Uncyclopedia:Pee Review/Volcano(resubmit)
Volcano[edit source]
Second opinions are always good, sometimes. P.M., WotM, & GUN, Sir Led Balloon 
(Tick Tock) (Contribs) 00:16, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
| Humour: | 7 | There seem to be a number of oxymorons, which can be either confusing or funny. See endnotes. Good humorous premise and development. |
| Concept: | 8 | Good subject, good satirical twist on the facts. |
| Prose and formatting: | 8 | Good writing. |
| Images: | 7 | Images are appropriate and interesting. |
| Miscellaneous: | 8 | I like this piece; it's a good subject well-treated. |
| Final Score: | 38 | |
| Reviewer: | ----OEJ 15:04, 9 August 2007 (UTC) | |
Endnotes: Some phrases twisted this reader's brain somewhat: a "melodramatic anticlimax" could be an oxymoron, slightly out of sync with the attention-whore premise. A-Ws would most likely try for a melodramatic climax, though it may fall short in the eyes of some -- which may be what the phrase is suggesting. I wasn't sure. It is incredibly hard to write with such clarity that no reader can possibly misunderstand what you mean. Incredibly hard.
The concept -- giving volcanoes human neuroses -- amused me. The last two sentences undermined the premise a bit, and if I were to suggest changes it might be to make the volcanoes consistently animate throughout -- don't admit that they are anything but personality-driven, bombastic, neurotic prima donnas.
On the decommissioning of Mt. St. Helens, it might be interesting to suggest that Washington's governor is going to attempt a psychological decommissioning, pumping hundreds of thousands of gallons of camomile tea through cast-iron pipes into the crater. Or something. Incidentally, Icelanders once turned aside a lava floe which threatened the only harbor on one of their volcanic islands by pumping hundreds of thousands of gallons of cold seawater on the advancing floe. They created a berm of hardened lava which protected the harbor mouth. The campaign is detailed in John McPhee's The Control of Nature -- you may have read it.
Anyway. The only other thing I might suggest is continued polishing. I suspect that sentences like this one --
- "It may continue to erupt sporadically for the duration of its lifetime, or simply wonder what the hell it was thinking and move on."
-- could be restructured to be somewhat funnier. My advice would be to take sentences that feel slightly mushy or unfocused and just play around with them. Put the phrases in different orders, break the sentence into two short ones, swap the verbs and nouns around. See how the different combinations feel.
But this is a well-written piece, and really what I'm talking about is fine-tuning. Good luck with this, it's a nice piece. ----OEJ 15:04, 9 August 2007 (UTC)