Well, duh.
The text of the article says:
Boasting 12 off-leash parks, Austin is a dream come true for both pet owners and the pets themselves. Whether cooling off in the creek at Bull Creek District Park or taking a tour of the city in a horse-drawn carriage, there are plenty of ways for your dog to enjoy themselves while in Austin. Plenty of restaurants and stores welcome dogs, so be sure to take them out with you when you're hitting the town and enjoy the sites of this beautiful Texas city with your best four-legged friends.
Now, look, I'm glad Austin made the top ten. I was going to be very upset if we didn't. But because I'm a virgo, I do have a few critical thoughts:
1) We were only #10? Screw that.
2) Bull Creek? Of all the dog parks in Austin, you mention Bull Creek? Sure, it's nice and all... but it's small and out of the way, and, well, it's just a creek. The doggie part of Barton Springs is prettier.
3) Horse-drawn carriages? Do they let dogs up on those things? If they do, fine, but I won't use them. By and large the practice is cruel. Or at the least, it's mean to keep the horses plodding amongst the cars in the city all day, every day.
And finally, a note about grammar. If this website actually has editors, they suck. How about not using "creek" twice in the same sentence? How about not using "plenty" twice in two sentences? How about some noun-pronoun agreement? Either my dog enjoys herself, or my dogs enjoy themselves; my dog does not enjoy themselves. How about some literacy? People enjoy sights while traveling. Only archaeologists enjoy sites.
On second thought, there's no way that website has an editor.
Oh, and one final consideration. It is worthwhile clicking on the link and scrolling down just to see the appalling photo that is, apparently, representative of Austin's dog culture. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and in this case, a thousand words wouldn't come close to describing what's going on here. All I can say is that this is the only dog in the universe that ought to be in Cats.
But still. Go Austin!
(UPDATED to add: The lovely people at the TopTenz website left a couple comments to say 1) the last in a top-ten list wins, so Austin is actually #1, and 2) no, there's no editor because it's a website providing interesting, free content, and it's run in someone's spare time. The comments are really really nice -- go read them! -- and now I feel awful that I totally bashed them in this rant. In case it wasn't clear, it was all exaggeration for comedic effect, and I'm not actually upset about anything. Also, I have now learned that if you link to a website, the person who runs that website will notice. Good to know.)
4 comments:
Hi, Lola.
Glad you liked the fact that Austin made the list. Sorry you were upset about the placement and sorry you were frustrated by the lack of an editor.
Toptenz.net is a site a run in my limited time and I freely admit I'm no editor. The stories are submitted by writers of varying degrees of professionalism and they edit themselves. Hopefully the lack of perfect grammar is made up for by the free content and entertaining lists.
Thanks for the link and thanks for reading. We'll try to do better, until I can afford to pay a real editor. ;-)
Lola,
I went back and made some changes based on your suggestions. Thanks.
But I realized I didn't include a numbering system on that post. The bottom list item is the #1 result. So Austin was #1 so you can relax on that subject. I added the numbers so there will be no more confusion. If you look at the many other lists you can see that is the case.
Hi Top Ten Peoples,
Thanks for the comments!
I hope you weren't offended by my rant on your list. It was not intended to be mean-spirited in any way. I'm not actually upset or frustrated at all, I was just exaggerating for comedic effect. I really hope I didn't hurt your feelings!
I'm glad Austin is number one. We deserve to be :-D
Thanks for running the website, it looks like it rocks!
BadPxy,
Sorry for calling you Lola. I see now that it is your dog.
I wasn't hurt or offended. Believe me, some comments and emails I get are much, much worse. Thick skin is needed for running a blog.
Thank you for the compliments and any time you wish to write a list let me know. I like your style.
Post a Comment