Reviewed!

November 30, 2005

I’ve officially been reviewed, thanks to the Weblog Review.

Unfortunately, it’s not the glowing review I had hoped it would be. It wasn’t the “five-stars out of five!” or “100% — changing the way we blog!” review that would cause my popularity to skyrocket to the reaches known only by Google and Yahoo.

What did I get, you ask?

This humble little site, the one you hopefully read on a daily basis, received a score of 3.75 (out of 5.) Not bad, but not great. I did the math – it equals an 85%. A solid B grade – well, a B-/C+ if you’re using the new grading system. It’s a rough little review, with it’s own faults (at least I see them as the fault of the reviewer, not the reviewed.)

In order to be considered for Weblog Review’s attention, I needed to first submit my site. Once submitted, the site goes through a series of tests and views by the Weblog Review staff. I first put my blog “in the ring” around March 2005. After no response, I submitted it again a few months ago. I was annoyed by the length of time it took to get my site reviewed, but I guess I shouldn’t have expected much – it’s a free site with volunteers doing the reviews.

A few weeks ago, though, I noticed that people had started coming to my site from the weblogreview.com reviewers’ page. I assumed that they had begun the research necessary to begin critiquing the masterpiece you are currently reading.

Of course, when I noticed that the review was actually done and up, I rushed to see what was said about me. I have a lot of pride pent up in this site. I figured I’d get a very high mark – both for the design (which I borrowed and slowly adapted from another blog) and the content. I don’t think I’m too boring, though I’m writing about what concerns me so of course I’d feel that way.

Anyway, here’s the review:

black marks on wood pulp

Black marks on wood pulp… I was thrown for a loop when I read the name of this site. I was not sure what to expect. When I finally got the site to load, it had a deep red background with a very classy look. And I still didn’t have a clue what the site would be in regards too. I started taking my general glance down the site and noticed a few things: at the top there is a picture of books and on the side bar the author has posted the book he is currently reading.

I began reading through the posts. The author posts regularly and enjoys blogging. The site is a personal site that talks about many things with the majority of posts being about different books he is reading or books he would like to own/read. He spent numerous posts talking about the Penguin collection that he really hopes to purchase in the near future. The archives take a while to get to because you have to move through them by the month using his calendar option on the side bar.

The site is laid out in a 2 column style and has a classy burgundy color background, with white and yellow text. The font is easy to read and there is not a huge contrast of colors on the site. My only concern with the design of the site was the time it took to load. I am on a cable modem connection and the site took well over 20 seconds to load. I can only imagine what it would have been like on my 14k dial up connection.

Overall the site was nice. It was not offensive just provided the reader with thoughts or the author. I feel the site is a personal site and would appeal to the author’s friends or family. I did enjoy reviewing the site, I felt connected to the author due to the detail in the writings. I rate this site as a 3.75.

This site was reviewed on 2005-11-29 by mrmaggoo.
They felt this site belonged in the Personal category.
mrmaggoo felt that black marks on wood pulp deserved a rating of 3.75.

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Tags: Black Marks on Wood Pulp |

7 Comments

OH MY GOD IT’S SNOW!!

November 28, 2005

Scooped again!

I was just going to comment on the mass hysteria that seems to befall our city whenever a half-inch of snow covers the streets. I heard it all day yesterday — people were calling in to work and asking what the policy and repercussions would be for showing up late, for not coming in, for being waylaid by the horrible snow.

Well, I woke up this morning to see a light dusting of snow. Not 6-12 inches. Only a powdery layer that was melting once it hit the sidewalk. Media be damned — the city wasn’t shut down by snow!

It was a blog post waiting to happen.

But, when I went to my computer to talk about the sensational weather reporting, I found that Todd Epp had beaten me to it.

ACT I–Midweek last week. “My God, there’s a storm coming! We don’t know for sure where or how much, but it’s coming! Prepare!”

ACT II–Day before yesterday. “My God, it’s almost here, It’s almost here! Prepare, prepare, prepare! Oh my God, it’s going to snow!”

Well, it’s okay. His take was a lot funnier than mine. And he gets up earlier in the morning too. Check it out at SD Watch.

Tags: Outdoors |

3 Comments

On this day, November 28th

November 28, 2005

I currently subscribe to the RSS feed of BBC’s On This Day. I enjoy thinking about what the headlines would have been when I was 10, or 100 years before I was born, etc. Most of the BBC site is about the U.K., obviously, though there seems to be a good sprinkling of world-wide events as well.

One of the things that happened on this day in 1999 garnered more attention than usual:

1999: Nude swordsman attacks churchgoers

Eleven people have been injured in a sword attack at a church in south London.
A naked man wielding a 3 ft (91 cm) Samurai sword burst into St Andrew’s Roman Catholic church in Thornton Heath, Croydon, during Sunday Mass.

The man indiscriminately attacked parishioners - injuring four of them critically - before he was overpowered by members of the congregation.

It had to be horrific to those that were a part of it, but it’s a funny thing to think about; a naked man brandishing a samurai sword in a church.

Tags: Random |

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Close the book on this, please!

November 25, 2005

Jeez.

I can’t handle it anymore.

So, with that, I’m doing something about it.

I’ve twice been outbid at the last second in my attempts to secure a Pocket Penguins 70th Anniversary box set. Twice I’ve bid £50, and twice I was either outbid at the last second with no option to raise, or my computer was so slow (at work, no less) that I didn’t even stand a chance. Obtaining this box set has been the bane of my existance for the past six months — torturing me daily as it slowly sold out.

So, with that, I’ve garnered enough gall to do what I should have done two weeks ago: just buy it already!

I’ve got to wait for the proper payment method to return to my house (meaning Kerrie’s credit card,) but I’ve decided that, with the $50 I received from my Argus Leader article and the $50 unspent dollars of this months book budget, I can buy this without guilt. I think it’ll be worth it – I’ve got an entire year of book columns right there at my fingertips if I wanted, and each edition looks so cool that I’d be dumb not to bite at this.

Later tonight I will turn another page in my long struggle with life – I will get the balls to just up and buy this damned book box.

I’m pretty excited about it. I’ll just consider it my Christmas present to myself.

Well, I guess additionally to you, the reader, as well.

After all, you’ll hopefully never have to hear me whine about this set ever again.

Tags: Books, Literature |

1 Comment

Expanding my coverage

November 24, 2005

While reading Cronkite’s memoir (A Reporter’s Life) yesterday, I came across mention of how the national news was at one time only a fifteen-minute endeavor. It took some fighting, but eventually anchors and newscasters realized that fifteen-minutes just simply isn’t enough time to relay the nation’s news. The format was changed to the thirty-minute format that we currently enjoy.

The fifteen-minute newscast was a staple of radio, and was viable in that regard because there were no pictures or video to contend with. Thirty minutes was needed in order to not only tell the public about what was happening, but also to show them the details.

Cronkite mentioned a few lines later that most of today’s newscasters realize that thirty minutes isn’t even enough to cover everything in the world. In fact, I find that thirty minutes is a very liberal view of the total time used in a nightly newscast, considering the amount of coverage given to sports, weather, health, and special interest stories. Add in commercials, and I’d be surprised if the news even gets fifteen minutes anymore.

I bring all of this up because I see this same trend in my own “coverage,” by which I mean my own knowledge and active learning about anything in the news today. I am the type of person who just doesn’t give myself enough time to soak in the news. I skim the newspaper, for the most part. I subscribe to a number of political and news blogs, but truthfully I skim those as well. I know what the headlines are, but I don’t know what it means to me – at least not until it becomes such a big story that it blasts me over the head every day.

I know that, compared to the other things I pay attention to — literature, my personal writing, sports, work, Deadwood, the Indiana Pacers – actual news would be lucky to get even 15 minutes of airtime during my day. I’m just not broadcasting it enough into my own life.

There’s nothing wrong with this, I feel, as long as I admit it. I’m not going to tell you that I’m the most politically astute person in my group of friends – or even in my own house. I see how the sensationalistic 24-hour news channels are helping the downfall of true news (and by true news I mean that stuff that is actually non-biased, garnering just as many complaints from the right as from the left.) For the most part the public, of which I belong, is not willing to read through a chunk of news each day. Why pay attention to an hour of news when I can get it all sanitized and shrunk down for easy digestion? Why care about the boring stuff when I can get someone else to tell me what’s important?

I know I need to focus on what’s happening outside of my own area. I need to do this more. I need to take my personal fifteen-minute broadcast and broaden it, put it on public television without commercials and expand it to an hour.

That’ll be the only way I’ll ever be able to understand fully what’s going on in this world.

Tags: Journalism, Politics |