Way Way Bad

This review courtesy of guest reviewer, Lolita LeBruise.

Okay, kids, I had a kind of popular lesbian/parenting/middle-age miasma blog for a few years and just shut it down. Love Bites, who sadly is not a lesbian, but a slutty little man-magnet, apparently felt I’d have a little time on my hands. So, she handed me my first assignment: The Way Way Up Blog.

Okay, let me put on my best Salmonberries parka and get started. The template is boring blue Blogger. Anyone who has requested a blog review here ought to know better – I mean did you read the rules? Even I knew better when I was reviewed a few years ago. But, I failed miserably. The next day, I got down on my knees before LB offering her anything to look at my blog again only to find she is strictly a slutty little man-magnet and I could continue to kneel to no avail or just rebuild my damn blog. I did.

This blogger is a young man who has made his career teaching in the uppermost reaches of northern Canada in the newest territory, Nunavut, which is the least populated and geographically the largest. Thanks Wikipedia - because even after reading this for quite some time, I had no idea beyond the random ice berg photo, where he might be blogging from. We could chalk it up to my geographic ignorance of an obscure Canadian territory, or we could just blame the blogger who can’t be bothered to draw new readers by letting us know why we’d ever want to know where he is or who he is. I vote blame the blogger.

While reading this blog, I just kept shaking my head saying, “Has he actually met any of the people in his life?” What had the potential to be a poignant “To Sir, With Love” or “Stand and Deliver” kind of blog is merely a litany of questionably studied opinions and the mundane day-to-day tasks that are his life. What could have been an exciting National Geographic adventure is a bunch of lifeless photography. What could have been an adventure in discovering the Inuit people and the descendents of the original European settlers through their stories and lore is post after post of soulless, dry lessons in history and culture with no connection to the people who actually lived it. Even his stories about his family, whom I would assume he knows fairly well, come across with all the flavor of cardboard.

The only times I detected the faintest heartbeat was when he defends seal hunting. His rant against Sarah MacLachlan sure told her. Uh, huh – take that Sarah – and may your musical dry spell continue! Yeah! My personal favorite is his Nazi/seal hunt comparison – um, don’t know if he thought of this, but we might actually formulate the thought that some people might think both are bad. It’s a complicated issue, seal hunting by indigenous peoples, but his trite rants do nothing to advance his case. Logic and reason aren’t his strong suits. Hopefully, he doesn’t teach math.

I finally gratefully tumbled headlong down the iceberg into the hungry polar-bear filled waters after reading the most recent post on the need for social workers in the area. His solution? Parents need to do a better job. He opines that some parents suck and some children might be better off on the street. Alert the media. I wanted to pick him up and slap some emotion into him. We’ve all heard it, but why do you feel this way? What have you seen? Who have you met? Give it some soul to illustrate the point without the banal conclusion.

The Inuit have many sociological and economic challenges and a rich and vibrant history and hearing about them and the European descendants in the area could have made for fascinating reading.

Summary: Blog template sucks, stories have no life, blog has no direction. It’s not a travel blog, a study in culture, a look at education, or a place of personal introspection.

He wants to take his posts and write a book. Heh. Yeah, this is the next Julie & Julia. But, good news; he has a new blog and a new job posting in yet another place that he will totally miss. Oh, and he’s a new dad. It’s got the best of the worst of daddy blogging written all over it with his scintillating post on contemplating the greater unpleasantness of baby poop over baby pee.

I give him a big: