Premio Dardos

Many thanks to Ivan, he of the outstanding "Thrilling Days of Yesteryear" for honoring me with a Dardos award and, more importantly, honoring me with such generous praise. If any of you are visiting Cultureshark on his recommendation, I welcome you and urge you to check out the other great sites Ivan has assembled on his blogroll. I appreciate just being linked to, let alone singled out for such attention.

I feel like a novice professional wrestler getting the chance to work a match with the seasoned veteran. Win or lose, he knows he "gets a rub," or gains an elevated profile, just by being in the ring with his opponent. Except we're not bashing each over the head with chairs. And we're not winning or losing or even in direct competition of any kind with each other. And in wrestling, the veteran can just as easily make the newcomer look bad by not cooperating with him--ah, the analogy sounded a lot better when I first thought of it.

Anyway, there are rules for a recipient of this award, mainly bestowing the honor on 5 other worthy blogs. I feel awkward about passing the Dardos on their way because, after all, none of these established sites needs any kind of "rub" from this humble operation, but rather than let this spiffy tuxedo I just happened to have laying around go to waste, I formally accept the Dardos and maybe give these destinations a few more eyeballs:

*Classic Television Showbiz: It's simple, actually: Tons of fascinating clips from TV history. There's always something amazing to see here.

*Classic TV History Blog: Stephen Bowie's analysis, reviews, and obituaries would be reason enough to visit his site, but he also contributes some outstanding original research, such as the "Studio One" material posted this week.

*Baseball Musings: An essential, continuous assortment of links to compelling baseball stories and info, accompanied by the observations of David Pinto.

*Hacking Netflix: Not some kind of criminal enterprise, but an invaluable collection of news links and information helping us Netflix subscribers get the most out of the service. The lively discussion will teach you all you need to know about controversial topics like "throttling."

*TV Obscurities: I just discovered this one and plan to make it a regular stop. In addition to the actual "blog," there are periodic articles about, well, TV obscurities--that is, lesser-known programs from television history.