gor[b] Paul Gorbould: Words and Pictures

Thinking Blogger Award

I’m proud to say I’ve received my first blog award, such as it is.

Matthew Caverhill of the wonderful pop culture blog Culture Kills… wait, I mean cutlery has awarded me the Thinking Blogger Award, and I couldn’t be more grateful, even with this accompanying text:

Gor[b]: Paul Gorbould is a digital archivist for the CBC, and having access to that much information warps a brain. That warping has resulted in an entertaining and thought-provoking blog.

I’ll take warped and entertaining any day! Here are the rules for the Thinking Blogger Award:

1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think.
2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme
3. Optional: Proudly display the ‘Thinking Blogger Award’ with a link to the post that you wrote.

I’m all for shiny badges, but the best part of this award is the opportunity to recognize five other bloggers who make me think. In the words of the meme's creator, "Please, remember to tag blogs with real merits, i.e. relative content, and above all - blogs that really get you thinking!"

I’m adding my own stipulation, that I’d like to avoid tagging anyone already tagged, nor mention those all-star mega blogs that everyone knows about anyways. And I’ve resisted the urge to choose the people I’m most fond of, or the blogs I read most often - though all five are tied to the Canadian media.

Denis McGrath's Dead Things on Sticks
Denis is a Toronto-based TV writer who writes not only for TV, but about TV. He gives an insider's view of the industry without being insiderish; his posts are long without being ponderous – and he's damned funny. Plus, the dude wrote Top Gun! The Musical. Now that's gotta be thought-provoking. I was late to discover Denis – he seemed to be on everyone else's blogroll, but I never got around to seeing what the fuss was about. Now I know. Nobody writes so effortlessly about Canada's role in the flood of American media… I sort of think that if he had been named the next chairman of the CBC, everything would be OK.

Joe Clark's Fawny.org
It's probably not easy sharing the name of a former (and brief) Canadian prime minister. But accessibility advocate Joe Clark has been so vocal online that he's managed to surpass his political namesake in Google rank. That's saying something. And Joe has a lot to say – from web accessibility to public spaces to architecture to the over-use of Arial, Joe is Toronto's harshest critic on… well, almost everything. He can be condescending, irascible, and sometimes downright irritating, but he's usually right. And he fights the good fight, for a more aesthetic and equitable environment, real and online.

Alphonse Ouimet's The Tea Makers
Ouimet – not his or her real name – became the stuff of legend during the 2005 CBC lockout. While management battened down the hatches in the PR war against its employees, one mystery manager broke the silence and blogged it like they saw it. Equally critical of management and unions, it became required reading for everyone even remotely interested in the CBC, and still is. It's always “an exercise in tough love”, and speaking frankly about your employer can be a challenge. But there's no questioning the fact that The Teamakers is about making CBC better.

Dan Misener's DanMisener.com
Dan is a producer for CBC radio who makes podcasts and satellite radio, plays in a band and started a local reading series called Grownups Read Things They Wrote as Kids. He doesn't blog terribly often, but when he does it's usually thoughtful and forward thinking. I'm not sure why we don't know each other.

John Gushue’s John Gushue…Dot Dot Dot
John works for CBC in Newfoundland, and his blog deserves a lot more recognition than it gets. When I started blogging, this was the blog I considered “best of show” for the crowd I run with. His quick and frequent updates suit the medium much better than the infrequent and overwrought style I developed; though his entries are not long, I always learn something new. Or something old – John shares my interest in history, as seen in his “Daily Dot” quick hits of today in history. Plus, he has a whole series of "A thought on", so I think it counts as thought provoking.

Congratulations to all five of you!