You Would Never Survive in the Wide, Windless Sargasso

A guest review by Rassles:

There are some trends I’ve never fully climbed aboard. Sniffed out and left for rotten scavengers, yes, but I’m way too preoccupied pretending I’m unique to feel their appeal. Two of these trends, which concern the blog in review, are online dating and…well…pirates. Aye, landlubbers, beware: I’ve no inclination to identify with fearsome buccaneers or use the interwebs to find love. But! I do own Captain Blood on VHS and a friend of mine met her husband on Match Dot Com.

So here we have a self-proclaimed saucy pirate wench Swashbuckling Through the Murky Waters of On-Line Dating. A long title, yes, but cute and piratey, promising a narrative goody bag full of Oedipal greasy-haired assholes with over-inflated sexual egos who leave toenail clippings in shag carpets and keep secret wives. Right? Why else would we read an online dating blog?

The template is standard white-on-black Blogger, stained with thick, blazing purple links that offend the backs of my eyes after just a quick scan. I never really know what to say about templates. As long as you smell okay and you didn’t buy your shirt from Spencer’s, I don’t give a shit what you wear (let’s face it, “one tequila, two tequila, three tequila floor” was kind of funny for about ten seconds when I was thirteen, and more importantly what kind of freckle-faced scallywag can’t hang after only three shots of tequila?).

But Leslie, my friend, those purple links are a cheap, ugly distraction. Do you buy your steaks from Walgreens? No? Your template suggests otherwise.

Firstly, this blog, as I was led to believe based upon a short profile and header sentence, is not about perilous dates, mutinous sexual trysts, or a collection of hilarious critiques and conversations between a formidable provost barking insults at the dirty, rotten, scurvy dogs of dating. So I’ma gonna keelhaul a bitch.

It’s a fuckjumble of poseur posts, where Leslie pirates a man’s personal ad and a picture from nonspecific dating websites and offers her opinions, which are usually painfully obvious insults with semi-clever name-calling pawned from Urban Dictionary. I know this because she links Urban Dictionary. Constantly. She links youtube videos that loosely relate to her topic and random websites detailing household namedrops everyone already knows about, like Sixteen Candles and Lorena Bobbit. She’s a big fat stump-legged linker.

Now Leslie, how about swinging your fucking cutlass like a real bad ass to strengthen those lame, tired jabs of yours? Sharpen your insults. Fire more pirate words. If you are going to be a pirate, Be A Fucking Pirate. Y’en’t bucklin’ no swash, lass. L’est not in my good eye. You already plunder the faux dignity of men directly from their online dating profiles, even post their actual pictures (I think) which is a total dick move, especially if these guys are paying for private profiles on whatever dating site. Sail smartly. Thar be sea demons.

I would link examples of non-hilarity and tortuously weak insults, but seeing as every post is basically the exact same thing it’s totally pointless.

You sound bitter, wounded, and painfully desperate to appear sassy and strong. We can smell our own. Your words reveal much more about you than the jerks you ridicule, but I don’t think that’s your intention, and it pisses me off. It would be better if you weren’t hiding behind trying to be a fucking pirate.

Oh, and what gave you the addled idea that you needed to create a new tag for all them posts you shot up in that there blog? Bitch, you know what tags are for? Two things: (1) categorically linking your posts, and (2) my fucking peace of mind. Yours offer neither. How am I supposed to draw comparisons between “Douchebags of the Week” if you’re making me sail all over creation? There is no uniting concept between these topics. I don’t even think you could *define douchebag in the first place.

More importantly, you have, and I fucking counted, on my fingers no less, thirteen different “of the week” themes for thirty-nine posts, and seven of those themes have an example of ONE. Themes, by nature, are recurring. Remember that.

If you insist on this “of the week” stuff, with richly diverse categories like “What Not To Do While On-Line Dating” and “What Not To Put On Your On-Line Dating Profile” and have no cohesive elements to pull things together other than the thin veil of piracy, play with it. Make them “Freak of the Week #37” and “On-Line Dating Experiment #242.” Rally up your posts and restrategize, because this shit ain’t working.

The only posts that are worth reading at all are your status updates. They prove that you can be conversational, honest and observant, with definitive smirk, although they do fall slightly flat. Still, they're way more productive than resorting to making fun of mullets and mid-life crisis-es. Avast, ye strumpet! These are classic topics for humor, but if you’re not going to offer anything substantive to the already extensive inventory of Hilarious-Shit-To-Say-About-Things-That-Are-Obviously-Pathetic, then don’t say anything at all. Also, stop raping your words with unnecessary hyphens. Do you get a nickel per hyphen? That is a fuckload of nickels.

Tighten up your business. You are better than this. Fucking act like it. I would ask you to edit, but seeing as your short posts are unenlightening as they are, I think you should stop trying to be something and just write whatever’s in your blood, not what you wish was there.


For being annoying:






For sucking at insults and wishing you were cool:








* Okay people: a douchebag is a person with an illogical, amped up value of self-worth, unintentionally resulting in extreme worthlessness and obnoxery. See, the point of the term is to compare a person’s ego with a vaginal cleaning pump that really does more harm than good. Get it? Use it correctly. It’s like, okay: the monster’s name is not Frankenstein. The doctor’s name is Frankenstein. Drives me fucking nuts.

Oh Very Young What Will You Leave Us This Time?

Hello Askers, Miss Missives here. Now before you get too excited about my return and soil your pretty little knickers, let it be known that I am only here doing Madame Bellicose a favor. She is one brooding broad but while Miss Missives lay ravaged on her tattered velvet chaise longue nursing a mighty malaise, Madame B. took over her workload wielding that whip from her hand like she was born with it. Now there are clients asking for her by name--that devilish Iron Maiden. Still, I'm glad to be back brandishing red pen and trusty paddle.

Speaking of paddles, today's victim needs to be put over my knee toot sweet. If Chamuca's life had an accompanying required reading list, it would read like this:
Doing Nothing: A History of Loafers, Loungers, Slackers & Bums in America
The Underachiever's Manifesto
How to be Idle: A Loafer's Manifesto
Lazy Daisy
What Your Poo is Telling You(I threw that one in for good measure just because I care.)

Chamuca is lazy. I don't mean lazy like a Sunday morning, I mean lazy like a slug on Quaaludes. Slow and steady can actually win the race but dear, you have to at least put your shoes on and step away from the idiot box. Oh Chamuca, I bet you didn't think you were going to get the mom treatment from Miss Missives today but darling, I whip because I care.

Sometimes Chamuca's writing reminds me a bit of Richard Linklater's Slacker, more characters, less narrative. She even employs the odd but no doubt fitting monikers like Uncle Ponytail Bachelor, Uncle Fighting Illini, Masturbating Cousin and Three-Finger Jack. If Chamuca was a character here and not the author, she'd probably be called Girl Who Refuses to Reach Her Potential. The fact is, Chamuca is a talented storyteller and an adept, if a bit lazy, writer.

She retches her stream of consciousness onto the page and at times it's too meandering for my liking but she has a strong point of view and a decidedly wicked, funny bent. Her writing suffers the most common malady of even great writers, a lack of editing. Now I don't want to scare Chamuca into over-thinking her posts because she posts regularly and sometimes not over-thinking is what gets the job done. Still, if she spewed it out and then went back and cleaned it up later I think it would be so much more engaging.

Chamuca, you are hilarious, candid and yes, a bit of a whore you brother-fucker but you can write the shit out of a story when you pull it all together. Stop giving us everything and just dole out the good stuff. Look at something you have written and keep the broad strokes but eliminate the filler details that don't move the narrative forward. A little of the stream of consciousness is good because that is part of your voice but you need to do some literary Kegels and tighten that shit up.

As for the template and other such nicities, you get a resounding fine. Your template is simple and uncluttered, keep it that way. Your archives are in the preferred drop-down format which makes it easy to go roaming about. You also have a search feature that made it easy to look up what I needed, thank you. Your Blogroll is small enough to be meaningful though you might consider moving it to a tab on your Header.

And Chamuca, if you are going to work for a pittance, dear, fuck Olive Garden okay? Go get yourself a job where you either have time to fuck off and write or a lackey admin job where you can at least make enough money to be able to have casual sex without worrying that your lack of health insurance will make the accompanying vd unaffordable. Stop telling prospective employers you were shit-canned and put that pretty little storytelling mind of yours to good use.

For your work, taken as a whole you get:





With a promise of an IFuckingLoveYou if you tighten up.

For having to dig a bit to find the really good stuff, you get:

I LOVE MY SANDALS!!! THANK YOU SANDALS!!!

Hi Kaylyn! It's me, Mongoliangirl. Thank you for submitting your blog for review here at Ask. It's always a pleasure to have the opportunity to review a thing or ten from the blogosphere.

And now for your review...

...oh wait! I've got something else I'd like to share first!

My head exploded because I lost my glasses and my cell phone in the same week and then I got BIG NEWS! Yesterday I thought I was going to fall asleep in this meeting I was in because I sat in the most comfortable chair in the room and I was thinking I had to stay awake or it would make me a very, VERY rude person. I would like to have one of those chairs in my living room. I HATE THE MALL!!!!! Sorry for yelling. Did you know writing in ALL CAPS means someone is YELLING??? My friend James taught me that a few years ago when I sent him an email in ALL CAPS. He thought I was yelling at him and I didn't know why until he told me typing in ALL CAPS is technospeak for, "I'M YELLING!!!" In other words, I just yelled, "ALL CAPS" twice!!! Thanks James! You're the best friend I ever had!!! You teach me about life!!!!

OK...um...tahtah for now, Kaylyn! Thanks for reading! Rock out, sister!!! Thank you to everyone who has made my life good! Yay! You!! : ) Yay!

See? See how that works, Kaylyn? Just when you got geared up to read the review of your blog, you had to deal with a bunch of tidbits, trivia and surface tripe about my life.

That's what your blog does. Your 'About' page describes dealing with an event that caused you and your husband to realize you were on a path that was going to take you nowhere. And then...

You claim a photographer not showing up caused your head to explode, while right in front of you is a graffiti covered building about which I wish you would write a story.

You actually post about the number 9. I learn that a nonagon is a polygon with nine angles and nine sides.

You tell us you discover the true identity of your father by way of finding a letter in your mother's things after she has died, and then...

Post after post after post about a rafting trip? Really? Kaylyn?

Look, I get it Kaylyn, I really do. I have family members and friends that I like to communicate with as well. OK, wait, let me rephrase that. Most of my family members would like to stab me in the fuckin' face. Whatever. My point is that day to day frustrations and events are best served by the likes of facebook, email, twitter, skype and various and sundry other communication tools. (Yeah, I know you posted about hating facebook and twitter. Get over it.)

In other words, why the hell are you blogging? If it's to say, "I LOVE YOU EVERYBODY!!!" or "I LOVE MY SANDALS!!!"; get a facebook account.

If it's to fully tell your story, then it's time to get busy.

Why not go back to that graffiti covered building and tell its story? When are we going to hear more than a newspaper-like report about when, just eleven months into a marriage, you were told your young husband may die or, at the very least, be paralyzed from the neck down for life? What was it really like discovering the true identity of your biological father by way of a sealed letter after your mom died? I mean, you told the DJ's on the 'Morning Zoo' about it; why not us? I don't know about you, but I'm guessing lots of people would go through a very serious period of, "What the fuck, Mom?" Where is that story?

There's no reason you can't put something together, Kaylyn. Seriously, your writing is clear and straightforward, and you've already avoided some blogging snafus such as a bunch of random clutter in your sidebar or never ending posts.

At this point I'm only inclined to give you a MEH. But I'm going to put you in my reader and see if you can't dig in and give us something a little closer to your core. Otherwise, I'm guessing you'll never exercise the internal muscle it's going to take to be able to write that book. And no, the internal muscle I'm talking about exercising has nothing to do with learning how to do a nice, solid set of kegels.



P.S. I LOVE MY HUSBAND!!!!!
P.P.S. JACKAMO SACKAMO WOW!!!
P.P.P.S. Here are a few places to learn a thing or two about telling your story:
Post Picket Fence
Praying to Darwin
Sometimes I Make Lists
P.P.P.P.S. Let's all have a moment of silent reflection, Askers, to be amazed by how little I used the word fuck, and that I did not once threaten to retrieve my crow bar. ROCK ON!!! I LOVE YOU!!!

Polypropylene Fete

Before I begin with reviewing World According 2 Lisa, I want to go on the record and say that this review almost did not happen at all. The simple explanation is that I found the template it is on to be such a challenge, it was nigh unreadable.

Light text on dark background, highly busy background, sidebar cluttered with pointlessness, buried archive navigation... If it weren't for Google reader, I would not have been able to read this at all. So, point number one, Lisa. If you want me as a reader, or people like me, you have to do something about that template. Post haste!

Anyway...

What is this blog all about? Well, it isn't so much the World According 2 Lisa as much as it is Lisa's Life. A blow by blow account of what she did today and what she's planning to do the next few days. Some days she tells us her opinion on things, but those things are very, very local to her. For some people, especially people that know Lisa, maybe that's okay.

But I was left ... wanting.

In my opinion, this blog is the online equivalent of a Tupperware Party. If you like Tupperware Parties (and some of my favorite people in the world do love Tupperware Parties, so it's cool with me if you do), then you will probably like this blog. If your idea of a good time runs more to the realm of jazz concerts or independent film, then maybe this isn't for you.

A few notes for Lisa on how I would go about improving, if including people like me in your readership is a goal, which it certainly doesn't have to be:

Some things are funny once in a while, but not all the time. For example:

1. In a month and a half's worth of posts you used the phrase "giddy in my giddy up" multiple times. In my humble opinion, once was just about enough.


2. Strikethrough text, when you type what you really want to say, and then format it as strikethrough text and then type a more politically correct thing -- yeah, that was hilarious the first time I saw it done ... ten years ago. Why not just type what you really want to say and leave it at that?

What else? I have a few pet peeves that you fed Red Bull to.

• Like, the pet peeve of using the wrong word in a common expression. "Allusions of grandeur" should be "delusions of grandeur." Unless you really are "alluding to" grandeur. This is just one example. There were others, but I am not being paid to be an editor.


• Or the pet peeve of misspelling "y'all." "Y'all" is a contraction of "you" and "all," and as such, the apostrophe falls between the "y" and the "all." Unless you can convince me that it is a contraction between "ya" and something that ends in "ll".


• Or the pet peeve of using text speak in written communication. Your blog title uses a "2" instead of writing out the word "to." Did that extra keystroke push you over the top? You're a teacher. You should, in my opinion, know better.

Tone down your template. Constantly switching font colors and typefaces doesn't do you any favors. Dark text on a light background is infinitely easier to read than light text on a dark background. And that background image may be the perfect image to tell the world who you are, but it's so busy that it makes me cross eyed.

My last advice may be the hardest to apply, but here you go. Write deeper. Writing about the superficial details of your day and your week are okay here and there, but when I read a blog, I want to be inspired to think about things differently, to have portions of my mind stimulated. And, sadly, for me, that did not happen. Hey, maybe that isn't your goal. Fine. What is your goal? Because the way it reads right now, it sounds like you are trying to be funny, and being funny -- really funny -- is almost impossible to do, even for the most brilliantly funny people in the world. Being real is so much easier, and ultimately for readers like me, more fulfilling.

If you want more than a "MEH" from me, you need to give me something more. Something real. Something not made of Tupperware plastic.

Mother, May I Sleep With Assholes?

Today's blogger and I didn't exactly get off on the right foot. Well, at least her blog and I didn't. My first attempt to read her chronicles of midlife mommyhood resulted in my computer giving me an error message and shutting down. I wasn't easily deterred and 5 attempts and 5 computer shut downs and restarts later, I emailed Madame Bellicose for a new blog to review. I was disappointed since this was my first "mommy" blog so she suggested that I just add the temperamental, hard to get blog to my reader. I'm sure Madame Bellicose appreciates having to do my thinking for me. In any case, I won't be commenting on the layout or template of her blog since I'm leery of visiting it yet again to make those assessments.

What can I say about this blog? Women who refer to themselves as "mommy" in the public realm typically irritate the shit out of me. It just makes it seem like they're clinging to the life raft of motherhood because there is just nothing else left to define them. I decided to reserve judgment on Mid-life Mommy, aka Danielle, in this regard until I finished perusing her blog. Mid-life mommy's blog reads more like a teenager's diary, at least in terms of the writing quality. There are glaring spelling and grammatical errors:

" couldn't stand the site of one another"

"Very embarrassing, but priceless for story's"

"It is going to be a good one fer sher!" (This one might be intentional, but it still irks).

"...all my friends seem to want me to die their hair."

"She is so excepting of everything."

I hate when people are careless with language. I hate chronic, accidental misspellings. I despise inappropriate use of the possessive apostrophe. I abhor intentional misspellings, especially those that were originally championed by junior high school girls and now seem to have caught on in the general public. But oddly enough, I don't dislike this blog.

Danielle is not a great writer. She definitely uses the word "hodge podge" far too often for my liking. Her posts are often rambling and without a central point. But she is capable of focusing and of turning a clever phrase. She's a woman who's made mistakes, who loves to get drunk and hates "mouth noises". Me too, girl, me too. Her taste in men is so bad that it borders on pathological. Seriously, I don't know whether to hug her or slap some fucking sense into her. After reading a few tidbits about her father, I'm not really all that surprised that she finds herself drawn to self-centered assholes.

Danielle is very willing to tell her stories, and she has a lot to tell. I honestly can't believe that this happened to her. If I had to spread my ass cheeks for a perfect stranger because of a misunderstanding over a parking ticket, I'd be in need some major psychological intervention. It's hard for me to believe that anyone could be this naive, but the story about a couple's attempt to woo her into a threesome entertained me. She has a dark sense of humor and is very capable of laughing at herself and her own woes, which makes her complaining a lot easier to take.

Danielle and I have this in common: We both have a super cute daughter whose cuteness masks an exasperating personality. The stories she tells about her "Toots" are eerily familiar to me. I feel her pain in raising a difficult child. Despite the behavioral challenges, Danielle is a great mom who loves her daughter very deeply. But she has not allowed herself to be defined by motherhood. She has a full life that includes plenty of "girls' nights out", sports activity and travel. She is on a perpetual journey of self-discovery and is seeking to carve out a happy path for her and her child. Her blog is a chronicle of this journey. Mid-life mommy may not be a great writer, but her willingness to tell the truth and laugh at herself redeems her.

I know there will be plenty who disagree with me on this one, but I can't give Mid-life Mommy any less than:

Papa, Can You Hear Me?

A review from People in the Sun:

I feel I have to start with a short introduction to--oh, I hate the word--Daddy Blogging. You know, for the haters.

I collect blogging fathers. Not the weirdest hobby in the world, but not the most common one either. I even have a blog where I present my collection. It all started a few years ago, when I visited an old friend who had one-year-old twins. When I told him we were thinking about having one of them baby-things ourselves one day, he said, "It changes everything." I asked him what he meant, and he said, "You know, everything." Now that I'm a stay-at-home father, I'm still not sure what he meant. But by reading other fathers' blogs, I begin to connect the dots.

Maybe what my friend meant was not simply, "You don't have sex anymore," or "You get to relive your joyous childhood moments," or "Having children is very expensive." Maybe he was referring to the change in our self-identities. How quick are we to embrace the change we don't fully understand? How honest are we? Do we try hard to hold on to the Man part of our identities because we're afraid the Father will take over? Or do we embrace the Father part of ourselves to the point of looking back at our pre-Father days with scornful disbelief?

Just like everything else in life, apart from Nutella, it's all about moderation. When it comes to blogging fathers (or, you know, Daddy Blogging), it means embracing fatherhood and accepting the fact that Everything Changes (even if we don't know what it means), while making sure we don't write as if we've invented fatherhood or as if our children say the darndest things. In other words, a father's blog, just like any other blog, works well when it deals with the writer's honest expression of his individuality.

I think SciFi Dad, writing in Tales From the Dad Side, has found the good place in the middle. It's unashamedly a parenting blog. On his About page, SciFi Dad even makes sure we know this is not a random blog, but "primarily a personal parenting blog, where I write about my experiences and uncertainties as a father." But even with a blog that uses Dad in the title, written by a man who uses the word Dad in his moniker, writing about being a father, this blog always keeps the writer and his, well, uncertainties at the front.

What else is there? Well, the navigation is cool. Just to prove me right, SciFi Dad's drop-down label menu is all about the different sides of his life and the way they're reflected on his blog, creating a full image of a real person.

It might come off as me taking the easy way out here, but as long as he includes links to his favorite posts, why shouldn't I follow his lead? There's the one where he decides to listen to his parenting gut rather than to experts. And the really funny one where he goes back in time to help his stressful father-to-be self. Oh, and there's one I even linked to from my Facebook page a month ago.

There are two more posts on SciFi Dad's Best Of list. One talks about the pain of being away from the family because of work, and the other explains his parenting style comes simply from his unconditional love for his kids.

The existence of these posts explains the difference between a Love You button and a Four-Star review. Most of the blog was, for me, just a little too cute. Maybe it's because SciFi dad is Canadian, and everyone knows nothing bad ever happens in Canada. Because everyone is so goddamn nice (apart from the guy who decapitated the guy sitting next to him on the bus. He wasn't nice). Or maybe it's the way he ends nearly every post with a question for the readers to answer in comments (although, to be fair, I only noticed it today, even though I've read the blog for months). Or maybe some of the funny stuff, which SciFi Dad does very well, is there to hide the true SciFi Dad--the one who comes out in those two posts he admits are more "Unfiltered."

And another small thing, SciFi Dad. It's not you--it's me. Or maybe it is you. But I've never seen you in the comment section of your blog. I know you get a lot of comments on most posts, but other bloggers with more comments do reply to each one, even if it's just a single-line reply. I know you care about being a part of a community of bloggers, so it makes sense that you treat the comments as additions to the conversation you had started with the post. It makes sense to me, anyway.

Don't get me wrong, I fucking love you. And to prove it, here are four shiny stars.

My Kingdom for Some Damn Gauze

Hello all, and a seriously belated Happy New Year. This time of year is about new beginnings, fresh starts, invigoration. In that spirit, I'm ready and primed to both rip and tear. Shall we?

My assignment this time around was Bleedin' Out, written by a guy who goes by Nazz Nomad.

(Bleedin'? Ripping? Tearing? It's like it was MEANT TO BE. Downright eerie.)

As atwitter with anticipation as I was to get started, it took me a couple of runs at it to even read this one. Opening it up means being eye-ball dry-humped by a Pepto-pink background. The kind of pink that should only ever be used by girls under 10. (And after reading posts dealing with free-wheeling drug use, good gravy, I sincerely hope the author's not a ten-year old girl.)

As well, there's a long, long, coma inducing list of labels and a blogroll that rolls on far too long. Nazz, you are by no means the only offender on the internet, but for the love of god, roll that shit up. It's all kinds of distracting, and keeps leading my eye back to the pink. And neither one of us wants that to happen.

But that's all cosmetic, taken care of easily. Once I ripped through that layer, I wanted to know who this guy was, why I should care.

I don't if he wants me to know.

He keeps telling me just a bit, little glimpses, that just leave me frustrated.

For instance, Nazz goes to Vegas, and sits one table away from Coolio. And then he tells me that Coolio gets weird. And then...well, I don't know what happens then, because either he doesn't think I can handle it, or he's just too damned lazy to expand.

He alludes to the fact that he's been through some shit. I believe that he truly has. But he has to show me, not tell me. If he picked even one of the incidents he touched on, just one, and told me everything about it - what he saw, what he smelled, what he felt, who said what? I guarantee it'd be golden.

Because obviously, he can make me care.

He even made me laugh. Out loud. I am not a fan of poetry. Or marijauna (I think I was doing it wrong.) But if the herb can inspire genius like this, well come ON, that's some good honest poetry work there.

He likes his music. A lot. It's when he's writing about music, be it the stuff he makes, or the stuff he listens to, that's when he seems the most passionate.

And then, as I was reviewing him, he wrote this. Which leads me to believe that when he can combine the passion for music with the grab-bag of experiences that makes up his life, he may have hit his own blogging sweet spot.

Basically, it comes down to this: You have promise with a capital "P", Nazz. Sadly, you also seem to possess blog-laziness with a capital "L".

Two stars, my friend.



And when you can put your whole self in, take your whole self out, put your whole self in and shake it all about (i.e. flesh out your posts)? There will be more stars.

Don't jump, this is the shallow end

Hello, it’s 11 degrees Here In Franklin and they're predicting two inches of snow on Thursday. That's a virtual blizzard in these parts. I need to get this done so I can run to Publix before they run out of Sierra Nevada and Tender Vittles.

According to Wikipedia there are 1.17 billion people living in India. There are more than 2,000 ethnic groups who speak 29 different languages. And don’t even get me started on how many types of curry there are.

Point is, you’d be hard pressed to find a more diverse environment and multi-layered culture than India’s.

So why does eM sound exactly like every other 28-year-old American I know? Maybe because she lists her three favorite movies as Reality Bites, Girl Interrupted and Dirty Dancing. Aside from the very occasional Indian reference, this blog could be authored by any upscale wasp living in Dallas or Cleveland or Sacramento.

But that’s not to say that it isn’t well written, because it is.

eM is the blogname of Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan, who, I suspect, is quite famous in India in a chick lit sort of way. She published a book last year and is working on another. She was interviewed on NPR last October for a story featuring popular blogs around the world. She comes by her writing chops naturally—her father is a well-known writer and her mother is an editor.

However, it's eM's blog that's our concern today, not her family tree.

eM’s writing is clear and grammatically correct. She started blogging in 2004 when she was only 22. In those early days she wrote sweetly about growing up, boy friends, her work as a journalist and drinking and smoking with her friends. There was more of the same in 2005 … and 2006 … and 2007 … and by now you get the picture.

There just isn’t a lot of growth. Compare these birthday posts which are years apart.

Am now the grand old age of twenty-three.
Wow.
Twenty three isn't that old in the larger scheme of things, I'm sure some of you, who have passed that mark will look upon me as a mere fledgling. But still, it's the oldest I've ever been, in that, this year I actually feel my age. All these years, I've felt younger than I actually am. But now I'm 23, I feel 23, even if I may not look it. Kinda sad actually, because I would love to revert to 19 or something. At an age where I can still look around and say, "Where are all the grown-ups?" That's not happening anymore, coz, ohmygod, I am a grown-up. *scary*

And this:

If you know me, then you know my birthday is possibly the HUGEST DEAL IN THE WORLD to me. It's true. In the past, I began talking about it in like August, because I was so excited and now, I'm not much better, though I have managed to hold off till at least November before I make plans. People are amused, because, well, at 28, you expect someone to take a chill pill already about turning a year older, but it's so exciting! And it's a day all about meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! And more meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! How can you not love that?

So here’s the deal, eM —- I can’t take you to task about your writing. But can we talk about content? Honestly, can we have a little less meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee and a little more youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu? I realize that you’re catering to a certain audience…keeping up a certain persona. But the only word that comes to mind is shallow. You’re 28 now—old enough to notice the world around you.

You have a voice. You have an audience. You have a platform. Maybe once every few months you could write about something other than yourself.

For your writing skill, I give you



For your complete self-absorption, I give you



And if every single Paris Hilton wannabe in Mumbai hates me, so be it.

Mundane in Manhattan

One of the reasons that I’m not so good at this gig, and thus only turn up every few months, is that I hate being mean. I’m the nice professor here at the University of Colon. Bright eyed students flock to my course in Introductory Bootology because they know that with a vaguely plausible sob story they can earn an easy A.

So if you are Mandinka, author of Motherhood in NYC, you would have to be pretty happy about your luck. You got ‘The Nice Guy’ at Ask. Easy 4 Star review. Woo hoo!

But.

But, you got The Nice Guy on the wrong day. It’s been a long semester and I’ve given far too many A’s to far too many sub par aspiring bootologists. I’m in a bad mood.

Here’s the thing. I love Mummy/Daddy bloggers. I kind of am one. I respect the genre. I have a high tolerance for cute kids stories and the moaning of the stay-at-home Mum. I can relate to the trials and tribulations, dull as they are, of a parent. Hell, I’ll go out on a limb and say that I love parent blogging.

When it’s done well.

Mandinka, my dear, you don’t do it that well. Or you do it as well as the legion of Mummy and Daddy bloggers around the world. I have a handful of specific issues that I would like to discuss with you:

1. The Bloggess. I like The Bloggess. Her brand of neurotic/obscene humour is pretty original and fairly entertaining. But, there is a disturbing trend among a certain type of Mummy Blogger to try and be The NEW Bloggess. Stop it. She’s funny because it’s kind of her schtick. You aren’t because you come off as a try-hard wannabe. That goes for the rest of you that are pulling this crap. You know who you are.


2. Twitter screen captures. This is plague on the blogosphere. Don’t ever do it again. If people wanted to follow you on Twitter, they would. If they do, they’ve read these inanities. Most people are not interested in your ‘unfollows’ or what the hell ever you’re blabbering about on Twitter.


3. Advertising. Now, I’m tolerant of advertising. Like you, I run a self-hosted site and I feel justified in using a bit of advertising to recoup my costs. But fully forty percent of your site is dedicated to advertising. I suspect that if you could squeeze more in, you would. Do you really need two Blogher tower ads? Is one not enough? There’s a fine line between classy and trashy, darling. Find it.


4. Be fucking original. I will admit that I didn’t tread too far back into your archives, a few months or so. I got bored. The title of your blog is intriguing. Motherhood in NYC . This gal is going to tell us the gritty truth about raising kids in Gotham. She’ll either make us glad we don’t live there or make us wish we did. You do neither. You may as well be living in Orange County or Highland Park or Darien. I mean, a story about the GAP? Seriously? Do you know how writes a great site about parenting in NYC? This guy. And he lives in fucking New Jersey! You’ve got less urban cred than a suburbanite.
   
   Phew. I’m glad we’ve got that sorted. Look, you have a reasonable following. Good on you. Be grateful for that. You’ll get a bunch of traffic for a couple of days from this review; I’ll expect 10% of your advertising revenue as a finder’s fee. But what did you really think we were going to say about your site? Did you really expect to get an IFLY? You’re a Mummy Blogger and a very slightly better than average one (I mean, you can write in complete sentences). What more did you want?
   
   Because I’m physically incapable of handing out flaming fingers, you will be spared that indignity. So take this
   
   
   
   
   
   and be grateful you got me.