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	Saturday, March 20, 2004

KING OF THE BLOGS REVIEWS CHALLENGE AND SUBMITTED POSTS Scores removed to maintain suspense. UPDATE(3-21-03 1:30pm): Scores added to remove suspense. Final results will be posted at the King of the Blogs main page soon, and I'll give a holler when it's up. This week's challenge (for which Good King Bill of Walloworld can and will be blamed) is: Write a post which incorporates all of the current top five Words or Phrases for Impact on the English language (as cited by the Global Language Monitor): "wardrobe malfunction," "bootylicious," "extreme makeover," "Gigli," and "Give it Up!" IRRITABLE BLOG SYNDROME (challenge) GOOD POINTS: ROTFLMAO! BAD POINTS: Contains offensively misogynistic terminology, which is entirely inappropriate to publish during March, which is Women's History Month, and… oh, wait… Bull is a woman. Nevermind. Free pass ;-) SCORE: 10 (submitted) GOOD POINTS: Good job of pointing out how fearsomely ignorant the MTV generation is, in their own words. I'm glad * I * was never that stupid [whistles innocently] BAD POINTS: Could've used a couple sentences of introduction explaining a little about what the MTV source page was all about, and your own thoughts that inspired you to write the post. Also, there's an uncensored f-bomb in the post – this is supposed to be a family tournament. Drop all the nukes you want in the rest of your blog, but keep the KotB items PG, please. SCORE: 8 WALLOWORLD (challenge) GOOD POINTS: Nice themed post with colorful visual descriptions. I felt like I was there. BAD POINTS: Boring legal briefs are the reason I dropped out of law school. Thanks for re-opening THAT wound. Also, tragic dearth of self-linkage. SCORE: 9 (submitted) GOOD POINTS: After reading this, my immediate reaction was to internally argue with it, point by point, since I disagreed with his conclusion. Yet I wasn't angry. This, to me, is the sign of a well-presented argument. Nice job. BAD POINTS: A link to Lochner v. New York would've been helpful for the uninitiated, as would specific examples of "Robber Baron" perfidy. Also, tragic dearth of self-linkage. SCORE: 8 PEPE DAY 2 DAY (challenge) GOOD POINTS: Good hillbilly-mocking theme, with bonus for creative (mis)use of the required words. Way to stand out from the crowd. "Bootylicious". Heh. BAD POINTS: Although good in concept, in execution, it only worked moderately well. Wound up sounding a little too contrived. SCORE: 8 (submitted) GOOD POINTS: Well-constructed post. Great technique in the interweaving of the story he's making reference to and the point he's trying to make. Nice parallelism and closure in the last sentence. BAD POINTS: For the record, I disagree with the premises upon which the post is based, but I'm not taking anything off for that. However, a link to the article being referred to would've been nice, and you could have found it with minimal Googling. Think about your readers, please, and link your sources. SCORE: 8 BLOG SUPPLEMENT (challenge) GOOD POINTS: Has the moxy to explain to the King of the Blogs, in great detail and humorosity, exactly why the challenge question sucks. No kneeling for this subject! He goes to the guillotine with his head held high. BAD POINTS: Put exactly zero effort into his rip on "Give it up", thus besmirching an otherwise perfect post. SCORE: 9 (submitted) GOOD POINTS: Quaint little slice of life with subtle humor, good sound effects, and all necessary supporting linkage. Nice job, Wolfman. BAD POINTS: None visible. (Although I was worried for a bit that he wasn't going to explain what "wassshump" was). SCORE: 10 BELIEF SEEKING UNDERSTANDING (challenge) GOOD POINTS: Scores some good hits while contemplating the required buzzwords. Bonus for coining the phrases "cusp of fuddydudditude" and "fist malfunction". BAD POINTS: Contemplated a bit too much. The points made, while humorous, could've been briefer & more pointed. While I understand the need to "warm up" when writing certain difficult pieces, it's often a good idea to go back and tighten things up once you're finished. SCORE: 8 (submitted) GOOD POINTS: Does a number of things right – cites relevant sources, warns that it's a multi-part posting, indents quoted passages, and all-around helps put the reader comfortably into context. Bonus for going back to update the post with a link to next entry in the series. BAD POINTS: Could have used an intro explaining the author's personal motivation for writing the piece, and why it's relevant to readers who aren't college professors. Internally, it works well, but a rather abstract think piece like this needs more concrete grounding to start it off. SCORE: 8 A GIGGLE OF GALS (Challenge - not posted, but e-mailed): A Modern Day Faerie Tale: Once upon a time, there was a chick who went by the name of Gigli. She was quite happy that once she’d had an extreme makeover, she knew she could then be considered bootylicious, if for no other reason than she had a Gigli-butt. She knew that if just the right guy came up to her and said just the right thing, which was “Give it Up!” that she would have a complete wardrobe malfunction just for him and they would become engaged, maybe even do a movie together and live happily ever after…maybe…. The End? GOOD POINTS: It's the "quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" of challenge responses. Probably the shortest coherent post that could be made with the mandatory buzzwords. BAD POINTS: Too contrived-sounding, and, even worse, not posted at the participant's blog. Don't you want linkage? SCORE: 6 (Submitted 3-10 CTRL+F "researching") GOOD POINTS: Briefly and gleefully points out one of the internet's major foibles. BAD POINTS: Could've used more details. And supportive linkage. And working permalinks SCORE: 5 posted by Harvey at 2:59:16 PM  permalink    Crappy Broken Radio Comments (do not use) [] trackback []  HOME

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