This post was originally planned for tomorrow, which is when the College Football Rankings will likely be delayed until. The main reason is because someone gave me another reason to post today.
Robert A. Howard somewhat belatedly commented on my post on Tangents, and mentioned that he "definitely [would] mention [Da B]log over at Tangents." Once that comes down the pike it should result in some sort of traffic bump, although between the hiatus and then the move to the new site I suspect Tangents has bled some readers recently.
After reading that comment, I think John Solomon may have been on to something in his characterization of Howard as a suck-up. I hope he doesn't make too many changes just because I say so, and I hope he doesn't define his writing style entirely on what other people say it should be, but I hope he knows what's the blog he wants to write. Not that he should entirely shut himself off from the criticism of others - then he's basically Tim Buckley, and no one wants to be that - but I think most people want to read "Tangents by Robert A. Howard," not "Tangents by Eric Burns(-White), John Solomon, Morgan Wick, and a gazillion others".
I'm trying to take it easy with this post. I slated quite a few things to put on Da Blog during the break, not least of them being a resumption of my platform reviews and another political feature to run during the summer, which I would work on now so they wouldn't become a repeat of the platform reviews later, and so that I could work on several posts at once. But with my limited Internet access time, most of my time has been dominated by what I'm doing for Da Blog now. I haven't even been able to look for any jobs, even for just during the break.
It doesn't help that I don't have the services of the local public library available during the winter break (don't ask why), unlike in summer, and Seattle just got hit with the Cold Snap of the Century right AFTER it wouldn't have mattered so much to me, so sitting outside and using the Internet, either stealing it from someplace else or using the city of Seattle's on-again-off-again public connection, is a good way to get frostbite. I also don't have the services of running just outside the house briefly anyway; the only connection left that's a block or so from my house is far more inconsistent than what I've used before. (A nearby business has repeatedly offered to allow me to sit inside, but for at least two reasons I doubt I would like its atmosphere.) I burned my one real shot at using the Internet at a place I would have to pay for in a context where it netted me about an hour and a half, most of it not used on anything productive. I'm using the Internet four nights a week at a place where the only reason I don't pay for it is because my dad works here, and it's still technically mooching off another place's connection.
And Da Blog and Sandsday are the closest things I have to any sort of income... I had been hoping to use the winter break as a time to wind down and relax before redoubling my efforts to get schoolwork done in the new quarter, but that doesn't seem to be happening.
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2 comments:
Don't look at it as "sucking up" to you. You had some valid comments and I took that criticism as something to work on. However, your own "review" site is fixated on three strips, you fanboy out when a cartoonist responds to your review, and as a result of your fixation on a couple comics, you're stagnating as a reviewer and a writer. Just because I didn't sneer at your comments or call you an asshat doesn't mean I'm a suck up.
It means I'm working to improve Tangents and I saw your comments had merit. The site is still evolving and undergoing periodic changes until I get it the way I want it to be.
My linking you was courtesy, as you had several links to my own site (which is how I found you). Nothing more. If you look at my article commenting on your site, I briefly mention your site and what you said. And I must say, you did prove me wrong about the "respect and intelligence" angle just now. My apologies for giving you the benefit of the doubt then.
Rob Howard, Tangents Reviews
There, see? Let it all out...
Okay. First, I apologize if I sounded ungrateful or misinterpreted your statements.
Yes, Da Blog does fixate a lot on Ctrl+Alt+Del and especially Order of the Stick (which I explicitly review once a month), and I do freak out every time I get a link of any kind, even if the source is ultimately me.
First, though, I don't see Da Blog as exclusively a review site. Or exclusively a webcomic site. There are a LOT of sports and politics things on here, and I'm always open to branching out to even more fields.
Second, I do have plans to review webcomics that aren't CAD, OOTS, or by David Morgan-Mar, even though it's been a month since I reviewed a comic that wasn't one of those and it was my own, and before that you have to go back to September 30, nearly three months. (I didn't realize just how much I had been fixating on three comics, or that one of them was IWC, until just now.) Just check in this Tuesday, and I'll have a special surprise for you. :) (No, it's not Megatokyo or xkcd. Good guess, though.)
In fact, except for the monthly OOTS post, I've made a decision, even before writing my original Tangents post, to spend several weeks reviewing prominent webcomics I haven't reviewed yet.
I just tend to comment on strips more often when they're in my RSS reader, and I want to keep the number of strips there to a minimum so they don't monopolize my time.
I would be open to improving my writing, but I write the way I want to write, pretty much the way it comes out of my head. Even if I was open to tips for improving my writing, and genuinely wanted to take them to heart (I honestly don't think I bring as much of a sense of humor as I'd like), I'd probably keep writing the exact same way and hope repitition would bring improvement all its own. If that makes me the webcomic blog equivalent of Tim Buckley, so be it.
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