Parenting Blogs Are Like Sitcoms, But I Need More Dimension

Dear Bloggers,

This is Rassles. I would like to apologize for the lateness of this review, but I currently do not have internet in my shitty apartment because the guy I scammed it from moved to South Carolina, so I've been writing this during my lunch breaks. Okay, and yesterday I took a three hour lunch break because I am devoted to you all, and because I am sick of working. Game on.

Let’s get one fucking thing straight: I probably don’t give a shit about your fucking kids. If I did, I would read their blogs.

But if you must write about your kids, and you have every right to do so, force me to care. These are the most important people in your lives, so fucking make it count. Be Studs Terkel or Ira Glass for your blog and give your children words that justify your adoration, give them quirks and vices that mean something to you, make your love for that little beast a main character in this tesseract of drama and sippy cups and diapers and parenting and bullshit. Most children do the same silly crap, and the fun in reading this stuff is learning how you see your child.

Embarrass yourself, because your devotion to them is more important than personal pride. Perceive and accept your own temporary insanity when you get that blinding excitement because your child like, does stuff.

Do it for me. Do it for your readers. Do it for your sticky children. Blogging parents usually don’t understand this. Oh sure, they say they get it. But they don’t. They speak in cliché’s and recite Hallmark cards (Oh, my child lights up my life and he’s the greatest gift God has ever given me and I am so very thankful for this journey called life that we are traveling together) instead of actually writing something meaningful.

Baff. You make me baff. Not like a drunken secret hand-baff, where you just swallow it right back up again. I'm talking like, ruined shoes baffing.

Blogs are interdimensional – I want your goal to be five. Five dimensions. Point, line, cube, gravity, time. That’s what we’re trying to hit here, people.

Point: You have to start somewhere.
Line: Connect your points.
Cube: Start adding corners (quirks and vices, for example).
Gravity: Your corners are connected, now pull. Fill them with something. Some corners are dirty, some are exposed, some are wrong turns, some bring about self-awareness. Some are scary-ass cliffs, some are fun, swervy curves, but all of them are a part of you.
Time: This is the hardest one, because people don't understand that it's cyclical. They don't think about the velocity of their words, about navigation and history. Your blog should be a maze of personality. It represents YOU, for chrissake. Everyone believes they are unique. Fucking prove it.

Just so you know, Daddy Files, I’m using some of your blog as a decent example. You are doing it right half of the time, even though I feel like you're gunning for a family sitcom. You've mastered the cube, and sometimes you have gravity and time, but usually? It's just the cube. Still, your child is a person to me, not another zombie brat.

You're unafraid to voice your opinions, and although I love that you have an opinion in the first place that isn't just a rehash of something you've read, sometimes that shit gets a little bit tedious. I think, in those posts, you're trying to be controversial, the way you start on the offensive and punch with conviction, but they just don't ring true for me. I kind of glazed over them. Like plain Munchkins.

I don't care for straight up opinion in my stories. I prefer artful narrative propaganda.

Also, any post that mentions Tiger Woods I skip on principle.

Technically, your writing is flawless. At first, you are careful, with slight, thoughtful humor. In reference to your early posts, I wrote this: Dude, I am sure you have a tirade lurching around inside of you somewhere, and you're straining to hold it back. WHY ARE YOU SO INHIBITED? I was bored. I was all set on Abercrombie-rating the fuck out of you.

But then summer 2009, you start spinning things around. You get a little feisty. Things don't vary in topic, just tone. You unshackled one manacle, but you still have one more.

I want to see you hurt, Johnny-Cash-covers-Trent-Reznor fucking HURT. You hide that, pretending it doesn't exist or shifting the blame onto something else, because you're afraid of...I don't know what you're afraid of. Public vulnerability? You follow the trend of aggressively berating things that should make you feel shame but are a secret source of pride (you can't hide it from me, I fucking invented that tactic). You never just soul-out. Which is fine, it takes time. I'm just letting you know I can see through you.

Template is fine, I guess. A little Aryan Nation, but fitting (I don't mean you're a neo-Nazi, but it's just...you know...OMG LOOK AT MY PEACHY BLONDE FUCKING ADORABLE SON POINTING AT SOMETHING). Your archives drove me fucking bitchcrazy, with the whole "one post per page" at a time thing. Your Twitter feed is just a black wordless box right now, which I strongly prefer to an actual Twitter feed. But the rest is fine and uninspiring.

So.

You write well. I've been reviewing seriously well-written blogs lately. In terms of sitcoms: The whole thing is a little Everybody Loves Raymond (and that show is hysterical sometimes, I don't care what anyone says), I prefer Roseanne or Arrested Development, but be careful: you're teetering into According to Jim territory.

I've used that before.

I wanted to give you three, but I just can't do it.






Because I feel like you're doing half of this just to be cool.

HELL

The sad thing is that working in a restaurant should get a blogger some great writing material. A diner sits there and tells another person what he wants to eat. In this strange pseudo-Feudal world of dining, that person now has to go to the back of the restaurant and make sure the customer gets what he ordered, then bring it over to his table. Now, the diner doesn't even raise his head to acknowledge the waiter because he's talking to his wife about Tiger Woods or he's tweeting, "I'm in a restaurant. HUNGRY!!! LOL." Then at the end, he gives the guy some cash while loudly complaining to his wife that the waiter should have paid more attention to his table and that the pasta was sticky.

And here we have a blog, Even Idiots Order Pizza, that's all about making fun of this absurdity of the service industry, where for a short moment people get to DEMAND others give a damn about them. Unfortunately, the blog fails.

And I don't want to be mean here, Sam. Unfortunately, though, instead of identifying with you and telling myself, "Can't these people see there's a human being behind the notepad and under the food tray? Can't they sense a soul on the other end of the line?" I see you as a condescending whiny prick with nothing to offer but your own published self-delusions.

Let's go through the first page.

A woman calls Tech Support with a question. Sam is being an ass about it. The End.

Then, back in the restaurant, some people ask to split the check. Apparently they do it in a complicated way, although we're never told what they really wanted to do, because Sam is more interested in being a wise-ass: "Turns out I was supposed to take a tip out somewhere and do a handstand and summon the rain gods and do their taxes. Federal and state."

Next, some guy orders a small pizza, NOT REALIZING IT'S ACTUALLY PRETTY BIG! Ha! Thank God you have a fucking blog where you could write this shit!

Oh, fuck it. I'm not going any further down the page. I will do a quick search in the archives to see if there's anything good...

He's waiting on an old deaf guy who can't hear him, and then he makes fun of him. A woman enters the restaurant and asks about the beverage selection, so he describes her as an idiot. Well, looks like I've read everything I needed to read.

OK. Look. I could give you some tips about the blog. I could say the template is simple and nice, but you should probably fix the date thing on the left. And I could tell you that no one cares about labels. No one is going to say, "I wonder what his SNIPPET label is like!" You have a links tab with only one link. Whatever. Your blog is not your problem. Your life-choices and your attitude is your problem. You live in Hell, and the sad part is that you've found your way there all by yourself. And as much as I appreciate a person pointing out the absurdities of modern-life, your blog fails to do that, and worse--it only helps you stay in your Hellish self-imposed exile.

Maybe you're just very young, and subconsciously you think that being a jerk helps you distinguish yourself. Maybe you feel like writing your blog makes you better than others. Young people tend to do that. I was like that in my early twenties. High five! And look at that: I didn't go far enough in the blog to find out anything about your personal life. I don't know how old you are, where you live, what your favorite movie is, your favorite color, band, time of day, season, football team, and yet I know you live in Hell. You're burning in a lake of fire and you don't even know it. Your hatred consumes you, and you pretend to like it. You make fun of deaf people because you feel invincible, not knowing you've already suffered the worse tragedy a human being can suffer: the death of your soul.

Spawn of the Dead

Hey peeps. I'm back from the undead, and ready to rumble.

Lucky Scary Mommy is taking a spin at Pacific Playland today.

I should start by saying, ever so sarcastically, that I love a mommyblog. I especially have big love for a mommy blog that includes all of my personal pet peeves.

For instance:

Cash for posts? Check.

Boring, substandard content? Check.

Pictures of children I don't know and in whom I'm uninterested, in lieu of content? Check.

Pretending to be hyperbadassfoulmouthedcoolmom? Check (and god, I am thoroughly sick of this one...)

This is formaldehyde-scented death wrapped up in a shiny red & white package. The posts are stiff, the content feels posed, and there isn't a single uncontrived sentence on this blog. Oh, goodie. I've encountered the undead Kate Gosselin of the blogosphere.

Up front, a quick list of the things I hate:

I hate the three-column template with 1 main post and additional posts shown as snippets underneath that require additional clicks. I particularly hate that this template makes it difficult to get back to the main page.

I hate the ads that "scary" mom is using to subsidize her blogstyle.

I hate the content.

I don't hate the kids, but I hate that their mom is using them to create a name for herself and build an evil undead mommy blogging empire (muahahhahahaahahah!). Scary Mommy is begging for a nail-studded baseball bat and a sharp pair of hedge trimmers.

Scary Mommy is never real. For the record, real bleeds. Real sweats, real cries, real poops. This is what real looks like:

...no words I put down can fully capture the aching emptiness I feel at giving birth to babies and coming home from the hospital without them. What we endure to bring our babies into the world is easily forgotten when we cuddle the thing so hard won. When we smell its soft head, trace our fingers down a chubby, pink body, whisper silliness and love into its ears. But I don't have that now. I sit alone in rooms and wonder about the new lives I just ushered too early into the world. I carry guilt heavy in my chest. Why wasn't I strong enough to carry them to term? What defect brought on labor at 33 weeks?

...read more

Real moms agonize. They blame themselves, they address their fears of not being good enough, they bitch, they moan, they show their asses. They say, "This shit ain't easy, and it ain't for suckas, yo?"

Scary Mommy is not real in any sense of the word that is meaningful, at least to imperfect mothers like me. She's glib, heartless, and flippant. She died a while ago, but no one has noticed since she plods along in exactly the same happy dead way.

My objective system of blog rating goes like this. If the blog so fascinates me that I'd drive 60 miles out of my way on a business trip to meet the blogger, it's a damn good blog. If I'd drive 10 miles, it's decent. If I'd consider running the blogger down in the grocery store parking lot, it's going to get a flaming finger. If I need to put the double tap into effect, it needs to fuck off and die already, because it's already 78% dead. It's pretty scientific, when you think about it.

So...I would never sit down for cheap margaritas in some chain restaurant in the wilds of New Jersey with Scary Mommy. I do not read her blog and think, "I'd like to meet this fascinating woman." Instead, I think: "She has no soul. She is a zombie who might eat my brains for an appetizer instead of the Mexican eggrolls. Where the hell is my sawed off shotgun?"

There are good mommy blogs out there written by women with heart, courage, humor, passion, and zeal.

Scary Mommy isn't one of 'em.

What rating do I give this fake/dead blog? I felt the need to create something new:










And for making me waste my time...

List of Schooled

Welcome back to the School of Pain where bloggers come to beg for beatings for reasons I still do not fully understand. I hope it is to learn. Really, I do.

Here are this week's pain-loving pupils:

Scary Mommy - "My honest take on motherhood. (Oh, yes, another mommy blog)."

Even Idiots Order Pizza - "Everyone has encountered an obnoxious person at a restaurant, a grocery store, the mall, etc., harassing an employee. Here is a place to tell the stories of that outrageous customer from the other side of the counter."

The Daddy Files - "I describe in detail my son's poop (because I'm obsessed with feces) and I once had to manually pump my wife's breast during a car ride because her tatas were leaking."

An Addict In My Son's Bedroom - "This a chronicle of a parents journey with an addicted son that has been using for 6 years."

Anyone want to warm these bloggers up with a pre-hazing? My mental red pen is already making stabbing motions.

So then because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew you out of my mouth.

A review from Chris:



I was asked by the lovely Madame Bellicose to do a guest review. She promised me an "internet hand job" if I reviewed a blog. I am not sure what that might be but I'm all for new experiences and have never wanted to turn down a hand job, corporeal or otherwise.

The blogger today is Dr. Zibbs at That Blue Yak. I can't tell what he is a doctor of as his About Me section is a litany of movies he likes and other assorted fluffery but nothing about him. I think he is married and he appears to have a Twitter account as he mentions this in every third post. His blog is a melange of bad html and Youtube videos where he then comments on the videos or pics in a very pedestrian way.

I must admit that I only made it through a few dozen of his posts before giving up. Between the 32nd mention of his Twitter feed and the pointless "look at this" posts I surmised he thinks of himself as a humorist. Dr. Zibbs let me you in on a little secret, no matter how sophomoric, no matter how base your "random musings" are, there are 100,000 other blogs on the internet just like yours and you will find a dozen or so people that will tell you that you are funny. You are not!

What you are is trite and banal.
You give the reader no reason to come back to your blog. Your blog is a pablum of the internet; tasteless and generic. You neither made me like you nor hate you and in failing to do so, you engendered the worst emotion that a reader might have: indifference.

I see that you posted a whopping 518 posts last year and hundreds the year before. Impressive, but a shitload of crap is still crap, just more of said crap.

I wont even start on your sidebar widget that acts like voice mail so that your readers may leave an audio message. WTF, are they incapable of leaving a comment in the, wait for it, comment section? What in the name of Mohamed's mustache wax possessed you to throw that widget up there? I listened to a few and it was was bad,very bad, you made my soul cry.

For now I give you the flaming finger, thricely (three times).







Get rid of the videos and pictures and write! Banish the doo-dads and gee-gaws from your sidebar and write some more.

The Trouble With Scribbles

Well hello there! It's me, Ginny from Praying to Darwin, back to review, rip, rend, run down, roast....well, you get the idea. If it's a verb, and it starts with an “R”, and it's unpleasant, I'm all over it.

In my sights this time around: Scribbles.


I'm gonna level with you. First time I went there, I didn't get it.

Right there in her profile, she's using cutesy, vaguely foreign words like “ickle”. The layout is like listening to an accountant wax rhapsodic about deferred income (i e Boring as fuck. Unless you are an accountant. But even then, you should know better.) And most annoying of all, there just wasn't much to work with. Precision Grace has only been blogging for half a year. For the love of the deity of your choice, I have draft posts on my dashboard older than this chick's blog. (Oh sure, they're full of incomprehensible bon mots like “Say what you will, but in her day, Sally Struthers was one hot piece of ass”, but they're there, and waiting for their chance.)

But then.....

I submitted.

I said, “Hey, Ginny, quit being such a lazy ass, and read all 26 of those posts, if you're so pissed about the lack of material.”

Yowza.

Turns out “ickles” is British slang for little. That's the perfect description for what she writes here. Little stories that meander, and wind and end, and then you're left with this satisfied little feeling, and you're all like, “Hey, how did that happen?”

This snapshot of a writing class was brilliant and perfect. And this? Fuggedaboutit. I could try for a year, like really try, and not get anywhere close to that. When she started mind-melding with babies, I was just happy to be along for the ride.

She's not without her issues. The navigation is a freaking nightmare. I had to click on each month, then read through, because only the most recent post shows up on the front page, with no other option to read past it. (Or maybe I just couldn't find it. I'm awesome like that, sometimes.)

Usually, when I do this, I tell people to edit, tighten it up, cut their words in half. But in this case, I just wanted her to keep going.

To recap, it would have been an I Fucking Love You







but until you clean up the navigation issues, and maybe jazz the joint up slightly and just post more often, you little tease, you get 4 stars.

Beating the Meat Puppets

Hey. Haven't had enough of me yet? How the hell is that possible? But ... ah, fuck it.

While you're here, I have two questions for you.

• Do you enjoy watching people relentlessly beating the shit out of each other?


• Do you think that Jackass is really funny?

If you answered "yes" to both of these questions, then JohnnyKage.com might be right up your alley. If not, perhaps I could suggest other, more productive ways to spend your time. Like removing your own spleen with a rusty fishhook.

When I first started delving into this mess, it took me a good long time before I even knew what the fuck I was looking at, so to help you ADD afflicted types out, let me provide you with the About page that Johnny Kage never really bothers with. (Although this deeply buried "kinda-sorta" best of page might prove enlightening.)

Johnny Kage is the stage name of a real life Mixed Martial Arts (or, 'MMA' for short -- something I didn't figure out until I had read about a month's worth of material) fighter. A quick Google search will reveal to you his real name, so I feel fine telling you all that it is Frank Colcher, and that he's from Toronto. There are some YouTube videos of him, and from what I can see, I probably wouldn't try to steal his girlfriend or key his car, as he could probably fuck me up pretty good. Yeah, I know. Me. Scorpio Woperchild may have met my better in the physical arena. Go figure.

Depending on which Google search you believe, he's had a reasonably successful career. So, JohnnyKage.com is, apparently, a space where he and a few of his fellow MMA buds can promote themselves and rip on each other. There are around four or five contributors, and some are better than others, but they are all connected via their love for MMA. And belittling each other.

The resulting melange is sometimes entertaining, but usually, for me, it isn't. I don't honestly care to hear grown men and women trying to trade barbs by calling each other gay or by implying that one or another of them has aids. Truthfully, I felt like I was hanging out with a bunch of guys I don't know trade inside jokes for a couple of days.

Then there are the stories -- the fictionalized accounts of Johnny Kage's life which read a bit like The Wonder Years, if it had been Hunter S. Thompson who had created that show. And that sort of diarrhea may appeal to a few of you, but while reading it, my Give-A-Shitter snapped in two. (New parts are on order from Romania. I should have them in about ten days.)

I don't think I get it. I mean, am I the only one who sees irony in this little piece?

The fact is, in over a year, this site which started out with this gem of a prophecy -- "What is the website about? nobody involved is quite sure yet" -- has not really found a clear identity, unless it is just community building in the MMA world.

I might simply not be in the target demographic. So be it.

I am probably selling this thing short, but I get to call it like I see it. And what I see is a template that sucks to read (think first generation MySpace), too much fucking clutter, an archive designed to thwart anyone who might want to delve into it, poor grammar and spelling and punctuation, a lack of a clear-cut cohesive identity, and way too many videos that don't entertain me. This site is way too much trying to be cool, and not anywhere near enough actual cool for me. And putting this review together was a chore, not a pleasure.

As for a rating, AAYSR doesn't have one that genuinely applies. I don't entirely hate on this mess, so the Flaming Finger or Go Fuck Yourself is a bit too strong, and MEH isn't quite strong enough. Best I can do is give you a mash-up between the flaming finger, a turd, and the sentiment behind the MEH...

The result? I bring you, the Flaming Turd of Apathy!

We are not amused

By Queen Be

I hear the clip clop of the horses’ hooves as they pull the tumbrel closer. The guillotine’s blade is shining brightly, ready to separate the next victim’s neck from her head in one clean and swift stroke. I do hope today’s splatter is kept to a minimum. Ah, here she is now…

Christina’s blog is thoughtful and well-written. It makes you think of overeducated people sitting around with tiny glasses of sherry discussing existentialism in the works of Camus. Or parallel feminism in Antigone and A Doll’s House. Or, watching C-Span.

So why in the name of holy fuck did she submit here?

Maybe she thought the name, Stacked, would be so attention-grabbing that we would award stars based on that alone. I will admit that it worked ever so briefly. Until I actually clicked onto the site.

Stacked is a book review blog. Not the kind of paperbacks you buy at the airport, but the kind of serious literature that I only pretend to read. But I won’t be reading about any of these because each and every entry held my admittedly short attention span for about 30 seconds.

Christina, please don’t despair though because this is clearly a case of “it’s not you, it’s me.”

I’m a queen. I’m shallow. All my life people have done things for me…they work for me, they cook and clean for me and when someone asks me to do something that requires a few brain cells, well, I often bail.

You’re a nice person. It seems that the only rule you’ve ever broken is not returning a library book on time and your biggest secret is that you were in a sorority in college. And this one I actually liked.

Not so much this, though. I had to read nearly 600 words of this thousand-word review before you even got to the book at hand. That over-long intro describes your strolls through Brooklyn:

“Other days I prefer Prospect Park with its many paths leading to new discoveries and the calm or chaos that comes with different weather, people, a zoo, and fences that get in my way.”

I know that you can make that sentence more entertaining. Look at all the potential—zoo, chaos, fences—tell me about just one of them—in 200 words—and you’ve got me sucked into your review.

Here’s another way to do it—and I chose this example because it’s written by a woman in New York. She is part-time teacher and this is how she describes a few moments at Starbucks:

“So, there I was at Starbucks, grading papers and trying to ward off an Overused Comma coma with a Cranberry Bliss bar, when Tiny Bladder at the next table asked me to watch his stuff for the millionth time. I rolled my eyes, stuffed a chunk of Cranberry Bliss into my mouth and said, “Dude, I don’t care how cold it is outside, no one wants your dollar-store notebook and the ratty goddamn trench coat your mama obviously dressed you in.” Somehow, through the crumbly brown sugary goodness that fell from my mouth he heard, “Sure! No problem!” Then he dashed off.”

Dingo could’ve just as easily written “I went to Starbucks this morning, graded papers, ate some breakfast and chatted with the guy at the next table.” Instead she made me taste and see and care about what was going on.

If you make me care about what’s going on in your intros, I might care about the books. Otherwise I’m just going to shine my guillotine blade and mop up the blood splatter.

Christina, you’re obviously smart and you know how to write. However, just because a sentence is grammatical doesn’t make it interesting. Maybe you’re trying too hard to impress your readers. Maybe you’re trying to get a gig at a serious journal or newspaper. Just lighten up.

This is a blog—have some fun with it. Let your hair down. Eat a Cranberry Bliss.

Until then, the best I can do is:

This is not a review

Guess what’s not happening here at ‘Ask’? Blog reviews for those who blog without c.l.e.a.r.l.y. reading and then taking time to re-read and comprehend this and this.

Thank goodness, otherwise I would be pounding away on this keyboard writing a review for Nutcase 101. What kind of pain in my ass would that have been?

I would have started at the ‘About’ page where there would be some cloudy blurb about a weight problem, acting like being in one’s 30’s is confounding, a boyfriend and two cats.

Then I would have read post after post that I would have wished told me more. I would have read about the decision to post about a nose job, and then realized the photos had been removed. I would have been walked right up to the edge of the ache of missing someone, but not thrown over the cliff. I would have been told I am going to learn about the mental and emotional attachment to food, and then given some kind of countdown that I can get just as easily (and with one hell of a lot more entertainment or gut wrenching honesty) by stopping by any local OA or Weight Watchers meeting.

Worst of all, I would have found myself still hopeful at the point of finding an entire page devoted to a ‘Bucket List’. You know, that list we’re all supposed to have of things we want to do before we die.

“Oh sweet Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” I would think. “Maybe she’s just shoved all the good stuff in there!”

I would lick my chops in anticipation of some place east of nowhere that she’s always wanted to go, the desire for an advanced degree, or wanting to take it up the ass just once.

I would end up getting sticking to a cleaning schedule and budget, drinking more water, cooking with less beef and I don’t know what the fuck all else. Oh, and let’s not forget two entire pages devoted to knitting and sewing that contain statements that photos and descriptions will be posted. This is, of course, is followed by nothing.

I sure am glad ‘Ask’ doesn’t review blogs like Nutcase 101. As a matter of fact, here’s an

for ‘Ask’ for that.

Oh, and here’s a

and a

for Nutcase 101 and other blogs like it for clogging up the blogosphere.
At least they don’t mind when they ask for a blog review and we simply refuse to do it. Otherwise, I would probably be so frustrated at this point that I would simply have to slap someone directly in the mouth about now.

List of Shut Your Piehole

Hello my little Valentines. I hope you all had as kinky a 14th as I did.

Here is this week's list of voluntary pwnage:

Carrying over from last week is Nutcase 101.

Stacked "Books. Books. More books. And the occasional unicorn." I weep for the reviewer.

Scribbles "Scribbles is a collection of (very) short stories, musings and occasional rants." Ooooh, musings and rants. Never heard those descriptions before.

JohnnyKageDotCom Home of the World's Greatest Action Hero "I am making fun of celebrity as a whole with the magnifying glass pointed at my own narcissism (Think Colbert Report)." Likening oneself to Stephen Colbert has to be like being a Humour Blogger on mad amounts of crack.

That Blue Yak "The king of all blog. And by king, I mean the best." The reviewer may beg to differ.

The Nice Girl

One of the many things about our world that I don't understand is blogging awards. I don't mean the ejaculatory "I Heart Ur Blog" things that meme hounds pass around to one another. I mean the purportedly big ones – The Bloggies and The Bloggers Choice Awards and that sort of palaver. What's the criteria? What, exactly, is being awarded? I'm hoping you hip Ask kids can give me the 411 on blog awards. Do hip kids still say "the 411"?

I ask because today’s reviewee is nominated for the Best Australian Blog in one of these award sites. And to be honest, I just don’t know why.

I had high hopes for Frog Ponds Rock. I always like to find some quality Antipodean talent and Kim is the mother of Sleepless Night’s Veronica, who justifiably got a positive review over here a while back. There's a lot of save the whales, clean up the ocean, anti-censorship and peace, love and understanding. Man. And there’s recipes and memes and blahdey fucking blah.

Kim also posts a lot of photos. Nice photos to be sure. Lots of native wildlife and lovely scenery. Makes one want to take a trip down to Tassie. All very nice. (One suggestion – change your header photo. You clearly know your way around a camera and the gum tree bark is, well, nice but you could do better.)

But we don’t traditionally review photo blogs here at Ask, we look at the writing. And the writing on Frog Ponds Rock is nothing special. It is fine. It is nice. It is grammatically correct. What there is very little of is anything that makes me want to come back and read this blog. The more I read, the more I found my mind wandering off. It just isn’t compelling. It is a bit dull. And that’s the story of this blog. Nice, but a bit dull.

Her art, though, is very cool. And I like the slightly guerrilla aspect of hiding objects in nooks and crannies along a trail in wildlife park. Maybe that’s where you take this blog Kim, treat it as you do your artwork. Write with passion and artistry and if you can’t summon that in your writing then post your artwork and let it speak for you.

So, good luck in the awards. Feel free to send us a thank you in your acceptance speech. But all this reviewer has for you is one star for nice.

Your Blog Is Giving Me Shingles. Itchy, Sexy Ones.

A review from Rassles. Once more. With feeling.



Dartboard? Okay. Come on, Rass. You can do this.

YOU ANNOY THE FUCKING FUCK OUT OF ME. YOU ARE OBNOXIOUS. IT CAUSES ME BOTH CORPOREAL AND ETHEREAL PAIN TO READ SOME OF YOUR SENTENCES BECAUSE I WANT TO REFRAGMENT THE FUCKING LOT OF THEM.

Also, apparently I am a sado-masochist.

I am fucking irked to the point of shingles. But then, I'm coyly flirting with my computer screen, oggling these sophomoric sketches (which lead into each blog entry with the finesse of a hobbled Tibetan ox), blushing, casting sidelong glances. I'm doing that thing that I do that pisses me off, where I arch my back and half-smile and pull my shirtsleeves over my knuckles. I must be getting my fucking period.

He’s like the friend you don’t want to introduce to people. You’ll hang out with him, sure, and when you share stories about his verbal rampages you call him “this guy I know" but never "a friend of mine." Because you will tell stories about him, because he's entertaining as hell. Just annoyingly so.

Then one day you and a real friend run into him at a bar. You exchange unpleasantries and separate thoroughly agitated. Your friend innocently asks, "how do you know that guy?" and you arch your back, half smile, roll your eyes, shake your head with annoyance and state, "He’s just this guy" or "we were in a band together."

Why don't you want to admit your friendship? Well, he rants about marketing shit and customer service reviews that you really don’t care about. And then he rants about marketing shit and customer service reviews that you don’t really care about. And then? He rants about marketing shit and customer service reviews that you don’t really care about. Has he ever worked customer service, or is he just a dick?

Tonally, he traverses between unnecessary arrogance and berating himself with the proper dash of pomposity. He needs to work on comedic meter, but really, I mean, who doesn’t?

He claims to have destructive apathy, which I would be more inclined to believe were he a careless loafer laced with a thin string of nihilism, but he’s more mean-tempered than that. More callous. And also, more sensitive, which makes the whole situation soooooo much more irritating.

See, you don't want to admit it, but you want to shamefuck him. Like Shia LaBeouf shamefuckin. I can’t believe I’m typing this right now. But you know what I mean: an annoying shit of a dude that is irritating and unattractive and charming and you’re embarrassed because you want to shamefuck him really, really hard.

Back at the bar, after silently imagining (for about half an hour) exactly how that shamefuck will unfold, you explain to your friend that you can’t focus on your conversation because that guy from earlier? You want to shamefuck him. And he laughs and tells you that he feels that way about his friend's mom. And then you buy him a shot and make him swear to secrecy with pinkies and blood, but you still don't tell him about Shia LaBeouf. That one goes to the fucking grave.

Yeah.

Dartboard, you're still annoying. Go fuck yourself. I don't want to give you any stars, but I’m going to, because you're funny enough and good enough of a writer. But seriously, go fuck yourself.

How about this: I want you to go fuck yourself, and then I want you to call me and tell me exactly what you were thinking about while fucking yourself. Okay? Fine.

Son of a bitch.

Behind the Beige Door

I unbuttoned his pants and tugged them down exposing the beginning of his pelvis. Just below his navel was a moon-shaped scar, long since healed it was lighter and smoother than the rest of his skin. I knelt before him, my knees bare on the hard wooden floor. I brushed my lips over the scar and looked up at him. He pulled me up as he stood and I pushed his pants the rest of the way down and he stepped out of them. I lay down on my side and he came to rest beside me. I used my hands to familiarize myself with the rest of him, the curve of his spine, the hardness of his back breaking into the soft flesh of his buttocks. He was still for awhile, just letting me touch him, watching me with curiosity and gratitude. I took his hand and pressed it into the soft flesh of my sex, I whispered, “I want you inside me.” He moved on top of me and pushed my legs apart with his own and pressed himself against me. Bliss, that moment just before, when you know something is inevitable but has not yet begun. Remember this, I thought to myself, remember how this feels. He entered me and my body gave. He let out a deep exhalation and moved against me with an unhurried rhythm. I wrapped my legs around him loosely. We watched each other for a long time, following the sighs and soft murmurs where they took us, the commands of pleasure. He ran his fingers over my cheeks, past my lips and down my neck as he kept pushing into me, hastening the momentum between us. I could feel it starting, the beginning of a wave, feeling every muscle on alert, at attention until relief came over me. I cried out and used my legs to hold him deep inside of me. He looked at me satisfied and increased his rhythm, pushing into me more forcefully as his breathing sped up. I watched his face change from serene to almost pained. I moved my hips with his, Meeting his movements with my own. I climaxed again, more vocal as the last of my self-consciousness fell away. A quiet moan escaped his lips as he pushed as far inside me as our bodies would allow. I could feel small pulses of movement, warmth and then he relaxed.

Oh, hello there. Miss Missives was just reliving last night. Just wait a second, let me get zipped back up. Sorry about that. Oh, a tissue, thank you, how kind. You came here for a review, not to witness the Miss in a moment of masturbatory mischief. Sorry, some things just get me all hot and bothered.

And some things don't.

I was excited to find I would be reviewing a sex blog but a little concerned when I read the title, OMFG Sex!!!. A sex blog begs an answer to the question of why. Why do we blog? Some of us blog to write to an audience, some of us blog to express a part of ourselves that might be hidden in plain day, some of us blog to present a carefully crafted image to the world, Perfect Mom, Clever Hipster, Train Wreck, Angsty Poet and so on. Some of us blog to connect based on common interests. I would think that one would be a big one for the sex blogs. Oh you like Naughty British girls getting spanked for their disobedience? Me too!!

Lolita Vida, the purveyor of OMFG Sex!!! gives her reason to blog about sex as,

To me what matters most besides D. and I being in love, is the fact that sexually, we are a perfect match. He has a higher sex drive than I do (and I’m blogging mainly to change that

I can think of a lot of things I would do to get myself amped up for a night of ass smackery but blogging isn't one of them. OMFG Sex!!! was nominated for freakiest blog, Blogger's Choice awards-- probably self-nominated because really, freakiest? Have you visited the internet lately? Talking about the sex you're having with your husband doesn't even get runner-up status. Now if you are talking about having sex with your neighbor's husband who is a pre-op transsexual who likes to be diapered while you re-enact Two Girls and a Cup and crush bugs with your heels, whilst dressed up like giant stuffed animals, you might qualify but you still wouldn't win. My goodness, I even found this hotter.

I like this mostly, probably because this is the most real thing Lolita wrote. It feels like her and not the pretend her she thinks she should be. I like some of her rules but take exception with this one:

If your partner enjoys being constantly groped while she cleans, changes diapers and slaves over a hot stove, more power to her and by all means, grope away. But we all know that your woman ain’t one of those gems. So, refrain from the hand assaults as much as you can. Instead, caress her leg and smile at her, Massage her shoulders and ask if she is okay or just brush her hair back with your finger and gaze into the eyes you fell in love with.

Mister Missives is a handsy guy and knows there's nothing like a playful smack on the ass, neck nibble or tittie grab to keep the home fires stoked. Not every woman wants to be gazed at deeply and please, don't ask me if I'm ok. If I'm not ok, you'll know. Now as much as I like being groped or even setting up playful power plays, being held down and yes, even being told what a bad girl I am, I have a huge problem with this. If this is a fantasy Lolita is entertaining, fair enough, however, if you are pleading no and haven't agreed beforehand that no means yes and Persimmon means no then yes, it's rape.

Lolita Vida is also an acknowledged squirter. To each their own however, I found far too many references to Lolita's lady liquid than anyone needs.

my orgasm will gush out of me like a faulty faucet, sink deep into my favorite chair and down the tiles

and

My seat is soaking wet from the numerous orgasms my body’s gifted me with and the car is permeated with the sweet stench of freshly produced...

Lolita dear, remind me to never sit down anywhere in your house.


There are many problems with this blog. There are the distracting errors like using costumer for customer. There are the cheesecake pictures which feel like the equivalent of crappy clip art. The About Me is absent and archives are all the way at the bottom. But the biggest problem I found with OMFG Sex!!! is that it reads like nothing more than one big pep talk to get this woman to want to have sex with her husband.

I give OMFG Sex!!

For being a giant turnoff, and basically being to sex blogs what Humor Blogs are to funny.



And these are so you can plug up that leaky hole of yours.

This Week's Gimp Orgy

Happy Monday, Askers.

In line with the former tradition of listing the blogs up for review, here is this week's list of pain-lovers:

OMFG Sex "...where I have better sex than anyone else and brag about my orgasmic abilities." Just based on her description she needs a spanking.

Destructive Apathy "Topics include my abysmal dating life, media/technology/society observations, and strange things that happen to me on the road."

Frog Ponds Rock "My blog is where I dump all the words that are in my head." Oh joy, just what the blogosphere needs, another thought dumpster.

Nutcase 101 "It's about my thoughts, life, emotions and all the shit that rattles around in my brain." Your sanity is questionable for having submitted your blog for review.

Any predictions from the peanut gallery?

A matter of taste

In my line of work, I have to do a lot of reading. I read strategic educational planning reports, budgetary requests, grant applications, teacher induction guidelines, etc. I spend my day buried in this shit.

I can safely say that 99 per cent of what is piled in manila folder after manila folder on my desk awaiting my signature is well written. Punctuation has been used following stringent style guidelines, proper past participles have been applied and subjects and verbs are in harmony like ebony and goddamn ivory.

That doesn't mean that I want to put on my silk negligee, curl up in my cashmere throw with a hot toddy and pull out a copy of the State Board Standards and Rubrics for School Improvement.

I read that shit because I bloody have to.

I have a similar approach to blogging. You can have a PhD in semiotics and another in 18th century English literature and that doesn't get your ass into my reader. To get into my reader, your funny has to hurt my abs, your sexy has to disintegrate my underwear and your frustration has to stick to my throat long after I've marked your posts as read. In other words, whatever the hell you purport to be, you had better be oozing with it and you'd better make me want to lick it up.

And the licking part is where it gets personal. I like to lick what I like to lick. What can I say?

And because I'm used to seeing so much syntactical and grammatical jackassery around this joint, I'm thrown off a bit when I find someone that can actually write; not just sentences, but entire posts that follow the same line of thought without filibustering my face off with random, disconnected, poorly thought out brain turdlings.

Zen Mama knows how to pull a post together. She thinks about what she writes in advance. Not only that, she can write a series related posts and actually retain my interest. Zen Mama tells her story without holding back: the story of a thrice divorced 46 year old mother and professional. She is brave enough to call a spade a spade and a skeleton in the closet a pile of bones. I respect and admire that in a blogger. Her posts can tend to lean towards too long at times, but in general, they have a good pace and she always tries to reveal things about herself through her writing. She believes she's a writer and she acts like it.

But back to the licking.

Here is where I have to put into words why I don't fucking love Zen Mama and only like her. This is where it gets entirely personal. And I'm finding this discussion near impossible without touching my toes into the tumultuous, I'm-gonna-get-ma-fuckin-foot-electrocuted waters of feminism and what it means to me.

Even thinking about this irritates me because I don't want to be non-solidarity-like. I know that we women need solidarity. I know our salaries are still crap compared to men. I know the number of the hours men spend per week on childcare and housework pales in comparison to ours. They enjoy more money, more prestige, more free time, even most of the egalitarian, self-proclaimed Feminist ones do. I'm right here in the boxing ring, throwing my best punches with the same feelings of betrayal in the realization that I'm not just one of the guys anymore and I am always the one to do the fucking laundry.

It's just that I don't buy into the brand of feminism that is all girl-powery, women unite in a huddled mass of chocolate and tears, singing 'I Will Survive' at the top of our lungs, and rise up against men who are all a series of Mr. Dependables, Mr. Idiots, Mr. Perfections, Mr. Whatever-- random, faceless dudes in random suits who are nothing but the prototype of 'man' that we have in our collective heads. That particular brand of feminism with which I have never been able to identify smacks of oversimplification and leaves a weird flavor in my mouth that tastes a lot like regression. I'm not afraid of femininity. But I find that I like women when their strongest characteristics aren't their overriding girliness in the same way that the men I like are not oozing with masculinity. I like my peeps adrodgynous. There is something that doesn't sit right with me when women pat themselves on the back for doing shit despite being women, and maybe it's just that it pisses me off that things are to a state that we require a back pat for living. I want women and men to see society and their position with respect to the opposite gender as being seamless, homogeneous, even if that's naively idealistic of them. I don't claim that men and women are not by nature different and that their differences shouldn't at times be celebrated. But I think we are a hell of a lot more alike than we are different. The variations between us as individuals are much, much greater than they are between the two gender groups as a whole.

Don't get me wrong, Askers. Zen Mama's blog is not a blog that gets all First Wave on our asses in every post or that even seems to be intentionally about any brand of feminism at all. There is just a tone I perceived throughout her blog, and the fairies in the sidebar continuously reminded me of it. And I feel like that has stopped me from being able to Fucking Love her, because I think we differ philosophically. But I have these same issues with my girlfriends in the real world and argue with them about why I think always having Girl's Night Out every goddamn time we get together is retarded.

I give three stars to Zen Mama for knowing how to tell a proper story and for being one of the good ones in the blogosphere. I suppose if Zen Mama was able to transmit anything about herself philosophically through writing and to stir the reader to examine themselves in any way, as far as blogging goes, she's got the right idea.






By the way, I love the blog name and wish I had thought of it.