About Mr. Topp

The custodian and primary author of the Big Bad Blog is the man known as “Mr. Topp”.

Yes, this is his real name.

Mr. Topp was born in the 1970s, in Canada. Nearly thirty years later he left that country for the wilds of London, with an intention to study the natives and bring some semblance of culture to that foreign land. He is thus far largely unsuccessful, and the British fascination with football appears to continue unabated.

However, while in London, Mr. Topp successfully created the Young Miss Topp, most often known on the Big Bad Blog as “Maggie”.

About the Big Bad Blog

The Big Bad Blog is Mr. Topp’s primary creative outlet, and is written and maintained in what little free time Mr. Topp finds available. This is found for the most part in the early morning, when he is not yet due at work and Maggie is sleeping. Many of the stranger things here can, perhaps, be blamed on a lack of coffee.

The blog is reputedly updated nine times each week. Monday to Friday, there is a Morning Coffee. Monday to Thursday there is an evening post.

The Big Bad Blog’s topics

Morning Coffee (RSS)

Each weekday morning, Mr. Topp offers a brief digest of stuff-he-has-seen-on-the-internet-lately.

The format of the Morning Coffee changes from time to time, but there are three constants:

• A pretty (or funny) picture
• A bit of text, which links to a different place in the internet
• A webcomic

Parenthood (RSS)

One of the more popular topics on the blog, this was (and is) spurred on by the invention of Maggie.

If Maggie does something interesting — and I mean more than just interesting-to-me interesting — or I have some insight to life or parenthood, it goes here.

Presumably if I have any parenting tips, they would go here as well. But seeing as I don’t know what I’m doing and despise people who think they have all the parenting answers, these moments should (hopefully) be rare.

The Photoblog (RSS)

In addition to writing, Mr. Topp likes to take photos. Most of these end up on Flickr, but some few of them are also published to the photoblog. Or are published there instead.

The photoblog has its own About page which can be found here.

Roleplaying (RSS)

Around the age of eight, I was introduced to Dungeons and Dragons.

While I have, from time to time, stopped playing for a year or three, playing roleplaying games continues to be one of my favourite hobbies. The occasional insights and/or reactions to trends in roleplaying games would be posted under this topic.

You should be warned that we are very opinionated about our roleplaying games here at the Big Bad Blog.

Technology (RSS)

When I was a university student, a large portion of my studies were spent examining the impact of new technology and scientific discovery on society, from a public policy perspective. It is a topic I enjoy and love, and I feel that I have real insights about the topic.

On the other hand, the Internet is littered with technology blogs — the Internet is technology — and the breadth of reading required to be up to date and sufficiently informed to form real insights about new technologies without specialization is formidable.

These things damper the desire to contribute to the discussion. But the true damping effect is that technology bloggers tend to be morons wielding buzzwords. I simply don’t want to be like them.

As such, the Technology portion of the blog goes largely neglected these days. Occasionally we add to it, to be a light in the darkness of the technology blog world. But really, we don’t want to be.

Fencing (RSS)

My other main hobby is fencing.

At one point in time I was very involved in the sport, as an athlete, a referee, and a coach. These days, I barely have time to play twice a month. The result is that I have very few new insights into the sport, and this means that I write very little about it.

As such, the sport probably does not deserve its own separate category here on the Big Bad Blog. But it’s here for now, anyways.

Observations (RSS)

Anything that does not fit in the above categories – which is most of what I write – gets filed under “Observations”. Here, I review things, talk about the weather, blogging, spam, air travel, tattoos, goats, and anything else that crosses my mind.

In other words, the good stuff is here.

Getting in touch

So, you have made it this far through the About page, and now want to get in touch with the resident blogger? How you get in touch depends on why you want to get in touch.

I want you to write something for me

If you want the Big Bad Blog to write something for you, you may write to us at pitches@mrtopp.com. If we receive your pitch at some other e-mail address, we will simply ignore it, because it shows that either you cannot be bothered to read our entire About page, or ignored it. Bad pitcher! Bad!

Advice to pitchers

Here is a short list of things to keep in mind:

• The Big Bad Blog does not exist to sell your product. But we like bribes.
• The Big Bad Blog will be honest if reviewing your product. So make sure you have something we’ll like, if you want us to be positive.
• The Big Bad Blog takes cash money, because the company that hosts our servers only accepts cash money.
• The Big Bad Blog will also, in rare instances, take sample goods as compensation. This is a good sign, actually, as it means that we anticipate liking your product.
• The Big Bad Blog does not accept links as currency.

I want you to host an ad

If you are writing us for this reason, take another look at the blog. There are no ads here.

That said, if you are willing to cover the blog’s costs (hosting + domain renewal), and have an unobtrusive ad for a product that we do not mind supporting, we would be willing to run your advertisement for the duration of time for which you are willing to cover our costs.

If you feel your ad fits the above description, contact us at advert@mrtopp.com.

If your ad does not meet the description, then either change it or get lost. Don’t e-mail us with an offer we will refuse. Yes, we know that our traffic is too low to charge that much for an ad. That’s our price.

I want to arrange a link exchange

Go away. Far, far away. There are no link exchanges here.

I saw something you should blog about

If you have seen something awesome that the Big Bad Blog should see, please let us know!

Contact us at discoveries@mrtopp.com

I want to be a guest blogger

We like guest bloggers here. They give us breaks from the unrelenting blog schedule you see above (way, way, way above). That said, we have standards — or like to imagine we do — so please be sure to include a writing sample (or a link to one) when contacting us at guestblogger@mrtopp.com

I want to complain

Complain in the comments. It’s more entertaining when it’s public.

I have a reason not listed above

Site administration issues should be sent to admin@mrtopp.com.
Anything else should be sent to feedback@mrtopp.com.