Dave: This is an interesting one. Put up against most blogs, "3 Word Diary" would kick all sorts of ass. Vorbis originally wanted to drag Daily Kos in here, but we all remember what a wreck the last Celebrity Thunderdome was. For kicks, let's do a quickie theoretical Thunderdome. Here we go: 3 Word Diary kicks Daily Kos all the way back to Kos-land, somewhere between Ignorantville and Self-righteous Town. Now on to the main event.
Once again, Adam from We're all glad here guest judges. And away we go.
MangoPod
Evil Minx: I smell the sweet scent of fresh meat. Definitely fresh. These two are well matched in a bout of BT because they're both--well, unusual.
Mangopod is (thank god for spell checkers, that was nearly "Mongopod") the more conventional of the two blogs, in that he writes about 'stuff.' Vorbis also writes, but confines himself to three words a day--six if he adds three words to the content in addition to the title. Mangopod creates and broadcasts podcasts, and "owns" (his inverted commas, not mine) an Interweb radio station. I suppose I ought to listen to both before commenting. Well, I will, eventually. In my opinion, while the two forms of media happily connect in a funky 'download-me' kind of way, they share the similarities of chalk and cheese. I can't judge a book by it's cover, so I wouldn't fully judge the blog until I'd heard the podcast. Except, of course, I totally have, but I liked the blog -- mostly, I'll start kvetching for real in a minute.
(It's just that I don't have time to sit and listen to podcasts, and no one has bribed me with an iPod yet so I can't just walk around listening, and my laptop travels well but not that well. Hey fuck it, I'm a full time worker (not SAH), and a full time mother the rest of the time. I have to squeeze blogging into the mix and podcasts are a lower priority. The answer to this is of course, someone needs to bribe me with an iPod. Ahem, I digress. But it's an important train of thought, Dave, so please try and include it. Basically I want an iPod, but can't afford one .)
Dave: Oh, fer Pete's sake, just get a normal mp3 player. Don't be feeding into the Apple marketing machine. From now on, iPod will be referred to as assPod.
Evil Minx: As to what he writes -- well, he's not into the pink and fluffy bunny scene, for which I personally do a happy dance, because frankly -- feh. He's a misanthropic and opinionated blogger with a sick and twisted view of the world. I particularly liked the quote, "If I could only have three words to describe my blog entries, I'd have to cut down on using the phrase "Mother Fucker" since I'd use up two of the words before I even got started."
Heavens to Betsy, I think I'm in love.
So he hates his job. Big fat hairy deal. Who doesn't? (Er, well... me, actually.)
Adam: I won't lie to you, the thought of inflicting some sort of punishment on "one of the patron saints of the Shitty Blogs Club" fills me with glee. Were it not for the Shitty Blogs Club, the blogverse would be littered with the carcasses of many dead and abandoned blogs that really should have never been started in the first place. This would be a good thing. Instead, these bloggers head over to the Shitty Blogs Club where they can feel like part of a community and take pride in the fact that their blog is an unreadable waste of time (Be Shitty, Be Proud!). It's like a shelter for battered and abused bandwidth.
When it comes to blogs I generally just concern myself with the content. As long as the font doesn't hurt my eyes, I can forgive the occasional vomit green template. With that said, I do appreciate a little bit of effort though. For his design, Mango falls back on the ol' "Wordpress Default theme with a different header image" trick. Wow, never seen that before. I can understand Vorbis' decision to go with a stock Blogspot template for "3 Word Diary." Have you seen his other blog? Nobody needs two eyesores like that floating around cyberspace. But come on Mango, if you have the wherewithal to pull off an internet radio station surely you can throw together something a little more interesting for your blog can't you? The fact that the content of the blog is actually pretty good makes this act of sloth even more criminal. It's like having gifted children and sending them to some crappy public school. But at least there IS content. I especially enjoyed the endless tirades about the "free assPod" situation (see pretty much any post between December and January for examples). Keep at it chief, my cousin knows a girl whose nephew went out with a girl that went to school with a guy who totally got his free assPod last week. I'm sure your friend will get his soon too. Until that happens take comfort in knowing that you at least have my vote.
Dave: Audio files on a blog? Yay. Because I totally have time to listen to a 45-minute monologue whenever I surf the blogverse. C'mon man. If I do that, I ain't gonna have time to hear the same two questions get asked ad infinitum during a typical hour of my local sports radio show. It's called 'priorities.'
Let's see. A recent Monday edition leads off with a cover of "Manic Monday." Whew. Never saw that coming. If he did this every Monday, he'd be banned as a matter of principle. Fortunately he doesn't. I never really understood the DJs who played an occasional song in between their rambling sputterings. If I want music, I'll listen to music. If I want to hear talk radio, I'll listen to talk radio. The mix of the two is like those Rolling Stones concert medleys that are the aural equivalent to a chipmunk, horse, hummingbird three-way orgy.
When Mango gets on a roll, he's quite listenable. His stories have a beginning, funny bits and sometimes even an ending. That's all well and good, but I long for a simple way to edit out his little half-laughs. They come in at around three a minute (rough average). They're stoner half-laughs: baked little chortles of leafy green mirth. Or maybe it's a surfer-slash-stoner laugh. Jesus, it's annoying. It's gotta be a California thing. Just bothers me. See? This is why I shouldn't judge beauty pageants. I'd be all, "yeah, girlie, I don't like the way your waist attaches to your stomach. It just...bothers me." Then the crying starts.
3 Word Diary
Evil Minx: Last time I judged Vorbis (of Sick Sad World), I said his blog was "not as bad as that other piece of crap submitted to BT." I think he's a Brit, or at least living there. So for that alone he gets brownie points.
Mango actually makes a point of praising Vorbis' 3 Word Diary and saying "Genius is making something difficult LOOK easy." Well... maybe. I like Vorbis' cutesy way of reducing everything to three words only on a daily basis, I really did. It was fun and cute, but increasingly same-y and the novelty wore off after about 8 posts.
Adam: Boring fucking blog. Limiting my portion of this verdict to just those three words was all too tempting of an idea. In case any of you haven't read it, this blog consists of nothing more than a series of three word posts apparently intended to convey our hero's innermost thoughts about his day. The three word bit even extends to the "About Me" section. It seems all we need to know about Vorbis is..."So Much Angst." Said angst is especially palpable in posts such as "New monitor setup," "LET'S GO BRONCOS" and of course, "I hate gardening." Nothing says 'angst' like gardening. Listen, if the past six months of your life can be summed up in what amounts to one paragraph worth of words, you really don't need to blog about it. What you need to do is step away from the computer, walk out the door and head to wherever people in your area are actually doing stuff. Have them show you how to do stuff as well. And then, when you have built up a sufficient backlog of interesting experiences, maybe you can start blogging about them. I personally would prefer it if you didn't, but it's your call I guess.
What concerns me the most about this blog is it's potential effect on blogging as a whole. The general public has a history of being fascinated with pretentious pseudo artistic crap like this. To prove this point to myself I explained the premise of "3 Word Diary" to a friend of mine a few days ago. His reaction? "That's a really cool idea!" See? I can already imagine phrases like "innovative," "thought provoking" and "brilliant in it's simplicity" being tossed around. Eff that. This isn't a Radiohead album. This is a boring blogger taking boring blogging to frightening new heights.
Dave: 3 Word Diary...
Liked the concept.
Read every post.
Made me laugh.
Read it again.
Concept status?
Time for change.
Verdict
Time for a gut check here people. You loyal readers and the WBO both realize that if such a thing as "3 Word Diary" were to catch on, it would spawn any number of copycat knock-offs. Such is the way of concept art. There is but one solution, albeit temporary. For a period of one month, "3 Word Diary" shall become "No Word Diary," on this the 10th day of February, 2006. But Mango, change that damn default Wordpress thing. Seriously.
Graphics for the winner and loser.
The Holy Order of Thunderdome hath spoken.
