March 30, 2005
Result's Are In
We at King of the Blog are enjoying a "Spring Break, so here are last week's results and we'll return Monday!
King of the Blogs Tournament: Week 13 Judging
All hail King George of GM's Corner, last week's victor in a competitive tournament round between three worthy blogs. But as usual, the King cannot rest on his laurels and enjoy his reign for long without two more pretenders to the throne cropping up to give challenge. And now, we commence with the rulings, because I say so.
Overall Blog/Design
GM's Corner: George has, as all good competitors do, taken the judges' comments into account and made a few adjustments to his site appearance... Specifically, my two nitpicky notes from last week (the misspelling of "integrity" in the header and the variance between the font sizes and types in the sidebar) have been addressed, and That makes me a happy camper. I have no complaints... all the good stuff is still there, so this week George's rating improves to a 4.5. Good stuff here.
New Trommetter Times: Wow, a nice new look for Jason here... I dig the header graphic - my one suggestion would be to add a drop shadow behind the lettering to help set it off better from the background (the tag line is a bit tough to read against the lighter colored areas of the photo). It would be super-easy to do in Photoshop (duplicate the layer with the text, change the color to black, and nudge it down and to the right a bit) - but if you didn't use Photoshop to create the graphic it might be a tad more difficult. Searchable archives, check... comments, check... trackback is a bit difficult to locate, but I did manage to find out how to get the trackback URL, so I can't complain too much. I'm giving New Trommetter Times a 4.5.
World of Tish: Lovely! Another well-designed site here.... beautiful graphics, good "about me" info, Haloscan comments and trackback, Blogger bar search... The color scheme is simple and easy to read, black and pale gray, with splashes of red and yellow. Digging it. Good graphics get me every time - and the rest of the technicals are there as far as I'm concerned... Tish gets a 5.
Submitted Post
GM's Corner: For his submitted post this week, George presents us with a treatise on secularism and how the media and the AcLU, among others, appear to be making war on Christianity within our society. A very thoughtful, and for the most part very well-written piece... one little nitpicky note that jumped out at me:
"Afterwards, she said that she'd read to Nichols from "The Purpose-Driven Life," a bestselling book that eschews the self-help ethos so prevalent in pop literature to say that salvation can only be found in God." Pop Literature? OMG again, sharing your faith, what you believe to be true is only a "self-help ethos?"
I think you may be mistaking the definition of "eschews" here, what the author means to say by that sentence is to describe PDL as a best-seller that avoids the self-help spirit that is so popular in other current literature today, not that the message of PDL is a self-help message or that it is merely "pop literature". Although I know many Christians who believe it is, primarily because so many have made a huge "movement" out of the book. Anywho, that said, I don't disagree with the point that George is making here... and aside from that little nagging item, this post flowed very well. I'm giving it a 4.
New Trommetter Times: Jason presents us with a Libertarian rant about the Schiavo case... Since comments are closed on this post, I'm going to indulge in a small response - not even close to the full rant that threatens to come bursting out here...
Terri’s parents don’t have a right to intervene in this case. When he gave his daughter away at her wedding, he ceased to have a say in her medical care. That became Michael’s right then. When a couple gets married they are to "leave" and "cleave." Terri left her parents household and created a new household with her husband Michael.
And when Michael started shacking up with his "fiancee" and having children with her, in my opinion and in many others', he should have ceased to have a say in Terri's medical care. He has created a new household with Jodi Centonze and should not have the right to decide whether or not Terri should die. [/mini-rant] As much as I disagree with Jason's conclusion here, the post is short, to the point, and well-expressed. Nothing here causes the English Teacher to sit up and take notice, and therefore, Jason's submitted post earns a 4.
World of Tish: For her submitted post, Tish selects a quirky cautionary tale about having a kleptomaniac great-grandmother. Some people have very interesting lives - or at least, they can describe past events in such a way to make them interesting, and Tish is one of these people. After reading this post, all I can say is "Wow." That is one mean old lady. Tish did a great job getting her point across, and the story itself was entertaining. I'm giving her a 4 also.
Challenge Post
This week's challenge question was...
"Once you are made king you will be free to rule with an iron fist. What will be the first 3 laws issued by you to begin your reign?"
GM's Corner: I may be the only one of the judges who is amused and highly entertained by George's schizoid parenthetical arguments with a mysterious "editor" voice... Perhaps it's because I often have internal arguments that sound much like his. That makes me crazy too, I suppose. Ah well, it's more fun when there are more than one of us here. Good points include the lack of the Intro-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named (*cheer!*), and the requisite sucking up to the judges. Future contestants, be aware - sucking up to the judges is highly recommended. Although George's first law is actually a combination of four laws (ahem), the humor is very much appreciated. Three cheers for King George - his challenge response earns a 5.
New Trommetter Times: Ummm... dude... you're trying to be King of the Blogs, not King of the United States. While the concept of Jason's first three Libertarian pronouncements in his hypothetical reign is interesting (and these are not necessarily bad ideas... well, except for the one where you rename the United States of America to the United States of Trommetter), and there is some well-placed humor involved, I'm going on the assumption that the actual intent of the question was not met. New Trommetter Times gets a 3.
WOrld of Tish: Tish also manages to avoid the dreaded Intro-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named. The judges breathe a heavy sigh of relief as we realize that, this round, nobody actually felt the need to introduce a challenge response with "This is the question I had to answer for the King of the Blogs challenge post, and here is my response!" Tish's response also displays a well-developed sense of humor, as well as the sort of imperial ego that comes in very handy for a ruler of the blogosphere. Tish's proposed laws (especially #1 and #2) are extremely well-advised, in my humble opinion. Her conclusion paragraph also contains a rather tantalizing suggestion as to how the esteemed judges are to be treated. I think she gets a 5 just for that part.
The Queen's Rulings
GM's Corner: 13.5
New Trommetter Times: 11.5
WOrld of Tish: 14
| Another week, another two pretenders to the crown. GM Roper is current king, but there are two pretenders this week that think they deserve to be king. We shall see if they are worthy. |  The Judge |
THE CHALLENGE QUESTION:
"Once you are made king you will be free to rule with an iron fist. What will be the first 3 laws issued by you to begin your reign."GM's Corner 3
Trommeter Times in United States of Trommmmmmmeter:
GOOD POINTS: I like the new name. Not what I'd name it, but then again, I'm not trying to be king. I don't need to be king because I'm the judge. Huh? Being more libertarian than any other well-known political party, I'd have to agree with your ideas -- only you don't go far enough, commie bastard. Finance minister, indeed.
BAD POINTS: No need to announce the purpose of the post. Just let it rip and forget anyone who doesn't get it. Oh yeah -- Holy Crap! NINE percent? You're killing me here! What about the poor? What about the children? I'll give you ONE percent, and that's more than the damn IRS is squeezing out of me now!
SCORE: 3.52
World of Tish with the Queen of Blogdom
GOOD POINTS: Ok, you hooked me there with the first sentence. Are you running for president any time soon? Ok, any other agency that charges me taxes? Can you just send me money instead? Short, sweet, to-the-point, and nice focus on bloggers (and the judges...I'm awaiting my lavender...)
BAD POINTS: I wanted some Arnold parts. Why can't I have Arnold parts? And at the first reading, I was rather confused -- why would any woman want their butt to look like Jennifer Garner's upper body? And you're the Queen -- you can just order the NYC publishers to do what you want! Don't hold back!
SCORE: 3.19
SUBMITTED ENTRIES:
Trommmmeter Timmmmes gives us Right to Life:
INITIAL REACTION: What about the other woman? Should there be such thing as "forced" divorce?
GOOD POINTS: Short and to the point. You make your point quickly and support it with a few points from a strictly libertarian point of view. No errors in spelling, grammar, or writing that I can see.
BAD POINTS: Perhaps not completely supported with logic from all points of view, but then again, these are blogs, and they're not supposed to have everyone's point of view, just your own!
SCORE: 3.69
World of Tish supplies A Kleptomaniacs Tale:
INITIAL REACTION: Your great grandmother was mean because you were small? LOL.
GOOD POINTS: You were given the job of "patting down Grandma?" That's somehow funny and sick at the same time. Nice conclusion, good introduction, and nice details supporting your main idea. I'm still not sure whether to laugh or cry.
BAD POINTS: If you're going to separate a phrase with a hyphen ("she stole - "), you should end the phrase with a hyphen as well (like you did with the "- a nightly ritual -"). "Compliments you silver?" Whoopsie! Extra
SCORE: 3.01
GM's Corner has The Secularist Inmates Are Running the Asylum:
INITIAL REACTION: Have you been to Stop the ACLU?
GOOD POINTS: Excellent development of the idea from beginning to end. Good support throughout for the main points of the post. Well-written with effective paragraphs, spacing, links, and included images.
BAD POINTS: Quotes are difficult. When providing them as part of a sentence, the sentence structure can override the quote structure. In line 2, the period after "that" should actually be a comma -- otherwise the sentence outside the quote is incomplete. Yes, I know that's really minor. "Jill Porter, the ACLU, or no?" No? Not? I think you were going for effect here, but I missed the effect, sorry. Just before the quote at the end, there's a typo: "the" should be "he."
SCORE: 3.68
WHOLE BLOG REVIEW:
Here are some technical things I like to see on a blog:
King of the Blogs javascript thingy in the sidebar
Comments enabled
Permalinks working
E-mail contact info available
Blogger's name/pseudonym prominently displayed
Site search feature enabled
Link to an "About Me" post on the sidebar
Blogroll
Readable font style & size
Readable color scheme (I am a HCI computer design expert)
Divisions between posts clearly marked
Paragraphing in entries (NOT just writing one fat block of text)
LLamas
Overall good use of space vs. content vs. whitespace
Tish's Planet:
NOTES: Ummm...Oh, I see now. This page looks very different when viewed in Firefox!
GOOD POINTS: Nice email to subscribe to the site. The color scheme (in IE) provides nice contrast and is easy to read. The red on the dotted lines is a very effective separator without being too intrusive. I like the sections in the sidebar split up effectively and with the coordinating images for each section.
BAD POINTS: In Firefox, the borders and the background do not flow down throughout the page -- the white background stops at a very odd location. This makes the entire rest of the page difficult because the visited links become gray on a gray background. The first date has a white background, but the rest do not. I understand during transition to Haloscan putting comments for Blogger and Haloscan up at the same time, but the way it's worded there (x comments and y wanting more) is rather confusing to me. I can't find an email to email you. If you're just trying to avoid spammers, view the source on my site for a way to do that. The buttons in the credits section are all over the place -- sometimes two on a line, sometimes not. Feel free to use the width=xxx in the image tag to force them all to the same size. No llamas.
SCORE: 2.42
The King:
NOTES: The King came in strong in his first week, and this week he's made improvements.
GOOD POINTS: Fixed everything I complained about last week and then some. Added even more llamas! Excellent layout and design. Easy to read and great focus on content over everything else.
BAD POINTS: The post of March 25 has no breaks -- it's one big mass of text. Press enter now and then! You're a Red Sox fan. Also, check my source if you want to provide a clickable email link that spam-bots can't figure out (yet).
SCORE: 4.94
M-Times:
NOTES: Nice and clean. Dark text on white background will always work. Good setup with the gray border.
GOOD POINTS: Almost all required items there, except for that pesky email link. Good, clean, and very well-organized. The sidebar is excellent with a great layout. I'm currently in love with the space-saving chicklets, and you're loaded with them.
BAD POINTS: Where are the llamas? Oh dear, you actually moved TO Charlotte? Oh my. I hope the new job is VERY high paying, as you'll need the money to pay your new taxes. But if you're looking for a 3/2 in the University area, let me know, I have one for sale (seriously).
SCORE: 4.55
BONUS POINTS:
From unabashed bribing, linky-love, and obscure references that actually show the contestants know who the judges and other contestants are.T-to the M-to the Times: One link in the blogroll. One measly link. -0.5. However, he just moved to Charlotte, whose taxes are higher than Massachusetts, so he gets +0.5 pity points. Total bonus: 0.
Western Elvis (King, Roper, Cowboy, get it?): Good linky bribage. Even posted the same post I did at one time this week (the stolen gnome). There is some discussion over who did it first, but it's still scary that it was almost exactly the same time. +1
Training Information Systems Hub: One blogroll link again. Sigh. Can I get some love here? +0
FINAL SCORES:
Post:
Cool story about a kleptomaniac great-grandma! I enjoyed it thoroughly, and was waiting for the hook - but the hook was the whole thing! Anyhow, seeing that I'm about be a grandpa in about 5 months, I'm wondering... is it inevitable, this becoming mean and crotchety?
5 points.
Site:
This is a cute, springlike blog (just right for Easter, in fact) with lots of daisies growing between the cracks. Love the sidebar headers, and the purposefully disjointed font. Tish uses Blog*s--t, but manages to overcome its disabilities by showing inventiveness with her template and full use of comments and trackbacks. KOTB banner is there, just confined toward the bottom. No separation between post, but there is one between the post and the link information. Glad to see I can identify with Tish, but sorry to say the template is still a bit on the plain vanilla side (despite the nice graphic touch). I think this is some of the best writing I've seen on a blog, though, and that merits some respect.
4 points.
Challenge:
Ah, this challenge is quite masterfully done, but for one thing - apparently not enough has been said about the linkage. Show me the money! It seems that Tish is an excellent writer (as far as bloggers go, one of the most clear, creative, and witty) but hasn't learned enough yet about linking generously. Bonus points for being apolitical.
4 points.
GM Roper
Post:
Excellent, absorbing post about Ashley Smith sharing her faith with Brian Nichols and the secularists' reaction. Not only does he detail the war against Christianity in this specific case, but he expands on this issue of freedom of religion as smoothly and candidly as anyone I've read. GM's done great this week, and in my opinion (except for a
challenge by an excellent writer in Tish) deserves to resume his crown.
5 points.
Site:
First thing I noticed - separators! As before, love the site's design, gaudy-but-not-too-much flashiness, and a great sense of humor. Plus, he fixed my only criticism. At last, perfection.
5 points.
Challenge:
I was privileged to have read this post several days ago.. why? Because he linked to me!!! - the only one to have done so of the three competitors. That's what separates the kings from the peasants in close races. Indeed, GM really gets into the post, flaunting his kingly status and issuing rules, each sillier than the one before.
I'm happy to be considered as the proponent on a ban on overly long, unsubstantiated, 5 syllable words (ignore the previous illegality). Lots of ego! Lots of links! Lots of (ugh) llamas!
5 points.
New Trommetter Times
Post:
I've got plenty to say about this post, but this is neither the avenue nor occasion to say those things. Terri Schiavo's been quite the focus of many an attention, and needless to say, it's a very controversial topic. Anyhow, even though I strongly disagree, I believe it was courageous to display his opinion and he did so clearly and
concisely. But what's with the pacifier?
4 points.
Site:
Rather bland looking template, though at least he doesn't use the accursed Blog*s--t. Comments, but no trackbacks. One thing is kind of a pet peeve is that little smiley face that shows your mood - if you can convey it with a paragraph, why bother putting a little picture up? No distinctions between posts, plus the date is put somewhat lowkey beneath the post titles. LOTS of archives and categories. Nothing bad about the blog, but nothing to impress me either.
3 points.
Challenge:
Abundant ego - very cool and fitting for a king. Love all the ideas, like the flat tax and abolition of government agencies (what a relief!). But I think Trommetter's contradicting yourself by demanding everyone spell his name right... for a libertarian-style king, that's quite an authoritarian tendency. Oh yeah, and he got so wrapped up in himself
that he forgot the judges, but at least he wasn't the only one to do so.
4.5 points.
Judge's Totals
The World According To Tish 35
New Trommetter Times 36
Poll Totals
GM's Corner 88
Trommetter Times 7
Trackback Totals
GM's Corner 4
Trommetter Times 1
For a Bonus Total of:
GM's Corner 5
Trommetter Times 2
and a Grand Total:
World of Tish 40
Trommetter Times 38
GM keeps the crown! Congrats! We return next week!
March 21, 2005
King of the Blogs: Week 14
Welcome to the Week 14 King of the Blog Tournament!
First all must hail the King!
This week we have 2 new blogs squaring off for the crown:Good luck to both Pretenders. The judges for the tournament are as follows:
News From the Great Beyond
Ogres Politics and Views
SmarterCop
and on to the entries:
For submitted post:
and this weeks Challenge Question:
The Responses:
That's it for now! Be sure to support your favorite pretender by linking to THIS post and tracking back to it. Mention the blog of your choice in the entry. Whichever blog gets the most trackbacks gains 3 extra points once again. Need help sending a trackback? Say no more! Go to this site, and use Wizbang's Standalone Trackback Pinger.
March 20, 2005
Week 12 - Results Are In!
The results are in and the judges have spoken:
King of the Blogs Tournament: Week 12 Judging
All hail King Jeremy, who has earned his place in the Hall of Kings and steps aside this week to allow three pretenders to compete for his throne. Former King Warren of View from the Pew is one of this week's competitors, but he's got some stiff competition - let's see how this week's rulings shake out, shall we? *gets out ruler* Err...
Overall Blog/Design
GM's Corner: Nice, clean, simple layout, readable (and patriotic!) color scheme... what more can I say? Oh, well, I could mention several other good points: working comments and trackback, searchable archives, extensive "about me" information, and a healthy-sized blogroll. I'm also fond of the dropcaps, which I don't often see on many weblogs - they're not used consistently on every post, but where they are used they provide some emphasis and visual interest. If you've read any of my previous rulings, you'll know that I have to nitpick about something, and even here I've found something to nitpick about. In the header, the word "integrity" appears twice - the first time, it's misspelled. *sternly looks at George* Now fix it. There's also the little (but since I'm nitpicking I'll bring it up) matter of the sidebar fonts. They're not consistent. Most of the sidebar content, including the blogrolls, is in a Times New Roman-type font, but the category archives, monthly archives and recent posts are in a completely different (and smaller) font. Except for the "Queen, Freud and Baghdad Bob" post title, which is much larger and appears rather out of place. I'm thinking the sidebar fonts could use a little consistency in size and style, it would make the appearance much more polished and professional. But otherwise, what we have here is an attractive site with a good amount of personality and all the technical elements in order. GM's Corner earns a 4.
The Art of Getting By: I've seen this site before - don't remember where, but I remember really liking the graphic design. The theme here is cohesive: a 1950's era restaurant menu. Well, I don't know what the title has to do with that theme... but otherwise, graphically it holds together well. "About me" information is there, if a tad bit sparse - we do have a frame of reference for Janet's point of view, so I'll call it good. We have Blogger bar search for the archives, which works fine from what I can tell. We have Haloscan comments - good - but no trackback *gasp*... A jumbo-sized blogroll... It's just nearly perfect. Nearly. The Art of Getting By gets a 4.5. Nice job.
View from the Pew: It looks like Warren's promised site overhaul hasn't happened yet (that CSS stuff can be tricky, ask the Hubby-head), so there have not been many changes from the last couple of times I reviewed View from the Pew's site. I see Warren has been following the previous rulings, though, and his usual stained-glass window graphics in the banner have been replaced by a lovely pair of llamas in order to appease Ogre. I'm a little afraid to research this llama fetish of Ogre's, I think I'll just let it lie. Aside from that small adjustment, I don't see anything to change my previous comments or my previous ruling, so look here for comments. The Queen's ruling for View from the Pew remains a 4.
Submitted Post
GM's Corner: For his submitted post, George gives us a peek at his thoughts on the night of Dan Rather's final broadcast, complete with lyrics from the Wizard of Oz. I have to confess, I read this post and wasn't enthused. I took a break, played a few games, had some hot chocolate and a couple of Girl Scout thin mints, and came back to it... and I still wasn't enthusiastic about it. Perhaps it's that I'm sick to death of Dan Rather. Technically, the writing is pretty clear. I did notice a couple of punctuation issues, but the English Teacher is cozied up with her hot chocolate and isn't in the mood to be bothered with a lecture on proper use of commas. I, having been raised on the yearly "Wizard of Oz" tradition, did recognize the "If I only had the nerve" and the "King of the Forest" references, but I do wish George had explained his "Roy Clark" comment, perhaps with appropriate linkage. The Wizard of Oz stuff might have used a link as well for the younger or less culturally literate among us. George's submitted post gets a 4.
The Art of Getting By: Janet presents us with a long treatise on why she is still living at home with her parents six years after graduating from college. That, my friends, is a long story - she's had some crappy jobs, I see. I question why Janet chose this particular post to submit, it's a bit on the long side and while it gets her point across, the post is not one that inspires, provokes thought, or showcases her sense of humor. I think the Reality TV post from Wednesday would have been a better choice... Well, realistically it was written too late to submit, but something similar would have been a better submission if you ask me. All that aside, her writing is good. Of course I have to nitpick, so I'll do it with good humor: "But as you well know, whenever you point the finger, there are really two more fingers pointed back at you." Last I checked, that would be three fingers pointed back at you - unless you've lost a finger in a tragic cutlery accident or something, in which case I do apologize. There were a couple of typos and questionable word choices, but as one communications major (Radio/TV) to another, I can forgive that. I have been known to make up words entirely by accident. It happens. Sometimes I get lost in my own thoughts and don't re-read my posts before I submit them, and discover later that something made absolutely no sense. This was not the case here. So, informational but not inspirational, Janet's submitted post gets a 3.5.
View from the Pew: Warren is up to his old tricks, submitting a little rant for our perusal relating to a Bill Moyers article from the New York Review of Books. Discussions of eschatology are surrounding me these last couple of weeks - I joined the Thinklings Book Club and our first selection to study together is a book about eschatology... I haven't received my copy of the book I ordered from Amazon.com yet, so I haven't delved into the subject myself, but I am intrigued. In any event, for the most part this post is easy to read and well-worded... my one complaint is on behalf of those among us who have no theological training and/or very little curiosity about such things as eschatology and therefore haven't bothered to find out what it means. Many of Warren's readers I'm sure do have an interest or formal training in theology, but everyone else's eyes glaze over at the mention of words like "dispensational", "premillenialists", and "eschatology". Perhaps if you can find a website that explains theological concepts in layman's terms (Eschatology for Dummies, perhaps), it would be handy to link words like that back to something explanatory. If I hadn't just been exposed to discussion on the topic, I'd be one of those glazed-over folks. Otherwise, though, Warren makes his point very well, and I have to give him a 4 for this effort.
Challenge Post
This week's challenge question is:
You are going to have dinner with 3 different people. One is a fellow blogger, the next is a famous person currently alive, and the last is someone from the past not currently alive. Who are they and why did you select each.
GM's Corner: First off, congratulations to George, who has managed to avoid the hated Intro-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named. *cheers from the peanut gallery* George has crafted an entertaining scenario in which his dinner guests include KotB creator Nick Queen, Sigmund Freud, and Baghdad Bob. This amuses me. Baghdad Bob. Hee. George tells the story well, sets the scene, and recounts a wonderfully imaginative conversation that manages to include quite a bit of obsequious flattery to the judges and Nick himself. I think the only mistake George made was not including co-host Stephen and the commissioner, King of Fools in his little link-fest of love. They may feel left out, and that would be a crying shame. Still, George made me laugh, and that means he earns a 5. Creativity rules.
The Art of Getting By: Oh, Janet. I was hoping to get through this week without the infamous Intro-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named (look at last week's KotB review for an explanation, I'm tired of typing it over and over). Ah well... after the intro, Janet sets about choosing her invited guests, beginning with Wil Wheaton as the fellow blogger. At least she gives a compelling explanation of this selection... And then... she selects Wil Wheaton as the famous person currently alive... and then... Wil Wheaton as someone from the past not currently alive, since his acting career has died and apparently many of the less-informed believe Wil himself to have kicked the bucket. Maybe. Anyway, this is at least an amusing twist... I did chuckle at the selections. However, I value creativity in presentation as much as creativity in concept, and in comparison to George's effort (with the descriptions of the party and dinner conversation) I'm going to have to give Janet's challenge response a 3.5.
View from the Pew: Warren manages to avoid the dreaded Intro-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named, although he sneaks a reference to the competition in his introduction - but it fits in seamlessly, as it is the reason for the party. Warren also manages to engage in some obsequious flattery of the judges - always appreciated, my friend. Truly. However, only one blogger can be selected for this imaginary party, so Warren selects Hugh Hewitt for the blogging pointers and potential linkage. Heh. Good reasoning. He then gets all kinds of obscure on us (and I thought Baghdad Bob was an interesting choice) and selects the advertising genius who created Apple's 1984 Super Bowl commercial as his living famous person. I'm not so sure this individual qualifies as "famous", since neither of us knows his or her name, but hey, I'll go with it. And as the non-living historical figure, Thomas Payne. Explanatory linkage provided, good deal. Creative choices, good reasoning... but again, in comparison to George's presentation, I'm afraid I'm going to have to give Warren a 4.5. I considered a 4, but there was some good sucking up to the judges going on there. That's worth an extra 1/2 point.
The Queen's Rulings
GM's Corner: 13
The Art of Getting By: 11.5
View from the Pew: 12.5
Good job, all... it appears to be a close one! Let's see how the other judges ruled... and then there's the all-important poll and trackback contest points that could sway the whole thing.
Judgment Day for the King of the Blogs! This week there are three new pretenders to the crown, valiantly battling to see who will be able to claim the throne and the title of King of the Blogs for the week. If you think you have what it takes to be the king, go make your
claim!
| Another battle this week between three well-qualified pretenders. My overall advice, as always, if you want to rein as king, is to go read previous rulings. I assure you it will be worth your time. |  The Judge |
THE CHALLENGE QUESTION:
"You are going to have dinner with 3 different people. One is a fellow blogger, the next is a famous person currently alive, and the last is someone from the past not currently alive. Who are they and why did you select each."Queen, Freud And Baghdad Bob from GM's Corner:GOOD POINTS: Well, it's certainly an odd entry. The asides from the muse, I think, were more entertaining than the overall story. Really let it rip -- don't hold back, this is supposed to be about silliness. Nice attempt to steal the crown by being awarded it by the current King! Good use of English and attempts at flattery of the judges.
BAD POINTS: Friday? March 16th isn't Friday? No need to mention that the post is for the King of Blogs, but at least it wasn't done in an overt manner.
SCORE: 2.89
href=http://planetjanet18.blogspot.com/2005/03/its-all-about-wheaton.html>It's All About The Wheaton from The Art of Getting By:
GOOD POINTS: Nice job in creatively using the same person as all 3 selected.
BAD POINTS: No fair announcing that you're making the post for the contest. Just post and let your readers wonder what you're doing. The judges just don't like reading that they're reading about the contest.
SCORE: 2.22
What's Cooking? from View from the Pew:
GOOD POINTS: The most entertaining of the three submissions, IMO. Good sucking up and cheating the rules and inviting all the judges. There's nothing saying you can't cheat when you answer the questions, now, is there (as long as everyone keeps it within reason, of course)?
BAD POINTS: No need to announce that the post is for the contest. Just post away, who cares if your readers think you're off your rocker? The link to the Apple ad didn't work -- I couldn't find the ad. Why didn't *I* get offered beanies and weenies?
SCORE: 3.71
SUBMITTED ENTRIES:
Warren writes of Bill Moyers and the End of Time:
INITIAL REACTION: I'm silly. When I read "Christophobes" followed two words later with "Kristof," I thought you were writing about people who were afraid of other people named "Chris."
GOOD POINTS: Well-written, excellent use of English. Good introduction, support, and conclusion.
BAD POINTS: I think the title could match the subject a little better. I see how it matches, but it took me a few minutes to get it. Most of the post focuses on Bill's hatred for people named Chris Christians, with only a few references to the end times.
SCORE: 4.22
Janet's 18 Planets provides "You
Wanna Be Startin' Something?":
INITIAL REACTION: (sung (badly by me)) "You wanna be startin' sumthin'; got to be startin' sumthin..."
GOOD POINTS: I'd mention that I think most businesses in NJ are "working for the mob," but I won't because I might disappear.
BAD POINTS: Two fingers pointed back at you? Are you a cartoon character? "Minuet detail?" A detail about a dance? "Cutthroad?" Come on, you've got to get that spell checker out!
SCORE: 2.09
Game Master's Corner gives us Courage!:
INITIAL REACTION: Gah. He (Rather) just won't go away, will he?
GOOD POINTS: Nice poems! You should have submitted them for the most recent href=http://gevkaffeegal.typepad.com/the_alliance/2005/03/precision_guide_2.html>Alliance Assignment.
BAD POINTS: Why use the rather effective "smarm" twice so close together? Is "smarm" in a thesaurus?
SCORE: 3.68
WHOLE BLOG REVIEW:
Here are some technical things I like to see on a blog:
King of the Blogs javascript thingy in the sidebar
Comments enabled
Permalinks working
E-mail contact info available
Blogger's name/pseudonym prominently displayed
Site search feature enabled
Link to an "About Me" post on the sidebar
Blogroll
Readable font style & size
Readable color scheme (I am a HCI computer design expert)
Divisions between posts clearly marked
Paragraphing in entries (NOT just writing one fat block of text)
LLamas
Overall good use of space vs. content vs. whitespace
George's Corner:
NOTES: Nice, clean, easy to read.
GOOD POINTS: Llamas! AND the llama song! All suggested elements in place and easy to locate. Nice search boxes without the silly "Search the Web" option. Very good, simple, layout and design with the proper focus on content.
BAD POINTS: I can't tell what the "GM" is for. I'm guessing it's first and middle initial, but why not GMR's corner? Or GR? Or Ropers? Just wondering -- perhaps explain in the "About" section? Alignment's off a tiny bit -- the header section is wider than the content section by about 25 pixels or so.
SCORE: 4.51
Janet's Ice Cream Shoppe:
NOTES: I'm hungry for some ice cream now.
GOOD POINTS: Good initial layout and use of white space. Nice job with a blogger site -- most don't do that much customization. I like the overall theme of the site and the categorizing everything into that theme. Excellent.
BAD POINTS: Too much white space further down -- if there's so much extra space, would it be better to place all the sidebar items on one side? I'm not sure, but there does seem to be an awful lot of wasted space near the bottom -- almost half the page is blank. I found the email address, but it's rather well hidden. No llamas!
SCORE: 3.16
Warren's Seat:
NOTES: Always nice to see a non-standard Blogger design.
GOOD POINTS: A llama up front is always nice. All suggested content exists. Good spacing and general organization and layout. Also good use of whitespace in most places.
BAD POINTS: The appearance is a little disorganized up top. Why is there so much red space before the actual content? Also, I understand the need for using more width, but when I surf the internet, I don't use maximized browsers, and I was forced to scroll on this page. I've never liked the mouseovers that make the text have a line through it. It's confusing to the novice user. The feedburner link chicklet should probably be with the other images, rather than in the text links list. And why is "Links" far to the left, but the next category title, "Web Comics I'm Reading" indented? They should probably be at the same indentation level.
SCORE: 2.46
BONUS POINTS:
From unabashed bribing, linky-love, and obscure references that actually show the contestants know who the judges and other contestants are.Corner of GM: Nice linky-love. Good sucking up throughout, including links from posts that (allegedly) have nothing to do with the contest. And the words to "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling?" Very nice. The llama song is always worth extra. +1
Getting by Art: There's a few extra links in there, so that's worth something. +0.5
Smelly View (Oh, not that kind of "pew?"): I made the blogroll over there, but only ONE other link? I guess the llama bookends in a very prominent position can make up for that a little bit... +0.5
FINAL
SCORES:
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GM's Corner
Post:
Nice poem, a touching tribute to the liar, I mean newscaster who was Dan Rather. Oh wait, I'm not just looking at one poem, but three - with different metrics! Bravo... as a lover of fine poetry, especially along the line of the satirical, I was
overjoyed. Yet, in some childish nightmarish way, Oz scares me. 4 points.
Site:
When you see an old dead dude, a leprechaun, a dunce sitting in the corner looking wistful, and a foursome of llamas on the same page, it's clear you are perusing the blog of a rather fascinating individual. Visually, GM's blog is sharp and full of clean little boxes, corners, and brightly colored pictures. It's also clear that GM has a sharp sense of humor, knows
how to use a good meme, and by god! He knows how to separate posts! Overall, the posts are visibly clear and readable, and make good use of the gigantic first letter trick used by many well known magazines (though it escapes me what term they use for this). One small design tip - on your individual posts it helps if you keep references to the previous and next posts on the *same* line, not looking like it's word wrapping at 10 characters. 4 points.
Challenge:
Remember - I before E, except after C. Keep that little piece of 'advice' in mind, and life will be much more pleasant for you. Anyhow, I suspect GM's dinner guest, one Sigmund Freud, is likely to have his hands full with this piece... it goes this way and that, stops for an occasional moment of levity at the hands of Baghdad Bob, and makes a right turn at his competition. Sadly, Mr. GM is so obsessed with flinging five-syllable words around like a cheap trout, he doesn't realize his guests are falling asleep... though Siggy's disciple, Hunter S. Thompson, would be proud. 2 points.
The Art of Getting By
Post:
My, that was touching and surely your revelation left Janet vulnerable. Gosh, with a post this elaborate, I could employ her as my very own personal excuse writer (though I'd have to draw the line at including a full biography, as there are certain things I don't want made public quite yet). Such unsolicited soulsearching! Such longwinded manipulations! Gosh,
and you know what... Janet's probably one of the most interesting live-with-mom-n-dad adult children I've ever had the privilege of judging! 4 points.
Site:
Kitschy smiling 50's throwback waitress throws me a smile and shows me her... ice cream sundaes. Nice retro feel to this blog, and for once I see a blogger with some impetus to WRITE her OWN DARN TEMPLATE instead of using the crap that blog*s--t puts out. Finally! Love the 50's diner theme, the catchy titles, the hip 80's Molly Ringwald movie quote. The only thing missing is... a picture! Speaking of picture, I noticed a broken image line or two in one of the sidebars.. better inspect a little more closely next time. Comments - check... just missing the good old trackback. Pretty spiffy looking blog! 4.5 points.
Challenge:
Jeez, first she lives at home; now she confesses her adoration of ST-TNG refugee Wil Wheaton! Does this girl have any fear at all? I sense an obsessive streak in the tremendous amount of gathered data... did the research carry her into the dark depths of the night, finding out that he had precisely 877 links on Blogrolling? Gah, and to think she ignored the three most important bloggers in the universe at this particular moment - the judges! And for that she will pay in charisma
points! I mean, sheesh, I bet Mr. Perfect Wil Wheaton doesn't even have to eat dinner (being that he's dead and his blog is ghostwritten -- hehhehe) 3.5 points.
View from the Pew
Post:
Great little post about the idiotic, though creative, Bill Moyers trying to grasp the basic concepts of Christianity, what with a bias the size of Wisconsin distorting his views just a little bit and keeping him from simple logical reasoning. Thank goodness people like Warren are around to share his idiocy... otherwise we'd have to develop a cast iron stomach to listen to Moyers' drivel. 4 points.
Site:
What's this llama mess!?!?! To say the least, I'm distracted and disturbed and it goes against my sense of all that's good and right. They spit! Anyhow, whatwe've got here is another blog*s--t creation, again a good stab at an original template. These new bloggers are certainly ready to grow out of this skin and try them some big boy blogging tools. But he's got
everything a blogger should have, from the comment/trackback networking items, to the archives, lonnnnng blogroll, and.... holy moley, he's even got post separation. I don't think black on red lends itself well to readability, but I'm not incredibly picky. HOWEVER the titles of your sidebar sections are some unreadble color that hurt my eyes when I look
close enough to read them. 3.5 points.
Challenge:
Work late? Feh! I'm falllll.... oops, sorry... falling asleep writing these rulings; it's past my bedtime! Warren keeps it simple (hey, hasn't he been in this competition before?) and goes for the safe dinner guest in Songstress (who wouldn't pick the pretty one?). My guess, though, is that Tom PAine and Hugh Hewitt would actively engage in intellectual conversation and wouldn't be much fun as dinner guests. Safe, but good. 3.5 points.
So, the winner this week is.....
GM's Corner 40.62
The Art of Getty By 37.47
View From the Pew 34.85
GM's Corner wins by a slim margin! Great work to all of this week's blogs. The scores stayed tight throughout the contest.
March 14, 2005
King of the Blogs: Week 12
Welcome to the Week 12 King of the Blog Tournament!
First all must hail the King, who after defending his crown for 3 consecutive weeks is retired to the Hall of Kings!
This week we have 3 new blogs squaring off for the crown:
Good luck to all 3 Pretenders. The judges for the tournament are as follows:
and on to the entries:
For submitted post:
and this weeks Challenge Question:
The Responses:
That's it for now! Be sure to support your favorite pretender by linking to THIS post and tracking back to it. Mention the blog of your choice in the entry. Whichever blog gets the most trackbacks gains 3 extra points once again. Need help sending a trackback? Say no more! Go to this site, and use Wizbang's Standalone Trackback Pinger.
March 13, 2005
Results Are In
Let's get started!
Post:
This is perhaps one of my most favorite passages in the Bible, and Razor tackles it with much enthusiasm (and length). I mean, he really tackles it, bit by bit, cell by cell, molecule by molecule (Greek word by Greek word). This guy knows his Biblical studies, from all appearances. Unfortunately, he makes a single post of what could effectively be turned into an entire weekly study. I know for a fact that my Tues. night Bible study couldn't cover the first section in a night. Regardless, this is red meat for the scholar, and I enjoyed reading it.
4 points.
Site:
Attractive site, lovely imagery, stunning color scheme. This is a very good loooking site, with a lot of substantive posts, a decent size blogroll. On the flip side, not to nitpick but the KOTB banner is a bit subdued; I understand, though that it's keeping in synchronicity with the rest of the site. Would not want to interfere with a truly impressive schema. Got comments, but no trackbacks? So how could there be a trackback policy without trackbacks? Great looking site, lots of stuff, for the most part I like!
4 points.
Challenge:
Nice little bit of prose, but really nothing spectacular to grab me here. Razor's only partly right - a few links would have helped, but so would something more than a sentimental anecdote. I love feel-good stories, but this one seems incomplete, not much more than a brief glimpse into a childhood memory.
3 points.
Political Nightmare
Post:
Liberalism in a nutshell. Excellent. Enough said. For the content of his posts alone, this guy should be king.
4 points.
Site:
NICE heading banner! I took a look at both posts this week, and was duly impressed by the content of the material, and from behind this screen it looks as if the design is equally impressive. Actually, to tell you the truth, it reminds me vaguely of an 80's C-64 video game, but that's irrelevant. The real question is, is everything here and in the proper place? The question is... is this really a blog, or some other kind of opinion-related journal? I had the hardest time finding any kind of comments mechanism, and the trackbacks are practically non-existent. Archives? You have to go somewhere else to find these, too. In fact, getting somewhere else in this blog is like taking a family vacation. But I love the articles,so I have to rate it up there for uniqueness.
4 points.
Challenge:
Wow. This is a challenge response of a different sort. I didn't quite get the gist of it until the end, when the secret is subtly revealed in true Shymalanian style. What an incredible sojourn into a fictional past, dripping with irony from everything since the introductory date. Clearly Cary has shown an incredible creative talent, and it takes a unique brand of writer to reward his reader at the end like he has. Outstanding work; only now, one wonders if Mr. Churchill had anything close to this nurturing of a childhood.
5 points.
American Warmonger
Post:
It doesn't help that the link to the post was broken and I had to go searching for it from the top page of the blog. It might have been an honest mistake, but it was kind of distracting for someone who's been immensely busy lately. By the way, thanks for lettingme know two pages down that the post was almost over. :) Jeremy seems to have a lot of first-hand experience dealing with the INS, so he brings a lot of insight into the issue of immigration. This makes an otherwise dry article into one of relevance, and makes the issue more personal (especially by mentioning his wife). A+ for heart and substance, C+ for readability late at night with the lights dimmed.
4 points.
Site:
Geez, what did I write two weeks ago? I'll be doggoned if I can remember. The site, from what I can recollect about my last impressions, has gotten to look quite a bit better than it did. My compliments, both for the crisp headers, the fact that everything's where it's supposed to be and the little icon graphics are now collectively managed and organized. If there's one thing I would change this time, it'd probably be the date format... of course I probably wasn't reading the results when one of the other judges thought the condensed date format would look nicer. Oh yeah, there's the llama! Some cool items: the translate section, and the spiffy little mouseover links menu. Great job! Am taking 1/2 point off however for that broken link above.
4.5 points.
Challenge:
Alright, alright, I get it, I get it! For heaven's sake, you can't cut a guy any slack, can you? Ahem, yeah, it's all the fault of the network *cough*. Anyhow, what spectacular piece of film blog noir! The only regret I have is by being absent, I probably missed about five or six additional links in this utterly link-saturated challenge answer. That, and the whole calling your daughter 'Sweet Thing'. There's only one Michael Jackson in the world, thank goodness.
4 points.
Razor's Kiss 11
Political Nightmare 13
American Warmonger 12.5
King of the Blogs Tournament: Week 11 Judging
King Jeremy of American Warmonger put forth some effort this week and redeemed himself from the lack of sucking up (and lack of mentioning my blogiversary)... So, pretenders to the throne, be grateful, my mood is better tonight - it could be that, or it could be the fabulous crab dip I made for dinner tonight. Recipe will be posted for this week's Carnival of the Recipes if you're interested. Check back Thursday night. ;) And now! Forthwith! Judging!
Overall Blog/Design
American Warmonger: Hmm. I could be remembering incorrectly, but it strikes me that Jeremy has done a bit more work to his sidebars - nice big sidebar item headings with borders, it really sets them off well. The header graphic is still not showing up for me in Firefox, by the way, but it's working fine in IE. I dun' get it. American Warmonger gets another 4.5. Good stuff.
Razors Kiss: Oh, wow. Now this is a well-designed site. Very cohesive color scheme, attractive graphics, good "about me" information, working comments and trackback... Just gorgeous. I have only two constructive comments for Joshua: First, searchable archives would be a great thing. Second (and this is kinda nitpicky, but...) the sidebar content is a little bit unbalanced between the left and right side. The left side is a lot shorter than the right - it does happen, but if there is anything that it would make sense to move from the right to the left, it would help keep me from listing to the right while scrolling down the page *wink*. However, these are very small issues, and I'm just in awe of how fabulous this site looks. I'm gushing. Shut me up. Razors Kiss earns a 5.
Political Nightmare: OK, so this is a blog? Because it seems very un-blog-like to me. Overall, the graphics are slick, and the color scheme holds together well. The sidebar text is a bit teensy (white/red on black is harder to read when it's that small than some other color schemes) but all in all that's not terribly significant. What is significant, when judging a blog is that it seem like... well, a blog. In an earlier round of this tournament, Judge Harvey took pretender Dawn Xiana Moon to task because her blog wasn't "bloggy" enough - and it was a heck of a lot more like a blog than this one. No comments, no permalinks, no trackback, no blogroll, no searchable archives, no "about me" information... I'm sorry, just because you put up new content on your website on a daily basis (or thereabouts) does not a blog make. It's a lovely website, really. But it's not a blog. And as such, in a competition for King of the Blogs, Political Nightmare gets a 1. I'm not even sure why I gave it that much. Probably because it's got good graphics.
Submitted Post
American Warmonger: A thoughtful and well-written missive regarding immigration (legal and illegal)... There are a couple of word choices that I'm not sure are correct, but the meaning is clear. It's getting to be too late at night for me to drag the English Teacher out when the need to nitpick has not overwhelmed me. American Warmonger's submitted post gets a 4.
Razors Kiss: Another wow. In his submitted post, Joshua gives a detailed point-by-point study of Ephesians 6:10-20, the "full armor of God" passage. I need to get these reviews done, so I can't take the time to read the entire thing right now, but... wow. This post is written very well, and (unusual for most posts of this type I've run across) very conversationally. It's easy to read. It makes a lot of sense. It's like going to church, but in the comfort of my living room wearing my jammies and listening to U2. Spiffy. Color me impressed - I'm giving Razors Kiss a 5 for this effort.
Political Nightmare: Political Nightmare's submitted article (I can't call it a post - can you even get to this article from the main page, anyway?) is a theory on why liberals behave the way they do, from a self-described student of human observation. Something about the phrase "student of human observation" sounds redundant to me. The English Teacher is threatening to jump out of hiding and take her Red Pen of Death to this article... there are missing apostrophes, missing punctuation, and even the dreaded split infinitive to be reckoned with. However, the most distracting thing about reading this submission is the sentence fragments. Let me assure you, I have nothing against incomplete sentences used judiciously in informal writing - it makes the writer's "voice" more conversational, and it is more natural to the ear if you are reading it aloud. I use incomplete sentences myself every now and then. It's pretty common to begin a sentence with a preposition now and again... but as often as Cary does it in this article, following full stops (periods) instead of pauses (ellipses or dashes), it's just distracting. I don't mean to insinuate that this is badly written... It's just that my fingers are itching to take a pen to the printed page and mark up a host of nitpicky corrections that distract me from reading this smoothly. Political Nightmare gets a 3.5.
Challenge Post
Again this week, since I think it's a good way of going about it, let's review the Challenge Question our contestants were given:
Finish this story. I'll give you the first few sentences.Turning quickly I saw trouble walk in my door in the shape of a nine year old. Completely unexpected, and completely unwanted.
American Warmonger: Jeremy launches right into the response without the hated "this is the King of the Blogs challenge question and here is my response" intro - many thanks for that... Jeremy also takes the opportunity to use this post to do some mighty sucking up to the judges, making all three of us characters in his private detective story. Of course, I ended up being a nine-year-old in this story, but I'll forgive that. I got the requested links and trackbacks and an apology for missing my blogiversary, so all is well. Jeremy also takes the opportunity to address Pietro's unexplained absence from last week's rulings. The story is fun, easy to read, and best of all, written capably in a very much "1940's detective show" voice. I enjoyed reading it, and I thoroughly enjoy giving American Warmonger a 5 for this challenge response.
Razors Kiss: Joshua also manages to avoid the despised Intro-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named (heh. I like that. I'm keeping it.) - the explanatory note is at the end of the story, where it doesn't tick me off so bad. He takes some liberties with the challenge, seeing as how the "first few sentences" that the hosts provided were not actually used as the first few sentences... But the story does begin in a fashion that fits well with the sentences that were given, and explains why the writer was "turning quickly" in the first place. The revelation that the first-person character in this story is the 14-year-old brother of the 9-year-old troublemaker surprised me... The older brother's early interaction with the 9-year-old made him sound more like a father or father-figure type. This sounds almost like it could be a true story, however. It's not as dramatic and over-the-top as American Warmonger's, but it's a nice piece of writing. Liked it. Razors Kiss earns a 4.
Political Nightmare: Why do I get the impression that this was never posted on the front page (or anyplace accessible for that matter) of this site? At least not having any of the normal readers of the site run across this story unexpectedly means there was no need to explain it with the despised Intro-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named. Cary also takes liberties with the form of the challenge, adding a few scene-setting sentences prior to the sentences that were given in the challenge question. Cary's story is set in the late '50's, which seemed to be a pointless convention until the very end, when we are given the final pieces of information that tell us without explicitly saying that Indian Boy is supposed to have been Ward Churchill as a young boy. While it was clever and topical, some of the dialogue was kind of stilted, and the bit about telling the boy of a future in which everyone could broadcast their opinions and people could access them from their homes, offices, and handheld devices was just incongruous. Unless the man in this story was a time-traveller, I don't think anyone in 1956 could have envisioned wireless Internet access on handheld devices or anything similar. And the foreshadowing of 9/11 was kludgy, awkward and forced. Sometimes a story should just be a story, you know? Political Nightmare's challenge response gets a 3.
The Queen's Rulings
American Warmonger: 13.5
Razors Kiss: 14
Political Nightmare: 7.5
Judgment Day for the King of the Blogs! It is once again time to see who will be King of the Blogs. Will American WarMonger retain his crown for the third consecutive week and retire undefeated? Or will Political Nightmare or Razor's Kiss, this week's challengers, dethrone the king?
| This week it is quite a battle. The King is working hard to retain his crown, but the challengers are tough competition this week. In early polling, the king is behind in votes, but the king knows the judges well now, after three weeks, and is fighting for his very crown. |  The Judge |
THE CHALLENGE QUESTION:
"Finish this story. I'll give you the first few sentences.Turning quickly I saw trouble walk in my door in the shape of a nine year old. Completely unexpected, and completely unwanted."
American WarMonger:
GOOD POINTS: ROFL! That's an incredible riot. Tons of linkage, apologies, featured characters from the previous week -- just absolutely awesome.
BAD POINTS: Dang, why did I put this heading in this section?
SCORE: 5.00
Political Nightmare:
GOOD POINTS: Nice twist at the end, I didn't see that coming! Neat story.
BAD POINTS: Alignment was off so the text was overwriting the border, making this very hard to read.
SCORE: 3.46
Razor's Kiss:
GOOD POINTS: Nice. Really cute. Not crazy or outlandish, but still very nice. Good start without that annoying, "I'm posting this for the KoB..."
BAD POINTS: You know it -- the lack of linkage hurts in this game, even when you point it out yourself, sorry.
SCORE: 3.89
SUBMITTED ENTRIES:
American Warmonger responds with La'Migra!
INITIAL REACTION: Huh? Lami who? And the first line contains Congress? Where I am?
GOOD POINTS: Very well written for a novella (That one post weighs in at over 2,000 words).
BAD POINTS: Titles of all the acts should be capitalized (Field Act). Unadulterated? That's not really a good use for that word there -- it's meaning doesn't really apply.
SCORE: 4.42
Razor's Kiss gives us The Battle We Are In: The Full Armor
INITIAL REACTION: 2,500+ words. Did someone add a minimum word count to this contest without telling me? (That's a joke, son) Amen!
GOOD POINTS: Excellent job with punctuation with large numbers of quotes -- that's tough to get all right. Very nice use of links to define the more obscure words.
BAD POINTS: Missed one apostrophe in "Strong's" at one time. That's all I see in 2,500+ words.
SCORE: 4.84
Political Nightmare presents Why Liberals Do What They Do
INITIAL REACTION: Nice, compact, detailed.
GOOD POINTS: Excellent writing, paragraphs, and content. Good development of the idea and chronological sequence.
BAD POINTS: Between "half empty" and "Meaning," there should be a semicolon instead of a period.
SCORE: 4.84
WHOLE BLOG REVIEW:
Here are some technical things I like to see on a blog:
King of the Blogs javascript thingy in the sidebarI view using FireFox most of the time, sometimes checking things with IE.
Comments enabled
Permalinks working
E-mail contact info available
Blogger's name/pseudonym prominently displayed
Site search feature enabled
Link to an "About Me" post on the sidebar
Blogroll
Readable font style & size
Readable color scheme (I am a HCI computer design expert)
Divisions between posts clearly marked
Paragraphing in entries (NOT just writing one fat block of text)
LLamas
Overall good use of space vs. content vs. whitespace
The Great Satan Fighter Site
NOTES: The king returns. OMG! Flashing text! Ahhhhhhhh!
GOOD POINTS: Again improvements on last week. I like the stack of chicklets, but perhaps its just a phase. Imitation IS the most sincere form of flattery. Good stuff.
BAD POINTS: Ok, ok, he's figured out how to fix everything. I checked this category late this week, so I got slapped with the dang blinking text!
SCORE: 4.99
Suicidal Lips
NOTES: Excellent first impression. Good design, but a little wide (I had to widen my browser or scroll)
GOOD POINTS: Good contrast and font. Very clear posts, links, and effective use of limited graphics. Nice blockquote formatting.
BAD POINTS: No llamas. No search feature. In some of the category tabs down the right side, the words are too close to the edge and appear to slip out of the edges.
SCORE: 3.55
Dreams of Communism
NOTES: Hmmm..."Warning: This page contains a Java Applet. Allow or Deny?" I'm going to deny for now...
GOOD POINTS: Flames, nice graphics, a new design. Very good first impression.
BAD POINTS: Are there permalinks? Or comments? If they're there, I can't find them. Way too many underlined words that are not links -- very confusing. No search function. Lots and lots of stuff -- good layout, but words run into the edges of things -- should have at least a 2-3 pixel margin. No llamas.
SCORE: 2.12
BONUS POINTS:
From unabashed bribing, linky-love, and obscure references that actually show the contestants know who the judges and other contestants are.Battle-Lover: Links, llamas, and the llama song continue. The king will be hard to de-throne: +1
Knife Make-out: Very few links at all. -0.5
Nocturnal Dissenting Viewpoints: Former Marine. Sorry, everyone else, that's automatic bonus points -- but only one other link: +0.75
FINAL SCORES:
Judge's Totals
Bonuses
Poll:
Who should be the next King of the Blogs?
American Warmonger 122
Razor's Kiss 15
Trackbacks:
American Warmonger 7
For a bonus total of:
Political Nightmare 3
Razor's Kiss 1
and a Grand Total
Political Nightmare 34.5
Razor's Kiss 33.5
March 07, 2005
King of the Blogs: Week 11
Welcome to the Week 11 King of the Blog Tournament!
First all must hail the King.
This week we have 2 new blogs squaring off for the crown:
Good luck to all 3 Pretenders. The judges for the tournament are as follows:
and on to the entries:
For submitted post:
American Warmonger
Razor's Kiss
Political Nightmare
and this weeks Challenge Question:
Turning quickly I saw trouble walk in my door in the shape of a nine year old. Completely unexpected, and completely unwanted.
The Responses:
American Warmonger
Razor's Kiss
Political Nightmare
That's it for now! Be sure to support your favorite pretender by linking to THIS post and tracking back to it. Mention the blog of your choice in the entry. Whichever blog gets the most trackbacks gains 3 extra points once again. Need help sending a trackback? Say no more! Go to this site, and use Wizbang's Standalone Trackback Pinger.
Results are In! (Finally)
Hi folks. I was waiting for one of the Judges, but decided that it was time to post the results from the two judges that we did get results from.
So, here goes:
Judgment Day for the King of the Blogs! The reigning king is Jeremy of American Warmonger. All hail the king! There's two new pretenders this week, making the attempt at usurping the throne. Today is judgment day for all three of them.
| As usual, I will be judging the blogs in 3-1/2 categories: A challenge question, where each blog author responds to a question presented by the host; a submitted entry where each author provides a post; an overall blog rating where I evaluate each blog overall. The half-point is for extra bonus points. |  The Judge |
THE CHALLENGE QUESTION:
"The blogosphere has just been cast in a "Scoobyesqe" new Saturday morning cartoon, complete with surprise famous guests. Cast the episode with bloggers, pick a surprise guest, and pick a surprise villain. Extra points for lyrics to theme song and other extras"American Warmonger GOOD POINTS: Long, detailed, and very well-thought out. With long posts, my attention span sometimes wanders, but this one kept me reading and laughing throughout! Great job! BAD POINTS: No drink warning before the post so I know to not be caught drinking while reading -- my nose hurts. SCORE: 4.83
Blue Glow Worm GOOD POINTS: Nicely done. Good casting with clear knowledge of bloggers and judges. Excellent format and layout, too. BAD POINTS: No need to describe the post or the reason for doing it -- just make the post and let people wonder.
SCORE: 3.81
Thoughts of Mike GOOD POINTS: Well-designed and good poking fun at the other pretenders. Hilarious surprise guest! BAD POINTS: A little much on the foul language. No need to introduce the post, just post and if people don't get that it's the submission, all the better!
SCORE: 4.54
SUBMITTED ENTRIES:
American Warmonger INITIAL REACTION: Billy's Beanatorium has white mints in the toilets now? Excellent, I'm going there tonight! GOOD POINTS: Well-written and thought out. Good plan, even if I think it would be crap when implemented. I still don't like the approved use of "its" vs. "it's," but it was done correctly. BAD POINTS: 3rd paragraph, after "welfare" should be a semi-colon to avoid a sentence fragment. Dollar sign always appears before the number: $250, not 250$.SCORE: 4.16
Blue Glow Worm
INITIAL REACTION: Well-designed, excellent layout, compact and very easy to read.
GOOD POINTS: Well-thought out and outlined post. Good development of a thought from beginning to middle to end with closing. Very good writing.
BAD POINTS: Censorship paragraph -- 5th sentence -- extra comma after fear, and it's a run-on sentence: after "violence" should be a semicolon, not a comma. A few extra commas in the "Freedoms" paragraph, too. Yeah, I'm picky, but I'm the judge.
SCORE: 4.79
Thoughts of Mike
INITIAL REACTION: Good story. Was the original title, "A Wallet And It's Emptying Story?"
GOOD POINTS: Excellent. With all the various quotations and conversations, it was sure to have grammatical errors, but I saw none. Brilliant. Nice staying with story line, including pictures and score keeping.
BAD POINTS: The first watch picture is out of focus, while the second is not. How many margaritas did he have that night?
SCORE: 4.95
WHOLE BLOG REVIEW:
Here are some technical things I like to see on a blog:
King of the Blogs javascript thingy in the sidebar
Comments enabled
Permalinks working
E-mail contact info available
Blogger's name/pseudonym prominently displayed
Site search feature enabled
Link to an "About Me" post on the sidebar
Blogroll
Readable font style & size
Readable color scheme (I am a HCI computer design expert)
Divisions between posts clearly marked
Paragraphing in entries (NOT just writing one fat block of text)
LLamas
Overall good use of space vs. content vs. whitespace
American Warmonger
NOTES: Excellent, an improvement on last week, and last week was good! This is going to be a tough category to beat the King in.GOOD POINTS: Minor changes and fixes to last week, based on judge's feedback. Good move. And a new llama for the week? Even better!BAD POINTS: You know, I actually can't find any. And that's rare for me, especially in this category. Wait, there is it! There's a broken link to an image at the bottom (for blogspotting) with no alternate text. Do not include images without alternate text. Ever.
SCORE: 4.94
Blue Glow Worm
NOTES: Clean layout and quick to load. Text size is a little small small, but individuals can adjust that in their browser (if they know how).GOOD POINTS: Nice, quick search feature box on the page. I like the mouseover menus at the top of the page. Nice setup of categorized blogrolls. Good contrast, easy to read content with effective blockquote sections.
BAD POINTS: Mouseover items on the top of the page good, but inconsistent. Why do two have drop-down and two do not? Are the other two broken, or do they actually have nothing to drop-down? I can't tell. Why is there a link to HOME on the home page? No "About Me" section that I could find. No llamas.
SCORE: 3.33
Thoughts of Mike:
NOTES: Awful standard and boring.
GOOD POINTS: Good layout, spacing in posts, and contrast. Easily readable content, good blogrolls and King of Blogs thingy.
BAD POINTS: Optimized for Firefox? Then why do I have to scroll? My window is the same size as the blogger frame at the top of the page, but the content is wider than that, causing scrolling. Also, there is no margin between the text and the side of the page -- very hard to read. No llamas. Whitespace strange -- sometimes large and wide, sometimes narrow.
SCORE: 2.41
BONUS POINTS:
From unabashed bribing, linky-love, and obscure references that actually show the contestants know who the judges and other contestants are.American Warmonger: +1 Even more linky-love and llamas (and the classic llama song.)
Blue Glow Worm: +0.5: a few suck-up links on the page -- strangely enough many through various different blogrolls...
Thoughts of Mike: -0.5: Not a single link to the judges other than the King of Blogs thingy.
FINAL SCORES:
King of the Blogs Tournament: Week 10 Judging
The Queen is cranky this week. Oh, yes, pretenders to the throne, you would do well to tremble at that thought. You see, the lot of you - even the King, such as he is - have failed miserably at sucking up to the judges. At least this judge. Oh, sure, Jeremy managed to leave a comment or two on my blog... but I see no obsequious flattery, no trackbacks or daily link roundups (a la King Jon of Personal Trainer), and most of all, NOT ONE OF YOU RECOGNIZED ME ON MY BLOGIVERSARY. Off with ALL of your heads. And now, if you are sufficiently chastised, on with the rulings. You have been warned.
Overall Blog/Design
American Warmonger: Jeremy has taken my advice and removed the auto-play aspect of the music on his site. Which is good, because have I mentioned how much that annoys me? Other changes from last week... well... let's see, in Firefox his banner graphic doesn't show up (at least, it doesn't today - it did earlier this week). Also earlier this week I know I saw some additional "about me" information which has now disappeared, guess it was a bit too much for him. Overall the site looks better in IE than it does in Firefox - you can't see the blue borders and the separation between the center column and the sidebars in Firefox, for instance. But still a very nice design... and no annoying music this time. American Warmonger gets a 4.5.
Blue Glow Worm: I found Blue Glow Worm a couple of months back through Blog Explosion, so I was already familiar with Dean's site (and was on his blogroll). Dean has an attractive site, easy on the eyes, laid out well and easy-to-read. Working comments - but no trackback (gasp!). Searchable archives, but no "about me" information. This is a frequent complaint of mine, for those who read my reviews often. I like to have a bit of information about the author just to be able to put the opinions expressed on the blog in some sort of context - age range, profession, religion, geographical area, marital status, or something where, as a new reader, I can say "Oh, so that's where he's coming from!" If I feel like I know the author, at least a little bit, it makes me care more about what he or she thinks. You dig? Blue Glow Worm gets an overall 4 - good job.
Thoughts of Mike: White text on a black background, with a splash of pale green, light blue, and purple accents... hmm, sounds familiar - I can't complain about that color scheme. However, Mike (I'm assuming redhairblueface is the Mike whose Thoughts are in question) hasn't done much else to really give this basic black theme personality and pizzaz. I'd like to see a banner graphic of some sort to provide some punch. The "redhairblueface" photo does give a bit of personality, I'll grant that. "About Me" information is sparse and mildly amusing, between interests listed to include "You", "Them", "George W. Bush", "Simple Green", "Sock", "The", and "Tar"... and the "I can't read" under favorite books... Well, it's either mildly amusing or annoyingly cryptic. Whichever. Anywho, on technical merits, we have Blogger system comments (not as much teh suck as they used to be) and no trackback... Blogger bar searchable archives... We have no blogroll, which kind of makes Mike seem as if he's not really "part of the community" as it were. Not a bad site overall, but nothing really "wows" me here - it's almost as if Mike hasn't really put in much effort to make his blog different, special... personal. There's nothing wrong with that in general, but for one who would be King, I expect less apathy. Thoughts of Mike gets a 3.
Submitted Post
American Warmonger: Wow, welfare has been in the back of your mind for a long time? Sounds like that could cause some swelling and discomfort. (Sorry, I'm incapable of not being a smarta$$ every now and then.) Jeremy has given us a very compelling post, and an intriguing suggestion to solve the problem of how to get people off welfare and into the work force if they cannot find full-time work that pays more than their government check. Overall the post is really well written... However, you know you can't escape without a little bit of nitpicking, yes? I know when you say an amount of money you say the word "dollars" after the amount, but when writing it, it really is easier to read if the dollar sign comes first. Otherwise I have no complaints. I'm too tired to address the suggestion itself, but it does bear further consideration. If it had been downright stupid at first glance I'd have to point that out, trust me. This submitted post earns a 4.
Blue Glow Worm: Dean presents us with a sober look at the new Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act recently passed by the U.S. House of Representatives. He also presents us with liberal use of punctuation, sometimes where it is not warranted: "Additionally, there are many people in Congress, who talk about freedom." (Hi, my name is Songstress7. I'm not an English Teacher but I play one on my blog.) This post is well written (unneccessary commas aside) and thought-provoking... I'm not entirely sure I agree with all the points he's made, but the sticking point with me (and the point that sticks with me) is the fact that the FCC's definition of indecency is very vague. I was a Radio/TV major, I was required to take a broadcast law class and that was one thing I recall particularly well. Indecency is entirely too subjective under the current FCC policies, and the threat of huge fines - while most likely sparing us from further "wardrobe malfunction" incidents - does have a chilling effect on free speech. For Christians, the serious question then becomes "When does society decide that the name of Jesus Christ is offensive and indecent?" It's a smaller step than you think. For prompting this mini-lecture, Blue Glow Worm's submitted post earns a 4.5.
Thoughts of Mike: OK, wow. Interesting story. You missed censoring one of the "F" words, by the way. Mike's writing style is pretty clear, but I do have to nitpick something in every post and this one really bothered me: the story changes from being told in past tense to being told in present tense several times. Distracting. Another thing that distracts a Grammar Cop like me: "When Golf-Hat Boy explicitly expresses the need, nay, the requirement of his superior intellect to use such words like "planarly", I feel the need to remind him of the Orwellian rule to never SPLIT AN INFINITIVE!" I won't say I never do it myself. Sometimes it's the easiest way to make a sentence sound natural and understandable at the same time... but every time I do it, I HATE IT. Oh, and my biggest complaint - based on the title of this post, somehow I expected a little more drama than getting conned out of one dollar by a random college girl. What.A.Let.Down. This submitted post earns a 3.
Challenge Post
Just for a reminder... the challenge was:
The blogosphere has just been cast in a "Scoobyesqe" new Saturday morning cartoon, complete with suprise famous guests. Cast the episode with bloggers, pick a suprise guest, and pick a supruse villian. Extra points for lyrics to theme song and other extras.
American Warmonger: First, no lame intro *cheers*! Thanks, Jeremy, you have no idea how annoying that is for the judges. Great jorb, Hamstray! I do like the topical segue into the challenge response - it could have been just another post on the sorry state of the movie industry, but it morphs seamlessly into a very entertaining Scooby-esque cartoon. Nice homage to the judges - Jeremy is the only contestant to have included the judges in his cast, and therefore will be rewarded. Additional props for explaining the genesis of "Evil Glenn". Barbara Boxer, disguised as Dan Rather, disguised as Glenn Reynolds - quite the show. Jeremy has done an admirable job of responding to the challenge - we have the blogosphere-related cast, the surprise guest who is also the villain... no attempt at the theme song, but a resounding success nonetheless. Jeremy gets a 4.5 for this challenge response.
Blue Glow Worm: Dean has attempted to intro the challenge response with a bit of gratuitous linking to the judges and something a tad bit less annoying than the "here's the King of the Blogs challenge question and here is my answer" intro against which I rail on a weekly basis. Something about the cast Dean has assembled disturbs me... I know technically he qualifies, since there is a blog on his site, but I just don't think of Ted Rall as a blogger. When I think of him (and I prefer not to think of him at all), I think "irritating racist left-wing moonbat quasi-cartoonist". I was kind of hoping for more than a cast list out of this response - perhaps a photoshopped picture of the Scooby Doo gang with the new blogger cast faces added... or like Jeremy did, a script or episode summary. A badly sketched storyboard would have sufficed. I was left unsatisfied, wanting more creativity from this response. Blue Glow Worm gets a 3.
Thoughts of Mike: Lame "here's the question for the King of the Blogs contest and here's my response" intro. Very loosely covers the "Scooby-esque" portion of the challenge... I suppose Paris Hilton qualifies as the surprise guest and surprise villain? There is a script... and a theme song... but you know, I just didn't find it all that entertaining. Extra points for the creativity shown in providing a theme song and script... points docked for lame intro. I'll try to avoid letting my distaste for the coarse language and anything involving Paris Hilton in general color my rating... Thoughts of Mike earns a 3.5.
The Queen's Rulings
Did I mention that I was extremely displeased with the lack of sucking up to the judges this week? Did I mention that NOBODY so much as commented on the fact that Tuesday was my first Blogiversary? No links, no flattery, no congratulations. Therefore, all contestants will have their score cut in half for this round of the tournament. The Queen has spoken.
American Warmonger: 13 6.5
Blue Glow Worm: 11.5 5.75
Thoughts of Mike: 9.5 4.75
So the results are:
Thoughts of Mike 23.9
American Warmonger 29.93
Bule Glow Worm 24.93
This week's winner is once agan American Warmonger.
Next week's Challengers should pay attention to the Judges' ruling this week. One judge took off points for lack of links and sucking-up. And Judge Songstress hacked everyone's points in half for not mentioning her blogiversary.
Be warned, no links could very well lead to no crown.