As we've done twice before, we're holding a contest. Four lucky winners will be sent a $15 Amazon.com gift certificate. Yeah, buddy.There are two ways to win: the active way and the lazy way. Here's the scoop on how to become eligible:
THE ACTIVE WAY:
Leave a comment on this post, pointing out (in sufficient detail) one of the following issues with any post on this blog that is more than 24 hours old:
- Broken hyperlinks
- Hyperlinks that totally link to the wrong place
- Embedded videos that no longer exist
- Typos (such as identifying the actor who played Iron Man as "Robert Downer, Jr."--that happened once)
- Major grammatical errors
- Internally inconsistent formatting within a post (we really don't care if it's "superhero" or "super-hero" as long as we pick one and stick with it for the whole post)
- Out-of-date information that, in the context of the post, should be updated for the sake of posterity/accuracy
If you find multiple errors, please post a new comment for each error. This will help us keep track of everything better.
If you're stumped about where to start, you can check out the sidebar for posts by topic and the complete archives, or you can skim through our Month in Review posts for individual articles that might interest you.
THE LAZY WAY:
- Follow us on Twitter
- Like us on Facebook
- Join this site (become a member) with Google Friend Connect (see our sidebar)
NOTE: Only individuals who appear to be legitimate readers will be considered. Groups, organizations, and lists (specifically on Twitter) are not eligible.
CONTEST DEADLINE:
The deadline is 11:00 PM Eastern Standard Time on Wednesday, January 4. Contest winners will be determined shortly thereafter, and will be announced the following day.
HOW WE DETERMINE WHO'S A WINNER:
Each qualifying comment, Twitter follower, Facebook fan, and blog follower (as outlined above) will be added to a list. We will then roll dice to pick four different winners completely at random from this list. We guarantee that one person will win the active way, and one person will win the lazy way; the other two winners will be selected from the full list of active and lazy entrants.
NOTE: Regardless of how many times your name is on the list, you may only win once. If you've already been selected as a winner and the random die roll chooses you again, we'll simply re-roll. If the die continually chooses you, we'll get a new die, you cheater.
HOW YOU GET YOUR PRIZE:
Prizes will be sent by e-mail. Once the winners are announced, it is up to you to claim your prize by providing us with your e-mail address. If you do not claim your prize within one week of the announcement, we will assume you are a spambot, disqualify you with maximum prejudice, and roll for someone else from the list. (Sorry.)
BIG IMPORTANT NOTES:
We reserve the right to change the details of this contest at any time. We also reserve the right to disqualify and deem ineligible anyone and any entry for any reason. Especially Dave.
WHY WE'RE DOING THIS:
We want to thank you, in a completely random fashion, for being awesome followers and readers. Also, it's a great way to engage in shameless social media self-promotion, help us exert minimal effort in cleaning up the blog, and lure you into the archives. But, really, we're just altruists.
--
The contest is officially open! You've got until 11 PM EST on Wednesday, January 4 to point out problems, follow us all over the Internet, and generally make our lives as difficult as possible when it comes time to tally up all the entries. We're seriously giving away four $15 Amazon.com gift certificates, so good luck, and have fun!
[Actually, please don't have fun. The contest is now closed.]
37 comments:
Two questions: 1) Are guest posts viable material? 2) I doubt this but if one has pointed out an error on a post before the announcement of the contest can one use that comment even if the post has been corrected? I'm sure I can find the post, comment, and exfanding response.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A Start
"I didn't belong here any more than someone who never beat a robot master before Mega Man 10's Easy Mode; I had no business saying I had beaten Life Force."
This statement technically implies that one does not belong at the end of Life Force unless one has beaten some robot masters. Suggestion: "I didn't belong here any more than someone who never beat a robot master before Mega Man 10's Easy Mode belonged at the end credits of Mega Man 1" or something similar.
Pardon if this is nit-picky but you guys do proof-read these pretty well, and I got to take what I can get. :)
Joseph: In response to your questions, (1) guest posts are viable material, and (2) if there is STILL an error in a post that wasn't corrected before the contest announcement, that error is fair game--you just need to post about it here. So, to answer your question, nope.
Regarding the MM10 vs. Life Force statement, I get what you're going for, but beware the power of the semicolon.
Start with the first part: "I didn't belong here any more than someone who never beat a robot master before Mega Man 10's Easy Mode." The intended implication is that people who can only beat a robot master on Easy Mode probably have no business playing a Mega Man game, and similarly, a person of my skill level probably has no business playing Life Force.
Moving on to the second part: "I had no business saying I had beaten Life Force." Easy Mode is like cheating; you probably don't deserve to say you've beaten MM10. Similarly, cheating...IS cheating, and I probably didn't deserve to say I had beaten Life Force.
Note to self, avoid involving semicolons. I swear that thing was giving me the evil eye as I wrote my comment. Oh well, the quest continues. ONWARD!
Saturday, August 6, 2011
Ghost Town Anxiety
I receive e-mail updates about new comments on my channel, and I log in every --->"1d4" <--- days or so to get caught up on responding to them.
Okay, less of nit-picky grammar. I think this is a good fish here. Unless the "d" stands for "dash."
I also Googled it and it doesn't seem to be an idiom I'm just not familiar with.
Active participation, like a boss.
http://www.exfanding.com/2011/05/art-of-losing-gracefully-to-mario-and.html
I will direct your attention to the paragraph after the picture of Mario holding a key as large AS HIS HEAD, where the following two sentences exist:
"Now, if there were a separate vote for an entire series to appear in the exhibit as a focused example of the evolution of video game art..."
"...the fusion of traditional cartoon animation and videogame art in Epic Mickey..."
Internal consistency has been COMPROMISED! Note the use of "videogame art" and "video game art"
Also @Joseph (cause I want to help a fellow participant out) 1d4 is a Dungeons & Dragons term for a 4-sided die roll. It means, in horribly fantastic nerd terms that he logs on every 1-4 days.
Joseph: Aw, man. You're trying so earnestly, too. "1d4" is tabletop roleplaying lingo for rolling one 4-sided die. I'm saying I log in every 1-4 days, except I'm implying you roll a die to determine exactly how many days.
Sorry! Of everything that qualifies, grammatical errors are probably the hardest ones to pick out!
Stephen: Whoa, sneaking in there just moments before I post my comment! You ninja, you.
Inconsistency acknowledged, and corrected! By royal decree, your name will be entered on The List.
Awesome. Also, I've been trying to join the site through GFC but the link isn't taking me anywhere. I wanted to do every method of entry, just in case it helps :-)
Okay, I guess I'm overzealous cause in my English class we've been going over each others' papers and my brain seems to now think it knows everything.
Ok. I KNOW this one is a tricky one, but on: Thursday, August 18, 2011
Total Studs and Total Duds: A Review of the LEGO Movie Games where it says that she is engaged to half of the blog writers. Does that now need a little annotation now, or does it fall into the chronology thing.
I'm going to keep looking just in case...
I apologize if I'm going about this poorly. I really don't like pointing out mistakes that aren't actually mistakes.
I also doubt correcting "writingwordstogether, mispelling words, and grammar rearranging often prone to." from the Poetry Post is out of the question. Derp :p
@Joseph:
That particular section of the "Poetry Post" was meant to visually illustrate the gamut of creative liberties e.e. Cummings took with his style of poetry. It was written that way on purpose, and therefore does not count toward the contest.
I do, however, agree that Nathaniel should probably add an editor's note to the "Lego Post" so as not to confuse readers.
@Nathaniel and Alex:
Okay, the "Contest Post" is officially more than 24 hours old, so I can point out that you said:
"The deadline is 11:00 PM Eastern Standard Time on Wednesday, January 4..."
and then in your closing paragraph proceeded to state:
"You've got until 11 PM EST on Wednesday, January 5..."
The correct date for the end of the contest is Wednesday, January 4. Also, you should pick a single format for writing the time (11 v. 11:00).
Sincerely,
Neko-chan aka Nathaniel' wife
I think Neko-chan wins.
Also, I agree that Joseph should be officially entered into the contest for pointing out the need for an editorial note.
Who is this Anonymous commenter...?
Pardon my double negative. I meant to say that i doubted I could use that one, I knew well and good the intentions of the statement, just something I found vaguely humorous given the search I was on.
I also doubt I can correct the comment that you missed an s on "Nathaniel's", mysterious Anonymous poster.
I really need to stop commenting on here without an error to report...
Stephen: Marking you down for another contest entry, as that's a broken link...it DID work for me yesterday, though. Post updated to reflect this.
Joseph: You're making some really great observations, so don't let my constant naysaying stop you.
The guest post in question is a toughie, but I'm also looking at some of the posts from the same time frame that mention the woman who is now my wife--I would be doing a LOT of correcting if I were to update all references to "fiancee," "wife-to-be," etc. I would also lose some of the character of these posts by jamming editor's notes everywhere.
So, I'm gonna classify this as information that's better left as-is, but it's a very important point to raise.
By the way, per AJG's suggestion, you're officially getting entered on the list at least once.
Anonymous Neko-chan: See above, love. The contest deadline has been fixed; it's now the 4th, not the 5th. I'd tell you I did that on purpose, but you know me better. You're on The List.
As for 11 PM EST, that's a valid abbreviation of something that was previously stated in its long format, just like referring to "The Next Generation" and then using "TNG" for the rest of the post.
Incidentally, anyone looking to call me out on that shouldn't worry about it; I switch between full titles and abbreviations of Mega Man and Star Trek names depending on what has a better flow with the text.
Yet another contest entry:
http://www.exfanding.com/2010/05/exfanding-review-megaman.html
Internal consistency problem again:
"Seriously, name one movie based on a videogame that has been better than strictly average."
"Video games are perhaps even tougher to successfully translate into movies"
Note the videogame/video game problem again.
Stephen: Augh! This is all GameCola's fault--GC style is "videogames," whereas I typically use "video games." You (are entered to) win again.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
The Bonding
"What’s one >questions< you wish people would ask you more?"
That's most likely not an nerd inside joke. I hope.
Goin' way back with this one, as well as going against my "avoid semi-colons like the plague" mentality. But I have good reason.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Year in Review: 2008
"But don't worry about the days of 2008 being pushed aside and forgotten: we're here to make sure you won't forget."
I think that should actually be a semi-colon, or at least that's what I think it was intended to be. Granted, I may not have a great understanding of the regular colon either. :P
Also:
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
All Your Base Are Belong to Us and other laughable translations
"Long story short, the Japanese produced a video game called Zero Wing that was a relatively average space shoot-em-up, but when the introduction to the game was translated into English, this happened. (Watch and read carefully.)"
I don't think the hyperlink works anymore. There is a chance that it's just my computer, but given the date of the post I don't think it's unrealistic to believe the link has expired.
Joseph:
The Bonding - Yes. Fixed!
Year in Review: 2008 - Good point; while I could certainly have used a semicolon instead, the colon was deliberate: it's a direct explanation of the part of the sentence before it. So, that one won't count.
All Your Base: Yes. Fixed!
2 for 3 this round! :)
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Mega Man: Two decades of awesome
"and the Mega Man Battle Network series, whose existence I refuse to acknowledge."
Should this be updated because you have done more than "acknowledged" the BN series, you seemed to have somewhat enjoyed it or at least have a respect for it. Also, do you plan to talk about Battle Network as you seem to have gotten as far as you will go with it for a while.
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Mega Man: Two decades of awesome
"and the Mega Man Battle Network series, whose existence I refuse to acknowledge."
Should this be updated because you have done more than "acknowledged" the BN series, you seemed to have somewhat enjoyed it or at least have a respect for it. Also, do you plan to talk about Battle Network as you seem to have gotten as far as you will go with it for a while.
Joseph: Your comment seems to have disappeared, so let me reprint it:
--
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Mega Man: Two decades of awesome
"and the Mega Man Battle Network series, whose existence I refuse to acknowledge."
Should this be updated because you have done more than "acknowledged" the BN series, you seemed to have somewhat enjoyed it or at least have a respect for it. Also, do you plan to talk about Battle Network as you seem to have gotten as far as you will go with it for a while.
--
You bring up a good point; I've added an update. I also plan on doing a brand-new, full-blown introduction to Mega Man once I've played through more of the mainstream games I've missed or skipped (like the rest of the Battle Network series); the more I look back on it, the more I feel like I should have waited before setting this post up as the "definitive" Mega Man discussion on the blog.
Um, not sure if this has come up before, but:
In "Anime and Fansubs", a guest post during December 2009, the author spelt "animé" incorrectly no more than 16 times (I counted). Most people make the mistake of not including the accent. Alt-1[Num. Pad]-3[Num. Pad]-0[Num. Pad] should fix it when nedded, including the name of the category! 'Gotta love animé, though.
Wait, "16"? That's not including the title, and the image of the subbed animé is actually spelt wrong, too. Silly translator.
Mr. E:
From Wikipedia:
"As with a few other Japanese words such as saké, Pokémon, and Kobo Abé, English-language texts sometimes spell anime as animé (as in French), with an acute accent over the final e, to cue the reader to pronounce the letter, not to leave it silent as English orthography might suggest."
The accent is optional.
So as not to solely trust Wikipedia on its word, I did a quick double-check of the official FUNimation website, the Anime News Network website, etc. "Anime," no accent, is a thoroughly acceptable and official spelling. Also, the author of this guest post is far more qualified to write about anime than I am, and I trust that any spelling or terminology he chooses are totally correct.
Now, if there's an inconsistency anywhere about using the accent and then not using the accent within the same post, that's a different story.
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Everyone plays video games... even those who don't.
Right after the first picture there's a bit of text that really just seems out of place jutting out like that. I don't know, perhaps it's just a personal quirk. The post itself is indeed very good though, especially considering that it was one of the first ones.
Friday, September 5, 2008
How to Score Chicks...Or, So You Want to Collect Action Figures? (Part Three of Three)
More curiostiy than a problem, cause the dates of the post really have no effect on the actual content, but the posts are claimed to be in daily order, while the 3rd post was apparently posted 3 days later instead of one. Is there a story there and a possible entry?
Joseph: Thanks! I'd say the text jutting out counts; that's something that bugs me, and I'm happy to have fixed it now.
Yeah, not sure anymore what the "tomorrow" bit was all about; we probably assumed we'd be posting these all in a row, but then that didn't work out. Or else something wonky happened with Blogger that rearranged our early posts--I'm not ruling that out, either.
http://www.exfanding.com/2011/12/gifts-for-geeks-putting-bow-on-it.html
ERROR: "Best [inset fandom] gift of 2011"
CORRECTION: Insert* spelled incorrectly.
---
http://www.exfanding.com/2011/10/up-up-down-down-left-right-left-right-b.html
ERROR: "Nevermind the fun moonwalking and moon jumping codes"
CORRECTION: *Never mind is two words. Nevermind is an old term that actually means "attention". If you wanted to use the term nevermind, you would have to gramatically phrase you sentence like "Pay no nevermind to the fun moonwalking..."
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http://www.exfanding.com/2011/08/ten-things-resulting-from-last-week.html
ERROR: "It's a wonder I ever made enough videos to becaome a minor Internet celebrity in the first place."
CORRECTION: Become* spelled incorrectly
---
http://www.exfanding.com/2011/03/this-blog-post-is-stolen.html
ERROR: "Maybe there aren't people out there willing to fight for thier stolen content--it's too much work, it's a fruitless endeavor."
CORRECTION: Their* is spelled incorrectly.
---
http://www.exfanding.com/2011/07/gamecola-recap-june-2011.html
ERROR: "I once again had three contributions to offer to videogame humor website GameCola.net in the month of June. In a shocking twist, I beat all my fellow staff members to the punch (just barely) with a report of actual, real, current video game news."
CORRECTION: Internal consistency problem between videogame and video game
FRIDAY, MARCH 27, 2009
Goodbye to Occasional Superheroine and FileFront
This first link to Occasional Superheroine does work, but it says you require an invitation to view. I don't know if that was the original design or not, but seeing as it seems the blog has been relocated or renamed or something to that extent, it may need some attention.
THURSDAY, JUNE 18, 2009
Occasional Superheroine Apparently Not Dead
Same thing, but with two links.
Stephen: Right on all four counts. Fixed. And Alex has been making fun of me for botching "their," so thanks for that. I also have a little more insight on the "videogame/video game" inconsistency, but it's boring and takes up too much space to explain.
JoeReviewer: I noticed that, too...it's the same blog and the link is still valid, but I presume it's now got more personal content before, and neither of us has permission to access the blog.
I posted five, not four. :)
Stephen: Uh..."nevermind" was correct but I fixed it anyhow. Yup, only four...
In the big list of animé titles you mentioned a few days ago, "Anime: not just Saturday morning cartoons", you spelt a certain title wrong...
EXPLANATION: The title is "Fullmetal Alchemist". Whilst it may look like a simple error with the space bar and lack of a capital letter, I'm serious. "Fullmetal" is the title given to Edward Elric, one of the main characters, whilst his codename is "The Fullmetal Alchemist". On the aforementioned blog post, however, it is spelt as "Full Metal". The animé is abbreviated to "FMA", despite it being just two words.
Mr. E: Good catch--fixed. That's what happens when I collect recommendations from other viewers without checking the names first...
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