Tuesday, June 03, 2008

Sisters Christian

I don't have a sister, but I do have an identical cousin. And she's always stealing my shit. Ok, not really. What I do have is an older brother with whom I did not get along until he left for college and I got the house and my parents to myself. Now, we get along great and he lives abroad and I see him twice a year and miss him like crazy. The closest thing I had to a sister was my cousin B, who was three months older and bossed me around like it was her job. These days we're as different as can be. She's Southern Living and I'm Bust.

But I always wondered about sisters. Brothers are different, I'm sure, what with their shoving and dirty socks and Star Wars action figures. With sisters surely there's some sort of cosmic link, some weird feminine divinity at work. Maybe it only seems that way to me, sisterless as I am.

And so it was with natural curiosity that I read my review victims: Sisters of a Different Order. It's a blog written by two sisters, two of something like four hundred sisters, I think. I lost count. Maybe it's closer to eight. Anyway, a lot of sisters. I'd say they have a plethora of sisters.

Fascinating, right? All that sisterness? Well, no. Not really. I thought it might be, but sadly it turned out rather boring. Ok, I know that's not nice. And honestly, these ladies really are very sweet and kind-hearted and good and... boring. There are quite a few "here's what I did today" posts. And lord they do go on. And on. My scrolling finger got tired and revolted, which turned into this whole episode where I was giving my monitor the finger. It wasn't pretty. Often the writing is five-paragraph-essay-ish. You know, when you're just learning to write, and you try to write like your teacher tells you to write instead of finding your own voice. One sister is more guilty of this than the other, but across the sisterhood board they're in dire need of an off button.

Oh, and there's religion. Sigh. But it's a very accepting kind of faith, so I wasn't put off, which surprised me because normally people say "pray" or "Christian" or "church" or "sin" and my first instinct is to run far, far away. And then sin. A lot.

But one of the sisters likes Firefly, which I absolutely love 'cause Joss Whedon is my god, so she has that going for her.

As for the design, the banner isn't terrible (although, hi, bright!), but I hate the template. What's with all the colors? Find a palette, stick to it. Roll up your categories, and get rid of some of the sidebar filler. Move the archives up. They're stuck down in no man's land. Some of it is just a mess, with weird changes in font size and color and broken wrapping text around images. Also, it crashed my Firefox, but seems ok in Safari. So beware.

And so here we are down at the summary and I'm a bit surprised two slightly treacly and faithful sisters would submit here, demon spawn that we are. But they do have a sense of humor, so perhaps they have balls to match under those habits.

Overall, I didn't hate it. I didn't much like it, either, but it didn't make me want to gouge my eyes out with a Sharpie or fling invectives their way. They're nice people who write frequently and not terribly and who've created a community for themselves in a relatively short amount of time. It's innocuous, unprepossessing, scrubbed up, and cheerful. Get a new template, clean up your sidebar, and polish up the writing (read: cut out about half of the words you write, have a point and stick to it, and don't include 12 different topics in one post if you can help it). Find your voice, and use it.





Also? Just for me? Maybe get a little gritty? I need a little bad. Ok a lot.

You get this little guy for being so sweet.

13 comments:

  1. So, who are you? Are you some sort of professional blog reviewer? Do you have credentials? I'm not getting it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I have to say I hate our sidebar too. But, sigh, I am a full time working mom with two kids and fixing my sidebar is probably last on my list.

    And of course I know i am the one that goes on and on. Sorry if we bore you, shrug. To each their own.

    Anyway, we didn't ask for a review today, although I appreciate honest feedback, but you were supposed to log in and talk about how your 8-week challenge went. Not sure if you actually read the post, but apparently you don't like to read us much so I don't blame you for not reading.

    Anyway, I too would marry Joss Weadon. I'm very excited about his new series on Fox, even though I don't get the channel. Oh well.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Oh dear. I was afraid of this. Confusion abounds.

    We are a review site. People submit their blogs for our review. We assume that you (Sisters) submitted your blog for review. My comment has nothing to do with your blog post.

    See our FAQs. Did you not submit??

    ReplyDelete
  4. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  5. lol, I just called Sister HB and she was confused but she may have submitted us a long time ago when she was blog crazy and wanted to be a rock star.

    To be truthful, we've been sucking a lot lately...so little time. I do have a funny bathroom post I'm planning.

    But I do appreciate the feedback :) no worries, I was just really confused. The SIster family plays a bad game of telephone! lol

    oops- I deleted. Anyway, I got in so much trouble by my mom to alluding to sex in ALmost Chili.. .so yeah... I don't get to be bad even when I want to. Lol!

    ReplyDelete
  6. It's cool. We all want to be rock stars. ;)

    ReplyDelete
  7. Aww honey, that's your first mistake! Don't tell your Mom about your blog!

    I like the blog. I've lost sight of finding a template for my own site, so I certainly won't comment on anyone else's.

    As far as interesting blogs go, we all have boring posts sometimes. You just learn to not read those. I almost always skip over the meme stuff.

    I liked two of this week's blogs. This one is one of them. I'll read it again.

    ReplyDelete
  8. "Are you some sort of professional blog reviewer?"

    Classic.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Nutjobber, it completely turns me on when I see that comment. Every time.

    ReplyDelete
  10. I'm expecting a check for my professional services any second now.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Glad I could turn you on! :0)

    ReplyDelete
  12. "...but it didn't make me want to gauge my eyes out with a Sharpie..."

    gouge*

    Sorry, had to be a grammar Nazi.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Oh Christ on a crutch, thank you Arjun. So embarrassing. And I'm an editor! Sigh.

    ReplyDelete

Grow a pair.