Friday, May 23, 2008

If it's a piece of shit, you must convict

I’m suing Law and Motherhood for misrepresentation. There isn’t anything that I could find about the law in this blog, except a violation of the law of common sense. She posts under a pseudonym, but directly below her photo, she lists her real name, occupation and a few past jobs on her Linked In profile. Get rid of that, tout de suite. All this information, coupled with the photos of your little ones and your profession just screams, “I have money, please abduct my kids and here is a way to google a map to our house.” I was able to get your town and address in less than ten minutes and I am not even a stalker – OK, I’m a nice stalker. A little anonymity goes a long way when you are posting your kiddos on the web.

I like her banner; it’s interesting and novel. I thought we might get to hear some great dirt about what it’s like to be a mom and a lawyer. But I didn’t find any stories of day old coffee; the rush to prepare interrogatories at three AM to beat filing dates; no tidbits about run-ins with other jurists. Nada. Maybe she’s just respecting confidentiality, but man, that’s boring, don’t tease us. We want dirt.

When I scrolled downward, my eye caught the horrid, triple pane of death, which is her template. I am not a fan of triptych style blogs, they are visually confusing, unless it’s done well and this one just ain’t. She’s got more useless crap than I have in my kitchen junk drawer. Blog banners, ads out the wazoo (I counted twelve), awards, political statements, meme lists. Kill me now. Then she has a little congratulatory blurb on the bottom giving credit for the blog design. At least that tells us where NOT to shop for our site workup. Go look, then tell me if your head doesn’t feel like it’s going to explode.

The perpetrator writes mainly about her family life; some overlong, but cute haikus about barfing in the back seat, and a lot of information about attachment parenting. I love attachment parenting, but yawn. Slap me awake, Love Bites, you know how I love that!

Lawyer momma, pick a topic and stick with it. You jump all over the place. You grab me with a witty little bit about shelf paper, and then, you’re off topic in the same post about how tired you are and your kid’s tantrum. You had me and you lost me within seconds. Fighting with sticky shelf paper is just weird enough to be potentially interesting, but you blew it. You’re writing poorly organized letters home and frankly, there’s not much worth reading or reviewing here.

Now, there have been blogs that I have read, where I have just really clicked with the writers, their topics and have subscribed to right away and stayed for years. This wasn’t one of them. Apparently I am not alone; she only has one subscriber, which is probably her husband.

Here's your rating:


You want fries with that?

19 comments:

  1. Remind me never to piss off mutha. She apparently has practice with spankings. ;)

    ReplyDelete
  2. And in this case, the spanking is extremely well-deserved. I gave this blog a cursory glance when I sent out the assignments, and thought, "Oh, that could be good."

    It's frustrating when you see a blog with an attractive header that looks like someone has really made it into something neat, and then you start reading and realize it's crap, impossible to navigate around on, and full of widgets and banners.

    ugh. *sigh*

    Lawyer mom needs to look at yesterday's mommy blog for a lesson or two.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I was a bit disappointed when I started looking at this the other evening, it had promise.

    I didn't think it was AS bad as mutha made it out to be but it was a disappointment.

    And I'm glad mutha didn't review me is all I can say.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks for the review guys, I appreciate your viewpoint.

    Of course, I think you are wrong, but as it's clear from my blog and profession, my ego is strong enough for me to believe that. I started this blog for me, and happily, I like it.

    At least I can ride the short bus with a smile.

    Thanks for taking the time to go back to 2006 and read me. I am sorry it was such a painful experience for you.

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  5. This is kind of what I was hoping to read on today's blog. But didn't.

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  6. Love Bites -
    I really have to thank you for tipping me off to bslawgirl.
    Her blog is going right in my favorites!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Agree with the lack of law-related posts. But there was this rather interesting one about bees....wanted to leave the link here, but my comp hangs up most times I open 'Law and Motherhood' (nothing to do with the site, my RAM's on permanent vacation)

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  8. New to blogging, we've been constantly following links from blog to blog, usually disappointed. This time we aren't.

    We'd submit our own work for review, but it's a week old, has zero readers, and is fairly one dimensional. However we're adding your site to our "blogroll," if only because we don't know any other way to keep up with sites we enjoy.

    One time Arthur stepped on a rake to see if cartoon physics were accurate. They were, and he's an idiot. This is neither here nor there, but we thought we'd leave on an anecdote.

    hugs to everyone,
    -Arthur and Amy

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  9. I think we need to clarify to Scylla. YOU are not a piece of shit. There are very few bloggers that I feel that way about, although I would make an exception for Mutha's last review. I do think she is.

    However, your blog needs work. You need to hone your writing skills, focus, and start self-editing. And you have way too much crap going on, template-wise and writing-wise. Your blog has promise but falls short of what it could be.

    If you take anything to heart, take that.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Welcome, A&A.

    One more thing, Scylla, if you aren't practicing laws these days, you may want to redo your site to focus in on the motherhood part, versus the law part.

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  11. It's really frustrating me that I can't work a single Law & Order joke into this whole thing.

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  12. "I would make an exception for Mutha's last review. I do think she is." You mean the reviewee, not Mutha, right? Because when I read that, it put me in kind of a "Green Eggs and Ham" kinda place.

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  13. Oh man, I just read it again. Never mind.

    (I've got the flu. I'll just go back to my couch, resume trying not to die, and shut the hell up.)

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  14. Reading Scylla's response on her page, I was impressed that she responded to the review with dignity and a sense of humor.

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  15. She must have changed her template already, because all I'm getting when I click over is blue and corners. It makes me kind of sad, because I always enjoy the vomit-like, possible seizure-inducing templates at least once.

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  16. I really hope the next one reviewed is shit. I'm in the mood for one of those.

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  17. Oh hey, delayed thanks for the welcome, Love Bites. You guys seem like a fun bunch. I think I'll hang out in the corner.

    ReplyDelete

Grow a pair.