They said that Hurricane Ike could bring unimaginable disaster in its wake...
but no one could've predicted the full extent of the horror. (YouTube, 31 sec. or still photo) This unexpected furriness brought to you by this guy. Prankster(NSFW)? Jackass? Potential Darwin Awards recipient?!
posted by markkraft on Sep 13, 2008 - 23 comments

The Weird-Ass Picture Book Awards, WAPB, are given to the books that make you go “Huhhh?” Awards are given for story, illustration, and cover art. The highest award goes to the picture book achieving outstanding weirdness in both illustration and text. The 2007 WAPBA went to The Fuchsia Is Now, by J. Otto Seibold, for its strange story and artwork. The interesting use of condoms as hats was clearly a deciding factor in this book’s selection. Dear Fish, by Chris Gall, won for both illustration and cover art. For storyline, My Father the Dog, by Elizabeth Bluemle, took the prize.
posted by Fizz on Jul 7, 2008 - 18 comments

IPAF (International Prize for Arabic Fiction) is a new prestigious $50,000 literary prize managed the Man Booker Prize in London and sponsored by Abu Dhabi's¹ crown prince of the United Arabs Emirates. The inaugural winner was announced on March 10: Baha Taher's Sunset Oasis (shortlist). English translations appear to be unavailable although some are in the works. This is the first international prize for Arabic literature, and it has stirred up some passions. [more inside]
posted by stbalbach on Mar 17, 2008 - 5 comments

Wildlife Photographer of the Year
posted by Flashman on Feb 9, 2008 - 15 comments

The 2008 Oscar nominated animated shorts are online. Via.
posted by jonson on Feb 2, 2008 - 15 comments

The Academy Awards of the history blogosphere have been announced for 2007. The newest edition of the Cliopatria Awards is now out.
posted by stbalbach on Jan 8, 2008 - 5 comments

Yahoo's new BravoNation brings Xbox Live type achievements to the world outside of gaming. You can send or receive homemade awards from any user. They are banking on third party sites using their API to hand out bravo awards to people for doing various things. Our own waxpancake has the exclusive first look.
posted by riffola on Dec 21, 2007 - 22 comments

The software awards scam. I put out a new product a couple of weeks ago. This new product has so far won 16 different awards and recommendations from software download sites. Download it now from PC World!
posted by Armitage Shanks on Aug 17, 2007 - 20 comments

Make Me Heal is an online community serving the needs of America's vast cosmetic surgery audience, with tips & tricks on what works best to heal scarring, etc, including an encyclopedia of terms. To promote their vision of "Celebrating Natural Beauty With Enhancement" they're hosting the first ever Plastic Surgery Beauty Enhancement Awards, with categories like Best Breast Augmentation (NSFW) and Best Male Liposuction." Contestants must submit before, during & after shots of the procedure, and site visitors can vote on their favorites.
posted by jonson on Jul 2, 2007 - 26 comments

Nova Swing by M John Harrison has won the 2007 Arthur C Clarke Award. Named after the famous author and announced on the opening night of the Sci Fi London film festival the award is one of the most prestigious in science fiction. Everything you could possibly wish to know about this year's shortlist.
posted by ninebelow on May 2, 2007 - 33 comments

Yoshiro Nakamatsu aka Dr. NakaMats has invented everything, other than all the other stuff that the rest of us have invented. He has 3218 patents to his name. (Edison had 1093.) Among his many inventions? The compact disc, the compact disc player ('natch), the digital watch, a unique golf putter, the floppy disk (!), and a water-powered engine. Besides being the founder of the World Genius Convention (where the world first learned of ingenuity of ADR ceramic disks, for instance), Dr. NakaMats was voted by the US Science Academic Society as one of five greatest scientists in history - in the company of Archimedes, Michael Faraday, Marie Curie, and Nikola Tesla - and he plans to live until 144!
posted by humannaire on Feb 23, 2007 - 27 comments

Rumors of The Police reuniting to perform at the 2007 Grammy Awards have been confirmed! I wonder which songs they will play?
posted by augustweed on Jan 30, 2007 - 150 comments

2007 Independent Games Festival Finalists. Most have downloadable demo and full versions (on the PC, anyway). Share and enjoy.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken on Jan 29, 2007 - 3 comments

Best designed stuff of '06. The Industrial Design Excellence Awards. Winners include the 2 second tent, a new coffin and the hover creeper. Want more design? See what shaking in ecodesign, gadgetry, or concept cars. Perhaps you just want to know what's cool or what those crafty Germans are up to. Then again, maybe it's all just too much to handle.
posted by cubby on Jul 2, 2006 - 22 comments

2006 Webby Award finallists announced. So, if your favorite home/welcome page My Yahoo or Wonderbra? Two nominations for Metacritic. Other Meta-related sites, not so much... Best of the web?!
posted by insomnia_lj on Apr 11, 2006 - 36 comments

Say "cheese" — stinky, expensive, overprocessed American cheese. The venerable Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has revealed its set design for the Seventy-Eighth Academy Awards® Telecast. This year's edition is described as "an homage to old movie theaters" by designer Roy Christopher. "It's a no-holds-barred return to classic Hollywood glamour." Others may beg to differ.
posted by rob511 on Feb 22, 2006 - 56 comments

Rick Moranis - Alt Country Balladeer. Whatever happened to Rick? The former SCTV star and 80s/90s movie comedian apparently doesn't miss "acting." His new album of humorous country songs is nominated for a Grammy.
posted by Parlour Tricks on Jan 20, 2006 - 49 comments

Medblogfilter: medGadget has announced the winners of the 2005 Medical Weblog Awards. (more inside)
posted by slimepuppy on Jan 18, 2006 - 3 comments

Blixa Bargeld reads the Hornbach Catalog. In a series of ads, finalists in 2004 for an EPICA award, the poet and musician Blixa Bargeld, known primarily as a leader of the industrial band Einstürzende Neubauten, read aloud descriptions of home improvement products. With hilarious results.
posted by jann on Dec 1, 2005 - 35 comments

The longlisted passages for the Bad Sex in Fiction award are available from the BBC. Founded by the Literary Review of London in 1993, the award "honors" the worst (published) sex writing (by popular authors). Will it be John Updike? Gabriel Garcia Marquez? Salman Rushdie?
posted by mrgrimm on Nov 29, 2005 - 30 comments

Faith in Chaos. Photojournalist Pep Bonet (previously mentioned in this excellent post) has won the 2005 W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography, a $30,000 prize, to support his project on post-war Sierra Leone. The W. Eugene Smith Grant was founded in 1976 to provide financial freedom to photojournalists working on long-term projects in the humane tradition of W. Eugene Smith. Past winners have included Stanley Greene, Brenda Ann Kenneally, Sebastiao Salgado, Eli Reed, Eugene Richards and Gideon Mendel. More inside.
posted by matteo on Oct 21, 2005 - 5 comments

The 2005 Nobel Prize for economics goes to Robert J. Aumann and Thomas C. Schelling. Marginal Revolution has a wonderful set of posts that link to various related resources, like a summary of Aumann's work or Schelling's views on global warming.
posted by daksya on Oct 10, 2005 - 17 comments

It's celebrity award season. I'm curious as to who people think will get the next few. Personally, I'm going to go with Jagdish Bhagwati for Economics and Oxfam for Peace. I've got no clue on literature. Place your bets. Who are your hot picks?
posted by allen.spaulding on Oct 4, 2005 - 7 comments

The 2005 Adobe Design Achievement Awards , which "celebrate student achievement that reflects the powerful convergence of technology and creative arts." You can also browse past winners from 2004, 2003, 2002, and 2001 [via]...
posted by tpl1212 on Jul 26, 2005 - 9 comments

The Phallic Logo Awards. (NSFW, unless you work at one of these companies, I guess)
posted by XQUZYPHYR on May 25, 2005 - 19 comments

"The Best Of The Web"?
posted by liam on May 3, 2005 - 22 comments

The UTNE Magazine Indepenent Press Awards: The 16th annual roster of the best, liveliest, wisest, most provocative periodicals we’ve seen in the past year: General Excellence: Magazine ; General Excellence: Newsletter ; General Excellence: Zines ; Best New Title; Best Essays; Design; International Coverage; Arts & Literary Coverage; Cultural/Social Coverage; Local/Regional Coverage; Spiritual Coverage; Environmental Coverage; Personal Life Coverage; Political Coverage; Science/Technology Coverage; Online Political Coverage; Online Cultural" Coverage; The complete list of the nominees.
posted by fluffycreature on Apr 4, 2005 - 4 comments

With the next round of bloggies (or web log awards for those not down with the hip lingo), there's some concern that some types of blogs with large communities may not be included. Specifically, communities that are well known for tons of online events, and large gathering places whose interactions leak in to and out from real life. So, the food bloggers (floggers?) have done what they do best, and started their own awards - with 14 nomination categories, the results plan to, at the very least, make us all drool, if not inspire a few feasts here and there.

(and yay to mefi for winning last year's best community blog!)
posted by jearbear on Dec 8, 2004 - 7 comments

Nominations for the best software essays of 2004. There's lots of reading here, pardners, and much of it is great.
posted by bonaldi on Dec 3, 2004 - 3 comments

Fused space. Exploring the impact mediascapes - the mobile phone and wireless networks - will have on the ways we inhabit localities.
posted by yoga on Sep 15, 2004 - 0 comments

The BOBs - Best of the Blogs DW-WORLD.DE, the online portal of German international broadcaster Deutsche Welle, is looking for the best online diarists. With "The BOBs - Best of the Blogs" awards, we plan to honor the best Weblogs in 11 different categories, including Best Weblog, Best Topic, Best Design, Best Weblog Innovation and Best Journalistic Weblog. A total of seven of the Best Journalism prizes will be awarded -- one in each of our competition languages. Weblogs from all over the world can be nominated for the awards, provided they have been written in English, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Chinese or Arabic. You can nominate your favorite sites or even your own blog during the open suggestion phase from Sept. 17-Oct. 17, 2004.
posted by ronsens on Sep 5, 2004 - 5 comments

PDN Photo Annual 2004 presents the year's most outstanding images from photographers, magazines, and agencies in 8 separate categories. The commercial work is great, but don't miss the personal and student categories. (Flash intro. Note to sponsors: larger online images next year, please!)
posted by madamjujujive on Jul 17, 2004 - 8 comments

The World Press Photo awards of 2003
posted by mr.marx on May 30, 2004 - 17 comments

The 2004 Lyttle Lytton winners were announced. The premise is simple: write a terrible opening line (of 25 words or less) of a hypothetical novel. In case you're wondering the winners in 2003 and 2002 were discussed previously. [via kathrynyu]
posted by mathowie on Apr 19, 2004 - 9 comments

The Jefferson Muzzles are awarded as a means to draw national attention to abridgments of free speech and press and, at the same time, foster an appreciation for those tenets of the First Amendment.
posted by papercake on Apr 13, 2004 - 8 comments

The 2003 Pazz & Jop results are in! Apparently it was the year of hip hop (sort of), in both albums and singles. Country music gets kudos for being so "cocksure" in a world of uncertainty. Acoustic jazz scores a big win with The Bad Plus coming in at number 60!
posted by boltman on Feb 19, 2004 - 10 comments

It's Bloggies time again. Let's not have any cheating this year, OK?
posted by me3dia on Jan 6, 2004 - 12 comments

The Asia Weblog Awards ...they've garnered their fair share of controversey concerning just what constitutes an Asia Weblog, but scoring aside, it's an interesting list of personal sites from around the region.
posted by Poagao on Dec 16, 2003 - 5 comments

Damien Rice wins 2003 Shortlist Music Prize. The Irishman beat out Conor Oberst, Chan Marshall, Interpol, The Black Keys and a bunch of other hip artists to take the prize. This year's judges included Cameron Crowe, Chemical Brothers, Spike Jonze, and Tom Waits. MTV2 to air live footage of some of the nominees on Oct 24. Should be interesting.
posted by dobbs on Oct 17, 2003 - 20 comments

Kennedy To Receive Bush Public Service Award
Say Whaaat? "The George Bush Presidential Library Foundation announced that United States Senator Edward M. Kennedy would receive the 2003 George Bush Award for Excellence in Public Service." The Elder Bush selects the winner of this award personally... This must mean either that (a) W. had stopped accepting phone calls from his dad or (b) he will now...
posted by wendell on Oct 8, 2003 - 8 comments

Medals of the World. Meticulously listed by country. Loads of images and historical data. Now, someone award me the Danish Order of the Elephant, please.
posted by Ufez Jones on Sep 15, 2003 - 3 comments

The Mercury Music prize has rolled around again. 12 top artists from the UK and Ireland are up for glory. Winning is no guarantee of long term success, so frankly,what's the point?
posted by ascullion on Jul 22, 2003 - 12 comments

Anyone want a prestigious award for journalism? The USC Annenberg School for Journalism is accepting entries for the 2003 Online Journalism Awards, for independent and affiliated sites in eight different categories, including online commentary and creative use of the medium. So, who would you nominate? Any hidden treasures of the web this year?
posted by insomnia_lj on Jul 18, 2003 - 2 comments

The Key Art Awards honor theatrical trailers, posters, TV commercials, Internet ads and more. Here are this year's winners.
posted by Frank Grimes on Jun 27, 2003 - 2 comments

The Winners of This Year's Webby Awards.
posted by Blue Stone on Jun 6, 2003 - 17 comments

Help celebrate National Underappreciated Librarian Month Nominate your favorite librarian for The New York Times 2003 Librarian Awards. "The New York Times has long been committed to fostering literacy and building awareness of issues important to society. We are proud to support and honor public librarians across the nation, who do so much to nurture a better-informed society.
The awards honor those librarian[s] who consistently demonstrate the highest levels of professionalism, knowledge and public service in the execution of their duties."
Read the Eligibility and Rules download the Nomination Form and nominate Someone today!
posted by Blake on May 14, 2003 - 7 comments

De Niro non disputandis est or, in English, don't fuck with Bobby De Niro. Which is what the English have been doing recently, naming Al Pacino as the greatest movie star of all time. Askmen.com is a little more appreciative but also brackets Pacino with De Niro. The American Film Institute [pdf format] will be giving De Niro their 31st Lifetime Achievement Award on June 12 but - there they go again - he's merely described as "widely regarded as one of the most skillful actors of the last three decades". Is nothing sacred anymore? Who's the man [read "of a certain age, experience and cojones"], after all? I mean, after Jack Nicholson, of course. Now I'm all confused!
posted by Carlos Quevedo on May 8, 2003 - 31 comments

Webby Awards show cancelled. Heh.
posted by dchase on Apr 26, 2003 - 26 comments

Yaddo: The Artist's Retreat. "Collectively, artists who have worked at Yaddo have won 55 Pulitzer Prizes, 55 National Book Awards, a Nobel Prize, and countless other honors. Visitors from [John] Cheever's day include Milton Avery, James Baldwin, Leonard Bernstein, Truman Capote, Aaron Copland, Philip Guston, Patricia Highsmith, Langston Hughes, Ted Hughes, Alfred Kazin, Ulysses Kay, Jacob Lawrence, Sylvia Plath, Katherine Anne Porter, Mario Puzo, Clyfford Still, and Virgil Thomson." A place to go to get your mind off war.
posted by adrober on Mar 19, 2003 - 4 comments

The Pianist by Roman Polanski has been nominated for several Acadamy awards including best picture and best direction. The issue is that it's director Roman Polanski fled the US in 1977 when he was accused of sexually assaulting a 13 year old girl. (and after his wife Sharon Tate was killed by the Manson family). He fled because while he had worked out a deal with the prosecuter and the girls family, the judge in the case had set aside the plea bargain and Polanski faced up to a 50 year jail term. Now even the victim in the case Thinks Polanski should be allowed back into the states for the acadamy awards
posted by bitdamaged on Mar 10, 2003 - 51 comments