You did it you sly devil, you managed an entire year humping the keyboard writing about our beloved 'Skins. You did this in spite of our poor season and having to suffer my nonsense unabated throughout. So Hogs Haven wishes a ginormous Happy 1st Birfday to The Curly R, that remains atop my Blogroll purposefully -- that is not at all animadversion on the ones below it, rather just an expression of the high esteem I hold both Ben and Brandon and their blog.

Reader(s) are free to groan oh great he's talking about the blogosphere again bla bla bla but this post serves an additional purpose. This space turns a year old on August 16th which I have now announced and thus will feel no need to repeat that day. The recognition of Ben's fine accomplishments will serve as a birfday celebration for both our blogs.

The Washington Post's Joel Achenbach once remarked that the Curly R was "a well-written blog for Redskins fans." No offense to Joel, but what a fucking understatement. It is superlatively written blog for Redskins fans and non-Redskins fans alike, the latter point demonstrated best by one of the Curly R's most frequent visitors, Wilbert Montgomery, who has also seen fit to drop by these parts on occasion.

Anyways, Redskins fans are especially blessed -- excusing this space -- by the wealth of well-written analyses available both on message boards and especially blogs. We have excellent independent blogger mainstays in The Curly R, Harry Hog, The Redskin Report, and Running Redskins. We have blogger network coverage in Hog Heaven, AOL Fanhouse, and Riggo's Rag. Newcomer The Fun Bunch dropped in just in time for the new season.

We also have a large contingent of media bloggers who keep us constantly posted on what's happening at Redskins Park, notably Redskins Insider, Covering the Redskins, Redskins 360, Skins Cast, and, last but certainly not least, THE Bog.

[ED note: I am leaving off some very deserving blogs but only because I am tired of entering in the HTML. I endorse with two thumbs up every site linked to at this blog and encourage any and all reader(s) to really explore this space.]

And of course there is Extreme Skins with a million eyes scouring the internet for any and all Redskins related minutiae, which makes what I do all that much easier. We are all but shadows beneath the hulking Extreme Skins, which deserves all the credit in the world for what they've accomplished.

Which is all to say that there's no shortage of Redskins commentary for the hyper interested fan to enjoy. And that's a good thing. I couldn't be happier covering Your Washington Redskins with the group of outstanding individuals located on my blogroll and elsewhere and look forward to doing so for one more year (and maybe another after).

HTTR.