The Blogdom. A Suburb of the Beandom.

These awards only encompass the webcomics I read. Comics are listed alphabetically. Also, the awards are given to the comic as a whole so far, not just what happened in them this year.

The Book of Biff
Awards:
*The Non-Sequitur award: For putting things that have nothing to do with each other and making them funny.
*The No Bell Prize: For not having any bells.
*The MENSA Award: Biff is very smart.

Darths and Droids
Awards:
*The Remix Award: Best reuse of a story (Star Wars Episode 1).
*The PC Documentary Award: For an in depth look at the lives of Player Characters.
*The Screencap Award: For getting screencaps at the the right time to make funny pictures.

Evil Inc.
Awards:
*The Oh How Awful! Award: For making horrible things so funny.
*The Breakfast Cereal Award: For the best use of Cheerios.
*The Plot Twist Award: If I told you why, it would ruin the story. The comic might be evil, but I'm not.

Irregular Webcomic
Awards:
*The PUNisher award: It isn't for revenge, but comedy.
*The Smallest Award: For great use of miniatures, such as Lego minifigs and role playing miniatures.
*The Crazy Face Award: For the author making crazy faces sometimes.

-edit- I forgot to add this one! Sorry guys! -12.30.07
Jump Leads
*The Golden Brush Award: For really good artwork.
*The Voices in my Head Award: The only webcomic that makes me read the speech on the main characters in my head with an actual voice attributed to it. (They have British accents, of course)
*The Silver Handbook Scribble: For excellent use of handbook pages related to the world of the comic, complete with handwritten notes and scribbles.
Bonus Award (Since I forgot this one at first): Because I knew I was forgetting something. It's ok, I'm sure I remembered in an alternate universe.

Phables
Awards:
*The Heartburn Award: Because if you read too many strips at once, the heartwarming stories get to you.
*The (I) Award: For being the most informational about a specific subject: Philadelphia.
*The Interactive Award: For telling the stories of readers.

Sheldon
Awards:
*The No Alzheimer's Award: For most rememberable characters.
*The Squeaky Speaker Award: The most feedback received when sending fan emails to the author.
*SFX Award: Best use of sounds like "hype" and "squee."

Starslip Crisis
Awards:
*The Dark Room Award: For best character development (When I started reading the archives, the characters were "flat" to me, but as continued to read on, I came to like the characters the more I got to know them).
*The Topper Award: For the best hat.
*Crossover Award: For combining webcomics to make The Alterverse War.

Terror Island
Awards:
*Alas, I shall r0xx0r award: For best use of the past and future tenses.
*Chaos Theory Award: For excellent use of randomness.
*The Constantine Award: Best removal of demons.

By sending free eCards from Month2Month.com, a cash contribution is made to Toys for Tots. Marines Toys for Tots issued this press release. I checked their privacy policies and they wont use the email address of the recipient for anything but sending the eCard. They might send you some eMail though.

Here's where to get the month2month free eCards.

All in all, if you send an eCard, they donate some amount of money. There is a press release below.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

CONTACT:

Bill Grein
Marine Toys for Tots
V: 703-640-9433
F: 703-640-0917
wjgrein@toysfortots.org
http://www.toysfortots.org

Steven Marcus
Month2Month.com
V: 914-933-2638
F: 501-325-9147
smarcus@month2month.com
http://www.month2month.com

Marines Toys for Tots Needs Last Minute Help
Quantico, VA. December 21, 2007 / PR Newswire – The Marine Toys for Tots Foundation is making a nationwide last minute appeal for more toys. Since time is critical as they go into their toy distribution phase this weekend the Foundation is encouraging people to make cash contributions because it allows them to purchase the toys they need to fill in gaps and match the remaining needs.
One novel way to get cash immediately into the hands of the Marines is to send lots of holiday eCards to everyone you know. Month2Month.com, a free eCard website has agreed to contribute up to $50,000 when their cards are sent and received.
Bill Grein, Vice President for Marines Toys for Tots, said: "Cash contributions are critical for us at this time because we can purchase the toys we need and can place them where they are needed most at the last minute. It will help us close a gap in many areas where the economy, toy recalls and even bad weather have caused us to come short of our goals so far. We urge everyone to take advantage of this wonderful offer from Month2Month."
John Aslanian, CEO of Month2Month.com said: "We are expecting to have 1 million cards sent in the next few days that could result in a contribution of up to $50,000. We know that for some the economy might be putting a crimp in their generosity. But what this can do is to save them the cost of buying cards and the postage. We are asking everyone to send these cards, even if they already sent other cards, to help make this a merry Christmas and happy holiday for many more needy children."

Month2Month.com cards are all produced by top-notch artists working in a loft studio just outside of New York City. The cards show great care in design and detail and often take weeks or months to complete. They are all professionally animated often requiring hundreds of frames to get the motion to look smooth and flowing. Month2Month.com is a privately held online greeting company founded in 2005. The site offers free high quality online greeting cards and can be found at http://www.month2month.com.
This year marks the 60th anniversary for the Toys for Tots tradition of the U.S. Marine Corps Reserves. In 2006, Toys for Tots delivered more than 19.2 million toys to over 7.6 million children.

I felt the baby again this morning. I was feeling Erin's stomach and I felt where the baby was. As soon as I touched it, it started moving! It is a kind of crazy feeling.

Later when I was bringing Erin breakfast (in bed!) I bumped the door and it made a loud noise and Erin said the baby 'jumped' from one side (near the door) to the other (away from the door.)

She said it was kicking pretty hard last night, too. I guess we got an energetic one!

If by chance you happen to be going to take the 2008 AQB Appraisal Exam, and you aren't a test taker, CompuCram just might be a boon to you. I've taken online tests before for the state (but not real estate) and the notion can be quite daunting. I managed to pass them first try, so I think I tend to do ok, but I know some people who have a really hard time passing tests. What CompuCram allows you to do is download their software and basically take practice tests targeted for your state and the tests you will be taking. The test questions are not exactly the same, but they are similar, so you will get a good idea. If you get 80% passing grades on the practice tests they provide, but somehow manage to fail the real test, they will refund the money you spent on the practice software. My testing experience was that the tests costs +$70, so investing about that once for the practice tests if you are not very confidant might be a swell idea. If you pass, your money was invested well, and if you fail, you get the money back.

CompuCram does many different types in testing, real estate, insurance, securities, etc. so if you are gonig to enter those industries are are already in them, buy might be a valuable resource.

Assuming everything done so far is approved, I've hit over the $200 mark in income generated from my website.

This may be what caused me to dream that I had enough money to buy a Wii. In the dream though, I was still trying to get the best possible deal, even trying to see if I would win it an an arcade as opposed to paying full price!

Even in sleep, I try to save money.

Juice Media (http://www.juicemetriqs.com) has issues the following press release:

Juice Media Worldwide, LLC, a leading provider of on?demand Marketing 2.0 software services and solutions has moved to new San Diego headquarters at 591 Camino de la Reina on the 11th floor of the prominent Valley Corporate Center building.
Located just 10 minutes from downtown San Diego, the nearly 4,000 square foot state?of?the?art offices are double the size of the previous headquarters. The new office equips Juice Media with enough space for the company to grow its software development and client management staff by an additional 50 percent in 2008.
“Managing rapid growth is always a challenge for successful start?ups. We evaluated several options for new offices to accommodate our growth and Valley Corporate Center was an ideal location for us,” said Rick Enrico, CEO, Juice Media Worldwide, LLC. ”The office tower’s expansive features and centralized location made it a great solution for our needs as we expand our staff and client roster.”
Juice Media employees have access to a number of benefits with the move including an on?site deli, gym, ocean view offices, and a park next door. The additional meeting space also enables Juice Media to develop even stronger relationships with its clients with more frequent and productive onsite meetings.
?more?
About Juice Media Worldwide, LLC:
Based in San Diego, California, with additional offices in Minnesota, Juice Media Worldwide develops JuiceMetrIQs™, a Marketing 2.0 enterprise marketing management platform that is Software as a Service (SAAS) application. JuiceMetrIQs™ streamlines the marketing process by allowing companies to store customer interaction data (sales transactions, demographics, website data, email addresses, etc.) and segment that information to build relevant targeted marketing campaigns. Customer data is housed in a single data warehouse that is tied to a concise central reporting dashboard. JuiceMetrIQs™ provides seamless integrations with top enterprise vendors from online and offline marketing channels such as Email, Direct Mail, SMS Messaging, and Voice Messaging. JuiceMetrIQs™ empowers marketers with the ability to analyze, maximize, and measure cross channel customer purchase behavior across all distributed marketing channels for greater marketing success.
Juice Media Worldwide is a portfolio company of Petters Group Worldwide, which includes companies such as Polaroid, Sun Country Airlines, and uBid.com. For more information please visit http://www.juicemetriqs.com
Press Contact:
Morgan Witt

I'm planning on entering an Interactive Fiction Contest. I've already started working on the story. If you've never played interactive fiction before, there is an example on my Games page, but it is not exactly 'new person' friendly. It was started as an actually game, but ended up being more of a testing ground for myself to learn the Inform 7 programming language. It is very 'natural English' oriented, so easy to learn. The entry for the contest in meant to be for player who are new to interaction fiction. I wont reveal the plot here, but I will make it available to play on my site after the contest.

There is a new search engine called Earth Frisk. Essentially it allows you get get results from several other search engines all at once. These include Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask, and more. The site is new, and doesn't have all the features it needs yet (simple things, like pressing Enter to search, and filtering content, I didn't test it's limit of what results might show up, so I don't know if it is already filtered), but it has some promise, and if you are the type to use several search engines to double check your findings, it might be a good fir for you.

It also has a tool bar you can install that allows you to search and will show the sites 'CV Rating' or Color Value rating. I'm not entirely sure how it works yet, since I believe the site is still in pre-release, but apparently the CV is community driven. It looks like it is in response to Google's Page Rank changes which effected many people's Page Rank. This effected blogs which generate income with paid advertising by posting blog entries with links to the advertised sites. When I came on the scene and started that, it was after the page rank drop, so I never had a high page rank. After some research, I think Google A. Has the right to rake pages how they will, this is a free country, and B. I think they did so to keep there data 'clean' so paid links don't throw the 'natural' data off. I've also read opinions that paid blogging is 'bad' but I can't imagine how it is any different than advertising on the TV or the radio, or in magazines.

In any case, if you want to try a new search engine that promises community ranking of sites, Earth Frisk might be for you.

I had a nice Christmas. It started off good, ended good, and the middle was good. After doing some random stuff in the morning, Erin and I went to my parents. After being there for a bit, Erin realized we forgot the cookies and the pink stuff (congealed salad). So I went back (just about 15 minutes away) to get it and dad went with me, so it wasn't a boring trip. We mostly talked about work and what TV shows we like.

It snowed a big. Had some big flakes falling, then it dwindled to little flakes, then it was raining by end of day. Christmas was at least white for a little bit.

Grandma was passing out old stuff. She gave me some seashells I played with as a kid and an egg sand timer that I also played with when we would visit her house. My mom and aunt (sister's/ grandma's daughters) traded for some things they wanted. There were some crazy old Christmas candles.

I still like what we were able to give the best. With the small sum we could manage, we were part of a giving movement that provided restored wells in Liberia, giving over 44,000 people clean water to drink. I think they will like that. I was recalling back to the 'best Christmas gift I ever got', and I can hardly remember anything I got, or even still have. I think that the clean water wont be a present like that. I'm glad.

I find out on the 7th of January is our baby is going to be a boy or a girl. (See donation button to the right, ultrasounds costs $$$ {:0D) That will be exciting. Pretty soon there will be Birth Announcements, and Baby Showers, and Diaper Changing, and all that fun stuff.

We got the room all changed around to make room for the crib we don't have yet. Erin's mum is going to send some things so that will help tons (Thanks!). I've started actually making money with my website, so I hope that goes up more over time. I got lots of ideas in my head, just gotta implement them.