To anyone who nominated me for a Games Media Award. I am a finalist! With any other award it’d be corny and false to say the nomination is what counts, but with GMAs that’s actually true. Like last year, the nominations are open to the public but the judging is by a panel of games media types and PRs. I’d love to win this year, but I’ll be honest, I’m not super concerned about my popularity among games media types and PRs. The really nice thing is to have a bunch of people put your name forward out of the blue.

In return, I will try to be slightly less inadequate over the next week about posting stuff, both here and on PCG. Starting with some fun news from Valve about Team Fortress 2 I’ve only just had time to write up, and a short series of stupid posts here that have nothing to do with anything. Yes. This plan makes sense.

If you are a judge, you don’t have to vote for me, but you should definitely vote for:

• PC Gamer for Games Magazine. We’re actually pretty good. The thing I really enjoy about our mag these days is being able to read a preview knowing it’s not just going to be, “This looks like a game that has some classes and some weapons and the graphics seem good”. There’s going to be something mechanically or conceptually interesting and we’re actually going to spend the words telling you about that. Also we do reviews. Oh no! That’s mine! How did that get there?
   
• Rich McCormick for Rising Star. Rich has already established himself in our office as the person capable of the most tortured pun when we’re sitting around coming up with headlines, and this company is the Abu Ghraib of pun torture. Here’s his piece on Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden. It’s a crime that Jaz McDougall isn’t also up for this slot, partly because it would lead to hilarious in-office brawling, and partly because his work on PCGamer.com is making me laugh every day.
   
• Christian Donlan for Specialist Writer Online. I’m also a fan of Simon, Ellie and Dave, but I think I’m right in saying this is the first time Christian’s been up for this, and it’s way overdue. His stuff on Eurogamer and in Edge always shines, and he is quite literally The Nicest Man In Games Journalism, a title which I must some day kill him to steal.