The State of the Blog, with the RivalRoom Ombudsman

By: RivalRoom Ombudsman

As the RivalRoom ombudsman it is my job to provide a completely objective review of the RivalRoom goings on. In the interest of full disclosure- Yes, I am on the payroll. However, as an ombudsman my contract is structured yearly and not based on incentive, progress or content. I can assure you that I have no agenda pro- or anti- RivalRoom. In fact, if RivalRoom were bent on not bettering their standards I never would have been hired. I answer to no one in the company, I am my own boss, and am considered a completely separate entity from RivalRoom.

That being said, here is my professional opinion upon having read the content over the last fortnight. The first thing I have observed is that a T.R. Slyder has contributed 100% of the posts to the RivalRoom. I don't find his style overly difficult to ingest, but if he isn't to your liking, this blog is probably not for you.

A lot of readers may not know that Rivalfish was founded as a clothier, and the RivalRoom, which you are now reading was an offshoot of that. Rivalfish deals with collegiate sports rivalries and conversely, the RivalRoom was designed for sports humor and satire. In the early months they stuck to that mission but have strayed from that mission during the "T.R. Slyder Era", if you will. While Mr. Slyder has produced some sports writing lately, it seems to be of the topical variety. It's as though he uses sports as a vehicle to take him to the next getting-hit-in-the-male-genitalia-joke/YouTube video. While I would not say his athletic insight is in any way hard hitting, I will concede that he has showed videos of male genitalia on the receiving end of a "hard hitting". So in that regard, yes, he is a "hard hitting" journalist of sorts.

In his writings, Mr. Slyder appears to be an Equal Opportunity Lambaster- he has bravely endeavored into impugning societal titans including: the obese (repeatedly), a civil rights leader caught using the n-word, a national park, men with crossbites, television executives, movie executives, the alleged intelligence of reality television, African American facial hair (on men), Linda Cohn, Ladyboys, the city of Milwaukee, Eminem, homosexuals, Kyle Farnsworth, a former presidential candidate, women, and amputees, and that's just the list off the top of my head.

Most of his writing seems to either focus on putting people down, alleging to out-think reality television, mentioning Cubs victories, showing "nutshots", or putting down a myriad of societal outgroups. However on the asset side of the ledger, some of Mr. Slyder's writing have displayed a semblance of merit.

Unlike nearly all contemporaries, he has alluded to the great George Lakoff. His appreciation for horse racing seems to be genuine, and his knowledge of it is respectable. Additionally, it would be difficult to dispute his knowledge of the current Cubs team. Ordinarily, I applaud sports writers eschewing all things political- however, I felt his two mentions of politics (Jesse Jackson's conflict of interest, and taking career politicians to task) have been spot on, while not taking political sides. He is also to be lauded for his appreciation for Gerardo. It is unfortunate that history has lumped Gerardo into the "One Hit Wonder" trash heap, because his follow-up "We Want the Funk" certainly found an audience, yet history chose to not remember that. Mr. Slyder does receive points for not mentioning Gerardo as such.

If I had to give T.R. Slyder's performance thus far I would give him a B-. He doesn't suck out loud. And he was headed for a solid B until his puerile recent onslaught of articles/one-liners dealing with private parts. His recent column about reality television was also an unfortunate regression. Although the title of that article made reference to the audience not caring, he was more right than he wishes he were, and if he were really clever he would have scrapped the entire thing. He has a future, but it isn't with reality TV criticism or with averaging one YouTube "nutshot" posting per day, as he has over the last three days. Furthermore, his sentence structure leaves much to be desired. Comma splices, run on sentences, and overall verbosity have plagued his sentences. It should also be noted that many of his sentences are poorly phrased and require re-readings. As many of his past English teachers would criticize of him, his writing doesn't "flow like a river". We hope that changes in the near future.