The One Where I Don't Swear

I usually find meta-criticism to be about as useful as peanut-butter on a pool table, but when it’s me taking a photo of a photo, I think it’s a brilliant endeavour. Reviewing a blog that does reviews of its own? Let’s get in there amongst the gristle and bone and delve into the art of critique; let’s get down deep and dirty to the heart of it, the epicentre of analysis, and see if we can’t fish out some...

Wait, what’s this?

Y'know what makes me laugh? The fact that someone out there decided to name their cellphone company Virgin Mobile. VIRGIN Mobile. The company, and all its phone citizens, have never....well, you get it right?

Oh, no.

There are soooo many things I hate in the world. And since I have about two whole hours of Internet time, here are some of them, courtesy of my brain. Don't be mad if you're not included; I still hate you, I just can't list the PEOPLE I hate because I hate everyone, until they prove themselves worthy of my liking that is.

Omigod.

I hate the dentist. Why would you allow a stranger who you never met stick their gloved hands down their throats and scrape at their pearly whites? I'm ready to bet money that the so-called "dentists" are gonna find a "cavity" and "take it out" in order to get some more cash from my mom.

Look, I’m going to be completely honest with you here, whoever it is that is authoring Hazardous Material: you’re fifteen, maybe sixteen; I am going purple holding my profane tongue so as not to be accused of contributing to the delinquency of minors, and you’re not making this very easy for me. Here, let me show you what I mean:

I've been watching a lot of the 08 Olympics in Beijing lately. Every morning I tune in to see what's going on in the fantastic world of sport events, and I'm particular interested in swimming. It has been mostly focused on Michael Phelps, a fellow American who holds plenty of records, one I think for most gold medals. As I watching one day my mom pointed out that he has big feet, so I put two and two together and realized that his large feet help him swim faster than most others. Like flippers, haha.

Now, I’m not a writing teacher; I’m an incredibly insensitive, incandescently irritable sometime-blog reviewer who spends a little bit of his time focusing on the writing of blogs I am set to review. That, up there above that I’ve quoted from your Olympics-piece? It is terrible, and a good example of how spell-check only catches words that are spelled incorrectly – you still need to read the thing over before you hammer that "publish" button – and a stark reminder that there is a massive gulf between "commentary" and "typing words into a blog".

I’m going to assume that you’re still in high-school, and I’m presumptive enough to suggest that you really listen to your English teacher. I mean really listen; take notes, ask questions, ponder, ruminate, cogitate, give yourself the benefit of forethought and actually work through a piece before you post it instead of shoving whatever comes to mind out onto the interweb.

You need to think about what you’re writing and why anyone would want to read what you’ve done, who your audience is, because other than those less-than-stellar attempts, you’re just regurgitating things you’ve read elsewhere while jamming YouTube videos into your posts. It’s the equivalent of having a diary and filling the pages with stickers: what’s the point? Get a sticker book.