However, it was not to be, as we just recieved notification that we were nominated again this year! (This is the part where we'd link to the award information on the BAPC site, but they barely mention it as of this writing.) Things are looking up: while last year we stumbled upon our nomination in a press release (OK, we Google "SFist" from time to time, what of it?), this year we got an actual email, addressed to "To Whom It May Concern" and everything! Woo hoo!

You have been nominated as Best Bay Area Blog in our Tenth Annual Pubbies Media Excellence Awards. The nominees in your category this year are:

Longtail.com
The Bastard Machine
San Francisco Sentinel.com
SFist.com
Silicon Valley Watcher.com

We ask that you set aside the lunch hour on Wednesday, September 13, and join your colleagues and other winners at our awards presentation luncheon at Le Meridien Hotel at 333 Battery Street (formerly the Park Hyatt) in San Francisco, starting at 11:30 a.m. and concluding at 1:30 p.m. Lunch is $40 per person for non-members of the Publicity Club and (alas) Pubby Nominees and their guests. Pubby Winners will be comped.

What? (Insert overused movie trailer record scratch noise here.) While hardly a scam at the level of the Webbies, we can tell you right now that this bitch is not paying 40 freakin' bucks to eat at a damn Hyatt.

Sure, if we win, it's free (do you think we'd have to fill out some complicated rebate form like at Best Buy, or what?), but how can we take that chance when up against last year's winner Silicon Valley Watcher? Do you know how much wine we can buy SFist Rita for 40 bucks? A lot. Maybe Goodman (Tim, the 28th can't come soon enough) has that kind of dough to gamble, but we sure don't.

So, thanks for the nomination, BAPC, but we're gonna stay home and vote for Gothamist to win BusinessWeek's Best of the Web instead. Congratulations in advance to all the winners -- and, BAPC, call us back when you have something with, hmm, maybe an open bar and some snacky things. That's the kind of event we can get behind.