Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Doug Logan Has a "Blog"


It came to my attention today that our fearless leader, new USATF CEO Doug Logan, has started his own "blog." In it, he writes about being on top of that old Brontosaurus known as the USATF, Caveman Games-style. I use quotation marks on "blog" mainly because I think the b-word is being used a bit too liberally in this case. Let's take a blog validity test, after the jump:

1. A name, often cheesy, that references a hyper-specific entity within the larger world of the thing that the blog is about: +1
--"Shin Splints"!! HAHA, classic Doug, we can so tell he's one of us!!!

2. Liberal use of profanity: -1
--Have yet to read a "shit" an "ass hole" or even a "greasy taint monster" in the first two posts. And he calls himself a blogger?!

3. Pictures of hot chicks: -1
--So far both pictures have been of Doug himself. Not a strong start. He's gonna want to get some hotties plastered all over that blog, and fast.

4. A billion different ways to share each blog post and subscribe to the blog in a reader: -1
--No RSS feed? No Technorati? No "Share this article on facebookmyspacestumbleupondiggreddityahoogooglenewsvinemixxprintthedamnthingoutonapieceofpaper?" If a tree falls in the forest...

5. Start every post with "I" or "me" being within the first 5 words: +1
--Every blogger knows that their life is what people are dying to hear about.

6. Pop culture metaphors that come somewhat close to making sense: -1
--This is an easy fix for Doug. They can be thrown in, literally anywhere, in each post. For example, "Marion Jones is worse than Oprah in a pancake factory" or "performance enhancing drugs are about as welcome in track as a can of Bud Light in a Jay-Z video." See, it's just that simple.

As we can clearly see, Doug Logan's "Shin Splints" is actually a negative 2 on the blog validity scale, which makes it less of a "blog" and more of a "press release." Of course, Doug can change all that with some bad words, a steamy picture of Gail Devers at the office 4th of July cookout, and a few well-placed Fall Out Boy references.

So there you go, Doug, a new priority #1, the whole drug thing is sooo 2006 Tour De France anyway.


********It should be noted that Doug Logan actually writing about the state of USATF is great and seems to signify a strong move toward self-awareness which will ineveitably lead to positive change in the organization and blahblahblah.

Also, LTOB scores only a +2. Jeremy and I are O.K. with that score. Not happy, but O.K.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh, crap! No wonder I don't get any hits on my "blog"! Now I realize that I've been missing several things: the sex, the profanity, the pathological self-indulgence and the pop-culture metaphors! I guess that makes my website as relevant to blogging as David Hasselhoff is to talent or the Urban Dictionary is to the Queen's English.

The good news is that I'm golden on the embarrassingly lame, cheesy, hyper-specific reference to my blog topic. I've got it right there in in my domain name. Not only that, but I've recently uploaded a couple of add-ins that will give my reader(s) some new ways to subscribe to my RSS feed. I'm pretty sure that gives me a score of -2. Hey! At least I'm headed in the right direction!

Cheers,
Jimmie

Jeremy said...

You better be careful, Jimmie. It sounds like you might have a good old fashioned WEBSITE on your hands. Which, these days, has about as much cultural currency as Readers Digest.

If nothing else, I'm sure you can post some of those infamous Amy Acuff pics -- scant clothing, but still track-centric.