Tuesday, December 07, 2010

Bull's Pizzle

In my everyday gig I have to be encouraging and positive and nice. So when I got the chance to rip people apart I was fairly ecstatic. My students are a captive audience, and not in a good way. They don’t choose to be there, they have to be. But bloggers - ah, dear sweet, misguided bloggers; they indeed choose to inflict their words onto the world. One would then assume that they would be competent at what they do and have some awareness of their skill. That would then mean that if I paddled their bum it would be called for.

However, I must admit that being negative towards even the most deserving of muppets can harsh one’s buzz. I am all about me, and keeping me happy, so for this review I am going to try and be constructive and helpful; get some feel good vibes flowing round the place. And yes, it will quite possibly be excruciatingly boring.

If E-Rizzle handed me this blog and I were to give it a carefully considered comment in a teacherly fashion, I believe this is what I might say:

E-Rizzle,

As you were instructed, the assignment was for you to hand in a blog that was engaging, thought provoking, well written, possibly amusing, and well presented. You needed to give a clear sense of yourself, your life and stories.  

Your blog is well presented, even though white writing on a black background isn’t my cup of tea.  

You say that your blog is not a mommy blog, which technically it isn’t; it is a hopeful-mommy-to-be blog. So there is a lot of talk of eggs and PCOS and jealousy over those who are up the duff while you are not. There a lots of ‘update’ style posts that may be interesting to your loved ones or friends from your previous blogs, however a new reader will not be immediately engaged or invested as one of the aforementioned readers. What can you do to hook in someone, like an AAYSR reader, to continue reading even after finding out your eggs are scrambled? I believe that many may find some common ground in stories such as a this but they may find it hard to get reach said common ground when they have to wade through your other posts which often end with ‘I am sorry that was so lame.’ If you knew it was going to be lame, why did you post it?  

I really liked this story; hilarious, but it could have been shortened and tightened to make sure you don’t lose your audience before they got to the good bit. I found your story on flatulence a bit belaboured. The scenario you paint is not my experience. My partner and I are quite happy to back up to one another in bed and let one rip, whereby ruffling the bedclothes, ladylike-ness be damned. I am just sorry that your bottom is not so untethered.  

You are a lawyer, and therefore intelligent, and possibly well-bred however I do not feel it is necessary for you to show how bad-ass you are by throwing in a few ‘fucks’, ‘piss’ and, my personal favourite, ‘spooge’ into the mixture. I believe that it detracts from your writing, as well as jarring my delicate eyes. Even so, I do understand that we are all adults here.

E-Rizzle, I quite like you and I get what you are going through, however your writing doesn’t move me. If you would like to resubmit this assignment for a higher grade I suggest (if you haven’t figured it out already) you:
  • Drop the swearing. It just doesn’t sit well for some reason. 
  • Try and tell a whole, stands-by-itself story in a post. Check out Mr London Street’s 100 Word Posts for an insight as to how one may do this. By all means have bits and pieces updates, but keep them to a minimum.

I hope that this feedback has been helpful and I wish you all the best with your pregnancy. Until you decide to work using your full potential I give you a:








So Asskers, how was that? Anyone care to incur the wrath of a ‘karmic crowbar’ and have at it? I don’t know about you but I feel all sorta warm and fuzzy.

14 comments:

  1. The story about peeing at the grocery store is genius. The template, however, made my eyes bleed.

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  2. Is it weird that I think you were way harsh? I liked her a lot.

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  3. I mean, I like the sporadic swearing. It's not overbearing, just a little addition. I think she's just afraid of being honest, which is stupid, but also kind of part of her charm since she's not annoying about it.

    Yeah, I like her.

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  4. You said crowbar. Prepare for 350 comments from you-know-who. Sigh.

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  5. You thought that was a harsh review Shiner? Or do you reckon she needed a higher rating? I thought the review itself was a bit meh. Where was the ripping and tearing? I kinda liked her too. But I have to be jealous of her now cos she is preggo.

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  6. I just think this is the best title for a blog about pregnancy that I've ever fucking seen.

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  7. Oh, no crow bar needed here. I want to read her. And I think RPR did a good thing by trying to put a new twist on doing a review.

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  8. Ah - I reviewed her old blog a couple of years ago. The blog seemed familiar, and I thought I was going batty.

    I'd say she's better than she was (and I liked her 3 stars-worth then), and the title is awesome. Reading against that background is fucking atrocious, though; I hate it more than I hate mosquito bites, and I fucking hate mosquito bites.

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  9. But Nutjobber, you are going batty. Just not over this.

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  10. I agree w/RPR - the swearing felt gratuitous, like she's trying to create this tough persona, but it doesn't seem authentic. I wish her the best, she's going through a tough time.

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  11. You're right, MongoGirl, and I've since accepted my battiness. Still, I don't think anyone would hold it against me for trying to spread the blame around, do you?

    Unless, of course, it's furry - nobody's going to hold something furry against me of their own volition.

    [And here's where Nutjobber starts remembering to end his comments one sentence earlier.]

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  12. I spose the title was pretty good. As mentioned before I wasn't moved. But who knows? On a different day I may have gone 2-3 stars. It is the nature of the beast.

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  13. Oh, and props to Shiner for posting this review. My techno bits have a horribly convenient propensity towards crapping themselves when a review is due.

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  14. I like her. A lot. The grocery story expecting mothers parking post? I totally laughed. Out loud.

    But I didn't comment. Because there's only two options - google comment or Open ID. And I don't want to do either.
    So... pffft.

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Grow a pair.