With that in mind, I included links, photos, slideshows, videos… anything to inform my readers about what’s going on, without totally influencing them one way or another; in short, I tried my best to present my readers with enough info on whatever I wanted to write about so that they could determine their own opinion and level of interest.
The best example I have of this is quite possibly my entry on Club 27. I did not enjoy my experience at this club, but instead of totally bashing it in my blog, I gave readers a chance to make up their own minds. I included a linked photo of the St. Patty’s Day flyer for Club 27, and told readers that if the flyer was appealing, to stop reading the entry. If they continued, they obviously wanted to hear why the place stunk. (I did, however, make a “meat head” comment just under the “Read the rest of this entry.”  Sure, that was slightly backhanded, but I couldn’t help myself. I gave them fair warning)!
I also gave proper promotion to deserving artists and fellow bloggers. I thought doing this was really important, because the more traffic I started to get, the more power I realized I had to get the word out there on whatever I wanted. Using these powers for good, I mentioned some of those who I thought deserved a nod.
One of my first entries included an interview with Zach Caruso, a local musician and fellow Rowan student. He is up and coming and really talented, and I knew that another search result on Google would benefit him.
I constantly covered Almost Arlington, my friend’s band; I posted about shows, created slideshows with my photos of them, and interviewed my friend. Yes, in professional journalism this is a conflict of interest, but if I thought that the band was rubbish I would have nicely declined to post about them. Friends or not, they’re good, so I used my powers for good and promoted them.
A few fellow bloggers in my online journalism class received a post as well. I think this is a really good thing to do to keep the swirl of traffic moving, to keep interest expanding, and to encourage each other to write. Also, I really enjoyed reading others’ blogs.
Some entries worked better than others this semester. My interactive map was a total win. I would never have thought to do this without it being assigned, but when I got into it, I realized how useful it would be to readers. I was able to show where these places and events I wrote about are located, and through Google Maps, readers would be able to get directions easily.
My poll, on the other hand, was a bit of a failure. I didn’t get enough votes for the information to be useful to me or interesting to others. I realize now that I didn’t have enough traffic at the time to ask readers to answer something; meaning, people weren’t looking at my blog frequently enough to notice the poll and vote. Now would be a better time to try it.
A big challenge of mine all semester was to make time to attend the events and try out the places I blogged about so that I could also write reviews. Listing upcoming events and covering Almost Arlington was easy; it was pushing myself to pencil new adventures into my crazy schedule that was the harder part. I got two things out of doing that though: I wrote some cool reviews and I had an excuse to hit up Philly more.
The traffic my blog received had some interesting patterns to it. Other than the link to my blog from my Online Journalism class’ site, I have regular traffic from other places. Since I promote Almost Arlington on my blog, the band links to my blog on their myspace, so every day I get clicks from them, which is where a significant amount of my traffic comes from. People who search Club 27 and the ACES Train find my blog often. Also, WordPress has made me realize that people Google my name pretty often, which leads them to my blog. I would love to know who these people are who are Googling me nearly every day.
So what did I get out of all of this?
1. I now know the usefulness of blogs. I learned how to synthesize information I read on blogs, meaning how to take others’ blog posts as useful information instead of writing it off as merely opinion. Essentially, I learned what a blog is, what it does, and how that is useful to me.
2. I learned how to use free programs online such as Slide to create slideshows with my photos, and Google Maps to create and post a useful and interactive tool to get my readers as close to these places and events as possible without personally driving them there.
3. I realized that strangers would, in fact, take interest in my writing.
4. Before this class I thought “traffic” was merely what I sit in every morning when I commute to Rowan.

I intended to produce this project in video form. Actually, I DID produce it in video form; I recorded clips of the whole night, complete with commentary, to show you all a proper night in Philly from my perspective. Happy with my successful footage, I arrived home, turned my camera on, only to see the dreaded two words.

Format. Error.

Normally, a format error is an unfortunate thing to happen, causing one to lose one’s photos and videos, but normally one’s life does not depend on the files. In this case, however, my life did depend on it. My final project was supposed to be a short video of a night in Philly from my perspective. Well, with the footage out the window and my deadline in a few days, what’s a girl to do?

The best I can do is to spin you a yarn that will hopefully be just as interesting as the video would have been. So, here is the story of my night out in Philly in text.

The train into Philly is an adventure in itself, especially when you’re a 21 year-old, alone, decked in club clothes. I found a car without too many suspicious characters aboard. I took a quick video clip of the train, short enough to not draw anyone’s attention. By the time I had finished panning the ticket collector was at my seat.

I pointed the camera at her briefly. Her hat sat atop the fine work of art that was her hair, a sculpture of thick, slicked weave.

“I ain’t playin’,” she said.

I could tell by her face that she wasn’t playin.’ I turned the camera off and handed her my ticket.

The NJ Transit train stops at the corner of 30^th and Market Street. Once you’re out of the smelly, damp underground, the station itself is pretty nice.

The girls were there to meet me. 

First stop was dinner. Straight down Market we hit Cuba Libre, a Cuban (what was your first guess?) restaurant for some good appetizers and really awesome atmosphere. The place is decorated incredibly well; the interior looks like a Cuban village, complete with stucco walls, wooden shutters, tropical plants, everything.

Saturday nights are swingin’ with the latin music, so you can’t go wrong eating there to get in the mood for some dancing.

Right. Onto dancing. The only thing about starting at Cuba Libre is that there isn’t much around it as far as dancing goes, especially for my under-21 readers. Luckily! We had a car. 

We decided to hit Loie Bistro and Bar first, because last time we were there together, we found ourselves packed like pickles by midnight. We moved through some of the crowd and found a place to rock out somewhere in the middle of the floor. Loie has a cool shape to it; the location of the bar in the middle of where to dance causes people to constantly be moving around, which really keeps the energy up.

DJ Benja Styles is there every Friday and Saturday, I dig his…eh…style.

The three of us grabbed drinks (for all you unders, we drank soda) and we found a table to chill out for a bit.

“Hi.”

We looked up to see a guy in a puffy, bright yellow coat staring down at us. 

“What’s y’alls’s names?”

Not kidding. We were not interested. Unfortunately, I was too dumbfounded by his use of the word “y’alls’s” to pick up my camera and record him.

Listen up, girls. Quickest way to get rid of tool bags like this:

Girl Number One, pretend to get a quick phone call, and then mention that, “the guys” are on their way. Even if there aren’t any guys on their way, just do it. 

Girl Number Two, reiterate loudly enough that there are, in fact, males coming to meet up with you. 

Girl Number Three, tell the tool bag to “have a good night.” This is the period at the end of their paragraph, no dash, no ellipses…period. Usually works.

We got up to dance a bit more after the drinks. We weren’t particularly bored there, but definitely ready to move on after about an hour.

But what was somewhat close and accessible? The dreaded Club 27? Could I really show my face in there after talking it down in several blog posts?

Yes, yes I could. And I did.

We hadn’t spent much money anywhere else, so forking over ten dollars for Club 27 didn’t seem like a huge expense. It’s funny to go down the dark alley to the entrance; I feel really sneaky, like a million other people don’t actually now about this place.

Well, Club 27 *inserts foot in mouth* is actually a pretty cool venue. I don’t really care for the image, but Q102 does a good job DJing. If any of us dug guidos, we’d have been all set with the guys, but really, just going there to dance wasn’t as terrible as I remember. A boy band (oh, sorry, the current term is “guy group”) called V Factory performed live upstairs, which made the whole scene like something out of a teen movie. We rocked out there until late and left.

All in all, a good night.

Well, what about cheese?

Anthony Dragonetti sits across from me in my online journalism class, and we found out yesterday that we live in the same town, and on top of that, he works in the supermarket behind my house.

His specialty?

Cheese.

Yes. He works with gourmet cheese, and even blogs about cheese. So there you go. I suggest you visit his blog and educate yourself, then go on a cheese tasting tour in South Philly. He even has a map to help you.

COASTLINE:
1240 Brace Road
Cherry Hill, NJ 08034
Wednesday: “College Night” 

ADELPHIA:
1750 Clements Bridge Road
Deptford, NJ
Wednesday: “College Night”
Thursday: live bands

CLUB 27 (bleh!):
Corner of Bank and Chestnut Streets
Philadelphia

THE CAVE:
Note: this is a strip club! With DUDES!
(look into this one before you decide to be spontaneous)
700 N Delaware Ave
Philadelphia

FLUID:
4th and Kater St.
Philadelphia
Only some nights are under-21 here,
so check the site for events. 

5/15/2009 6:00 PM at University of Arts
320 South Broad Street, Philadelphia, New Jersey 19102

The band should finish up recording by the end of April, and then hopefully we’ll see some touring. 

I just tried to add an audio file of the band’s music, but I have to purchase an upgrade. Boo. I’ll figure out a loophole later  :)

By clicking on a symbol, you can find out more information or navigate to their websites. Enjoy!

Why do it this week? Well, it’s my baby sister’s 18th birthday on Monday  :)

First up is The Roxxy,  939 N. Delaware Ave, “Nightlife at its Finest.”
Has anyone been to this club? Definitely comment and review it for me; I’d love to hear someone’s opinion.

Here’s what Philly2Night has to say:

“The Roxxy is the ultimate nightlife experience, the parties are massive and exciting like nothing the tri-state area has seen before.

The Roxxy has 4 rooms to party in and has a combined capacity of 2000 people… no more weekends of standing elbow to elbow in some tiny lounge in Olde City or Manayunk. Or having to circle around the block multiple times to find parking, The Roxxy offers plenty of free parking as well as velvet parking for VIP’s.

The Roxxy brings a mixture of New York, Vegas and Cali style nightlife right to Philly!!”

There are tons of different posters for an event tonight hosted by Q102 and Baya from the Real World Brooklyn. DJ 54 advertises Top 40, hip hop, dance and mash-ups.

It looks cool–I’m definitely game to try this place out.

OH, but the dress code is hilarious:
“DRESS FOR ALL EVENTS: CLUB FASHIONABLE, NO HATS WITH SPORTS TEAM LOGOS, NO LONG SHIRTS IN ANY FORM,  NO SOLID T-SHIRTS, NO TIMS, FINAL DECISION MADE AT DOOR.”

… Only in Philly! 

I told the guy sitting next to me that I’m going to post about his blog. This is him (the one lying on the pavement):
Yes. Someone is doing an ollie OVER him.
Even if you’re not a skater

…More later. Class is about to start.

Edit:

Wow, I stopped mid-sentence to pay attention in class.  Ha!

ANYWAY, check out Eric’s blog about skating.  He has a few entertaining interviews with skaters, tips and research on learning new tricks, and skating sites in different cities.  His most recent blog post is a disturbing picture of several cops “using necessary force” to subdue a skater. I never really understood why the fuzz makes such a big deal about skateboarders.  They’re really not doing anything terribly wrong, but for some reason they’re just a bunch of hooligans causing a ruckus. Oh well. Keep causing a ruckus, guys  :)