Jan 30
King of the Blogs judgement…for the suspended week
Due to some childish whinging and bad tempers, the King of the Blogs has been suspended for this week. Alas, I discovered this after spending a decent amount of time doing my judging duties. I have decided to post my findings below.
I would be erring if I did not link to "”>Nick Queen, the host of the event. Alas, in the last two weeks, the poor sod has had to deal with people who can’t take criticism, but still want to be in a competition. I do not blame him for the suspension, and it would be understandable if he were to bin the whole idea.
NB: If you cannot take my style of criticism, then don’t bother reading. I make no apologies for what I have said about any of the blogs.
Christweb
Unfortunately there were not any posts on the blog this week that really had much meat in them. His post on a preacher attempting to get his flock married off was a bit flat and didn’t really say much except “Good job”.
Score:4
CQ; His response to the challenge question seems to be a condemnation of the question. He seems to be distancing himself from the competition in its entirety and almost feels guilty that he won last week. It is obvious he has some difficulty with the tone of the challenge question. It does amuse me that he states that he merely entered the competition to find how to improve his blog. This is, in fact, a noble goal; however it should not surprise him to realise that some people take winning seriously. He wonders if the judges will mark him down for not answering the question. This judge believes he answered the question in a rather interesting if slightly naive way.
Score: 6
CC has an extremely insightful piece on Howard Dean’s rise and plummet in the race for the Democratic nomination. It very cleverly written, with several witty barbs at Dean’s organisation, and, more importantly, spin. I rather enjoyed this piece and plan to link it on my own blog.
Score: 9
CQ: As with several others in this competition, he does not really bother to answer the question. In CC’s case this is unfortunate and does not really work. At first he reminds the judges of their job. Then secondly he makes no attempt to explain why the other blogs are not appropriate. He does make a clear case of what he is and is not. Don’t exactly know what this has to do with the competition question, but so be it. In his defence, he admits that does not actually bother to address the question as it was set. Like CW, CC goes on about how he doesn’t care about winning the competition.
Score: 3
Bad news, I am taking a break from blogging: This was an interesting piece where the author admits that it is hard to be a solo blogger. I suspect that what he is attempting to say is that CC will soon become a group-blog of some sort. What interested me is that it has taken such a short time for him to realise that solo blogging is not much fun. Hopefully he can find someone to edit his stuff, though.
Score: 7
Challenge Question: Messy layout and too wordy are its down-side, I found his attempt at being vaguely funny mostly successful if a bit haphazard. I found his reviews of the other competitors to be amusing, but some might think them a bit on the nasty side.
Score: 7
Anastasia delivers are rather amusing coshing of Alex Baldwin’s latest bleat. In not very many words she manages to make him look the total arse. And rather than be totally negative about celebrities, which is oh so easy, she compliments Brad Pitt for admitting that he isn’t the brightest bloke in the world. To the point, amusing, and well written: a nice post.
Score: 8
CQ: Anastasia, like CW claims that she has not answered the question either, and in fact hasn’t. She has listed why she has a blog and what is wrong with it. As with some of the others, she explains she has a blog because she wants people to read it. This is something that is obvious, but needs to be stated often. What is the point of having a public blog if you don’t want people reading it? Anastasia goes on to explain how much she tinkers with her blog to get it right. This is an interesting piece of self-examination but doesn’t really answer the question. She does, to her credit, at least admit that she would like hits.
Score: 5
Bill has written an extremely good piece on why he is against slavery reperations, while still being against slavery. He makes an extremely good case for his position, citing what others have written as well as sound reasoning for his belief. I think anyone who does not hold his position (as I admittedly do) would be hard pressed to not be convinced by this piece. A piece that deserves to be part of the best of the blogosphere.
Score: 10
CQ: This is yet another contestant who ignored most of the challenge question and merely concentrated on his own merits. That said, I found his answer rather amusing and not the slightest bit po-faced or navel-gazing. At first Bill is self-deprecating but then moves on to compare himself to various movie characters and world figures, albeit in a rather tongue-in-cheek manner. This is by far the best non-answer answer of the competion.
Rating; 8
Much of what appears on Charlie’s blog is so free-form as to barely be a post. While some might like this style, I find it rather uninteresting and hard to follow. The first thing that struck me about some of the post was that it was the literary equivalent of the Plastic Ono Band. But then again, to each his own.
Rating: 2
CQ: This long-winded answer does not really get anywhere fast but at least does try to take the actual question into account. He sort of explains why he should be king, with a bit of humour, that really does not work that well. One of his fellow contestants does get a bit of vitriol, but again, the comments are not funny and come across as bitchy. Stream of conciousness writing does not really work on a blog. While his rambling silliness is mildly amusing, his style does not really work that well.
Rating: 3
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