Congratulations to all of the finalist in the Online News Association Awards, but especially to the Ventura County Star for it’s General Excellence node.

I think I offended some people at ONA when I failed to attend the 2004 conference in Los Angeles, the year VCS.com won the GE award (I was online director at the time). Nobody from the Star was there to pick up the award.

Ironically, or not, I have no direct affiliation with VCS now, but I’m just as close to Toronto now as I was to LA back then, and I still haven’t committed to being in Toronto later this month for the ONA conference.

But hey, if the Star would like me to pick up their award for them, that could be arranged :-).