I Reviewed A Blog.

Editor’s Note: Billy Apathy is in the middle of elucidating his thoughts on joblessness when Nutjobber apparently loses his shit, tears up his notes, and begins chatting directly with Billy’s tedious single-thought/single-sentence paragraph structure. Luckily, Jobber has equipped his house with a bevy of audio-visual recording devices in anticipation of these not-uncommon breakdowns, and we were able to piece together this review from both these recordings and the remnants of whatever notes he managed to take before the frontal-lobe of his brain prolapsed. It is after Billy has confessed to twice-experiencing 'batshititis' that the dialogue, such as it is, begins.

Billy: The second time was worst than the first, and both times I hadn’t noticed until it was too late. Let me expound.

Jobber: [rolling eyes] Please do.

Billy: It didn’t help that I was a teenager.

Jobber: No, I don’t suppose so.

Billy: There were no bills to pay.

Jobber: Right.

Billy: No mortgage.

Jobber: Gotcha.

Billy: Just the shallow inspirations of getting the next video game immediately when it came out.

Jobber: I know what you mean: I harbour my own shallow inspirations, though mine have more to do with somehow rectifying your aversion to commas.

Billy: Of all the jobs I that I could have tried to get,

Jobber: [interrupting] I’m sorry - say again? [sounding it out] That-I-could-have-tried-to-get… okay. Continue.

Billy: I got a housekeeping job for a small college nearby.

Jobber: Awesome.

Billy: It was a summer job.

Jobber: Oh, it was a summer job, you say? Stunning.

Billy: There was a large group of us and we would spend all day cleaning the dorm rooms, class rooms, bath rooms, offices, hallways,

Jobber: [interrupting again] All right, just give me a second to make sure I’ve really wrapped my head around this extraordinarily complex scenario: you got a housekeeping job in which you were required to keep house? Wow - what a curveball! Same thing happened to me: I got this bartending job one time, and the next thing I know I’m tending bar! I know, right? I was like, 'what the fuck?' As you can imagine, I wrote this incredibly inane post about it years later in which I wasn’t content to just state my profession and move on, choosing instead to really grind out those minor details that are readily-apparent in the title of the job itself. But I’m getting off-track. Sorry. Please continue.

Billy: And on particularly unfortunate days the miscellaneous stuff like window washing.

Jobber: How awful: you, a housekeeper, having to wash windows only on particularly unfortunate days. I guess it’s little wonder, then, that you’re belabouring the point with a ferocity that makes a ravenous panther look like a smudge of ink.

Billy: In the beginning the job wasn’t so bad.

Jobber: Of course not. You were a housekeeper, not a trainee for the goddamned bomb-squad.

Billy: Then a month went by and I got my paycheck.

Jobber: That’s so incredibly fucking interesting I can‘t believe it. A month after starting your job, you got a paycheck. Holy shit! If there’s one singular piece of information ever uttered that deserves it’s own sentence more, I’d like to read it.

Billy: I was so excited to see that huge number on the check that I almost wet my jeans, but then my heart sank.

Jobber: Uh-oh - did you realize you forgot to wash a window?

Billy: It was one of those moments where you don’t take the time to clearly read the fine print before becoming ecstatic.

Jobber: Like when you skimmed the submission FAQ here at Ask, I presume.

Billy: I saw the number before the greedy little taxman took his cut of my money with his wicked laugh and curly moustache.

Jobber: Mm. Your taxman must have some kind of prehensile facial hair, I guess? Either that or 'wicked' has more of a grabby connotation than I was led to believe.

Billy: After that I wasn’t too pleased.

Jobber: No? Shocking!!! You were displeased because the taxman took some of your money? It’s fucking CRAZY that you felt that way!!!!! UNBELIEVABLE!!!!! HOLY FUCKING SHIT FUCK FUCFK STHISHITT!!!!!!!!!

Billy: My mind suddenly

Jobber: Let me stop you there, Billy, because I don’t care. Not at all. I don’t care what comes next, what your mind 'suddenly' did, whatever gradual point you’re making… I don‘t care. You know why I don’t care, Billy? You’ve given me not one solitary example of original thought to chew on as I painstakingly comb your blog like I’m searching out lice. No, Billy, that’s not a mixed metaphor - I eat lice. Isn’t that interesting, Billy? Doesn’t it at least have the capacity to be engaging? What do you do that’s interesting, Billy? What can you give me that will make me eager to read more? Something? ANYTHING? COME ON

Editor’s note: Here a long silence dominates the recording before an off-key version of PJ Harvey’s 'C’mon Billy' can be heard warbling softly in the background, followed by what sounds like pathetic sobbing. The pertinent criticisms we were able to salvage from Jobber’s 'notes' have been reproduced below, though we were unable to decipher much of his later work due to it being written in what appears (and what we hope) to be smears of balsamic vinaigrette.

Jesus dildo-shitting Christ: If you’re want to say 'fuck', say 'fuck'. F$#% is not 'fuck' - it’s chump-change from a five-dollar fuck-bill, and it’s the most gutless form of self-censorship imaginable. You’re writing a blog, Billy, not a thank-you note to your grandmother. If you don’t want to swear, fine, don’t, but don’t obfuscate the word. Do you think the people who are offended by 'fuck' are going to be less offended by F$#%? You do? No you don’t. Of course you don’t; you’re just being silly.

This couldn’t be lamer if it had three twisted ankles and a broken pelvis. I’ve seen blogs that recap episodes of The Real World that were less lame. If skywriters spoke in lame, Billy, you’d have this post floating over your house in an elaborate web of hotdog-shaped clouds. You can’t spell 'Me Billy Apathy' without LAME. If lame was a lame, lamey, I’ve lamed lamer lames lamely lame lame lame

Hell isn’t other people, Billy, it’s other fucking blogs. I asked Sartre what he thought about your philosophy, and he said you’ve got an amazingly cogent grasp of MEHtaphysics. Of course, he followed that up by kicking me in the nutsack and telling me that puns are for assholes, so perhaps we shouldn’t listen to Sartre. Maybe Sartre’s a dick.

Billy and I went on a walk. We passed a Burger King, and he pointed at it. He said, 'they make hamburgers there'. We walked on. 'The sidewalk is cracked,' he said. He looked down. 'Somebody could trip,' he said. He looked up. 'Blue sky today,' he said. 'Maybe a couple of clouds.’ I then strangled fictional Billy for assuming that I was incapable of coming to these conclusions myself.

The underlying principle of MEHtaphysics is still MEH.