Best Animator
Pete Doctor
Pete Doctor! We love UP! — tamiray

Best Annual Event
Alameda County Fair
Music, awesome rides, junk food, and ponies — what's not to like? — storm

Berkeley Chamber Crush Festival
It's the best wine tastying in town. — Candyman4590

East Bay Express Party
20,000 people last year, can it get any bigger? — mistermochiman

Eat Real Bay Area
Really liked the idea of gourmet truck convention!! — joyce Sigman

Garden of Memory at Chapel of the Chimes
Nothing like it anywhere else. In the world. — iggygoo

Greek festival
Lamb lamb lamby lamb! — balanceman

Mycological Society of San Francisco's Annual Fungus Fair!
Mushrooms galore! — melco

Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir Holiday Concert
This show is so drenched in spirit and beautiful sound, you leave with tears in your eyes. — mary_ford

Oakland Public Schools Jazz Festival
Two hundred teens from ten schools playing jazz together is the kind of good news I never read about in the newspaper. I have to show up. And I never regret it. — kathyk

Tour De Ferment
Best beer, best brewmasters, and all by bike. — oceanworks

Best Artist
Casey Fay Dirgle
Does great things with cephalopods. — atomica

Jaime Lakatos
Jaime makes some of the coolest, most unique art I have ever seen. Her vegan taxidermy is something to behold. — Tiburoncita

Marin Camille Hood
Macabre embroidery. — kruet

Best Arts Organization
Community Rejuvenation Project
Rocking the town harder than anyone else. — Desi Lomax

EastSide Art Alliance
I love this place! It is owned and run by people of color! — dpfile

Precita Eyes Mural Arts
Spreads art, creativity, and sunshine throughout the city. — ecodoc

Best Arty Café
Fanny's off San Pablo at Cedar.
Alice Waters for the working class! Or, not so! — GailChiarello

Revolution Cafe
As funky as West Oakland. — ntorbett

Subrosa Cafe
Tons of class crammed into a super small space ... plus the art on the walls is always inspired. — elizabethalb

Westside Bakery Cafe
Old school, but good school. — oceanworks

Best Band
Alma Desnuda
Most soulful band I've heard in a decade. — amyz

Carne Crude
Check out their best song, "Oakland's Tight." — susan sherrell

Death Shit
So underground, not even y'all know about it ... yet. — mistermochiman

Best Blogger
Andrew Levy — Inhuman Eating Machine
A gentleman, an athlete, and an inspiration. — Mitch

Crazy in Suburbia
CrazyInSuburbia.blogspot.com. — hvilhauer

Dunno
Don't follow any blogs. — oceanworks

Kwan Booth, Boothism.com
The guy can write. What else need I say? — ntorbett

Best Burning Man offshoot
The Crucible
They're still hot! — Lynne Elizabeth

The hot-tub at my place on a weekend night.
Do you want pictures, for real? — mistermochiman

Best Club
The New Parish
Just went there for the first time the other night! Pretty sweet! — mr.adambeck

The Ruby Room
Maybe not a club, but the finest dive that feels like a club this side of the bay! — jarettcole@yahoo.com

The Uptown
Buzzcocks, Green Day, Germs, Frank Black, Chuck D plus amazing local bands all within the last year or so in Oakland, are you kidding me?!! — mistermochiman

Best DJ, Club
DJ Hector
He decides where I'm going out on the weekends! — acsegarini

Earflaps @ Missouri Lounge
Making South America more accessible for those without the funds to make it there. — balanceman

Best East Bay Slang Word or Phrase
Basically
I'm tired of this word as it's used by nincompoops who can't express themselves intelligently and use this word as a filler. For them, it is being used incorrectly!! Basically, continue to say basically!! — Leilo

Hella
Hella classic East Bay-only phrase. You can be sure to be made fun of if you leave a fifty-mile radius. — balanceman

As a Berkeley native coming of age in the Eighties, I once tried to forbid the word hella in my vocabulary. It was hella hard. — Dangerangel

Hecka
Because some people find hella offensive. — mr.adambeck

Other side of the tunnel
West side rules! — Tom Walton

The Flats
As in my house in the hills was seized by the bank and now I live in The Flats. — EliseA

Yadidafeel
It means do you feel me? — ccbchunks

Best Gallery
Hatch Gallery
The founder of Lobot brings forth another gem to Oakland's art scene. — mistermochiman

Johansson Projects
Oakland finally has a good amount of galleries, but sadly most of them still aren't up to snuff, or showing very professional work. — mr.adambeck

Periscope Cellars
You can't beat art & wine together! — Moline, Jennifer

Best Gallery Openings
Leslie Galleries
Best painting of a snail I've ever seen. — CaliforniaAnne

Best homegrown cultural scene
Julia Vinograd on the Avenue
After — what, forty years? — her poetry just keeps getting better. — GailChiarello

Oaklandish
This nomadic group sells T-shirts and baby onesies out of a cool Clark's Cortez at Grand Lake Farmers' Market. Full of Oakland love, their web site features lots of great activities for young (and old) Oakland hipsters. — pamela magnuson-peddle

The Hood Games
Love and life for West Oakland youth. — melco

Best Local Act That Made It Big
El Dia Verde
They are ours! — balanceman

Green Day
I cannot describe the weird thrill I got watching them take the stage at ... the Tonys?! — Lori S.

Ledisi
I was feeling lost till I found her music. — Jame Ervin

Maurice Jones-Drew
Tom Brady he ain't--no matter his NFL stats, MoJo remains level-headed and determined to give back to his foundations. — allthatryry

Best Local Album
Delayer
The Heavenly State's finest hour. — mistermochiman

The R&B Free Jazz Gospel Supreme 80
And you can spin it on the jukebox at BAGGY'S! — santopeligro

Best Local Author
Daniel Alarcon
Everyone should read War by Candlelight and Lost City Radio. — ek

Jason Adajian
Has written indie fiction. Leaves it in houses all over the East Bay. — CaliforniaAnne

Michael Chabon
The man knows his way around a sentence. — ann b.

Best Local Book
Farm City, Novella Carpenter
Inspired my wife to start her blog. — NicoJ

GRACE
GRACE involves the murder of a charismatic young woman and the Oakland police's determination to place a member of the Black Panther party at the heart of the murder. Sex, drugs, and the search for love, early Seventies East Bay scene. — susan sherrell

The Big Short
Is there any better writer of non-fiction than Michael Lewis? — Stephen Buel

Summerland
I finally know that all the mythical creatures really exist. — tamiray

Best Local Film
Traditional Indigenous Values
Scenes of Prop 8 rallies in Oakland. — Ruthie

Best Musician
Calvaleigh Rasmussen
This girl plays the piano accordion at virtually every BART Station I've been to. She's a classic hippie chick, has completely rockin' tunes, some of which she has written herself, and some of which she's learned as traditional or modern traditional tunes. She's put out one CD, titled Thyme. She could be the next Joanna Newsom. A true accordion hottie! — CaliforniaAnne

Golden Gram
Rogue Wave, The Album Leaf, Dr. Dog, The Heavenly States, Spoon, Golden Gram, The Morning Benders, Jon Vanderslice, Port O'Brien ... how many projects can this guy get involved in?!!!! — mistermochiman

That guy near downtown BART with the keyboard.
He's pretty cool — kjimho

Best Place to Dance
Air Lounge
They turn their AC on though ... lol. — calihotgurl

Ecstatic Dance at Sweets Ballroom
No talking on the dance floor, just delicious grooves and from-the-heart moves. — storm

Oasis
Eed night in the backyard! — elb

The Uptown
Hella Gay Dance Party! — faseplant

Best Poet
Joyce Lee
Joyce Lee is an angel in disguise, an FBI agent on the hunt for lost Hearts and Souls. She says what you're thinking with no fear. Joyce comes to kick ass and take names. She is a champion. — fishsong

Prentice Powell
Hotwatercornbread.org. — John Quinn

Best Purveyor of Local Crafts
Beer Revolution
Linden St. Black Lager! — santopeligro

Cherry Hoops, Nicole Wong
Outstanding products for Hula Hooping. I get all my hoops at CherryHoops. — sat7

Christopher Barnes, Glowees
This guy sells his own glow-in-the-dark product line. He creates little fimo monsters that hang on pendants, earrings, and keychains, all of his own design, in addition to glow-in-the-dark silk-screened T-shirts. He is friendly, and sells his wares on Telegraph Avenue! — CaliforniaAnne

Metro Lighting
Beautiful lighting fixtures produced from hand-blown glass and hand-forged fittings in a variety of combinations. — JDdesigner

Best Reason to Remember Hyphy
CUZ THE BIG WHITE TEEs MEAN PEACE!
Hyphy and hippie are kissing cousins. — santopeligro

Ghost ridin' the whip
Looks like fun actually. — kaykay

None
This is best forgotten. — mrpsmr

Best Singer or MC
Chloe Hollingsworth
This girl is the only person I know who tries to busk with opera. She generally can be seen at Berkeley BART, singing soprano arias. — CaliforniaAnne

Best Street Artist
The Pink Man
He's the guy in a pink leotard riding a unicycle. — Tom Walton

Best Theatrical Production
American Idiot at the Berkeley Rep
Homegrown talent! — Dangerangel

Impact Theatre's Learn to be Latina
Affordable theater that was the most hilarious play I have ever seen in my life — my stomach literally hurt when I left. Also incredibly insightful. — kdub

Best Venue for Local Bands
Stork Club
If only Oakland residents came out to live shows. — jodi183

The Uptown
Or any number of awesome warehouses that still exist. — jarettcole@yahoo.com

None
They all blow. It's unfortunate, but unless you're going to play a party at a warehouse, you need to cross the bay for local music. — mr.adambeck