Is it the ultimate battle arena? Are the stakes just too high? Do you have to be crazy to even consider entering into this bout?

Two blogs enter. One blog leaves! It’s full steam ahead for the Blog Thunderdome!

Holy crap it’s getting hot in here!

There’s a new “Bad Boy” in town and this one’s baying for blog blood! This new contender is the real deal baby, featuring an entire panel of hard nosed reviewers – All smart-assed up and ready to rock! Don’t be concerned with Blog Explosion’s “Battle Of The Blogs” – that’s a mere pussycat compared to this sphincter ripping specter of shame that is the Blog Thunderdome. Boasting a penalty of a two month suspension from blogging for the losing blog, you’d have to freaking crazy to want to enter into this competition voluntarily!

So, with that in mind, sign up I did! Why? I had my reasons (which I’ll elaborate on later). I wasn’t the first to sign on though. As far as I know that honor goes to Zazzafooky. Why did she sign on? God knows? Maybe it was for the same reasons as I did?

But first a little background…..

I was first alerted to the concept of Blog Thunderdome at Blogg’d during my daily blog surfing. It seems Brad from Bloggy had participated in a roundtable discussion with the equally venomous (but in a good way) Dave McAwesome from Maximum Awesome, Carnonymous from Angryface Central and Eric from Sites That Suck. Of course Brad and Carny I’ve “known” for a while now, Dave was a pleasant revelation, and Sites That Suck turned out to be a different “Sites That Suck” than I was used to but was, likewise, of great interest and amusement. I’ve added the last two sites to my favorites and I’ll be checking them out extensively over the coming days and weeks.

The discussion was fairly spot on in it’s observations and posturings – many of which I’ve written about before on this blog and other forums. Although perhaps a bit dismissive in places I feel the guys pretty much nailed it as a whole – especially when it comes to the distinction between a “personal” blog and one that is advertised to the hilt on various promotional blog sites (Blog Explosion comes to mind). Either you truly want to keep your blog personal and tell only your close friends and family, or you want the whole world to know about your life – in which case you’re really leaving yourself open to criticism and trolls as well as positive feedback. It’s a simple enough concept and there’s really no middle ground there as far as I can see. You can make up your own minds on the matter however.

The Thunderdome

If you’ve seen the film, you know the idea – two enter, one leaves kinda deal. I mean hell, I’m Australian (Yeah, G’day and all that crap) so I’ve not only seen the film, Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, I’ve actually seen and touched the vehicles that were used in it as well! Since that film first came out in 1985 I’ve seen countless recreations of the Thunderdome in other movies and music videos. Now it’s coming to a blog near you!

The Panel

The aforementioned Brad Bloggy, Dave McAwesome, Carnonymous and Eric STS are the judge, jury and executioners of Blog Thunderdome. It has been mentioned elsewhere that these guys are all “tripods” and that there needs to be at least one female member to even things up (yeah, 1 female = 4 males…..seems about right ;-)) and negotiations are underway to see that this is so. It’s not sure at this stage whether the female panelist will be inducted in time for the inaugural battle, but stay tuned.

The Stakes

The stakes are indeed high – a two month ban on posting to the losing blog. For the winning blog there’s the kudos of having won – replete with all of the battle scars endured in the skirmish. Of course it’s highly unlikely that the ban on posting can be enforced but if one were to stick to their word then the punishment is quite harsh.

The Combatants

The inaugural combatants are tj from Zazzafooky and Kachina from A Whiter Shade Of Pale. I have to say upfront that there are no real losers here as I feel that both blogs are excellent from a writing point of view. I’m not going to enter into a whole 5 page critique of either blog. I’ll leave that to the guys at Blog Thunderdome to pore over each entry and pick the bones dry on that one. However I will go into what I feel are some of the strengths and weaknesses of both blogs in a little more detail.

Zazzafooky:

Zazzafooky is an old favorite of mine and I’ve been reading tj’s entries for as long as I’ve been blogging (which admittedly isn’t really that long, but still). I know good writing when I see it though and tj’s posts are witty, adventurous, thought provoking, insightful and often uproariously funny! Her writing is also very consistent which, to me anyway, is one of the hardest things to achieve in writing.

Tj has had her fair share of “life experiences” and, as a result, the subject matter that she writes about is wide and varied and colorful. One minute she’s talking about her daughter’s new blog and the next a behind-the-scenes look at the porn industry and a friend of hers who worked within it. There are serious posts about a childhood experience amongst posts about trapped kittens and an insight into the phone sex industry – and that’s only within the last month! I would think, anyone would be able to find something of interest here!

The layout is excellent and I think it conveys the “playfulness” of the overall blog. Created by the obviously talented and equally wonderful Idony it shows just what can be done to a blog when you ditch the generic Blogger-type templates and really lash out and experiment a bit with color, form and function. Idony’s layouts, and those from the Web Divas, Tech Wench and others, make the whole blogging and surfing experience a hell of a lot more enjoyable.

A Whiter Shade Of Pale:

By contrast, in the first 30 seconds or so of seeing A Whiter Shade Of Pale I have to say that I judged it rather harshly. A plain (yet functional) layout, multicolored writing and seemingly short posts, I basically chalked up a fairly easy victory in the blogging states to Zazzafooky. I was obviously an ass though and, on further examination, I have to admit that I was wrong in many assumptions! The writing here is excellent but you have to dig a little deeper to find the real gems – in fact it was on another blog entirely that I first saw the depth and skill of Kachina’s writing.

This persuaded me to take a closer look at some of Kachina’s posts and I have to say that I was quite pleased by what I saw. One of the cool things I noticed was a link at the top of the page which led to what Kachina feels are her more notable posts. Obviously you would click on this to find out more, so I did!

There were indeed a number of posts which I thought were very good indeed. Of these posts I was particularly impressed with Kachina’s views on writing verses blogging and a humorous post about taking Communion. Likewise a post about school had me smiling a few times, even though it was also laced with a certain amount of sadness. Indeed a number of Kachina’s posts are quite dark, dealing with alcoholism and, from what I can gather, some mental illness and depression. I, for one, can certainly identify with both of those subjects!

I have to say though that I don’t believe a word of it when Kachina says that she’s a blogger rather than a writer. It’s just not the case at all, as this girl is every bit a writer AND a blogger. Sure there are some hits and misses here or there, but nothing too serious and certainly nothing that can’t be overcome. From what I can tell Kachina is still fairly young and the actual experience of writing will only make her work better. After all it’s not all about the big and impressive sounding words as she’s acknowledged. Sure, wordscapes are cool – but what you write has to actually say something and communicate itself to the audience in an effective way. From what I’ve read of Kachina’s words so far she’s already well ahead in that regard!

I feel where it falls down though is in the blog’s appearance. Not that it’s ugly or doesn’t work or anything like that. It’s just a little too plain for my liking and can certainly use a spruce up, I feel. Having said that though it’s really a case of what works for you, the blogger, and everyone has different ideas about what they like. It’s not a horrid design and it does work, but virtually everything in the world can be made a little better at least.

The Wrap Up

There are no real losers in this bout as both blogs are very strong. I feel though however that Zazzafooky has the edge though because of the design factor mentioned earlier. I KNOW that someone from Blog Thunderdome is gonna jump all over the colored writing on Kachina’s blog but that’s no biggie in the scheme of things. I’m fairly confident that the judges will view both blogs favorably, but it’s in their nature to be smart-assed and funny about the blogs they review and this they’ll do with aplomb and a fairly high degree of thoughtfulness and expertise. I’m also fairly certain that both combatants will take everything in it’s stride and not be too concerned with any criticism they may attract. After all from what I’ve seen there’s no need to really worry – and I certainly wouldn’t feel ashamed to lose out in a battle to either of these girls.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 7th, 2005 at 11:33 am and is filed under Blogs, The Web. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.