Monday, July 21, 2008

Monkey Shines or Monkey Shits?

For starters, it's shit brown. Not promising, not promising at all.

Why do I do this to us on a Monday? Hellifiknow. Oy, wait, because I'm going to be traveling this weekend, and Nutjobber is traveling all week, and anyway. You're stuck with me and the Monkey Shit Colored Blog. And really, that's all you need to know.

The template looks like the warped biogenic offspring you'd get if an orangutan humped myspace. It's very difficult to read, and it doesn't have to be. Monkey, see the tan color behind your design? Put THAT color in the table behind your words. If possible, lighten it up, to perhaps #FFF8DC or #F5F5DC. The rule of thumb with text is this: dark text, light background. Or, dark background, light text. Preferably, rule 1, because it is far easier to read. The lighter the background behind the text, the less likely your reader will feel that you've shoved a monkey turd in his or her eye. About your blog design right now, all I can say is, "It burns the eyes!"

I'm also not a fan of the movable width screen so favored by myspace connoisseurs the world around. That shit fucks with your design, and it generally ends up looking janky. I get that the color is supposed to be monkey-colored, and the little circular designs are apparently supposed to be monkey tales, but this is just a bad design. Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad. So, do something about that. While you're at it, insert drop-down archives, and get rid of the gadgets in your sidebar. Learn to use the hyperlink function, and make sure that linked text is recognizable as such to the reader.

The content is about as hit or miss as an unskilled monkey throwing poo at the zoo. Sometimes, you're on. Most of the time, though, you're off. You try too hard, you reach too far, you talk too much, and you retill material that has been done. to. death. You don't post daily, so your blog description is just lies and damn lies. Your grammar is, at times, atrocious. And, you use run-on sentences A. LOT. I find that annoying.

In short, if you are going to keep going down this monkeypath, your blog needs work. The blog design, rather than looking like random etchings in monkey poo, should be cleaned up to fit the content. The content needs the work of a good editor to trim out unncessary words,redundant phrases, and trite word combinations. You also need to start thinking about your ideas for posts a bit more to figure out if you're covering new ground, humor-wise, or just revisiting the same old monkey shit.

I give you a big fat . You've been blogging about six months, now. It's time for this monkey shit to be fixed.

32 comments:

  1. Ouch... and stuff. Good points on the template though. I may have to make some changes there. And I do ramble on, incessantly at times. But the hell of it is that I generally pare down posts somewhat prior to posting. That'll be harder to get into for me I suspect. But hey... thanks for the review and wake up call. I didn't know what to expect and figure it could have been worse.

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  2. What kills the comedy vibe for me is the constant asides. But that seems to be your shtick, Monkey Boy, and it's working for your readers.

    Even though it's not edgy or hip, that's not what you're going for. You just seem likable. Like Jim Belushi.

    And your audience like seventeen-tuple mine, so what do I know?

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  3. well i like monkey. This review is funny as hell though and brings up good points. Color preference though is in the eye of the beholder. Some people might like the color of baby shit.

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  4. If you have ever raised a child, you have a certain disdain for colors. In general.

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  5. Truly. I've seen enough poo to last me a lifetime.

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  6. I've had this one in my reader for some time. I think he's inconsistent. There are some absolute gems in there, maybe you just didn't get to them.

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  7. I think there are some gems. I linked to one. I just think that they are buried in monkey poo.

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  8. You know how some people are really good story tellers but the take forever to get to the good part and by then your like, get on with it already. I think this is Monkey. The spam post was really good and longish but it worked. A little ruthless editing would make him about 76% more readable without taking away his shtick.

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  9. I made a few changes... template wise anyway, hopefully making readability a little better. Again thanks for pointing out some of this stuff.

    But getting me to shorten up my drivel is going to be hard. But I'll definitely have that on my mind with future posts. Seems to be a lot of agreement on that aspect in here.

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  10. 'He'?

    I totally read a woman. (yeah fuck off, I know, who am I to talk)

    There REALLY is good stuff there, but it needs 'streamlining' I reckon.

    I think busy looking blogs can sometimes distract the authors, or maybe I should just stop drinking.

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  11. So I'm digging deeper, and like ten blogs in there's excellence. And I'm glad. Because like I said, Monkey just seems likable and I want him to be funny. And he is.

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  13. @ rassles -- Why thanks. It's rare for most people to dig into a blog archives. I don't often do that myself. I'm glad you found some things you liked. That is the most satisfying thing to me.

    Edit: Re-posted the comment under relevant blog url.

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  14. I am late getting into this, but I like the color of the blog. Not sure if it has changed since you reviewed it.

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  15. @ Queen Mutha -- I made a few changes to the template a few hours ago, hopefully for the better.

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  16. Monkey Boy. It's good to see that you got rid of that brown template. Just one more small suggestion. Try for a template which lets you use up more space. Your present one's got like an inch worth of empty space on either side. Agreed, it makes it look neat and tidy, but it's still good space going to waste. And NO. Thou shalt NOT fill up empty spaces with Adsense.

    Oh, the Spam post was hilarious. Am forwarding the link to everyone at work. Rock on, mate.

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  17. I think the template looks much better. I'd go with a different font, wider main column, etc., though. I like the Monkey, at least he took this review like a man.

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  18. @ love bites -- Well, yanno, whenever I wear my big boy pants I feel more manly, natch.

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  19. Do you think you could loan them out? Some of our reviewees may need them this week.

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  20. @ Love Bites -- Possibly. But if people are going to whine about a review, that they requested, what are the chances that the pants will help? And even more importantly, would they launder the damn things before returning them?

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  21. I'm absolutely shocked that a monkey is insisting on freshly-laundered pants. Take a lesson from our resident coon, please.

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  22. Yeah, but if you take one lesson, you take them all.

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  23. Or on the halfway like of a soccer pitch... just sayin'.

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  24. Exactly, to truly elevate one's spiritual status, the student must become one with the dumpster.

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  25. I have to know. Was the blog green before? Because isn't gorilla shit green? Then again, maybe this is monkey shit of a different color.

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  26. Stoop, LB? I thought that might actually be a step up for you.

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  27. driz, stop posting from key's account, dammit.

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  28. Sorry, LB, no driz. But looking at it, I see the similarities. Am I supposed to go cut myself now, or later?

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  29. Either way, as long as I get to watch.

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  30. It isn't possible to spend too much time here.

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Grow a pair.