Happy George Washington Christmas, readers! I think today is the holiday where you put presents under the wooden teeth and give thanks for our electoral system or something. We'd have posted something earlier, but suffice it to say that the highway system in Eastern Iowa is a finely tuned killing machine that may claim thousands today. Or, as stupid people put it whenever they have to drive in bad weather, "My car skidded on the highway, so I TOTALLY ALMOST DIED."

But I digress. It's time to finish up voting on the Blackies, and we've saved the best category, Best Post, for last. We enjoyed an incredible year of writing from not only we three Musketeers, but from our readers as well. To that end, we'll be nominating six posts for best of the year, listed below in chronological order. Since I'm wildly uncomfortable about nominating myself for anything, there will be no OPS articles listed. These six were better anyway. Anyway, as always, vote below.

Are You There, Cyclone Fan? It's Me, Jebus - JebusHChrist

I'm coming to Ames this weekend and I'm bringin' hell with me. We're going to join the rest of the Iowa fans (which will number near 50,000) and we will tailgate at your asphalt shitbucket of a stadium. There will be booze, flip cup (instructions included since you don't even know what it is you fucking douchebags), and fun. After the tailgate, we will go in to watch the game which will be a beating like you haven't suffered at our hands since the days of Fry. But this isn't about that, it's about this. I'm going to fuck your momma.

Blogpoll: Week 8, Shakespeare Edition - JebusHChrist

Sir John Falstaff -- Les Miles, LSU

• I find you to be an unsavory character. Your name makes you royalty, but there's nothing regal about you. You're a slovenly drunkard and a bad influence. If I were King, I wouldn't want my people anywhere near you, or your home. What makes you dangerous is the fact that under all of... that, you're quite powerful. You don't just destroy men, but somehow through sheer grandiloquence and your bombastic nature you convince them to destroy themselves. All the while, you're grinning knowingly and having a grand time. You've seen what it takes to be King but you know the crown will never fit you.

Fake Kirk Ferentz - Bellanca

"We go through life and the narrative of our lives, if we are achievers and doers and the people who must suffer the rants and envy of non-doers, the narrative of our lives is this act of becoming.  We are in search of ourselves, becoming some vestige of everything we wanted to be, back when we were 23 and our wives looked at us not knowing the pattern of time, equivocation, the accumulations of mundane imperfections.  We hold, privately and dear, this act of becoming.  You have held dear the model of coach that Michigan now seeks.  If you say no to this, you may get a call next year from Penn State, because there's no way that they extend Paterno.  But maybe not.  If you say no, you are closing a door and locking it and you need to be comfortable that here, Iowa City, is where you will be."

BTB Basketball Poll: Iowa Caucuses Edition - Hawkeye State

Northwestern is Dennis Kucinich.  Despite the fact they have no chance of winning, they show up every year.  Nobody questions their intelligence, but when they tell you they've seen a UFO, you know they aren't kidding.  Undersized.  Last names are difficult to spell.  Supporters are totally into World of Warcraft.  They also get to go home to a beautiful wife, though nobody understands why she would ever get with them.  Must be the money.

BTB Basketball Poll: Robert Goulet Edition - Hawkeye State

Indiana: These cats can ball.  Everyone's giving them the business because Sampson broke some rules.  But let me tell you something, amigo:  Rules are made to be broken.  There was this time in 1962, I was in the Broadway production of Camelot with Richard Burton.  One night after a show, Rick and I met up with Mickey Rooney for a late drink.  Well, boys will be boys, one thing led to another, bada bing, bada boom, Rooney pistol whips the bartender.  This bozo is talking about pressing charges and calls in a cop, so we planted heroin behind the bar and got the bartender hauled off.  We drank every drop of booze in that joint.  The next day, Rick met Liz Taylor.  The rest, as they say, is history.

So, anywho, these cats can ball.

You Been Posterized - ChitownHawkeye

The Blackies roll on unabated, as today we celebrate a fine year of YouTubery. We have some excellent candidates on board, and two of them even have to do with the Hawkeyes! How 'bout them apples! Be sure to vote in each of the three previous categories, then vote here. We'll be wrapping up the Blackies with Best Post tomorrow, then the Awards Ceremony will be Sunday or Monday, depending on our hangovers.

Also of note: The squirrel slingshot was removed (which is BULLSHIT). Also, the Nerf dunkers disabled embedding (fuckers), so they're not up for the running. You may view them here, though.

On with the show!

Welcome back, readers! We hope you've voted on the first and second categories up for the inaugural Blackies! Time for the third portion of our Blackies celebration, and this is by far the greatest one yet.

Here, we'll be celebrating 2007 photojournalism at its finest. We tried to sift through the 400+ pictures on the site and select the five best unedited pictures from the last year. That proved impossible. So please select your favorite of the seven we painstakingly selected. Good luck with that; even with J Leman, we couldn't pick one. At all. And just to reiterate: these all actually happened.

(your nominees are after the break...)

We're back for the next installment of the Blackies! [can't you call it the Gold Panties or something? That'd be better.--ed.] We're not giving out women's underwear. That's weird. [but they're gold.--ed.] We're calling them The Blackies and that's final. [fine, but as soon as you post a picture of Al Jolson I'm pulling the plug on this.--ed.] Fine.

Voting is furious and spirited at Best Original Picture, so exercise your democratic rights there if you haven't already. For our second category, we'll be lauding the best pictures on BHGP from the other side of Blogfrica: everybody else! We're taking a look back on the finest photoshop works that we saw fit to share with you. And the nominees are!

Our AWESOME! Logo

Charlie Chalupa

Mangino Clown

Soulja Henne (pops to animation)

Cupcake Monster

In case you cared, the CFBA voting has begun. Everyone may vote for the People's Champion at EDSBS, who just so happens to be a candidate too. That's like primary voting being held at Hillary Clinton's house while she just so happens to be having a barbecue and why yes you may have another bratwurst, but whatever, he deserves the award.

The rest of the voting is open to sports bloggeurs, so while dmbmeg is tragically left out in the cold, those of you with more of a college football focus are open to participate. Brian is hosting the voting board right hyeah, so give that a look.

Yes, we're up for a few awards, but we're not going to beg for votes. That's untoward, and we are nothing if not gentlemen here at BHGP. Further, we can suck our own dicks just fine, thank you--this is actually a documentary about us.

To that end, we'd like to announce the first installment of Black Heart Gold Pants' very own award: The Blackies! Over the next week or so, we'll be taking a look back at what was a memorable, exciting year at BHGP and opening the voting to all viewers as to what they liked best about our website. There'll be thrills, chills, and maybe a little mischief along the way.

Below the jump, our first category: Best Original Picture!

(click here for the nominees, or just vote, whatever...)