I didn't even know I was nominated for the Blog Awards

To be specific, The 2006 Australian Blog Awards, as hosted by Collective Apathy. Seriously, I didn't have the foggiest idea at all until I checked the little Technorati link on the right a few minutes ago. I just learnt that I'd been nominated for "2006 Best Overseas Australian Blog". I learnt it from "Paul and Mel's UK", who had a little, light-hearted gripe about being left out of the whole affair.

Who was my nominator, you may wonder? If you check the nominations page, you find Barista (aka David Tiley) is the culprit. I want to express my appreciation of David, who has been a constant supporter of my site during those ADSL-less times last year when the blog went on hiatus.

Did I win? It would have been nice, but no. That award went to a far finer blog than mine: The Road to Surfdom. He types more, and he's been around for longer. And I'm glad that Barista scored the "Best Overall Australian Blog". His site deserves the award. You don't believe me? Click on the link above.

On the subject, I don't know if there's anything like a "Best Việt Nam Blog 2006 Award". There used to be one at SimonWorld, but the link is about 2 years old. If there is one, I wouldn't nominate myself - because it's not done, you know - and I think this blog isn't that great. But if there was an award, I'd nominate Diacritic in a second. I like his site, because his writing goes beyond the journalism banalities ("friendly people", "bad drivers") and oversimplified dichotomities ("market economy" versus "collective planning") that are often printed in the press. He has a long memory (longer than mine, when this country is concerned), and he's better at connecting the dots.

Merry Tết, everybody.