Better blog, day 20

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Better blog, day 20

by secback @ Thursday, Sep. 20, 2007 – 11:27:34

Today's task is from the August 20th entry. I have to RUN A READER SURVEY ON MY BLOG.

I'm mainly interested in your opinion on the content. I know many of you will want to say there aren't enough pictures or video, but I'm addressing this in my imminent new project.

In particular, I want to know which posts worked and which didn't. Which bits did you think were funny, what do you think about the serious bits, when was I trying to be funny but sucked? Be blunt.

Also, tell me how you got here. Did you come through a comment I left on another blog? Did you Google something I'd tagged? Was it a post somewhere else?

So, let's see if we can make this the longest comments stream in the history of this blog. Yes that's right, I'm looking for eight of you to say something.
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16 Comments to Better blog, day 20

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- zombizi (Visitor)
- http://www.flickr.com/photos/zombizi_rip/
- Thursday, Sep. 20, 2007 @ 15:02:22
*watches tumbleweed roll by*
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- Ryan (Visitor)
- Thursday, Sep. 20, 2007 @ 15:58:27
Actually, I can't remember how I got here the first time. I don't remember what post it was that I read the first time, either. I do remember it was funny enough for me to add your RSS to my Google Reader, though. That probably doesn't help much, but I didn't see anything about the survey having to be productive.

And I have no idea what you're talking about when you say things like "They were deducted fifteen points at the beginning of the season for going bankrupt, but their first five wins cleared that. After seeing off Bristol's charity team last night, they're now into positive figures. They're just two points from getting out of the relegation zone, six points from the playoff places, and thirteen from the top of the table."

Also, if you need data about reader location for your survey, mark me down "Indiana, United States."

Those last two might have something to do with one another.
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- Logicel (Visitor)
- Thursday, Sep. 20, 2007 @ 16:09:41
I do find the content of your blog interesting--although somewhat varied, it is still held together nevertheless by your distinctive style of wry wit. However, the 'rye' sometimes needs a bit more ham (substance, that is, the point you are trying to make) and less mustard (the literary embellishment, your spicy flair with words). Blog posts for the most part need to be fairly short and frequent.

I, for one, regard the improvements, so matter how comical the whole blow-by-blow description of them are, as making a real difference in my enjoyment reading your blog.

In case you forgot, you indicated your blog address in a PM you left for me at Dawkins.com. And I actually clicked on it and then bookmarked it, and returned, much to my reading pleasure.
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- secback
- Thursday, Sep. 20, 2007 @ 16:11:53
Thanks Ryan.

In British sports, major league teams who don't do well have to go down to the minor leagues, and the best teams in the minors replace them. Leeds United have gone from being the Boston Red Sox to being the Springfield Isotopes in five years or so, due mainly to financial mismanagement, but this season are starting the long climb back (meanwhile, the Red Sox seem to be doing everything in their power to move the opposite direction).

Also, when zombizi says he's watching tumbleweed roll by, you have to understand that in the backwater where he lives tumbleweed is considered a major event.
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- secback
- Thursday, Sep. 20, 2007 @ 16:23:17
Logicel:

Of course, I remember now. We corresponded about the ask-the-atheists site, and about the rights and wrongs of joking about Falwell's death after some folks in the forum got a bit funny about it.

I still have the Dawkins site in my RSS, but I've been so busy with other things I don't comment as much as I did. Also, because there seems to be a time lag on Google Reader, by the time I read stuff there's normally about 50 comments anyway.

Thanks for sticking with me. I take your point about style and substance. On my new project, everything will be in categories, so it'll be easier for people to home in on their chosen thing.
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- sallyontour ^Pro
- Thursday, Sep. 20, 2007 @ 20:37:00
I find your blog varied and interesting even though I'm a football free zone.

I found your blog following a comment by notsteph who is on my friends list and whilst I don't always agree with your views (I'm a bit of an old hippy) I enjoy your humour.

I'm a Bristolian now living in the West Midlands, so often a reference will bring on a touch of nostalgia, or even a spot of homesickness.
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- secback
- Thursday, Sep. 20, 2007 @ 21:58:01
sallyontour:

I grew up in the West Midlands, and now I live in Bristol. I can't help feeling I got the best part of the deal.

Don't tell any of the others, but I'm a bit of an old hippy as well.
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- Mrs Tilton (Visitor)
- http://www.6thinternational.org
- Friday, Sep. 21, 2007 @ 10:02:12
I found my way to your blog, of course, that time I stumbled upon you and your fellow atheists conducting one of your dark ceremonies in an abandoned warehouse. After you had ritually slaughtered the ~~Christian infant~~ infant of Christian parents and eaten its liver, you smeared the URL on the wall in its blood.

I was lucky to escape unnoticed! But when I had got back home, curiosity got the better of me and so I pointed the browser in your direction.

Ryan,

it's not just in British sport that the clubs at the tail end of the league table are relegated, i.e., demoted to a lesser league the next season (and the top end of lesser leagues promoted). So far as I know that's the way it works everywhere in the world except the USA sporting leagues (including their Canadian spillover). It is an interesting paradox that sport here in socialist Old Europe is as ruthless as natural selection, whilst sport in God's own capitalist paradise is analogous to elections to the Supreme Soviet.

To my mind the threat of relegation significantly expands the capacity of a sport to excite. There is never any suspense, for example, as to whether the club I follow will win the championship, for they won't. The season is far from boring for us, though, because we're usually nailbiting down to the last minute of the last match whether the team will escape relegation yet again. (Last season was a bit dull, as they stayed up with a place to spare. Right now they are number three in the table, but it won't last.)
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- secback
- Friday, Sep. 21, 2007 @ 11:08:44
Hmm, Charlton, Hartlepool or Shrewsbury (I think we can rule out Liverpool).

Well, it can't be Charlton, because they went down last season. Let's check last season's tables. Hartlepool and Shrewsbury were both in an unsuccessful promotion chase.

I'm stumped. Who is it?

What you said about the socialism of US sport. And they give last season's losers the first draft picks.

I cannot see the point of following the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. You will never win, in the same division as the Yankees and the Red Sox. They haven't finished over .500 this century (have they ever?) And yet this litany of failure never has any consequence.
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- Mrs Tilton (Visitor)
- http://www.6thinternational.org
- Friday, Sep. 21, 2007 @ 11:24:40
Hmm, Charlton, Hartlepool or Shrewsbury (I think we can rule out Liverpool)....

I'm stumped. Who is it?

Wrong country! I refer, of course, to the launische Diva vom Main, the mighty, mighty Eintracht Frankfurt. To the extent I pay attention to English footie (which is relatively little, except when I'm at a local Pseudopub showing Sky Sports), I am for whomever MUplc are against.

(À propos: I have cousins from Manchester. He's a prod, she's RC. Being real Mancunians, they naturally follow City. She wanted their son to become an altar boy, he said no. Was this an anticatholic thing, she wondered? Not at all, he said; but no son of his would ever wear red.)

And they give last season's losers the first draft picks.

Quite. Whereas in the brutal world of real sport, the lesser clubs, suffering financially, must often sell their few stars to the top dogs, aggravating the death-spiral. It's really astonishing that the Americans don't have this system. Perhaps they find it sufficient that it applies to their society as a whole.
- - notsteph
  - Friday, Sep. 21, 2007 @ 13:57:04
  I seriously suggested doing my University dissertation on the disassociation of how American and European society behaves and its juxtaposition against the structure of their sporting systems.
  
  Then I remembered my degree didn't have anything to do with that.
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- Dave (Visitor)
- Friday, Sep. 21, 2007 @ 12:31:05
I think it needs more pictures and video. But no, seriously, I know you're more of a wordsmith than a picture...smith(?), so don't worry too much about that. What I like is the pithy dry humour in general, and the footie stuff in particular. What I don't like is the bad language and any deliberate attempts to offend people. (But you know that already!) And I agree with "Logicel" about short and frequent posts being a good thing on a blog, but I also know that asking you to be brief is like asking the Pope to be Jewish. (Oooops, hope I haven't offended anyone...)

Looking forwarded to the new improved categorised version (including "alternative" City match reports, I hope?).

Dave.
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- secback
- Friday, Sep. 21, 2007 @ 13:13:14
I don't try to offend, I'm just serenely indifferent when I do.

And bad language? I defy you to find an unintended grammatical error. All my language is good language, especially the swearing.

I think I will be doing more about City. It seems to be harder to be amusing about success. I'm sure a time will come when they make it easier for me.
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- secback
- Friday, Sep. 21, 2007 @ 13:32:50
Shall I tell you my most shaming secret? Once or twice, I've typed something in and then deleted it, thinking "No, Dave wouldn't like that". It's as if you're the better angel of my conscience, sitting on my shoulder, except that our combined height would upset air traffic controllers everywhere. Especially with Zombizi on the other one. If I'm tall, it's because giants sit on my shoulders.
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- secback
- Friday, Sep. 21, 2007 @ 14:22:14
notsteph:

I never do these, but [smiley face] for that one. And a lol, and even a rotfl.
- - notsteph
  - Friday, Sep. 21, 2007 @ 14:37:44
  As a fellow non-emotoconer I greatly appreciate the complement.
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16 Comments to Better blog, day 20

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