{"id":1547,"date":"2011-12-07T18:35:59","date_gmt":"2011-12-07T18:35:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/?p=1547"},"modified":"2011-12-08T18:32:44","modified_gmt":"2011-12-08T18:32:44","slug":"third-annual-vwxynot-readers%e2%80%99-choice-comment-of-the-year-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/2011\/12\/07\/third-annual-vwxynot-readers%e2%80%99-choice-comment-of-the-year-award\/","title":{"rendered":"Third Annual VWXYNot? Readers\u2019 Choice Comment of the Year Award!"},"content":{"rendered":"

So as regular readers know, every Friday, more or less, I choose my favourite comments from this blog (and my favourite posts I\u2019ve read on other blogs), and list them in the sidebar under the title Bragging Rights Central. In December I go through the archives, tally the wins<\/a> (congratulations again to Ricardipus (most mentions for best comment) plus Massimo, Nina, Beth and Henry (joint most mentions for best post)!), pick my 12 favourite comments of the year, and let my readers vote for the winner.<\/p>\n

This is no easy task \u2013 I\u2019m lucky enough to have some amazingly funny and insightful commenters, and it\u2019s sometimes hard enough to choose the best comments of the week, let alone the whole year! I had to cut some really, really great comments from my “short” list of 48 (!!!), and as always I’m really sorry not to be able to include everyone.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s 12 choices are below, and you shoul<\/del>d can click through to the original posts to read the comments in context.<\/p>\n

But first:<\/p>\n

THE RULES<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. All regular and irregular commenters and readers are encouraged to vote! Lurkers, this includes you – and why not delurk at the same time? \ud83d\ude09<\/li>\n
  2. Please vote using the poll ONLY (link at the end of this post). Any votes cast in the comments on this post, on Twitter, Facebook, other people\u2019s blogs, or by carrier pigeon WILL NOT COUNT.<\/li>\n
  3. Please vote only once each<\/li>\n
  4. Please do not vote for your own comment!<\/li>\n
  5. If you’re nominated, please feel free to link through from your own blog so all your own readers see the poll. HOWEVER, please link to THIS POST, rather than directly to the survey, so everyone who votes sees all comments in full (and all the rules \ud83d\ude42 )<\/li>\n
  6. Voting closes at midnight (Vancouver time) on December 31st<\/li>\n
  7. In the event of a tie, I will choose my favourite of the tied comments (I won\u2019t vote otherwise)<\/li>\n
  8. The winner will be formally announced as soon as the NYE hangover clears<\/li>\n
  9. Prize: ultimate 2011 bragging rights AND a CAD40 Amazon gift certificate<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    THE COMMENTS<\/strong><\/p>\n

    1) Anthony Fejes <\/a>for \u201cI think silliness in right wing material is impossible because it is essentially already a parody of a rational perspective. In fact, even making a parody of a right wing video becomes a poe, indistinguishable from the non-parody version.<\/p>\n

    […]<\/p>\n

    It\u2019s like religion\u2026 Have you ever seen someone threaten you with eternal damnation and hellfire while being silly? It just doesn\u2019t make sense, and both the religious and the right are trying to do the same thing: Use fear as a motivator to encourage some behaviour.<\/p>\n

    Fear + Silly just don\u2019t work well together.\u201d<\/p>\n

    2) Beth<\/a> for \u201cOMG! I\u2019m not a Capricorn anymore! I don\u2019t even know what a Sagittarius is supposed to be like! Hopefully it will be a list of generic positive characteristics that can apply to anyone!\u201d<\/p>\n

    3) Bob O\u2019H<\/a> for \u201cI\u2019m amazed you\u2019re spending so much time working on REDACTED. I can\u2019t imagine how you\u2019ll get it published, though.\u201d<\/p>\n

    4) Eva<\/a> for \u201cGah! My longest job was my PhD, which was about a *million* years. (Six years and three months, to be precise). A MILLION!<\/p>\n

    Oh, and longest time in same place by myself was seven years. Most of aforementioned PhD, plus a year after that. Fun fact: I got Penny within two weeks after moving into that apartment, so she also lived in the same house for seven years. My cat totally beat your house record!\u201d<\/p>\n

    5) Eva<\/a> for \u201cI\u2019ve dated someone who showed me a powerpoint presentation about his work on the first date. That should have been a sign, but the topic was actually interesting, so it didn\u2019t put me off right there and then. Unfortunately, his job was the only interesting thing about the guy.\u201d<\/p>\n

    6) Frank Norman<\/a> for \u201cOf course you know the area is really gentrified when you see a restaurant open up that sells retro de-greased greasy spoon fare but at five times the price of the old closed-down greasy spoon cafe.\u201d<\/p>\n

    7) Lavaland<\/a> for \u201cThat\u2019s falcon awesome.\u201d<\/p>\n

    8.) Mermaid<\/a> for \u201cSimilar instructions are common when trying to learn an old family recipe from my mom (who learned it from my dad\u2019s mom), which really can\u2019t be written down. \u201cAdd flour until it feels right\u201d is a favourite, as is \u201cMix until it looks the right level of combined\u201d. I am sure with practice I will know what it all means, but in the meantime the failed batches are depressing.\u201d<\/p>\n

    9) Mike<\/a> for \u201cWith my little monster rapidly approach 1 yr old, I\u2019ll take romance wherever I can damn well get it. Whether that be in Roskapankki\u2019s stinkin\u2019
    \nbogs or not.<\/p>\n

    I\u2019m already regretting typing this.\u201d<\/p>\n

    10) Nina<\/a> for \u201cIt somehow reminds me of a student of my dad\u2019s who google-translated a term-paper from (random) bits of scientific literature (English to Dutch), and also translated some of the names of people that were cited in the literature. It took my dad a long time to figure out who those researchers were that she kept citing and that he\u2019d never heard of \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

    11) Ricardipus<\/a> for \u201cIt is certainly the case that Mr. Harper controls his cabinet very, very tightly, something he\u2019s been criticized for many times (and definitely not how I\u2019d like to see the country run). I\u2019ve not a lot of use for Michael Ignatieff, who is sorely lacking in international political experience, and even less for Jack Layton, who I believe would promise us all personal jetpacks, free prescription drugs and resurrected dinosaur amusement parks if he believed we\u2019d vote for him.\u201d<\/p>\n

    12) Steve Caplan <\/a>for \u201cMycoplasma are an essential part of animal\/human cells. Since there is MORE bacterial DNA in a human than human DNA, we need to look at humans (and their cells) as symbiotic organisms\u2013meaning that Mycoplasma are an essential component of human cells and any cell lines lacking them should be treated with suspicion.<\/p>\n

    […]If the editor wouldn\u2019t listen, I\u2019d tell him\/her that he\/she is full of sh.., no cr\u2026, no\u2026Mycoplasma\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

    THE POLL<\/strong><\/p>\n

    Click here to vote!<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    So as regular readers know, every Friday, more or less, I choose my favourite comments from this blog (and my favourite posts I\u2019ve read on other blogs), and list them in the sidebar under the title Bragging Rights Central. In … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50,41,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-competition","category-meta","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1547\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}