds issues for me. The Superficial is usually in poor taste, and not my taste, yet I find it original and enjoyable.


• Best Politics Weblog: Talking Points Memo, thank you, thank you for writing something I can actually understand and even relate to.


• Best Web Development Weblog: Problogger! A daily, one of my only true reads, and a natch.


• Best Computers or Technology Weblog: You know what, I think Slashdot is pretty cool. B-)


• Best Topical Weblog: Treehugger is good for the blogosphere.


• Best GLBT Weblog: Good as You is an activist blog, which sounds the best to me. Plus, less chance of smut = best.


• Best Teen Weblog: Ohhh, I was afraid of reading these or even viewing them, but Raining Noodles has excellent writing! Quel shock. Plus, she's done wonders for her template on Blogger! Teenagers can be great poets and graphic/general artists, sometimes it's just hard to overcome the tacky teen things. Miss Noodles does not have that problem. She even reminds me of the good things from my old webmastering days. I should check out more teen blogs! Wow, that is the sign of quality.

• Most Humorous Weblog: Stuff on my Cat = the most brilliant thing on the web. Move over Cute Overload!


• Best Writing of a Blog: Eek, I am never impressed enough with mass picks, I'm wary of these nominators. I voted for Mimi in NY. But I expected to see 5 of the most mind-blowing blogs on the 'net. Meh.


• Best Group and Best Community Blog: This is a non-issue with me, although I should look into quality levels of community blogs (I don't understand them much, even).


• Best Designed Blog: This is the other "me" topic (one for which I care and for which I have high standards), so of course, I am not pleased. There are many better designed blogs (and Kottke, what happened to you?!). I voted for Joshua Ink, because wow, that graphic is stunning, beautiful, and unique. The sidebar isn't fancy, but at least it's clean. I'm really into outstanding sidebars, which are rare, but sidebars are essential to blogs. So, I'm not ready to sing around the neighborhood about this one.

  I must say that Subtraction has excellent sidebars, but it's still not all about that, either. I hate black, and I hate greyscale and black & white. The layout is professional looking, and I even love dogs, but it's just a big picture of a dog. It didn't end up winning my vote.



• Best Kept Secret Blog: I stand against this on principle, with two parts going into making this category: 1) These should have a lower readership 2) This is based on highest nominations. Plus, a few of these "kept secret" blogs have current entries with up to 15 comments. Sounds popular. No vote from me.


• Best New Weblog: This had to go to Cute Overload! Come on, it's insanely popular and addictive and it started in just September! Plus, I gotta love those teeny bunnies and weeny hamsters. This wins a "Why Didn't I Think of That?" Award.


• Lifetime Achievement: I don't know any of these bloggers work, aside from a brief view. I didn't feel up to making such a decision. I feel like I'd need to view their work over years. Plus, why don't I know these people?


• Weblog of the Year: Somehow (oh, you know how) Cute Overload! won me over on this one, too. There's something about it's success story that inspires and shows new bloggers that this is a friendly, open field, in a year when blogs are the hot thing. Congratulations.

Here is a thought to leave you with. I didn't exactly take this into consideration when I voted, but for voting next year, compare nominees to your blog and only vote for one if it is better than yours. Have standards and feel free to skip categories---or these shams, altogether. I just thought I should help the ones I liked with a tiny say.

Technorati Watch: Bloggies + weblog awards + Bloggies vote