Gore has his Nobel. Scorcese has his Oscar. And now Sargent has his Shorty. Yes, the official results are in, and I am the winner of The Shorty Awards. Well, not the whole thing. My category. And I’m not sure what it means that the category in which I achieved this distinction is called ‘weird.’ But I’m delighted nonetheless. My mother even cried.

For those of you unfamiliar with The Shorty Awards, they have been given to “the best producers of short content in 2008.” And by short content, they mean 140 characters or less. In other words, these are the Twitter awards.

I’m not sure that I deserved to win. I mean, I only received 207 official votes, and I shamelessly asked my 9000 or so Twitter followers to vote for me on several occasions. Therefore, only 2.3% of my own followers thought I deserved to win. But politics is a numbers game, and my machine managed to get out enough of the vote to secure my victory, so I’ll take it.

And what do I get as a Shorty Award winner? Aside from glory, apparently a $1000 grant to travel to Brooklyn to attend the awards ceremony, where I’ll be asked to give a 140 character acceptance speech. Talk about weird.

Anyway, thank you all so much for voting for me. Most all of your 140 character ballots expressing why I deserved to win the award were terrific. Here are some of my favorites:

@buzzbros2002: I vote for @martinsargent in the Shorty Awards Finals for #weird because he makes me think of whalepoop

@juanrcm: I vote for @martinsargent in the Shorty Awards Finals for #weird because…he NEEDS this

@ryanmunshower: I vote for @martinsargent in the Shorty Awards Finals for #weird because he’s lonely and depressed

@wirwzd: I vote for @martinsargent in the Shorty Awards Finals for #weird because he has a tiny bladder and I feel bad for him

@bobisme: I vote for @martinsargent in the Shorty Awards Finals for #weird because he deserves to win something in his life

@rmediavilla: I vote for @martinsargent in the Shorty Awards Finals for #weird because… He had no idea what he was talking about on TechTV

@ogrim: I vote for @martinsargent in the Shorty Awards Finals for #weird because he is internet, in all the bad ways you can think of

@adamwise: I vote for @martinsargent in the Shorty Awards for #weird because he has oddly shaped cheek bones. Bugged me since TechTV…

@phillgreylewis: I vote for @martinsargent in the Shorty Awards Finals for #weird as he is the Indiana Jones of net culture, online uniqueness

Tomorrow will be a monumental day for Martin Sargent. As I sit here writing this, tears streaming down my cheeks on the eve of this mountainous occassion, I cannot help but be reminded of the excitement I felt as a child the night before Christmas, knowing that a magical man would soon come into my life and improve it. A good man. A wise man. A selfless man who would, through his magnanimity, vision, and service make my life so much happier, so much more full. Yes tomorrow, such a man will enter my life, and the lives of all of you who choose to join us. And therefore I must say, “Thank you, Scott the Owner. Thank you for opening your filthy little dive bar at 8:30am instead of 4pm so that I might get in there and start drinking early, and maybe also watch some of that inauguration business I figure you’ll have on the TV. Especially when the marching bands are on. They’re cool, particularly the drums.” Yes, tomorrow is truly the dawn of a new era, and as such I think I might even have an Irish coffee, which I don’t usually drink. But it’s going to be at 8:30 in the morning, and change, on this awe-inspiring day, seems so very right. So fuck it, yes I can…

After nearly one hundred posts, tens of thousands of titillated readers and just shy of $14 in Google AdSense spoils, I’ve decided to relaunch SargeWorld. I even have a new name for the site: MartinSargent.com. Yes, after years of my name being held hostage by unscrupulous profiteers, the digital kidnappers clearly realized I would never be successful enough to earn anywhere near the money to make a serious offer and gave up.

A massive thank you to loyal viewer Ryan Munshower for noticing the domain was available one lonely drunken night, buying it, and then giving it to me for Christmas. Ryan, you are now on the list of my favorite living Americans, right between Rollie Fingers and Patti LaBelle. Also making that esteemed roll is Stefano Scalia, a fan who has become a friend, who designed and built this beautiful new site. If you are ever in need of a terrific web designer who is a pleasure to work with and not the least bit dickish, look no further than Stefano Scalia (don’t worry, no relation to Antonin).

Also thanks to Joey Rabier, who designed the old SargeWorld, which served me well since August of 2005. In that entire span, not one person ever noticed the ghostly toilet that Joey inexplicably designed into the banner. Look, to the right. See it?

One of Internet’s last great Easter Eggs, finally revealed. As for the people in the photo, I have no idea who they are and they have even less of an idea that tens of thousands of people have stared at them over the years. Judging by the number of drinks and cigarettes they had consumed by 11am or so when that photo was taken, I imagine they are long dead. I hope not. They seemed like proud people.

And what can you expect from the new MartinSargent.com? Most importantly, more frequent posts and starting very soon, original video content. So be sure to check back often (or better yet, subscribe here), and please use the forum below to let me know what you like or don’t like about what you’ve already seen. Thanks for visiting.

-Martin