Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Berry-Go-Round #12 Is Up!

BGR Masthead Cropped Berry-Go-Round #12 is up over at my favorite blog, Foothill Fancies. This month’s Berry-Go-Round features a number of great plant-related posts on everything from evolution in Mexican dry forests to cycads in the Caribbean. Go check it out!

wwwa logo test1 And speaking of Berry-Go-Round, guess where the next edition- BGR #13- is being hosted? That’s right kids, right here on Watching the World Wake Up, right around January 28! I somehow managed to convince the moderator that this is actually a respectable tree-blog, and a suitable location for this excellent blog carnival (I must be a great salesguy!)

For you plant-bloggers out there, if you have a recent or upcoming post you’d like included in the next BGR, I’d love to hear from you. If you’re a long-time plant-blogger, participation is an excellent venue through which to let old and new readers alike know what you’ve been up to. If you’re a new plant-blogger, it’s a great way to introduce new readers to your blog. Email submissions to me at adventurebotanist@yahoo.com (preferred), or you can use the BGR submission form.

IMG_7770 All plant-related submissions are welcome, but some ideas that might be of interest to readers in Winter climes (like here in Utah, where we are currently freezing our butts off) might include plant survival in Winter, desert plants, or any posts about plants in the tropics or (even better) the Southern Hemisphere.

For my regular readers, I know many of you have never heard of Berry-Go-Round before, so I’ve put together this brief FAQ:

Berry-Go-Round FAQ

Q: What’s Berry-Go-Round?

A: BGR is a blog carnival devoted to highlighting recent posts about plant life.

Q: What’s a Blog Carnival?

A: A Blog Carnival is a recurring showcase/grouping of a number of different posts related to a common theme or topic. There are carnivals about all kinds of things- birds, geology, music, astronomy, business, writing- there’s even a carnival about kidney stones! Every month the carnival is hosted by a different blog, and that blogger links to a number of participating blogs. So it’s like a dozen or so posts in one.

Q: Why should I care?

A: Two reasons: First, you’ll get a nice, convenient pointer to a whole bunch of interesting plant-related posts. Second, you’ll learn about a number of blogs you’ve probably never heard of before, some of which might be interesting enough that you want to become a regular reader of them.

Q: What if I don’t care about plants?

IMG_6182 A: Hello? Have you been reading this blog? Don’t you get by now how totally, completely, way cool plants are?? Seriously, if you’re not dialed into plants, or at least trees, you should be. All around you are these wonderful, green, growing, changing creatures that make the world so much more interesting and beautiful, each with its own hidden story to tell. As I’ve said before, the world is ruled by plants; we’re just along for the ride.

Q: So what, if anything, between now and January 28, does this mean to me as a reader of your blog?

FifthTruth4 A: It means this: January is Grown-Up Month at Watching the World Wake Up. All month long, I’m going to do my darndest to run this blog like a grown-up blog, with more cool science stuff, and less irresponsible goings-on about reclining airline seats, Sunday School, old neighbors and hotel sex.

Q: But that’s the only reason I read your blog- for the rants about airline seats, neighbors, Greek school and hotel sex. Not to mention the recurring references to your various injuries, bike racing, backcountry adventures, your lame graphics, and your poking fun at that chemistry guy for never reading your blog.

A: I said less irresponsible goings-on, not none. I’ve put a lot of work into this project to get to a point where I could do something like this. Just hang with me with me for a month, while we polish up things a bit, and then we can get back to “normal.” (Was this blog ever normal?)

2 comments:

Phil O. said...

Clearly, the world is ruled by plants. Worse, compelling evidence indicates that parts of the universe are ruled by plants seeking to dominate the earth. That's why we need to band together and stop them while we still can. This blog is helpful in letting us know the enemy.

In the meantime, Happy New Year!

Watcher said...

Thank you Phil, for kicking off Grown-Up Month!

BTW, I always wonder, how come you got into Dr. Who like 30 years after it was cool?

Happy New Year to you and Super-D too!