Not to be a "naysayer or small thinker" but wouldn't it just be easier to ask Owl Meat what he thinks? He and his army of alternate personalities are going to determine the outcome of the vote anyway.

If that venerated magazine 'Good Housekeeping' can have their own Seal of Approval, then certainly the Sandbox should have one.
We are at least equally as important as Good Housekeeping, and I daresay, our Seal of Approval should have as much if not more weight as theirs.
After all, the magazines out there in retail land only dispense information on a limited subject area, whereas The Only Blog You'll Ever Need can offer 110% (in our minds at least) fully qualified expertise on ANYTHING!
Great idea Bucky!

“Once you label me, you negate me”
– Søren Kierkegaard

Infantile.

I'm sure every business would love a urine-colored spot that signifies a narrow filthy juvenile view of things. You just created the ultimate intellectual conceited self-deceit: a circle enscribing a box.

Reject simple constructions like countries, worlds and solar systems. The real action is in between the atoms.

This sandbox thing is beyond tedious and childish.

Self-labelling is self-neutering. I wouldn't let someone else castrate me, I'm not joining a group to do it to myself. I knew today would get worse.

“A name is a label, and as soon as there is a label, the ideas disappear and out comes label-worship and label-bashing, and instead of living by a theme of ideas, people begin dying for labels... and the last thing the world needs is another religion.”
– Richard Bach

Great idea!

Why shoot for the Bocuse D'Or when you could have the Sandbox Seal of Approval ?

I don't vote in real life, I'm not voting for anything here. Talk about thinking inside the box – voting.

Yeah we should emulate Good Housekeeping. I need to stock up on Miltown for our next key party. I'll bring the mini-quiches.

This sandbox thing is beyond tedious and childish.

I'm about 90% sure that Sandbox should be capitalized. Maybe we should take a vote on that.

I'm about 90% sure that Sandbox should be capitalized.

That would legitimize what was never voted on to begin with.

Ack! He used the evil management jargon three syllable L- word!

All managerial anaphylactic shock aside, I'm in in favour of this if it is applied appropriately. For example, do we like mud? How about reindeer? The colour mustard?

Bucky,
I think it was an ingenious idea for a post.

And remember, Owl is just having a bad day. Could he be suffering from triskadekaphobia?

Owl, relax. this is just a blog, even though it is The Only Blog You Need.

EL should trademark that!

Lissa said: Ack! He used the evil management jargon three syllable L- word!

Are you referring to "legitimize"? That has four syllables.

Pedantically yours...

No, Hal, "leverage".

*shudder*

Sorry, Lissa. I scanned through the whole discussion looking for L-words and totally missed "leverage" in the initial post.

Mea culpa.

To this post, I say bleh. Also, ick..

I'm of mixed mind on this one. On the one hand (and I am paraphrasing my counterpart in Vermont) "The wisdom in in the Sandbox." Having gotten to know a little of each of you (even of the multiple personalities among us), I am quite sure that I would trust your recommendations above many, many other sources. I truly believe that anything that got 70% or better on the "Sandbox Seal of Approval" would be truly worth trying out.

My problem is entirely selfish. Nothing ruins success like success, and if that striking "golden brown and delicious" [sorry!] seal started appearing in places around town ... well there would be crowds and chaos and quality going up and quality going down and SSA's would have to have dates on them and, oh, the humanity! (See Zagat for object lessons.)

So, I might be interested in voting for something that might have a limited audience. If you roll up your sleeves and play in the Sand, you get to vote and get to see the votes and ultimately the seals. But you have to come play or you get nothing. (Forgive me if that seems an awfully uncharitable thought for Lent.)

Owl is a one man Audabon Society today, raven that to hawk a Sandbox seal is self-neutering, robin us of free thought, impigeon on our independence. In short, he thinks it's a fowl idea, even could we sell it for a poultry sum.

I would imagine in time we just sell out more and more, much like how James Beard was out hawking tv diners and Green Giant frozen vegetables.

No doubt in a few months the seal of approval would be sold off to infomercials, whereby it would support things like the Snuggie and the ShamWow

Bucky, this is amusing, but ultimately I have to come back to "De gustibus non est disputandem,"

That's ok, Hal. I tend to not see certain overused, meaningless managerial jargon words.

When I was at EDS, my team used to gather to hear my plain English translations of corporate memos. That way, at least we got something useful (a bit of entertainment) out of them.

I'm sure that had nothing to do with them laying me off, either.

I think Bucky should get a special award for putting up with my bad behavior, perhaps a golden gravy boat. I try and I try and try to not drown puppies but sometimes it happens (metaphorically). Beautiful and wise Bourbon Girl gently reminded me of my place in polite society toeday. Being a part of this community in the past year or so has helped me to be a more compassionate and tolerant person in some small ways. I do apologize for being an asshat. Sorry Bucky.

Don't worry about it, Owlie. I've only one feeling and it's pretty hard to hurt it.

(The Whiz-inator has taken to calling me "Meatball" by the way, thanks to one of your tirades. Cracks me up.)

Bucky, you're a beaut.

I was out buying up all the Roquefort in town when this post first developed and when I finally got back I was reluctant to weigh in. Not wanting to be in either the Bucky camp or the OMG camp (you know how I hate labels), I refrained from commenting. Now, Owl Meat Gracious-in-humility offers up his unclenched claw and the clan comes together at the end of the long weekend. I hope you'll indulge me as I share yet another reading (collective groan) which this episode put me in mind of. (Isn't it fun to flagrantly end sentences with prepositions?)

This is from "Brideshead Revisited". The characters are Charles Ryder (first person narrator), his friend Sebastian, Sebastian's sister Cordelia, and their older brother Bridey, who speaks first:

"You are an artist, Ryder, what do you think of it aesthetically?"
"I think it's beautiful," said Cordelia with tears in her eyes.
"Is it Good Art?"
"Well, I don't quite know what you mean," I said warily. "I think it's a remarkable example of its period. Probably in eighty years it will be greatly admired."
"But surely it can't be good twenty years ago and good in eighty years, and not good now?"
"Well, it may be good now. All I mean is that I don't happen to like it much."
"But is there a difference between liking a thing and thinking it good?"
"Bridey, don't be so Jesuitical," said Sebastian, but I knew that this disagreement was not a matter of words only, but expressed a deep and impassable division between us; neither had any understanding of the other, nor ever could.
"Isn't that just the distinction you made about wine?"
"No. I like and think good the end to which wine is sometimes the means -- the promotion of sympathy between man and man. But in my own case it does not achieve that end, so I neither like it nor think it good for me."
"Bridey, do stop."
"I'm sorry," he said, "I thought it rather an interesting point."
"Thank God I went to Eton," said Sebastian.

I love the idea, Bucky, and bravo!! The Sandbox is is a very intelligent group, even if we do tangent into rants now and again. Why not grant ourselves a "pat on the back" sometimes?