I’m prepping myself for tomorrow’s matchup, me vs. John August. I’m stretching out, getting a good sleep, no sex (weakens the knees), and drinking some protein shakes. Now it’s all mental…

@ Wrangler – I’m very interested in what you’re saying. Can you help me out some? I’d love to be able to improve in the areas you mention.

Specifically, what do you mean by more “meat” in the posts? Are you thinking about practical advice (do x, then y, then z) or something along those lines?

Also, in terms of navigation/cleanliness, what can I improve? I’ve just switched themes in the last few weeks, and I’m always struggling with sidebar arrangement and whatnot.

I’m very open to suggestions. I’m relatively new to the blogging game, and would appreciate the constructive criticism, if you’ve got the time.

Everyone should feel free to second guess the ref.

Many of my point deductions could be questioned. A good archive page would have increased the usability score and the archive score. Perhaps I value those too highly, but I do think that they are important, especially when you go looking for the “meat per post”.

I also happened to run into a situation where his last five posts weren’t particularly on topic. Had I reviewed the blog at another time, those points could have swung the contest much closer.

Right there you find four of the points that WWP didn’t get. It would also be easy to argue that I was overly generous in my points to TWJ. A couple of the categories were between a two and a three, and I ended up giving TWJ the higher score both times. There, in a nutshell, is the margin of victory.

Thank you for not throwing tomatoes at me.

Bob,

It was a well-fought victory. You matched up very well in all the categories. Sooner or later, someone was going to hit all the right buttons. When I run the next round, some of the categories will change. I’m keeping mum on which ones, but nobody should get too comfortable.

Thanks for your kind words, John, and for the pass on the video. That was an experiment that didn’t go as well as I wanted it to, but I’m leaving it up as a reminder of what NOT to do… from graininess to sound quality to my script-less ramble, you should be glad your sound was off!

You’re right about my pics, too. My wife’s pointed it out to me before. I often wind up choosing a picture after a thoroughly irrational stream of consciousness… I’ll work on it. Great feedback.

As to the masthead… what can I say? I’m a writer, not a graphic artist! LOL. My wife’s been building me a new one this morning. I like the way it looks, but I’m going to wait until MWP’s Sunday Drive-by before I experiment with putting that up. Should be up before round 2.

Apologies for the overuse of ellipses, everyone.

Hats off to Bob