Farewell from Justin (Daddy Knows Less)

Crap. Crap. Crappity. Crap.

Really? You mean to tell me not even the CIA was strong enough to bring down the likes of Mama Spaghetti? She is a dastardly and wily villain indeed (shakes fist).
I'm just glad to finally be done watching that finale video... I mean, really... I just got finished... and it's Saturday already. Geez. Long enough? It takes less time to get the Peanut to bed. No wonder it took so long. It looks like Heather was working on that thing in some kind of underground cave... by candlelight. I could have sworn I saw a Chilean miner in the background at one point.

As for me... don't cry for me, Argentina. (Yes, I just dropped an Evita reference on you.) I'll admit I went through the five stages... I started with self-loathing. Then came anger. Then I went to the gym, which relieved the anger and ushered in the denial. Then came remorse. As in, did I do enough to win? And finally, acceptance. I did all I could.

All kidding aside, I am very proud of the work I did in this competition. Like I've said before, I stayed true to myself, and maintained a certain level of integrity in my posts and my own blog. And it got me within a fraction of the victory. I'm proud of that. Not that I wasn't a complete spaz behind the scenes and didn't bombard Heather with emails about anything and everything.

So now it's over. Put the champagne back on the ice. Somewhere in a small east African village, they'll soon be wearing "DKL Blogger Idol 2011" championship t-shirts.

But a funny thing happened on my way to Blogger Idol glory... I found some great new blogs to follow. But I also made friends. That's right. A couple of weeks ago, friend requests started popping up on my personal Facebook page. Roni, Chris, Derrick, Heather... who's next? I thought... I'll be a monkey's uncle if these people aren't my friends! Funny how that happened.

And while I'm disappointed, things could be a lot worse. I have an awesome wife and daughter, a super dog, a cool job and a comfortable house. A lot of people don't have those things. People like the family Heather featured on her blog this week. Please check out that post and help if you can.

I leave you with a final bit of wisdom, from the uncle about whom I wrote the post I thought would win me this thing: "Sometimes the best don't win... but they never lose."


Thanks for a great experience. See you on DKL.
-Justin
http://daddyknowsless.blogspot.com/

THE FINALE! Who's claiming the title?

Make a video - it's fun, easy and free!
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Blogger Idol FINALE voting starts NOW!

This week was a bit different.  There were only TWO contestants left.  Each of them did TWO assignments, for your viewing pleasure. Read the posts and scroll down to vote.  Voting closes at 11:59 PM CST on 9/8/11.

PLEASE READ:   Make sure you VOTE IN BOTH POLLS!  This is very important for tallying the final score.  It could be very detrimental to the results if you don't vote properly. 

The first assignment was a 'Letter to Your Future Author Self.'  The finalists had to write a letter to themselves in the future, reminding them of the things they didn't want to lose track of.  Here are those two assignments:

Dear Future Me by Mama Spaghetti

Allow Me to Reintroduce.... Myself by Justin Mannato

The second assignment was the writer's choice.  They did their best to choose something that reminded you of why they made it this far, and why they deserve your vote.  Here are those two assignments:

The Best Dad I Know by Justin Mannato

The Men in My Life by Mama Spaghetti

 

VOTING IS NOW CLOSED! STAY TUNED FOR THE FINALE TOMORROW!