LARGETONY Blog

Two years ago today, the LARGETONY Blog made it’s debut. It’s the second anniversary. The cotton anniversary. So, let’s drop our britches and celebrate in our cotton underpants. My original plan, a year ago, was to celebrate in my LARGETONY Logo cotton T-shirt that would have traveled the world and come back to me by today, but it got stalled a couple of times and is still out there making it’s way onto the backs of more men than a rude trick’s load. Maybe I should start off year number three by sending out some briefs…Brotherhood of the Traveling Underpants.

It was quite a second year. More than once I thought I would chuck it all and just be an enjoyer of blogs rather than being a writer of one as well. Lord knows I had more dry spells than a post-menopausal hooker in Death Valley (or are they the same thing?) but somehow something would pop in my head that needed to work its way out onto the cyberpage.

The second year featured the highs and lows of being a college football fan; the bitter and the sweet of my life with Granny; and my obsession with Jake; In the last year, my best friend got married, a new friend taught me to consider the possibilities, and an “old friend” awakened the dormant beast. I created the “Hump Day” monster (I say monster because it’s turning out to be almost more than I can handle…but I am determined to make my way through fifty-two men. And, of course, there was the Elf Porn.

In year two, several new bloggers came into my life. Among then is Sue, who was already a buddy, but became a blogger, too. Kel has joined that wickedly funny coven of San Francisco Bloggers, a group that gave the blog bug to TonyBalls (my pet name for him). In the last twleve months have also discovered Homer, Breton, and Atari, too. You may already be aware of some or all of these bloggers, but if not, I encourage you to give them all a look (and give them my love.)

Blogging can drain you and suck you dry (without all the warm throaty wetness) and people sometimes get to the point that they feel they have no more to say. So there’s some blogs I’ve lost in year two. I’m going to miss Donnie at Fresh n’ Tasty, and, of course, the incomparable Corky, who’s his moving on to a new internet venture featuring first-person stories by GLBT writers. His site, TonicQ, debuts tomorrow.

I wish them both, and the others who have retired, well, and hope that the rest of you who are still going (ALL you folks in the sidebar) continue to go strong.

The finale of year two, of course, has been the Logo Interpretation Contest. For anyone who I have not already beaten in the head with it, the contest was an effort to get more interaction on the blog. Anybody who wanted to could enter some artistic or crafty or clever interpretation of the LARGETONY logo. The idead was to just do something fun with the existing logo…not redesign it. We had nine entries and you, the readers, picked the winner.

It was fascinating to watch the votes come in because from day to day a different entry would be in first place, based on ranking points. But we all know that sometimes Florida or Ohio can come in late and change the whole picture. What was also really interesting was how almost every entry fell into someone’s top three and fell into someone else’s bottom three. Personal taste definitely was a factor.
So, it’s time to annouce the top three vote-getters. There was only a five-point difference between number one and number three, so either one of these probably could have been named the winner.

In third place was the entry “Eclipse,” submitted by Sue.

ECLISPE received four first place votes in its rankings and some of the comments from voters were:

“It’s sylized and simple and gets the job done.”

“I’m sure there’s parts of Tony that block out the sun.”

“It brings the logo to life with a bit of motion and color.”

In second place was the entry, “Absolut-LT,” submitted by Christopher

ABSOLUT-LT actually recieved the most first place votes at nine, but didn’t have quite enough overall ranking points to give it the win. Comments:

“This person really thought outside the box.”

“Good concept. And thinking ‘outside the box’ by using the logo template upside down. Brillant!”

“Brilliant use of the oranges and bottle and headline.”

And the winner is “Creamy,” submitted by Todd.

CREAMY received three first place votes in the rankings, but pulled out the win because it was in the top three of almost every voter’s rankings. Here’s what the voters said:

“Done well and a very subtle tongue in cheek joke. A lot of thought went into this one.”

“The most creative way to use the logo because you could actually use it on a product like that and sell it.”

” Love this, too. It looks it took a lot of work, and it looks “real.” ”

Congratulations Todd, Christopher, and Sue on being the top three. Because your scores were all so close, all three of you will get a T-Shirt. I’ll be in contact with you about it. For everyone else who entered and everyone who voted, thanks so much for taking part. I hope you had fun with it. I know some of you put a hell of a lot of work into it. I’ll posts the artists names next to their entries on the contest page soon. I hope to have more contests in the fututre!

So, here I am. Moving into Year Three. There’s a newer header with my growing older face. (Gray hairs in the beard) And the color scheme has shifted a little. (Still some tweaking to do…but check out the cool little bullets next to the post title.) But, I’m the same old Tony: Big-eared, a little goofy, too reserved for my own good, horny as a goat, and doing my best to be a decent guy.

I hope you all will see me through the third round (what’s left of it after a post this long). And I promise to post  whenever something to say, and promise to not waste your time when I don’t. I’ll try keep the football to a minimum and try to be more punctual on Hump Day. I would promise to be more brief…but I don’t know how good I’d be at that.

It’s funny because two years ago this is not something I had any interest in doing. But, I have to say, even in the bad times of blogging (and there have been some) I have no regrets about being here. I hope you don’t have any about coming around.

And in honor of the day, I would love it if you’d be kind enough to leave a message on the “Anniversary Wall.”

This entry was posted on Friday, September 1st, 2006 at 4:02 am and is filed under blogging. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.