One Thumb Up Sunday, May 25, 2003

Though I want to officially state that I don't really care or need any official approval (yeah right), I am proud to announce that SpriteboyWorld.com just got reviewed, and they like me, they really like me!   The cool kids over @ The Weblog Review never ended up hiring me to be a member of their Review Staff, but they did recently have two of their pluckiest writers give my little site a thorough and informative peer-to-peer once-over.  One of the reviews came back really fun and kudos-like enthusiastic, and the other one was... um, well it was LESS enthusiastic.  You can read it for yourself here.  Being the self-assertive litte saucebox that I am, you can sure as hell bet that I've got a little thing or two to say about the feedback.  I'll go ahead and begin my retort right now.

Bluiser reviwed my site the quickest, so we'll address her comments first.  Where oh where do we begin?  Oh, how about the part where she says I am contradictory?  Very astute observation there, honey, but um I have openly outted myself to be a Walking Contradiction on this here website about a million times.  It wasn't so much that she said I seemed contradictory, it's more of her reasons for this: b/c I at one point stated that i didn't like my country's involvement with this war, and then later I state that I am proud to be an American.  Well dammit, we oughtta just handcuff me next to the Dixie Chicks and toss me out in front of the firing squad then!  What an oxymoron I must be, b/c you know, it's not like it's understandable for me feel torn about a subject or anything.  Whatever, this was only a brief and minor point of hers and really, I guess I'm only getting what I deserve for being dumb enough to get even slightly political on the web.  Shit, I catch way more hell for my Ryan Seacrest-bashing anyway.  Note to self: never mention politics again!  After than letting us know (in the opening paragraph of her review, no less) that she finds most of my comments "personally offensive", she then bestows a decription of Spriteboy that makes me sound like I'm Bart Simpson (what with my apparent overusage of the word "Yay" and my ever-present fixation on "boobs" -- whaaa?).  Bluiser also mentioned that she didn't really seem to get a clear feel for my personality through my journal, which actually suprised me b/c it seems pretty obvious (to me anyway) that anyone who goes on and on about the stuff I talk about is probably a mentally imbalanced, emotionally unstable young man with a DSL connection.  Isn't that made clear?  What killed me the most wasn't that she reduced me to a ignorant, shallow, materialistic "aspiring actor" (cuz it's kinda true and I actually DID appreciate her shout-out for my upcoming movie, Mission: Idiot) but that she summed up my site as "an average weblog."  If there's anything I loathe most, it's being perceived to be an Average Joe.  The bulk of her remainding notes were greivences concerning the actual layout of my site as a whole, addressing the overall lack of professional sleekness and the lameass presence of cheap Photoshop image-editing (all legit and vaild points).   She gave my site a final ranking of 3 out of 5, which kinda translates to a C+.  I took the sum of her notes with a grain of salt b/c I read some of her other reviews and she sounds a bit pissy.  Also? judging from her reference to me as "an amiable bloke", I am assuming she's a Brit.  And we all know that the British, as a people, tend to be impassive, uptight, and really ugly.*  So she was probably just having a rough personal day.

Unlike most of the submitters @ TWR I was lucky enough to get reviewed twice!  I could not have gotten any more fortunate than getting the lovely and talented Velvet to follow-up Bluiser.  Velvet started her review off with, "Okay, I love this blog..." and it only got better from there.  Referring to me by my real name (Chris), then making mention of my Hudson-related madness, and nodding to both my rarely-seen FAQ & music pages, Velvet appeared to have actually read through different parts of my site (and not just glossed over it in a quick haste to get back to tea & crumpets).  She made helpful and upbeat suggestions as to some technical improvements I could make to my site layout, and then disregarded the critiques saying "but it doesn't really matter because the blogs are so good."  She called my writing "vigorous" and "engaging", saying that it practically sparkles.    Gave me a ranking of 4!  I really dont have much else to add to this.  Velvet is clearly a beautiful, intelligent, and fun-loving gal with a spicy sense of humor and an appreciation for opiniated, neurotic wannabes.  We like her style and she is invited to come over and watch TV with us anytime she wants!

Ok, ok.  In all fairness, I foud both reviews to be very helpful and I'm lucky to have gotten them.  Technically, I don't run a blog, I run a website.  A real blog is something like this, or this, or this.  A lot of them are edgier, prettier, and not as clunky as mine... but you know what? I like my site the way it is.  It's simple and painless and easy to figure out (a lot like myself).  You can certainly believe that there will revisions, revamps, and upgrades as time goes on --- I've already applied some of Bluiser's suggestions!  Now, when you click for my latest jounral/rant/rave, you will be taken automatically to the most recent post.  And if you want to see the old entries, just click on the hyperlink at the top of the page to go to the main page of archives.  They're only little tiny tweaks but it's still progress.  In the meantime, the reviews are generating more traffic and that's always a good thing.

Big Big Love to everybody who reads my site.  This whole thing really just started out as something I began keep myself amused while I rotted away at my mindless deskjob last year, but it's turned into a semi-creative outlet that helps me vent, process, and remember my day-to-day experiences.  It's fun.  Thanks for being interested in what goes on in my world, winners.

 

 

 

 

* Keep your hatemail, British ppl.  I'm only joking.

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