Tagged

What a strange way to be tagged.

A meme attached to or disguised as an award now hitting the blogoshere. Being tagged under the guise of you being thought of or considered as one that motivates thinking! I was nominated or actually bestowed by QOTH, the THINKING BLOGGER AWARD. And of course the tag.

Ilker Yoldas started a meme called the Thinking Blogger Award and set it free in the blogosphere. The 5 original nominees each nominated 5 others, and those 25 all nominated five others, which made 125, and they all nominated 5, which made 625, and then 3000, and then 15000, 75000, 400000 . . . well, there’s a lot of thinking bloggers out there.

It’s called link-love. Or website promotion. Or a chain letter. That little 7kb image that is displayed with every award, always linking back to Ilker’s site, means that Ilker can sell advertising space at premium rates.

One has the option to participate or not. I decide to. For want of putting some words of praise to a few blogs that I enjoy reading. Most blogs are daily or weekly personal accounts of the blogger, but some are good entries based on circumstances, events or good thoughts. Many that I have in mind are already being tagged. However I observed a few that are not and they are the ones of my choice. And I do believe that some of these bloggers that I have tagged would not want to participate and continue tagging. Nevertheless they deserve mention.

Loppies is an artist. He paints his memories with creative use of Malay words that one has long forgotten for lack of use. His entries, centring on his days as a seamen; with eyes for details and descriptive to the minutest accounts on his reporting. Strong memories indeed Lope has got. Reading him reminds me of Arenawati. And I am 'annoyed' that Lope that does not update his blog regularly!

Just like Loppies, Bunga Rampai is another blogger with good writing style of picturing and painting her daily accounts or glimpses of life. In poetic forms. Reading her expressions at times touches one’s heart and led one perhaps to blame oneself for being indifferent to surrounding social problems; characteristic of low-cost housing community. Tremendous social problems that we did not realise because we never bother to look into.

Abdullahjones of course would never respond to tags or be a meme-carrier. His writings would put Clint Eastwood to shame. But he has messages. Though sitting himself comfortably in front of the burning logs in the fireplace, thousand of kilometers away, he is aware of what is happening back home. His alter ego is of course the handsome village bilal. Jones carries good memories of the backcountry that he described splendidly. His reminiscence of Kuantan brought memories of my childhood and early working life there. The way he described Kuantan, made me thought that I was just around the corner when he was passing by. What say you Jones? Jones paints as well or maybe better than he writes.

Jiwarasa's entries put me to shame. He reads lots and lots more than I do. And I learnt of books i.e. new books in B. Malaysia mainly, from his blog. This is one blogger who really enjoys reading and collecting books. A very diversified choice of interest. From philosophy to marketing. Strangely, we go to the same bookshops but have never met.

Pegawai Khalwat delivers messages in a different way. He is a theaterist. I believe that he lectures on theatres – acting and producing. Read between the lines! I desire to place lengthy comments to his blogs as he does to mine, but do not have the capability to write on his subject. I really enjoy your entries Tuan Pegawai though I seldom leave my trail there.

And again, there many more that I enjoy reading and as expected, have also been nominated or awarded as Thinking Bloggers. Like HAS or DITH for example.

And a note from the sponsors:



Dear award recipients,

You have to award five others whose blog you think deserve this award.

Should you choose to participate, please make sure you pass this list of rules to the blogs you are tagging. The participation rules are simple:

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.

Please, remember to tag blogs with real merits, i.e. relative content, and above all - blogs that really get you thinking!