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	Sunday, February 08, 2004

KING OF THE BLOGS BACK IN BUSINESS After taking a little time off for some conceptual re-tooling, the King of the Blogs Tournament has returned and this time around it's pretty darn good. I'm a little sad that Marty from Vigilance Matters wasn't around to judge this week. He has some of the best reviews. That, and he appreciates goofy humor, which some of the stuffier judges don't. Here are my takes on the contestants' entries. The other reviews are here. PRAGMATIC CONSERVATISM (Submitted) GOOD POINTS: Loved the quote from the idiot liberal professor, as well as this zinger: "Is this rise of conservative viewpoints among youth caused by liberal mothers aborting their children?" BAD POINTS: This post covers 2 topics: "idiot liberals on campus" and "the decline of liberalism as a youth trend". Mixed together as they were, the post seemed a little jumbled. Might've been better as 2 separate, more tightly focused posts. SCORE: 7.5 (Challenge): GOOD POINTS: You are puny. Dan will crush you. Arnie rocks, and Dan's in top form in this homage to one of my favorite silly violent action flicks, Commando. BAD POINTS: None visible SCORE: 10 SOUTHERN MUSINGS (Submitted) GOOD POINTS: Female Groomsmen? Obviously a sign of the apocalypse! However, it's still a well-constructed piece. Gives you just enough background to understand the players and never prattles off onto an irrelevant tangent - an easy thing to do when telling a wedding story. BAD POINTS: My personal preference. More active verbs, fewer passive ones. Forgo, when possible, the evil verb "be" and its dark minions. They dull your writing. SCORE: 8.5 (Challenge) GOOD POINTS: In her introductory musings, she lists several strong female movie characters worthy of emulation. In her answer, she gives us an honest glimpse of who she is by her selection. BAD POINTS: I think Anastasia missed the point on this question somewhat. You could have been ANYONE, but you played it safe by sticking with a fairly earthbound character. Next time, dream big. SCORE: 8 CHRISTWEB (Submitted) GOOD POINTS: Well-written, well-argued, informative. I had no idea that the border patrol had a catch & release program BAD POINTS: Went off on a couple tangents toward the end. The point about needing to spend more money on renting detention cells is well taken. The side thoughts on jobs and terrorism were off-topic, and didn't belong in this post. SCORE: 9 (Challenge) GOOD POINTS: There can be only one, and Stephen makes a compelling argument that being that immortal one would be fun, exciting, and fulfilling. BAD POINTS: Has the audacity to disagree with Zefram Cochrane that immortality consists largely of boredom. However, since Stephen wouldn't be spending his life trapped on an isolated planet with a gaseous girlfriend, I'll give him a pass. SCORE: 10 WHERE THE HELL WAS I? (Submitted) GOOD POINTS: Manages to blather on for 12 pages on the sorry premise of being a stand-up comedian. I find myself not bored. Entertained, in fact. Ok, amused. All right, all right, I confess. I laughed. BAD POINTS: Yet another blogger that I'll never be funnier than. I hate these people. SCORE: 10 (Challenge) GOOD POINTS: Talks about naked Heather Graham BAD POINTS: Insane stream of consciousness humor, while generally a good thing, doesn't work here. A question needed answering, and a more focused format was in order. SCORE: 8 WALLOWORLD (Submitted) GOOD POINTS: Makes a compelling argument that iTunes 99 cents per song pricing model is flawed, and that older, less popular songs should be cheaper. BAD POINTS: Must've gotten paid by the word for this piece. Could've made the point more succinctly. SCORE: 8 (Challenge) GOOD POINTS: Really got into the question and makes half a dozen cogent analyses of which character would be good to be. BAD POINTS: Uh, you REALLY only needed to answer the question ONCE. I know that sometimes you have to do some preliminary writing to get the creative juices flowing, but once you have the gold, discard the silver & bronze. Make the DELETE key your friend. SCORE: 7 After everything was totaled, Where the Hell Was I?, Walloworld, and Christweb made it to the next round. Southern Musings and Pragmatic Conservatism get beaten with sticks, tossed in the dumpster, and left for dead. We'll see how it goes next week. Should be interesting, since the top 3 scored within a 2 point range. posted by Harvey at 11:00:06 PM  permalink    Crappy Broken Radio Comments (do not use) [] trackback []  HOME

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