First impressions last. When it comes to the tedious task of reading other people's 'random musings', or whatever rapidly decreasing in wittiness title they like to use for their cerebreal secretions, this is certainly true.I can safely say my first impression upon opening this weeks blog for review would make your grandmother's ears bleed and eyeballs shrivel. 'Why so?' I hear you cry - because I got this:
That's why.
Now listen here, if you think that I have all week to sit and press F5 on your blog waiting for it to come back online, you may well be correct, but it pisses me off.
Being the dedicated reviewer/lifeless misery I am, I actually came back to squeeze in at least a quick look at some of what you had to say for yourself. I have a soft spot for expats, being one myself, and the idea of upping sticks and moving to Mexico is a nice romantic one, and I fancied a good read of it.
I’m sorry to say, Mexico’s gain of a couple of residents, is America’s loss of a bloody dull blogger.
Come on for the love of God, beef it up, show us the romance, the excitement, the fear, the fun, the frollics, or even the tequila associated with this huge life change. This move south of the border deserves better than matter of fact checklists.
At one point you even quote another blog about the magic of it all. Why quote them? You are living it, you are articulate, write it yourself!
I had trawled through the first 6 or 8 months of your planing before your blog exploded ensuring I never go back again, so in trying to think of good things to say I’m a bit short, although I did like this picture of money. Consider the barrel’s arse well and truly scraped.
Where could you improve? Yikes, CPR on your posting approach perhaps? Put a bit of life into it. It’s not a shopping list you’re compiling, you’re living your dream, an adventure.
Not to mention, that header gave me the feeling you were trying to rent me a pair of pedalos.
For absolutely failing to capture my ready to be captured imagination with anything you wrote, it’s a:
For having a blog that vanished:
I read/skimmed two posts before I fell into a coma and hit my head on my keyboard, but my impression is that this is a blog of a retired American couple living in Mexico.
ReplyDeleteWith that said, it reminds me a lot about the journals we found after my grandmother died, which taught me what the prime time tv lineup was on Tuesdays back in 1983, and that my grandparents had a meal schedule that rarely changed.
It's oddly soothing, in a simple and coma-inducing sort of way.
This is what my parents would write if my parents had a blog. And, that's both good and horrible at the same time.
ReplyDeleteIs this really all there is after you retire? I went here. I saw this. I ate that. We played cards with these people. Dad painted the living room yellow.
Gah. I better die middle-aged.
All I know is that omelette looks awesome. And I'd like to spend about six years on a beach right about now.
ReplyDeleteIt's just one big itinerary. I was so bored after the first 3 paragraphs. We went here, and then we did that, and then they came over, etc. I'd prefer to read the "Just Me" blog that was reviewed the other day because at least her opinions made me feel something.
ReplyDeleteThat bacon looks incredible. That's all I got.
ReplyDeleteMmmmm, breakfast.
ReplyDeleteI like breakfast, once a week. The rest of the week? Coffee and cigarettes.
ReplyDeleteLamp?
ReplyDeletePictures of food frustrate the hell out of me. If I am looking at bacon and eggs I should be able to eat bacon and eggs. It's just unfair.
ReplyDeleteKey: I think coffee and cigarettes qualifies as "breakfast". It does where I'm from, anyway.
I love lamp.
ReplyDeleteI'm more of a Diet Coke and candy bar girl, myself.
Tits: Doesn't the candy bar cancel out the diet coke? Pick up a cigarette.
ReplyDeleteThe way I look at it? The Diet Coke doesn't contribute to the candy bar.
ReplyDeleteWhy add the extra 100 calories.
Also? Oddly, I cannot stand soda with sugar in it. It grosses me out.
I drink diet soda only. The other stuff has a weird after taste. Also, I like my teeth.
ReplyDeleteExactly my point. It makes me feel like I have sugar scum in my mouth all day.
ReplyDeleteI had cookies and a Coke Zero for breakfast. Breakfast of Champeens. Not champions.
ReplyDeleteMy breakfast consisted of coffee and acrimony.
ReplyDeleteMaybe I need to watch Crabman again.
Miss M: Cue the T.I. when you watch it. Feels better.
ReplyDeletenine in my left, forty-five in tha otha hand...
Thanatos, the problem is that you only scar your liver on the weekends.
ReplyDeleteYou need to toughen that bitch up. Mine is all callouses and swelling. It's not a whiner!
Cal - I was raised on cookies for breakfast. Which says a lot.
Breakfast this morning, as every morning: coffee and effexor.
ReplyDeleteBreakfast of the only mildly sane.
First thing I do every morning.
ReplyDeleteLet the dog out.
Crack a Diet Coke and wash down the Cymbalta.
Breakfast? What is this elusive, tasty-sounding noun? Would I like it?
ReplyDeleteSometimes, I accidentally swallow toothpaste.
ReplyDelete"Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to college."
ReplyDelete- Vonnegut.
Vonnegut can bite me; I love a semicolon.
ReplyDeleteProbably why he's a legend and I'm a loser.
I knew Cal would have something to say.
ReplyDeleteAll this talk of semi's and colon's I know Ghost is going to pop up soon.
It's possible I could wax poetic about en dashes, em dashes, hyphens, and semicolons. It's also possible I'm never getting laid again.
ReplyDeleteTits: How right you are. You said 'pop up'. Colon=Semi.
ReplyDeleteThat was like, a dirty grammatical equation.
ReplyDeleteBask in my Dirty Awesomeness. Well, put on a body condom first, then bask in my Dirty Awesomeness.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure bask is the right word. Let's go with wallow.
ReplyDeleteI'd rather everyone went with 'swallow'.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to go swallow some pizza and salad.
ReplyDeleteToothpaste?
ReplyDeleteDirty Awesome Pizza? Tossed Salad?
ReplyDelete...cymbalta.
ReplyDeleteCymbalta=Dirty Awesome Pill.
ReplyDeleteMany years from now, when aliens inhabit the earth (or possibly the next level of human existence, if we don't die out), these types of blogs will provide vital information about Homo Internetus. What did they eat? What strange religious rites did they follow? What sexual perversions did they participate in? Did they pop their collars?
ReplyDeleteFuture generations will want to know. They just won't want to read this blog. They'll want more entertaining people to read this blog and then come up with epic poetry -- or a TV series -- about it.
I think the future's interpretive dance which we'll hand down from generation to generation.
ReplyDeleteAustralia. You will find the answers in Australia.
ReplyDeleteLos Awesomes.
ReplyDeleteLos Awesomes - Palabra su madre.
ReplyDeletePalabra, hotos.
ReplyDeleteque son hotos?
ReplyDeleteYeah, you lost me again.
ReplyDeleteMy bad, jotos.
ReplyDeleteas in "hoes"?
ReplyDeleteI still don't know what jotos are.
ReplyDeleteIt is slang for gay men. Good job!
ReplyDeletehere they're called mariquitas. I don't really know if that's derrogatory or not. Those are the nuances of language that I don't really get.
ReplyDeleteBlue: Say 'jotos'. It sounds way more offensive than 'putas'. I coulda rolled with maricon, but I can't remember how to make it plural. 'Maricones' sounds like a desert.
ReplyDelete'Dessert'. I'm fucking in need of spell check today.
ReplyDelete"Putas" - well, it depends on how you pronounce it. You know, you gotta put a lot of hate into that "u".
ReplyDeleteMaricones is right, although mariquitas I think is a bit nicer. Mariquitas are literally lady bugs.
Huh. Well, I don't want to offend anyone, so:
ReplyDeletePalabra, mariquitas.
Take your kid to work day needs to end.
ReplyDeleteNow.
Eh is this some national occasion? I see annoying brats all over the place in my office too.
ReplyDeleteI want breakfast now. And that baby...I would so steal that baby.
ReplyDeleteBut not really.
It's 'take your one remaining parent down the sewers with you' day in India.
ReplyDeleteK...
ReplyDeleteWhat's this, hangman?
ReplyDeleteScrabble then, go on, give us a clue...
ReplyDeleteYeah, you probably need to get one.
ReplyDelete*zing*
ReplyDeletelicking batteries. that explains it.
ReplyDeleteIs that what you holy men call it these days?
ReplyDeleteYou know, Big Daddy Gene, you may have a point about that header inspiring the rental of a pedalo. I mean, maybe that's what they give you for taking time to read their blog. Along with a guided tour of Mexico City where you can be killed by a stray bullet, smog, extreme poverty, overdose or oncoming car to put you out of your reading-induced misery.
ReplyDeleteI've missed you Gene.
ReplyDeleteAs hard as I try, I just cant summon a shit to give about this blog. I live in Phoenix witch is like Mexico sans the beach and huge-ass fireworks.
ReplyDeleteSorry bout the "whitch", Im hopped up on Dayquil and Vodka.
ReplyDeleteI hope one day that when GoK and I retire in Ireland, that we have a kick ass drunken fighting blog. Yeah.
ReplyDelete...it doesn't smell like Irish Spring, our drunken fighting blog...
ReplyDeleteI think you might have wanted to refresh your browser or something because my blog is there and has been there all along. I guess you never ever get a momentary not found error on your server, right?
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I thought that you would look at my blog in light of what it is...a journal about our decisionmaking and moving to another country.
Then the comments are basically discussing amongst yourselves whether you like bacon for breakfast.
I am really disappointed that I didn't get anything constructive out of this..you guys are just too hip to live, I guess. And you also probably never make a list even when you plan a move to another country.
I'm sorry that we all wasted our time.
The bacon was worth going on about.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I think it's just because talking about bacon is more interesting than reading your blog, Nancy.
ReplyDeleteI did like your post about smoking.
Also, I'd like to go on record and say that Rassles is the only one here that is 'too hip to live'. Also, 2 legit 2 quit. Hay. Hay.
ReplyDeleteOkay. Since we're being told to act serious and stuff, I need advice.
ReplyDeleteDear Ask and Receive Comment-ers,
Can I have bacon with vodka?
Thanks,
Thanatos
Thanatos: Yes. Seriously, yes. Bacon and alcohol always go together.
ReplyDeleteGoK, thanks for clearing that up.
ReplyDeleteGreasy bacon, chilli cheese fries and alcohol. Mmmm, weekend's here.
Mexico, bacon?
ReplyDeleteSwine flu baby!
I may not be hip but I'm topical(not like you spread me over stuff)
Now I'm totally going to have that song stuck in my head. Also, am craving lime jello, I've had stomach flu for the past 3 days.
ReplyDelete"I'm sorry that we all wasted our time."
ReplyDeleteBullshit. You're not sorry you wasted any time, because I doubt you actually wasted any. You're simply pissed off that we didn't lo-o-o-ove it as is.
FACT: Christmas card newsletter thingies that tell me about every vacation taken and every operation endured and every single person who stopped by for a visit are only interesting to a very small handful of people, 90% of whom were directly involved in the writing. This entire blog is about that.
So. If that's all you want to attract, keep doing what you're doing. If you want to broaden your readership, you need to adopt a more catholic (small 'c', not big 'C' -- look it up, it is appropriate) approach to your story telling.
How's that for constructive?
Oh, and yes, I make lists when I take trips. But I have yet to publish any of them in a public forum and then request a review.
Wow, Posol, who peed in your coffee?
ReplyDeleteShit, was that what that was? I knew it tasted ... odd. Never drank pee before, I mean, other than my own, of course. But, hey, who hasn't done that, right?
ReplyDeleteAnyone?
Shit, I HATE it when I am the only one.
I had decaf this one time...
ReplyDeleteI like it when Pos gets kind of punchy.
ReplyDeleteMe too, LB, that was all sorts of rad.
ReplyDeleteHey, the blog itself was not worth getting worked up about. It's blah, not my thing, what have ya. But there was something about the response that wouldn't go away. I tried to ignore it for days, employing the old "If you have nothing nice to say..." technique. But I just couldn't stand it no more.
ReplyDeleteThe passive aggressive tone of the response I think is what really pissed me off.
I would have been much less pissy if she had just come here and said "You clearly don't get what we're doing here." Or even "You patronizing fuckheads. Who the fuck do you think you are?" Instead we got the sarcastic "Sorry we're such a bother" treatment.
Oh, and coffee without piss in it is *much* better than with.
ReplyDeleteThis comment thread is making me crave Tuna Casserole.
ReplyDeleteI think you might have wanted to refresh your browser or something because my blog is there and has been there all along. I guess you never ever get a momentary not found error on your server, right?An hour and a half, at the very least. 3 different browsers too.
ReplyDeleteI certainly have, but not when I was looking to have my arse kissed.
Anyway, I thought that you would look at my blog in light of what it is...a journal about our decisionmaking and moving to another country.In that light...it's still dull.
I am really disappointed that I didn't get anything constructive out of this..like ramming tit home that you need to write with a bit more life?
"beef it up, show us the romance, the excitement, the fear, the fun, the frollics" Otherwise, how can you make your lists more interesting? bullet points? numbers?
I'm sorry that we all wasted our time.I'm sorry you did too, you big sulker.