Best Individual Blog of 2006

James Lileks won the Best Blog Award this year. Lileks really is the greatest writer ever in one simple area: He writes about mundane, uninteresting stuff that you could never possibly care about... until you read what he has to say about it.

I went to Penney’s, which has everything in Spanish as well. All the signs. Spanish. I’m surprised the marquee doesn’t say Penney’s / Pesos. I found nothing, and moved on. I hit Bath and Body Works, which provides the various Scent Profiles for my life, and discovered that the overpriced C. W. Bigelow line has added “Bay Rum” cologne and aftershave balm. I tried some. It’s manly. It’s damn manly. Makes Mr. Peepers feel like Hemingway, it does. It’s a real alpha-male smell, but in the old-school sense. At some point the alpha-aroma became associated with musky bilge or pungent Hai-Karate type scents that indicated dominance – but only because the possessor obviously had no subordinates or associations who dared point out the fact that he had overclocked his smell-chip. Even those guys, however, respect the Bay Rum. It has that classic hats ‘n’ gats connotation. It’s the kind of smell that says “I shot a Marlin with Bogart then kissed Bacall when he wasn't looking. And she liked it.”

You really should add him to your daily reading list... add the front page to your favorites. Your brain will thank you.

(Okay... I know that the Blog Awards are basically just a game among finalists as to who can herd the most number of their readers over to the voting page to vote the most number of times. That is why a twat site like "Little Green Footballs" with thousands of rabid, corybantic crazies is now the official "Best Conservative Blog" or the highly uninspired "Kos" is the best liberal site, or... for that matter... why Lileks won his category: He simply asked, had more people to ask, and had more people respond to vote than any other site that was nominated. It's kind of like deciding who wins the Best Picture Oscar by counting box office receipts.)

My personal opinion is that Glen Greenwald's is a better blog simply because he has made more important points on his blog, and started more conversations with his posts, and changed more minds with his writing than any other blog out there this past year. I think James Lileks is a better writer than Greenwald, but the content of his blog is primarily fluff. Purposefully so. It is the best fluff ever written in the history of man... but it is still fluff.