Friday, October 20, 2006

I’ve been slapped!

Some time ago, I submitted this blog to the kind, gentle folks at italk2much.com for one of their famous no-holds-barred, obscene-but-honest reviews. After sending them my information, I began to read what they had to say about other blogs whose owners had dared to request a review - and I began to be very, very frightened.

I quickly realized that my sidebar was far too long and sloppy; this alone was going to get me a right reaming. My frequently-long posts were also going to be problematic. So I scurried to find some technical solutions to these problems - without, G_d forbid, actually putting less stuff on my sidebar or learning to write short posts! I dare to say that I succeeded to a degree; and so when Sassie Sadie at italk2much got around to reviewing On the Contrary last night, she indeed didn’t find too much to complain about.

That said, she didn't find all that much to praise, either:


D’oh. I tried to read this blog. I’m sure that the person writes well and that they have a well-meaning message to send out. But it just seems so all over the place that I can’t follow it. He seems like a nice fellow though. The blog may be a bit too political for some. The template is nothing to write home about. It’s simple. He has used the More/Less code in his sidebar. Thankfully, because there is a f_ckton of useless sh_t in there. [Vowels deleted to avoid offending the sensibilities of very sensitive readers with very limited imaginations. You’re welcome. -Don] Sorry, not much to say on this one. It is what it is.


Well, it wasn’t quite the glowing endorsement I’d fantasized about receiving; but considering how the italk2much reviewers react to a solid majority of the blogs they review, it wasn’t half bad either. On the Contrary is definitely visually dull, and has no pretensions of being otherwise (although I'm thinking of adding a graphical banner). At least I’ve managed to avoid making the blog hard to read, for those few people interested in reading it.

So my blog “is what it is”? I guess I can live with that. Thanks, IT2M!


P.S. I’m also thinking of giving the blog a new title; any suggestions? And no, I’ve already thought of “Yawn: the blog”!

11 Comments:

At Fri Oct 20, 03:11:00 PM GMT+2, Blogger Unknown said...

congrats on the smackage!

 
At Fri Oct 20, 04:20:00 PM GMT+2, Blogger m said...

Yes, change the title! I liked the one about taxes and terrorism.
:-)

 
At Fri Oct 20, 05:48:00 PM GMT+2, Blogger kitty kat said...

Two reviews posted in one day!

You are the lucky one :)

Did you figure out the IE tab for firefox, by the way?

 
At Sat Oct 21, 08:13:00 AM GMT+2, Blogger Faith said...

Congrats on both reviews!

I see one of your favorite books is The Last Unicorn, I love that book. It's so good :)

I also love your profile picture, your horse?

 
At Sun Oct 22, 11:02:00 AM GMT+2, Blogger Batya said...

What's with the name change? That's quite a mouthful; it'll be harder to link you in the futer, but I guess I could just say "Don posted..."

 
At Sun Oct 22, 03:00:00 PM GMT+2, Blogger Don Radlauer said...

Hi all!

Christie: Thanks!

Montchan: I agree - and as you can see, I've made the change.

Kitty Kat: Indeed - although having both reviews come at me within a few hours of each other gave me a bit of a cognitive-dissonance headache! I did finally get the IE plugin for FireFox to install (it required editing the FireFox configuration directly, to enable software installation); but I haven't yet had time to play with it.

Faith: Thanks! The Last Unicorn is indeed one of my favorite books, and on of Vaguely Sinister Wife's too; in fact, the fact that we both could quote whole sections of the book was one of the factors that brought us together.

Yes, that's my horse - Sapir by name, an Arabian/Appaloosa crossbreed mare. She almost makes me look non-ugly!


Mr. Fabulous: Glad you like the new name. Dunno about the pics, though; I'm sure they're gorgeous, but I'm not mostly a photo-blogger, except for the occasional horse pic or my famous Adolph-Hitler-as-Elmer-Fudd rehearsal photo.

Batya: The new name is indeed a bit long and unwieldy to use for links. I'm trying to decide between "Welcome to the Middle East!" and "You'll Come for the Terrorism" as the "official" shortened name for the blog.

 
At Sun Oct 22, 04:02:00 PM GMT+2, Blogger Don Radlauer said...

Please ignore this comment - I'm playing with CoComment.com.

 
At Wed Nov 01, 06:04:00 PM GMT+2, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Please ignore what comment?

 
At Wed Nov 01, 06:42:00 PM GMT+2, Blogger Don Radlauer said...

The one you didn't do a very good job of ignoring, O Perverse Spousal Unit!

Hmph.

 
At Wed Nov 08, 04:26:00 AM GMT+2, Anonymous Anonymous said...

We should start a "sort of pointless reviews" club. For the Cool Kids.

 
At Sat Oct 04, 02:07:00 PM GMT+3, Anonymous Anonymous said...

So, changing your weblog made no real difference, other than that you succumbed to the critical eye of someone who has little to say.

Funny really, since this weblog is still here and the Internet Police weblog - italk2much - is dead and gone ...

Now, who were you writing for, one reviewer or real readers?

Pi.

 

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