Blog Cliche RoundupThis game might cause you to see some things that either you or your boss might not enjoy entirely. With that in mind, play it at work at your own risk.
Also, this game requires looking through random blogs, many of which may not be in a language you speak. Certain game scoring points rely on the occurence of certain words. So you may have to search a bit to find a blog in English.
On top of that, several blogs are spam blogs, that aren't really anything but lots of ads for cheap tickets to Rio. Skip those too.
Now that that's out of the way, I invite you to open up a new window and go to any random blog. I'll wait.
Okay, good. Now, look for the following cliches and assign the given point values for each one you find in the blog you're sent to (but don't go beyond the main page):
PART I: The Profile/Sidebar
1. If the description of the blog has the words "thoughts" or "perspective" in it, you get a point. If it has both, you get three.
2. If the blog description starts with the words "one man's" or "one woman's," you get a point.
3. If the blog description claims to help "further understanding" or "inform," you get a point.
4. If the description makes a broad, inaccurate generalization about the author's race, sex, religion, nationality or sexuality, you get a point.
5. If the links listed are "Google News," "edit-me" and "edit-me," you get three points. If it's just "Google News," you get a point.
6. If the blogger's "Location" is some abstract concept or a smartass remark about being "in a chair" or "at a computer," you get a point.
7. If the blogger's picture is inadequately sized such that it looks grainy, you get a point.
8. If the links consist entirely of other blogs you've never heard of, you get a point.
9. If there's only one month archived, you get a point.
10. If there's a hit counter in the sidebar, you get a point. If there's a link to a blog exchange site, you get two.
PART II: Posts
1. If there's a post called "Test," you get a point. If it's the only post, you get three.
2. If there's a post entitled "I'm so angry!" you get five points.
3. If you find a post that ends in ellipses, you get two points. If a post title ends in ellipses, you get four. If the title of the whole blog ends in ellipses, you get ten.
4. If words are purposefully misspelled, you get two points. If AIM abbreviations are used, you get three.
5. If there's a post consisting of a only a photo of: the blogger, their significant other, a friend or a pet, you get a point. If those are all the posts, you get five points.
6. If any posts are poems, you get two points.
7. If one post is a political rant consisting entirely of information anyone would know because it's common knowledge, you get a point. If the information is wholly inaccurate, you get four.
8. If all the posts are constructed in a broken, hardly readable English, you get two points.
9. If there are three consecutive posts about the same subject because it's obvious that the blogger had nothing else to talk about, you get two points. If the subject is: a break-up, a job hunt or a vacation trip, you get five.
10. If the words "life is..." are located anywhere, you get eight points.
11. If absolutely no letters are capitalized at the beginning of sentences, you get six points.
PART III: General
1. If, at any point the blogger describes his or herself as "crazy" or some variant thereof, you get a point.
2. If the blogger calls their posts "dumb," "boring," or "stupid" at any point, you get two points.
3. If the blog uses a standard Blogger template, you get a point. (They're pretty easy to spot.)
4. If the blog turns your cursor into a little crosshair and is also horribly unreadable, you get six points.
5. If there is a list of how many children and/or pets the blogger has, you get four points.
6. If more than one exclamation mark is used in succession, you get a point for each unnecessary mark.
7. If there's a flag for any country anywhere in the blog, you get two points.
8. Emoticon use of any sort scores you a point.
9. If there is a picture of the inside of the blogger's home, you get four points.
10. If the word "musings" appears anywhere, you get 15 points.
If anyone acutally plays this game (and I don't even think I will), let me know what you find.
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