OVERALL NOTE ON RANKING: The new King of the Blogs scoring system awards points based how an entrant performed relative to his/her competitors, so what counts is whether someone got first, second, third, or fourth place. As a courtesy to the contestants, I'm including the scores I assigned to the individual posts to determine placement.

This week's challenge question is:

A Hollywood studio is going to make a film of your life. What's the
title, who is the star, and what on earth is it all about?

Chase Me Ladies I'm in the Cavalry
(challenge)
GOOD POINTS: ROTFL!
BAD POINTS: "wounded bear"? Now THERE'S a clunker of a phrase that should be avoided in comedy writing.
SCORE: 9.5
RANK - 2

(submitted)
GOOD POINTS: short, snarky, to-the-point hit on the obscenity of moral equivalence.
BAD POINTS: gratuitous use of the word "nuts" in a family tournament. Next time please consider a more child-friendly term like "big Jim & the twins".
SCORE: 8
RANK - 2

Walloworld
(challenge)
GOOD POINTS: I swear, this question is just perfect for more of Bill's self-absorbed narcissism. He does not disappoint. I'm also impressed by how, every tourney, he answers a simple question more than once. Must be a lawyer thing.
BAD POINTS: Tragic dearth of self-linkage.
SCORE: 10
RANK - 1

(submitted)
GOOD POINTS: What's this? A post on John Kerry's daughter's boobies without a picture or a gratuitous nipple comment? [checking Bible] Yup. Sign of the Apocalypse. Anyway, thoughtful & informative. Excellent post.
BAD POINTS: Tragic dearth of self-linkage.
SCORE: 10
RANK - 1

View From the Pew
(challenge)
GOOD POINTS: Takes the dialogue approach and zips off some very funny lines
BAD POINTS: Kinda trails off at the end. More like a "quitting" than an "ending".
SCORE: 8.5
RANK - 4

(submitted)
GOOD POINTS: While I was reading it, I wanted to argue vociferously in some spots, and shout AMEN in others, so he definitely got my attention.
BAD POINTS: The post seemed to lose focus and switch topics somewhere in the middle. They were both good topics - whether Christians have a duty to try to effect change in public schools, and what a quality education consists of - but they would've been better and clearer in separate posts.
SCORE: 7
RANK - 4

News From the Great Beyond
(challenge)
GOOD POINTS: The New York Times review is hilarious, and bonus for the picture.
BAD POINTS: Not so much a thing to point out as the absence of a thing. This piece felt a little unconcluded, and could've used some sort of comment at the end to give closure to it. Things are usually funnier in threes, and a third section would've helped here.
SCORE: 9
RANK - 3

(submitted)
GOOD POINTS: I really like the intro on this, since, although it assumes knowledge of Abu Ghraib and Nick Berg, Songstress7 provides lots of links to get the reader up to speed, just in case. A very thoughtful gesture. And I like that she denounces the Ghraib-Berg moral equivalence in potent terms.
BAD POINTS: The rhetorical questions in the middle are a useful device for making a point, but I'm not sure Songstress7 is hitting the target she's aiming for. Most of the essay, especially the conclusion, seems to aim for the notion that the troops are mostly good and that they're doing a lot of good things. Yet in the rhetorical section, she seems to be suggesting that American society is corrupt and degraded in many areas, and that, as a result, the bad soldiers at Abu Ghraib shouldn't surprise anyone. This essay would've been stronger if she'd used the rhetorical section to suggest that, while certain forces are applying pressure to corrupt decency in society, the majority of citizens & soldiers manage to be good, anyway. In short, this piece, while well-written, was not as well-focused as it could have been.
SCORE:6.5
RANK - 5

Red Beetle Road
(challenge)
GOOD POINTS: It's short, and I like the witty allusion to the Heisenberg Principle.
BAD POINTS: A little too short. I don't know the author, so I'm not sure which parts of the entry are strictly for entertainment purposes, and which are self-revelation. A simple link to an "about me" post would've been very helpful here.
SCORE: 7
RANK - 5

(submitted)
GOOD POINTS: "new Heisenberg Translator for Corporate Speak" - points for originality with the picture of the Palm
BAD POINTS: Points off in quality of execution. There are plenty of funny jokes to be made off the sterotype that corporations are greedy and don't care about their employees. These weren't them.
SCORE: 7.5
RANK - 3

Posted by: Harvey at 11:59 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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