Friday, January 16, 2009

Like Throwing a Hotdog Down a Hallway

Pull up a chair, Ginny from Praying to Darwin is today's guest reviewer. You might recognize Ginny from her weekly appearances at Canada's answer to the Cheetah Club, Teaser's Burlesque Palace. Catch her every Thursday for Hot Mamas on Da Pole Night. When she's not busy perfecting her inverted butterfly she's sharpening her mad writing skills. -Miss Missives

So one day, I'm minding my own (read: my neighbor's) business, just sitting on my couch (read: peeking through the curtains at my neighbor's husband in a car with a woman who is NOT my neighbor), when I get an email from Miss Missives. Would I care to do a guest review? Hellcat, yeah! Hook me up!

So I get my assignment: “If You Can't Say Something Nice”. Immediately, the smart ass twelve year-old in me wants to submit a blank email as my review. Come on, you're fucking begging for it. But that's just rude. And the title sounds a little gossip-y. And there's a cheesecake-looking picture in the header. And cha-ching, sex toys on the sidebar! So maybe...

But what's this? She moved? After she invited us over? (Note to self: try that move the next time my husband invites the in-laws over.) We're not off to a good start, here, Randi. While your blogger template was perfectly mediocre, the wordpress template is fugly. Seriously, you can do better. Damn near any of the free templates would be an improvement. Make it easy for us to get around; I'm a lazy, lazy woman. I like archives, I like a list of categories.

Randi's a mommy-blogger. And she's prolific. She's been at this since 2005; last year, she posted more times than I brushed my teeth (Say what you will, but my dentist fucking adores me. And my insurance.) There's a whole, whole lot of every day, diary entry stuff. If this blog is just for family and friends to keep track of you and yours, then carry on. If not, for the love of all things holy, pare it down. Write that post, go back and read it, figure out what the point was, then get to it. This post was going somewhere, then just stopped, abruptly. This one started out as a goodbye to a friend's dog, took a hairpin turn, and ended with a defense of a racial slur. (I can't agree, by the way.)

But what about the sex-toy reviews?” “Get to the dildos, already!” I had high hopes. But here's the thing. Once upon a time, the office I worked in had a receptionist named Susan. Susan was in her 50's, had a tight perm, and big, white-rimmed glasses. She liked to hang out “with the girls”, and talk about S-E-X. It was, in a word, off-putting. The reviews smacked of Susan. Do I believe Randi is a very kinky girl, the kind you don't bring home to mother? Probably. Does it come across in her reviews? Nope. “I'm fairly sensitive down there.” Sweet mother of god. Cunt, pussy, vagina, box, penis garage. All terms I'd rather read in reference to your hoo-ha than “down there.”

You're probably asking, “Hey, Ginny! Who the fuck are you to criticize?” Well, the answer is, nobody. And that's kind of the point. I'm the Joe-lene the Plumber of readers. The average person who looks at a blog isn't going to slog through hundreds of posts to get back to that one story you told that was worth reading. You've only got a few seconds to catch us lazy-asses.

My advice? Do your blog Kegels, Randi. Tighten that shit up. Only post when you have something to say. If you're going to do vibrator reviews, go hard or go home.



For now, it's a meh.



25 comments:

  1. So by 'down there', does she mean she's particularly sensitive about Australia?

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  2. FF: maybe she is upset about mexican immigration? Or she could be mad about the polar ice caps.

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  3. What a nice surprise to see Ginny over here today.

    I had high hopes for this one because of the sex toy thing, but I guess it wasn't all that.

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  4. The lack of Fabreeze freshness in her carpet?

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  5. The family dog's new haircut? Our planets' core temperature?

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  6. The meaning of metephorical hell? A shoddy pedicure?

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  7. Lawn treatment options? Casket shopping?

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  8. Maybe I'm trying to hard. She probably is just unsatisfied with the appearance of her thighs.

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  9. I bet she has cankles.

    By the way, this review was fucking awesome. Thanks to Miss Missives for facilitating it. (i.e., doing all the heavy lifting this week and next, while I slack off).

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  10. Yes, thanks Miss Missives, for gettin' mah shit together.

    BTW, I would never strip in Winnipeg. The windchill is -40 on a good day. And once you've chapped the old hairy taco, you're pretty much out of the business.

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  11. Damnit. Now I'm going to have that go hard or go home song stuck in my head all damn day.

    Never chapped the fish taco, but hell, if that's your thing, you can do that anywhere from missouri on north at the moment.

    Cumdumpster, anyone?

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  12. Ginny, your co-worker reminds me of an old neighbor of mine. Her name was Martha and she was in her mid fifties, skinny as all get out with a very gruff voice from the two pack a day Kool habit. My other neighbor and I invited her to an outside dinner party we were having(thought it be polite since it was partially her backyard) and to our surprise she came. There were about 18 of us, most of us in our late 20's, we got on the subject(mixed crowd) of gay men giving us advice on bjs. I think she thought the gloves were off as far as sex talk went'cause she just blurted out of nowhere that she was a squirter. Uh, you've never seen 17 people get so quiet, so fast. Can you say, uncomfortable?

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  13. Oh HELL no! At every gathering thereafter, did you automatically check the chair whenever Martha got up, hoping to god there wouldn't be a wet spot?

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  14. We did. And she was really proud of herself like this was very hot and I remember thinking two things: 1-why would anyone want to add a second level of cleanup to sex? 2- If I were a squirter, I would probably never orgasm b/c I'd be fixated on not squirting.

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  15. Thanks LB. More time doing things equals less time pondering homicidal thoughts. It's a win-win for everyone.

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  16. I used cumdumpster yesterday. Fuzzy flounder?

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  17. When I saw the title of the blog, I loved it, since I love Steel Magnolias, but although the blog wasn't bad, it wasn't the gossipy sweet thing that I had envisioned. Oh well.

    I am not crazy about her archival calendar, but then, maybe I am just too lazy to dig through the months, so I didn't get much out of her blog.

    At least no ads.

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  18. What a nice surprise Ginny!

    My boyfriend likes the phrase Axe Wound. That totally disgusts me but I have to admit it's funny.

    That crazy goodbye doggy thing and then onto racial slurs was really weird. Lets pick a topic and stick to it.

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  19. Also I really hate when people use LOL constantly in their blogs. It's like laughing at your jokes.

    I'm now going to fine tooth comb my blog for any LOL's and delete delete!

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  20. Fuck yeah, G-Love in the hiz-ouse. Mothafuckin' yeeeuh.

    I had no idea what to say, so I just said that. Clever, I know.

    Fuck. I need to bring on the sass.

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  21. Oh Holy Hell. Would you believe that I completely forgot that you were going to review me? Probably because I submitted for review but never got notification that anyone even GOT the submission for review!

    Ah well...

    I absolutely agree with you on the appearance of the new Wordpress blog - I hate it. But I can't seem to find one that looks good!

    As for the sex toy reviews, I can use pussy, cunt, and even "love button" (god I hate that term) but I was contractually obligated to use "female friendly" words. Basically, they didn't want me to alienate all of the 9-5ers who wear stockings and grannie panties.

    I have been showing a lack of focus, and I do appreciate the reminder! I need to have my posts more like the ones I've done where the breastfeeding nazi's wanted to roast me on a stick.

    Thanks for the review guys! I must now go shave "down there" so that my husband can perform some non-kinky stuff later....

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  22. Surely you can think of some more female-friendly words that are better than "down there." Here's some starters:

    Yoni
    Little purple flower
    lily
    Jewel
    the altar of vagina
    apricot split
    aphrodisiacal tennis court
    black bess, or correspondingly, blond bess or red bess or brown bess.
    Bluebeard's closet


    Here's a good place to visit to spice up your language.

    Just...have fun with it, for damn's sake.

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  23. I wasn't breast fed. At all. Look what happens when you refuse to nurse. Back to the potty talk. Why don't you check out some of those dirty romance novels? My fiancee has an incredible wealth of prude-friendly ways of describing human genitalia. She just chooses not to use such terminology.

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  24. What about 'feeding a tictac to a whale'?

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Grow a pair.