Honestly, the hardest part of the review is checking to see who is still in it or not. Man, I do not envy Fussy . Since I put the r’s in a spreadsheet… what?… I’m anal like that sometimes, I can’t help it. Anyway, since I did that I may just send her the sheet so she can see who is already out. That’s GOT to make it easier. The hardest one I saw was a blog that didn’t post a date on the entry, it posted how long ago the entry was posted. For example: 4 hours ago, 2 days and 8 hours ago or 2 weeks, 4 days ago. I gave up and gave them credit for posting every day, just for the sake of my sanity. However, posting calendars are awesome!! It should be mandatory for blogging contests. Especially contest that have in excess of 1,000 participants.
I know this took me a while, but I was trying to figure out the best way for ME to approach this task. Actually I ended up going through the sites twice. I had started going through the list and then a week went by so I decided to double check who was still in and check out a few more details in some of the blogs.
Okay, on to the R’s… all 78 of them.
Thing’s I’ve discovered:
~Green looks really cool on black, but it’s really hard to read and gives me a headache.
~Audio posts.
~Rambling blogs really can ramble.
~Even for blogging every day, some bloggers have a lot to say.
~Apparently the Internet is now the Internets (I must have missed the memo).
~2878 is WAY too many words for one days blog entry… way too many. I take that back….5881 words is way too many.
~A lot of people try to sell something or just plain ask for donations on their blog.
Some stats (all calculations are approximate):
~People already out: 37%
~Blogs mostly about being a Mom: 21%
~Men (or boy) bloggers: 10%
~The R bloggers have been blogging for an average of 18.5 months
Number of blogs that use the following words (or some form of) in their title.
~Ramble: 10
~Random: 7
~Red: 6
~Read: 4 (I really thought there would be more).
~Reflections: 2 (I thought there would be more of these as well).
Some shout outs:
Radioactive Jam’s post on Biomassive Freakout had me rolling on the floor. Click on the “Wayback” tab while you are there, very cool archive setup. He is definitely going in my blogroll.
On the surface, Reilly’s Best Friend is just another site that has no specific theme, just blogging about happenings and thoughts. Then I realized this blog was written by a twelve year old who gets all A’s. He just turned twelve in November. I’m completely impressed!
You have got to check out this post about beauty over at Red Dragon Lake. It’s a great post and whatever you do, don’t leave with out clicking on the Jake Shimabukuro link. This guy plays “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” on the ukulele… it is waaay cool.
Radio Ventriloquist has a peaceful layout and I enjoyed many of the posts. I will definitely be a frequent visitor.
There were a lot of cool layouts or mastheads:
~The Random Muse – check out the “I quit” icon.
~Rancid Raves.
~Random Thoughts.
~Randomness – very clean.
~Rathnait’s Playground I don’t know what the name means, but the layout is cool.
~reddirtroad.
~Repressed Librarian – not only is this a cool layout, but the page change feature is pretty neat. Click on the about me link or something so you can see this cool feature.
~And last but not least, really, really, ridiculously good looking This is one of the coolest layouts I’ve seen. I really, really like it.
For me, reviewing the list of blogs was fun. I would get so sidetracked sometimes. I would be looking at someone’s blog and they would mention something cool or funny they found in someone else’s blog (with a link) and of course I would click the link and look around. Then I would find something in that blog. OOOhh look at all the pretty links.
People blog for a lot of different reasons. I have seen blogs that keep family members up to date (the family that blogs together stays together). Blogs about art, crafts, photos, adoption, horses, computers, gaming, short stories and everything in between. And blog names can be decieving, I’ve seen blogs with the words mother and art in them and they weren’t about either.
The first few virtual pets I saw were cute, now they are kind of obnoxious… they are taking over the Internet (or is it Internets?) hehe.
To those of you that signed up for this challenge and haven’t even bothered to make a post in November – Shame on you! You requested that someone add your address to a long list of people; the least you could do was make a half-assed attempt at posting.
Be sure and check out all the other reviews over at Rashenbo’s place. And don’t forget to drop by the reviewer’s sites.
Stepherz Said:
on November 19, 2006 at 11:39 pm
Loved your “Things I’ve discovered”. You’re too funny! The first time I saw that “internets” thing was on Joyunexpected.com. Funny how I still remember where I saw it first.
I went to the Repressed Librarian page and I too liked the page transition. Is it just my imagination or does yours transition similar in some places? Such an awesome idea. I do wish I was more savvy on WordPress, I might also steal the idea!
I really enjoyed reading this post. Props to you for being diligent with daily posts!
noirbettie Said:
on November 20, 2006 at 1:56 am
The “internets” thing is because Bush called it that. I THINK. As soon as I wrote that I became uncertain.
This was a lot of work for you! I am pretty darn impressed.
Third Rake Comics Said:
on November 20, 2006 at 9:59 am
Awesome Post!
Third Rake webcomic
Karen Said:
on November 20, 2006 at 4:36 pm
What I’ve been seeing is “Teh Internets”. Thought it was dyslexic until it kept appearing.
I never get the memos. [sigh]
Meghan Said:
on November 20, 2006 at 5:10 pm
I’m SO impressed that you’re doing reviews. And, 5881 words in a blog post?? Holy shit. Sounds like that person should be concentrating on NoNoWriMo.
I’m going to check out some of your suggestions.
fringes Said:
on November 20, 2006 at 7:12 pm
I never thought about counting the words in my posts. Going to do that now out of curiosity. Thanks for the clear and concise reviews. I am actually an “S” blog, but I’m stopping by just because. Your reviews were great.
Alyndabear Said:
on November 21, 2006 at 4:00 am
Glad you had fun doing the R’s.
Sammy Said:
on November 22, 2006 at 9:03 pm
Hey! Thanks for mentioning me! My mom really got me into blogging and now, what can I say? I’m hooked!
Hope Said:
on November 22, 2006 at 11:16 pm
I’m glad that you like my layout! It’s someone else’s initial design, but I changed it up a bit for my site.
I’m impressed that you went through all of those blogs. That’s a lot of reading.
sherylhs Said:
on November 24, 2006 at 5:12 pm
I’m glad everyone seems to like my reviews. Thanks everyone for stopping by. I have really enjoyed your blogs as well.
reddirtroad Said:
on November 26, 2006 at 3:24 am
Hey, thanks for the mention. A few questions…
1. Do you know how many R’s are still participating?
2. Are there many sites participating that are using a NaBloPoMo category/tag or did you just hunt around in archives or did you go back and read every single post for the month?
sherylhs Said:
on November 26, 2006 at 2:52 pm
Hey reddirtroad,
1. There were 78 participants and 29 of them had missed a day or more, so that leaves 49 still posting everyday. Of the 29, I didn’t track who quit posting all together. I don’t think it was many. Even tho there was one person who didn’t even bother to post once the whole month. Also, I should note, that was as of Nov 17 /18th. I don’t know if anyone else is out. I’m reviewing the t’s now. (I’m crazy, I know.)
2. I don’t know if the sites are using a NaBloPoMo category. I myself didn’t think of using that tag until at least a week in and plus sometimes I real bad a tagging stuff. Mostly I just clicked on the November archive link and flipped through all the posts looking specifically at the dates. Unless they had a posting calendar – those rock. This was by far the most challenging of all the items I looked at. I really feel for M. Kennedy, I don’t know how she is going to separate the “dids” from the “did nots”.
So now a question for you: Are you doing a similar review or are you just a curious one? If you are doing something similar I will give you one hint. I went to the NaBloPoMo list and viewed the source code. I then copied all the participants names and site addresses into Excel and created a spreadsheet to work off of. It made it pretty easy to determine where I left off and who was doing what.
I hope I’ve answered all your questions. If not, just ask.
Jeez, this was long enough, it could have been a post for today.
learninghorses Said:
on November 27, 2006 at 3:06 am
Way to REVIEW! I have gotten more entertainment out of the reviews and the randomizer in the last month than I have gotten out of TV in the last year. NaBloPoMo RULES! (thank God its almost over).
reddirtroad Said:
on November 27, 2006 at 5:01 pm
Well, I was thinking about helping out. Is the Fussy NaBloBoMo list up to date or is it just the list of those who wanted to participate? And the Randomizer… is that currently being updated?
reddirtroad - sad to see it go… Said:
on November 30, 2006 at 4:00 pm
[...] Next time, I think I’ll go even farther and help out with the cause. Either donate a prize or help out with the reviewing. [...]
Radioactive Jam » Blog Archive » Cat’s pea strain Said:
on November 29, 2007 at 9:06 pm
[...] and I first “met” during last year’s NaBloPoMo; she was in the midst of visiting and reviewing “R” blogs* and said some very nice things about one of my posts. I enjoy reading [...]