Manila vanilla

Remember way back when we had all those twee little emo kids from India or Manila or wherever submitting their blogs for evisceration? 'Member that? Of course you do. Who could forget? Well, we thought we had exhausted that particular resource, but no. There's more. Aren't we lucky? Or cursed. Whichever.

When the Excrement Hits the Ventilation

She has a terrible, horrible, really, really bad template. Bland, boring, soulless. The template actually makes me physically angry. I want to punch this template and then maybe pee on it, and I am normally a very docile, peaceful, live and let live kind of person, and I don't like to soil my hands with violence. Bad for the complexion, too. But this? I could happily run over this blog template, back up, do it again, then light it on fire and dance while it burns.

Roll up the categories 'cause they go on forever. She has like twelve zillion other blogs, too, which makes me think she's ADD. And as she's got eleventy-five hundred people on her blogroll (in coordinating categories, no less), I think it's about damn time she added a whole other page for those. There are also all kinds of linky whozits and stat counter things cluttering the sidebar up, which you know we hate, not to mention ads. Also, the navigation is for shit.

And you just know I'm going to hate the writing, don't you? Well, you're wrong. It's actually not bad. Pretty funny at times, in fact. Redjeulle's not a bad writer. Seriously. No, really, I'm not kidding. I surmise that she actually does it for a living. Ish. Maybe. Oh, there are too many memes, and there are times when she writes in Tagalog (I think), so to me it all looks like afjkd lsa jklfd uiks, and there are a lot of cultural differences that I can't wade through ("lolo" what?), but barring that, there are good things here. And she's been doing this a long, long time. Since September 2004, which is like 20 years in blog years.

Is it great writing? Is it lyrical and moving and engrossing and do I want to come back again for more, just to see what she's come up with next? No. But Redjeulle's got personality, she's keen and she writes fairly well and seems to enjoy herself. The blog is full of travelogues and details about her buddies and their jaunts to Starbucks and some place called Chocolate Kiss, and there are hangovers and small anxieties and wry observations and pretty pictures.

In her "About Me" she tells us what she hates, but hatred isn't the measure of a person (generally, unless you're Driz), so I'd be happy with more back story. As so often happens with blogs we review, there's a lot of surface, a lot of innocuous banter, but not a lot of exploration or depth or meat. And there's no sex, unless you count lusting after surfers and celebrities, which I don't, although hi hottie. She posts frequently, but meaninglessly. Little snippets of life, glimpses of vacations and nights out but never any real exposition. It's a bit like she's writing to keep friends up to date, and I'm not her friend so most of the time I don't much care, even though she makes me giggle. Also, the name is misleading: I never once saw any shit hitting fans.

All told, I was pleasantly surprised by Redjeuelle. I won't be back for more, but I didn't hate my foray into her world. I even enjoyed it a little bit, if you overlook the times I had to leave the room to refrain myself from garroting her template.

I give it





for the (surprisingly) pretty good writing,







for all the filler, memes, and lack of depth, and






for the template that made me want to kick you in the head. Hard.