Winning a war, as the pretzel-loving former resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue said, is “hard work.” A week ago we set out to storm the empire built by Dorothy Surrenders and claim it as our own, fully knowing it was essentially a suicide mission. Winning just one victory against the reigning superpower would require talking to Sun-Tzu via a Ouija board and using the Jedi mind trick on the entire Grace The Spot nation to recruit all of their friends and relatives, including those who don’t even know what a blog is, to join the cause. We are happy to report that we did achieve a victory against Dorothy Surrenders in The Lezzys. After trailing Dorothy Surrenders by 50-100 votes during the entire competition in the Humor category, Grace The Spot pulled ahead in the final stretch and eked out the win.

Of course, we did not do it alone. We’d like to thank the following mercenaries and allies who joined us in the vast left wing conspiracy against west coast pop culture bloggers good fight:

• This Girl Called Automatic Win and Sugarbutch for being part of the secret East Coast alliance to make California unfunny. (Note: They did not join the conspiracy to sabotage west coast superiority in the entertainment industry or in general awesomeness, because they are not that stupid.)
• Blue Gal, who raised awareness about our predicament on Crooks and Liars.
• Lesbian Dad for the nod.
• Our twits and Facebook minions.
• The kind people on AfterEllen who defected to our team after a shameless plea for votes in the final hours.
• Our staff writers and all of our Facebook and offline friends and whoever we could chase down on e-mail and IM, who are now all wondering about the state of our mental health. Seriously, it was fun having utterly humiliating IM conversations like this:
  Q: “You haven’t said ‘hi’ to me in years and you want me to vote for something called the Lesbian Lifestyle blog awards? Seriously?”
  A: “Dude, just shut up and vote.”
• Last but not least, our readers who actually think we are funny and voted for us out of their own free will.

That’s what it takes to beat the awesome Dorothy Surrenders, and we thank her for inadvertently training us in the art of guerrilla warfare and for allowing us to go out of our way to prove that we aren’t “humorless lesbians” (but end up being humorless in the process). It was an honor to lose to her in the other categories.

With that being said, congratulations to all the winners: Dorothy Surrenders (of course) for Best Overall and Best Culture/Entertainment Blog, This Girl Called Automatic Win for Best Personal Blog, Lesbian Dad for Best Parenting Blog, Pam’s House Blend for Best Political Blog, Just Eat Your Cupcake for Best Over 50 Blog and Sugarbutch Chronicles for both Best Gender Bender and Best Erotica Blog. Thanks also to The Lesbian Lifestyle for hosting this hot mess.

We also think that Up Popped A Fox rules, so check her out.

Now that we are thanking our supporters and pointing out blogs you should read, I have a few more blogs to thank. Please ignore the folk guitar music swelling in the background that is telling me to get off the stage.

We’d like to thank the following blogs/bloggers that we haven’t already mentioned above for noticing us (and/or gave in to my incessant pestering) this past year and who helped us gain our readership. In (relative) chronological order:

Lesbiatopia
Hahn At Home
Card Carrying Lesbian
Lesbilicious
Quench Zine
Kimizone
Malinda Lo (P.S. It’s her fault that I am on AfterEllen)
The New Gay
Grrlplanet
Joe.My.God
8Asians
Mombian
Angry Black Bitch
Jon Swift
The Bilerico Project
Wonkette

(And thanks, Matthew, for the daily spam!)

If we forgot you, please let us know and we will link you.

Please also check out the personal blogs of our staff writers as well:

• Grace Fannie
• Grace Law
• Grace Lehman
• Grace Lightning
• Grace O’Neill
• Grace Underfire

So long and thanks for all the fish!

We now return to our regularly scheduled program.