Stylin'

If, like me, you have a blog, by now you will almost certainly have received a “Stylish blogger award.”

I don’t mean to be an ingrate. I was generously and, I think, sincerely awarded this by The Great Khan, and when I checked out his blog I found that this award carries some rules:

1. Thank and link back to the person giving you the award.
2. Share seven things about yourself.
3. Select 10-15 blogs who you think deserve this award.
4. Contact these bloggers and let them know about the award.

10-15? That is, I believe, a logarithmic function that should completely infest the blogosphere overnight. I mean, Cyclopeatron only lists about 300 Old School RPG blogs. Of course lots of people will be nominating the same popular blogs over and over, so that should slow down the pandemic.

Still, it is an honor to be recognized, thanks Jagatai!

So seven things about me that might not come up much on the old blog:

1. Squandered a full ride scholarship in college to major in philosophy.
2. Grew my hair ridiculously long, beginning in junior high with a mullet and then not cutting my hair at all through six years of college and grad school. Finally cut it down to a normal length in 1998 shortly before meeting my future wife. I don’t have any photos of myself from that entire period except a few where my hair is tied back so my wife has never seen me with long hair.
3. Actual title on my MA thesis in philosophy: “They ain’t makin’ Jews like Jesus anymore.” (Title stolen from the Kinky Friedman song, it’s actually about Nietzsche and tries to interpret his book The Antichrist , especially the ‘historical’ sections, using the categories he presented in The use and abuse of history for life. I’ve been meaning to either expand it into a monograph on its own or make it one half of a book about Nietzsche and Aleister Crowley and their notions of/identification with the Antichrist…)
4. I really like coffee and beer but I have come to recognize that don’t actually have what you’d call a sophisticated palate for them. I am just as happy drinking day-old coffee re-heated in the microwave as freshly French-coffee-pressed organic coffee from Kenya, and will drink pretty much any beer except Coors (union-busters!) and Budweiser (probably just snobbery on my part). Still, I do really like porters and stouts and strong microbrews.
5. Graduated high school weighing 230 lbs. Graduated college weighing 280 lbs. I’m finally back to 230, and at 6′ tall I should really lose at least 30 more. (My all-time low adult weight was 207, which was not too bad.) I’m trying to focus on fitness more than the specific number though.
6. When I was 5 or so I told my parents I wanted to be either a garbage collector or a mad scientist. If you saw my basement you’d probably be hard pressed to say which I turned out to be.
7. Love Ralph Bakshi’s animation, and rotoscoping generally. Don’t care for anime at all.

I am reluctant to pass on the Stylish Blogger Award to 10-15 others, both because I’ll be contributing to the glut of awarded blogs and because I’d probably award it to the same dozen OSR blogs everyone else did. Here’s five that I think are awesome blogs and which are outside the OSR echo chambers:

Kaiser Crowbar’s Ablogcalypse, which has been on hiatus a while but is always entertaining

Skulls in the stars, the best blog out there on the intersection of optics, history, and pulp fiction

Sage Lewis, who has be the most positive person I’ve ever known

Cleveland SGS, whatever the hell that is

Little Odo’s, a gaming/minis blog run by a nice guy

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