I have a dear and precious friend whose blog was one of the first I read when I began blogging back in April of 2004. This man is a thorough gentleman, a lovely kind funny person, whose blog is full of wit and humor and love of wife and children. Reading his blog on a regular basis is almost like peeking through his windows and observing life in his house, and occasionally being invited in to share some cake or some great conversation. And if he sees you peeking in, he’ll smile and wave and ask you how you’re doing. And he will honestly care about your answer.

I am, of course, talking about Genuine. I’m sure most of you read Jim’s blog regularly. If you don’t, then you should click on over there IMMEDIATELY, and go there every day. You should comment on his posts, and laugh with him, and cry with him, and get to know him well. You will be a better person for it.

Jim loves to interact with other bloggers, and for the second year in a row, he has organized the BOB awards. I wonder if people realize how much work he has put and is putting into this project. He had to hand-enter every single individual blog url into the voting system, among other things. He works at his job all day, and works on the BOBS far into the night. When does he sleep? Sometimes, he doesn’t. He firmly believes that the BOBS are an excellent way for regular people like us to meet each other via our blogs; that’s why the really big-names are excluded from these particular awards. The BOBS are for us, not for celebrities.

Jim deserves a million pats on the back, and a million words of praise, and a million messages of support and encouragement. He’s breaking his back on this project. He’s sleep-deprived, and groggy, and hungry, and is missing out on time with his family, all for us, the regular people who blog.

He deserves all those good things, and many, many more. Most of us haven’t a clue what-all the BOBS involve, but we all know they involve an incredibly large amount of time and talent and judgement skills, and Jim is willing to do it all, with some help from a handful of equally wonderful people, and all of us should be mighty and majestically thankful for his dedication.

Everyone in the world, with working brain cells and beating hearts, loves and appreciates Jim.

Many of the blogs on our blogrolls came from last year’s BOBs. This year, maybe we’ll find some more people to add. It’s like a neighborhood party, hosted by Jim, and at any party, there’s always a chance that we’ll find a new friend.

The host at any party works hard. The host of the party deserves nothing but praise and thanks, for inviting us all and for presenting us all with a well-planned and well-executed plan of action.

To criticize or put down our host would be base ingratitude of the worst kind. Only a real honest-to-goodness jerk would do that. To find fault with someone else’s hard work would be a really rotten thing to do. To presume to tell our host how to run his own party, would be a thoroughly assholian act.

The host of a party is like the author of a book. THE AUTHOR chooses what to have between the bindings. If someone doesn’t like it, he/she should put down the book and walk away. To presume to tell the author of anything what his rules should or should not be, would be the action of an selfish, immature idiot.

So, from me to you, is this: Click over to Jim’s blog and tell him how much you appreciate him and his hard work. Tell him you love him, and tell him you always will. If you are one of the few in the blogosphere who doesn’t have him already on your blogroll, put him there at once! Tell him I sent you.

And for those of you who are so high and mighty and cocky and pretentious and know-it-all and presumptious and bastardly and all the other Thesaurian words for ‘bitchy’ that exist, that you’ve taken it upon yourself to criticize him, to find fault, to whine and bitch and complain and threaten. . . . . . go to hell. Go straight to hell. Do not pass ‘go,’ and do not collect 200 dollars. Just go to hell so the rest of the known universe can be happy.

Oh, and shame on you. You’re nothing but creeps. Whiny, jerky, creeps.

Ah, Mamacita and her home-spun witticisms and sweet mommy postings.

Do NOT mess with my friends. You’ve been warned.

Jackasses.