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

Comments

[Frally]

Hiya, Michele sent me. Boiy, you're a tough nut to crack, aren't you? I'll try to stay on your good side ;).

And Happy First Blogiversary for the other day.

[Dean]

Thanks for the both positive and negative feedback.

[jon]

I missed your blogiversary? What a horrible blog-friend I am! Congrats, thanks for the mention, and thanks for the humorous blog judging! Even though a king, I tremble before your power. Everyone knows the real clout is in the judiciary anyway.

[Douglas]

As long as your judging blogs, check out my new masthead, and listen to the podcast of how it was created!