Like any younglings, new bloggers can sometimes make mistakes. Looking back on a year’s worth of posts, here are five we kind of wish we hadn’t done. Or that we at least would have done differently. This is only a list, not a ranking.
Nov. 4: Sunny skies...
By Janelle Rucker
“Man, I’ve figured out my favorite thing about Shreveport so far - the weather. I love it.
“I talk to my friends back in Ohio and Virginia/Maryland and they’ve been dealing with Old Man Winter pretty consistently already. I didn’t know how I was going to deal with a place that residents warned only has one season, but it hasn’t been that bad. Though it did get pretty hot this summer, it has cooled off without getting too cold. But I will admit, there were a few days last week that had me wondering if I was back up north.”
To paraphrase the writer’s own recent commentary on this particular entry, isn’t talking about the weather something older folks do? And she has since retracted her statement about liking so called one-season weather. She says she would like a little more distinction.
To be fair, though, this was not the only climate-related entry among the bunch. I contributed at least two (including one from Feb. 21 about driving with the windows down. We’ll try to keep our musings on sunshine, rain and wind to a minimum.
May 8: Want some Cocaine?
By Donecia Pea
“Ok, this is silly, but I was just wondering something.
“When it comes to energy drinks, is it just me or can folks can come up with some pretty random, strange names?
“I mean there’s Red Bull, SoBe, Full Throttle, energy drink-turned anthem Rockstar and please don’t remind me of that god-awful name Pimp Juice. But what do you know about that Cocaine? No, seriously, that’s the name of one of the newest energy drinks out there. Not for long though.
“Now, I’m not even into energy drinks and to me, this name tops ‘em all in craziness.”
This blog – like the product – is silly, according Link222 founder herself .Does ANYONE even drink this stuff?
Nov. 22: Grown and Sexy, No. 1
By Joel Anderson
“This is the debut of a weekly feature on the blog, somewhat childlishly dubbed “Grown & Sexy.” Every week, we’ll feature some of Shreveport-Bossier City’s most “desirable” young professionals, both men and women, on the blog. We plan to rotate weekly between the men’s and women’s picks, running the item on Wednesdays.
“There’s not much of a selection process here. Just whenever one of us sees someone who would make a good G&S model and we happen to have a digital camera, we’ll take their picture and a few notes.
"Here’s our first victim, er, choice. I met Melissa Dameworth through mutual friends, particularly since she used to work here at The Times. Unfortunately for us - particularly me, she’s moved on to a better-paying job with better hours. But we still think a lot of her in here. Certainly, I do.”
I’m not saying the idea of this one actually missed the mark. I thought it could be fun, and maybe bring that local celebrity status some of us secretly hope for anyway. And I certainly don’t intend to disrespect Melissa, the reigning queen of our one-time contest.
The thing that went wrong here was that Link’s Grown & Sexy plane never really took off. I’m not really sure why. It’s not that we discuss it among the group. It was met with some opposition. But we probably should’ve planned better – or at least gotten consensus – if we were going to announce a weekly post that had only one real go.
Should we revive it?
April 18: Blown away…
By Ashley Northington
“Today’s my day to blog. But I just looked at Cho Seung-Hui’s video to NBC headquarters.
“I can not process my thoughts. Maybe I shouldn’t even be writing but its my turn.
“A part of me feels sorry for him. He was obviously dealing with some demons that he couldn’t handle appropriately. His anti-rich diatribe makes me feel sorry for his dry-cleaning store-working parents who probably worked hard to maintain life in their Washington suburb.
“I feel bad that Cho felt it was necessary to cause this magnitude of pain to absolve his own.
“But another part of me is upset...so upset I can’t even begin to articulate my feelings. He didn’t have to kill and injure all those people.”
Writing about this year’s tragedy at Virginia Tech obviously is tough. In Ashley’s on words since then, it was her “poor attempt at a stream of consciousness blog.” I don’t know if I totally agree. There was a lot of honesty in what she wrote, even if it was hard to pull together. But we’re not all William Faulkner, and that style doesn’t always work.
Even if the author thinks her blog will be forgotten, we certainly won’t stop thinking about the events of April 16 for a long time.
Nov. 10: Shameless promotion
By Adam Kealoha Causey
“Janelle and I got the surprise of our blog lives recently: Johnny Q. Public actually knew about Link 222.
“Granted, our new pal Goodwin thought the name was Link 122… but man, it was kind of exciting to find out people are reading this with basically no advertising so far.
“We met Goodwin at Stray Cat (which also happens to be located at a 222 address) through my dear little (but grown) sister. She told him we were Times reporters and he immediately asked if we blogged on … “122 or whatever it’s called.”
“But we knew what he meant.”
The title alone should be enough to say why this one didn’t work. Anytime you have to sell yourself so obviously, it makes you look kind of cheap. And that’s certainly not to say anything bad about Goodwin, who still reads our blog from what I can tell. Wait, did I just shamelessly promote again? Oh great…
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