Asia Blog Awards 2004, Part Two

Sponge Bob Votes! Early! Often!

Simon over at Simon World continues his contest for best blogs in Asia, with some important additions and amendments. He has wisely closed new nominations, which freezes the list and clears the air. Yesterday's votes were deleted, but his software has it's limits and probably doesn't influence the results to any large degree.

Best, he added a few blogs to several categories, some of which I personally nominated and feel they deserve their place in the polling. Jodi, from Asia Pages, was sensibly added to the Korean Blog category, although it seems obvious and righteous that Marmot will take the prize.

The Hong Kong category is still problematical, since Gweilo Diaries is still down and nobody seems to know what has happened -- but his blog is leading at press time! Someone should check the bars in Wanchai and see if Conrad is still among the breathing. And Phil at Flying Chair is still missing from the nominations, but he probably voluntarily withdrew since he ran the contest last year. Still, I see no real conflicts of interest and he would have given the missing Conrad a good run for the money.

I wish Simon had created a Best Asia Overall Blog (or whatever) to incorporate all the various national blogs and general Asia blogs, but too late for that. He could have also added a Best Deceased Asia Blog to honor the half-dozen fine blogs that closed up shop last year and moved on to other things, if only to remember their valiant efforts. Thailand was hurt particularly bad in this department.

Laowai Monologues, or now called More Laowai Monologues here should have listed in Mainland China Blogs (I nominated this site), but perhaps the recent, necessary change in URLs messed up the system. Dan Washburn will win this category, though Laowai is an excellent blog by an English schoolteacher in China.

Mr. Brown is running away with Singapore, but Chris Myrick is hanging in there. Another leading nomination, Iz Reloaded, was unfamiliar to me, but I checked out the blog and it's very good, though more generalized rather than Singapore specific. I feel that Singapore nominations should mostly be about that city-state rather than worldwide generic.

Thailand continues to embarrass with it's paucity of nominations, which are now closed, so just save yourself some time and vote for 2Bangkok. It's a blog/website combo, but really an amazing effort by Ron Morris. Somebody should use this model and do similar efforts for Singapore, Hong Kong, and elsewhere in Asia.

Philippines is looking good and Sassy is the odds-on favorite, but I sure hope Torn and Frayed posts some new stuff, so everyone can see what he is capable of producing. Now is not a good time to go on hiatus -- this also applies to Rajan in Malaysia.

SimonWorld looks like a lock in the Best Designed Blog category, though I have some problems with this section, since I really don't want too much "design" in blogs but rather favor good content. When it comes to blogs, simplicity is best.

Best Non-Asian (Foreign) Blog will probably go to Peking Duck, but I'm getting a fair number of votes (thanks!). Beautiful Attrocities [sic] has almost nothing to do with Asia and should have not been included, though the blogger can write like the dickens.

Stickman in Bangkok was included in Best Essayist! I nominated Stickman, and he really isn't much of an essayist, but he can turn it on when he's in the mood, and the variety is good for the overall contest. So go ahead, and be a Hunter Thompson type, and vote for the Gonzo.

Best Journal/Diary should be renamed Best Narcissistic Blog to better reflect what this category really entails. Or is that entrails?

Go Java Jive for Best Photoblog!