Sometimes You Feel Like the Only One Laughing

I don't know if this is a picture of Jacob or not, but it's on his blog so I'm just going to go ahead and pretend it's him. He was kind enough to do a lovely little guest post for us, which is excellent, because (a) getting people to write reviews is harder than I thought, and (b) I like Jacob. Plus he keeps chickens in his backyard, so you know this guy's got shit to do that is way more lucrative than reviewing a blog with "Poo" in its title.


You know, when I was given a list of blogs to choose from, I didn't even bother to look at a single post before making my choice. The URL: Midgetmanofsteel.com. It was just too good to pass up. I just knew this would be a blog that would either be awesome or I could at least work up a good rant about it not living up to the potential of the title.

It turns out that the real name of the blog is Mental Poo, and I'm going to go ahead and establish a rule that blogs with titles referencing solid human waste are going to suck. Plus now, instead of imagining a tiny little Superman or the Bloodhound Gang's bodybuilding elf, I'm left wondering if "Midget Man of Steel" isn't a metaphor for the guy's penis. I've got nothing against genital references technically. In fact, a very long time ago the name of my blog was a veiled reference to masturbation, so I can't really make fun of those names. The name hasn't changed; I'm just lucky I veiled that shit so well that it could basically refer to anything I wanted. It'd be a little embarrassing to have a blog named after self-love at my age.

Getting back to Mental Poo, I'm not even trying to accuse the writer of having a small penis. That's not my style, at least not when I'm not trying to be ironic, and I'm not feeling very ironic at the moment. The guy's actually a better writer than "Mental Poo" would suggest. He's clear, concise and uses interesting word choice. This guy probably passed a few English classes in high school. He may have even earned an A in his freshman composition class in college if he was able to keep it serious long enough to churn out a good essay, but that's his problem. The guy is obviously going for the humor blog thing. I respect that. Sticking to a theme is hard and comedy is a risky endeavor. Believe me. I understand this. It's easier to build a following when the readers know exactly what to expect, but it really limits what you can write about. When you're successful, the result is beautiful. When you're not, the result is, well...

I'm not even going to say that this blog is all bad, it's just that he tries too hard. He's putting up a lot of posts, averaging about 20 a month for the past three years. That's a lot of stuff to write, and when you're always trying to make it funny, you're going to have a lot of flops unless you're some sort of idiot savant of original comedy. There's a reason a guy like Jay Leno gets stale and hackneyed after years of doing a comedy show five nights a week. I mean come on. Ruben Studdard Spider?

Basically, the writer reminds me of a guy I lived with for a while in college. He seemed to live on a diet of Papa John's pizza and was a nearly constant font of cheesy jokes. In person, I'm okay with this, but in a blog it's not exactly going to earn a spot in my Google Reader list.

As for the design aspects of the blog, that's not my cup of tea, exactly. I'm a writer, not a designer. My own blog design is rather utilitarian. Mental Poo's format is one of Blogger's generic templates with some moderate customization. I do have enough of a designbackground to know that the stuff in the side bar is just excessive. A lot of it could just be taken out and either trashed entirely or just moved somewhere else on the site. The archives could be collapsed into a drop down box to clean up that area, but honestly, I'd read the ugliest blog in the world (as long as it was legible) if the posts were worth reading. My biggest piece of advice is to just slow your roll. Cut down on the frequency of your posting, take a little time to polish your pieces, and only post when the work deserves it. The shotgun approach works for some things, but in a blog it makes the reader sift through too much crap to be able to enjoy the stuff you actually get right.

Rating: A meh because I just don't want to read your posts and a Dirty Jay Leno because I think you make Conan O'Brien cry.











(Hey, it's Shiner. So Jacob asked for a "Dirty Jay Leno" but I only have MS Paint here at work, so he just kind of looks like the guy on the Pringles cans. Sor.)

On Poetry and Dyspepsia

This morning began badly. I had passed a broken night plagued by sinister intestinal arias and had finally slipped into a lightly-greased coma when I was awoken by a troupe of vulgar children taking a shortcut through the grounds. Nothing is more terrifying to me than children en masse. When they had gone I had my Fanny put down some salt, but I have no doubt they will return.

For breakfast I dealt commendably with a sweetbread bap washed down with small beer, but my mood was low, the Black Dog cocking its leg against the scrappy saplings of my mind. Fanny tried to distract me, bless her cotton socks, but I have seen that trick with the billiards balls so very many times that I could barely raise a smile, let alone anything else. I decided that the only thing to do was to get stuck into this review, so Fanny booted on or whatever you call it, and from the ether we summoned Shadow.

Imagine my delight when I discovered that Shadow is a poet! And I mean that without a trace of sarcasm – poetry is my meat and my cream. I am aware that I am in a minority here. Some people have had such traumatic experiences with poetry that they shut down at the mere mention of the word, the way I do when I hear ‘siphon tubing’. It is such a shame, because a good poem, a really good poem, is like a toothful of gods.

Shadow is a prolific little monster. There are well over a thousand posts here, which is a touch daunting for one who would at least like to eat supper before they die. I decided to start with the most recent post and work backwards. Fanny handed me a large Advocaat-and-brine and in I plunged, hoping to have my maculate soul salved by some beautiful words.

But oh! Unhappy day! Shadow rhymes! Of course, in all fairness, rhyming isn’t always a bad thing. From Shakespeare to Edward Lear, people have pulled it off. But the trouble with rhyming verse is that, in the wrong hands, it quickly dissolves into doggerel. Shadow stuffs her words into forms like Fanny stuffs me into my truss each morning and they, like me, end up uncomfortably strained, viz:

"gone is the spark that would dance in your eyes
silent the words that my heart on relies"

"playful the creatures that dance through the night
carried by angels whose calls them invite"

"a feeling as silent and subtle as mist
is rising up through the air
tentacles curling and winding their way
sensations you don’t much for care"

All of the above are very much sic, of course. And I would hope that they illustrate the problems I had with Shadow’s work. I am all for people having a go - we must never shy away from poetry assuming it is only the pastime of the intellectual elite. I must own to having penned the odd stanza or two myself; mostly romantic verse written during my courting days. Prison is most conducive to romantic thoughts, to which the great Marquis himself would no doubt attest. I think the world would be a much nicer place if more people flirted with the odd haiku. However, there is no escaping the fact that I find this to be excruciatingly awful poetry.

It’s not just the rhyme scheme (which is haunting me, forcing all my thoughts and movements into a sing-song rhythm. Diddly-diddly-diddly-dum, I go as I make my way from the daybed to the dressing table. De-diddly-diddly-doo), it’s the repetitiveness of imagery, theme and language. I had Fanny search for posts containing the words dark, darkness, black, pain, sorrow, shadow, moon, kiss, soul, angel, demon, night, but we got bored of counting. I realised when I reached the fortieth post that I had not yet happened across a single arresting image, one startling line. I quite like, "your words are laced with rust," but the poem ends with the plain unforgivable:

"and with the onset of natures death
my soul froze to your plea
cold is the whisper on your breath
i retreat into woods misty"

There are, no doubt, many people who would disagree with me about all this. Shadow has a lot of chums – there are in excess of forty comments on some of her posts, almost all of them extremely supportive. She is a member of a thriving little community, and she’s even got awards! I wish someone would give me an award. They’ve taken all my medals away from me now, and the ones Fanny made from milk bottle tops just don’t have the same je nais se quoi. Anyway, there is clearly a market for this kind of stuff (but this is the internet, where there’s a market for crayoned drawings of ants fucking cardamom pods), and Shadow’s fans have every right to question my authority to judge. I question my judgement all the time. Why, for example, have I just eaten two pounds of whelks? We’ll all come to regret that soon enough.

I must point out that Shadow isn’t all about poetry – a hop back in time reveals diary-style entries about her day-to-day life, her favourite things and so forth. From this and other hints around the place, I came to appreciate that Shadow has seen some tough times. I am not callous enough to make light of anyone’s afflictions, addictions or journeys to recovery, and I tip my cap to Shadow’s strength in making herself well. I’m just here for the poems, as poems are what Shadow has been producing these past many months.

I believe it is customary to give advice at some point during a review, but I am not sure what advice I can give to Shadow. She likes her poetry. Her fans like her poetry. It seems to provide them all with much-needed succour. I would love to see Shadow throw off her ill-fitting forms and frolic naked in free verse, but that’s my personal taste. I could recommend a thesaurus and a big, fat poetry anthology, but they are my panaceas. Everyone should keep a poetry anthology in their bathroom. I can think of no more profound an experience than reciting Yeats during a healthy evacuation.

Eventually, when all Shadow’s poems began to blur into one, I had to desist. I gave it a good shot, but I can’t recommend this blog (unless you like pictures of raven-haired beauties, of which there are many; they look mournfully into the mist, they play the violin against burning skies, they show coquettish shoulders by strange seashores. I prefer blondes myself. Fanny had the most beautiful golden curls, before the accident). There is so much quality stuff out there that I’m damned if I’m going to read any more of this rot. Shadow is a grown woman. She can write what she likes, but I will never return to her site, nor will I ever forgive her. My umbles are protesting and I’m going to need at least an hour on the commode with Dylan Thomas before I can face Fanny’s tripe for tea...

For making me hate poetry, I award Shadow with this brightly flaming finger. Why not write a poem about it?

If Blogging Had An Infield Fly Rule You Would Have Fared Better, Assuming You Played Second Base.

Transitioning into running this blog is becoming very time-consuming. I've got to recruit reviewers with fucking spirit and gall and most importantly, the elusive "free time," which obviously counters the nature of a person with spirit and gall because they use their free time by "doing things" like "going outside" and "making babies" not by "finding really cliche ways to use superfluous quotation marks."

Speaking of transitions, I am awesome at them.

Barely Knit Together is kind of an excellent title for a blog, don't you think? It works, because this is kind of an excellent blog. Kind of. Usually. It's the story of one J. Monroe, mother and writer. Yes. Writer.

Monroe recently fled to Wordpress because it is very hip to do so, much like all of those people switching from plastic Nalgene water bottles to anything titanium because it's "better for the environment" when actually, it's better to use what you already have. But logic is fickle and dependent on marketing, so what do I know?

Things are soft and inoffensive over at Wordpress, and let's face it: her new template is kind of an aesthetic masterpiece, although the font needs enlarging and I don't know how I feel about the navigation at the bottom. It's a big improvement over the coffee-with-Steve-Jobs-at-Pottery-Barn thing she had going on in the old blog. Personally, I'm insulted by intentionally haphazard decorating. I find it rude.

But along with switching templates, she switched her title to J. Love Monroe, and I don't know how I feel about that either. It seems distantly ironic instead of a yearning heart unraveled. Much like Wordpress, it is very hip. I feel like the new title matches the old template, and vice versa.

At times, her words reek of forced happiness, like she's hiding on purpose, but it's understandable. Monroe is full of scattered emotions and passing depressions. I mean sometimes, she is so emo my tender sinuses riot, but she's just so poetic about her relentless ennui that I can't loathe her for it. Monroe is artful with her humor and she appeals to my empathy which is fucking hard to do. Then she writes these glorious little snippets or lengthy blends of fiction and non that completely allow me to forgive her for annoying, link-laden advertising posts like this or guess-what-I-did updates. There are many of these. I refuse to link them.

Still, who is perfect? Sometimes I just want to tell people I have a baseball instead of throwing it as far as I can. Although that is probably not a comparable analogy, because I'm incapable of holding a baseball without throwing the damn thing or breaking something.

And then there's this fucking Twitter Drama concerning stupid bitches I've never met nor uncovered in all my hours on the internet, and curiosity double-dog-dared me to click on some link to a site specializing in shit-talking one D-List media darling. But here's the thing: I don't give fuck, and you have to contend with my fatigue-bordering-on-disdain regarding celebrity/media personality gossip. It irked me, and it had the misfortune of being on the front page.

I feel almost guilty doing this, because she is so much more heavenly than previous IFLY's, but I just don't have that love for her, despite honest prose and charming uncertainty and I'm adding her to my reader with high hopes. Everything she writes is well-written, much better than any blog I've found in a long-ass time. She has serious narrative feel and linguistic skill, but I have yet to really care about her as a person. That sounds awful, but this is the internet, people. You can't love everyone. If you can tip the ball with your glove, you can catch the fucking thing.

Greg Stock Makes a Hearty Broth

I would like everyone to welcome the prolific Forcemeat to the table. I'm so absorbed in the review that I don't care about the blog in question at all. It's long, friends, but worth it.

Only yesterday I remarked to my Fanny that we ought to consider more charitable work. At the time she was busy removing bluebottle cadavers from the light fittings and storing them in the relevant cabinets and so she wasn’t overly enthusiastic, but I rather fancied myself as a clown-trousered philanthropist. To get into the spirit of things I attempted to distribute a large number of sturdy bones to the local primary, but was given short shrift by the ham-faced matron in charge. I tried to tell her that children thrive on marrow, but by that time the authorities had been summoned and it was time to hie me hence.

Greg Stock is a charitable man. He works very hard in three jobs to fund his adventures abroad, he is politically aware and charmingly susceptible to pretty sentiment. Greg Stock is a Canadian man, and this informs much of his writing; he posts about Canadian politics, the Olympic Games and ice hockey. Fanny informs me that the Canadians are a gentle people, and Greg Stock seems to be a gentle man. More importantly, he is a gentleman on a mission – a mission to set up one charitable project on each continent. Now even a heart as farctate with malice as mine could not fail to be touched by this kind of behaviour. I raise my glass to you, Greg Stock, for being a kind man. There are not enough.

But we are not here to discuss Greg Stock’s charitable efforts; we are here to have a squizz at his ‘blog’. I would like to make it clear from the start that the word ‘blog’ revolts me and any suggestions for a less vulgar word would be very much appreciated. I would also like to mention that I cannot give any real technical advice, filthy old Luddite that I am. My Fanny is typing this as I dictate from the commode. I had a heavy lunch.

Greg Stock has not one but five blogs, rising like tentacles from the central mantle of his website. The dawning realisation of the extent of Greg Stock’s endeavour caused me a minor attack of a bilious nature, but Fanny’s timely application of a stiff gin-and-Benecol saved the day, and I decided that the fairest thing to do was to review the writings at the ether-address I had been given, then take a quick shufti at the rest of it to back up my knee-jerk reactions.

This lead to an experience akin to wrapping your maw around a delicious-looking pie, one of those with a shiny, crimp-edged lid and maybe a little pastry motif on top just for fancy, and instead of the layers of succulent game for which you had readied your palate, getting a mouthful of warm, wet air not dissimilar to the dying fart of a little starveling cat. Go Yes to Everything Manifesto, besides being a strange way of putting it, is a mixture of politics,petty complaints about his job, mentions of other more interesting stories that are being told on his other blogs and the occasional finger-wag about how horrid humans are.

Greg Stock wants to be a ‘brand’, but he is not doing too well in the blogging world – most of his posts have a sad little ‘0 comments’ underneath. Greg Stock does not understand why this should be; he has linked and twittered and squatted on his MyFace and has basically wrapped himself up in shiny new technology like a robot puppy playing with virtual bog-roll. Greg Stock, listen to me – I think it might be because your writing is a bit boring. I think the trouble might be that although you live an interesting life, you have not yet found an interesting way of writing about it.

Sometimes you get it almost right, starting in media res, giving intriguing insights into character, popping in a few plumptious details to enliven the dish, but mostly things are a touch bland for my tastes, with the occasional hateful sultana of cliché. Yes, Greg Stock, I am talking about your lush green forests and your ‘soaring’ mountains. I wish I hadn’t mentioned sultanas. I loathe sultanas. They used to put them in the curry back at the School. Loathsome, bogey-like things. Fanny, could you pass me my hookah? Don’t type that, you ridiculous girl.

It is very easy to write things on the internet, but blogs are like underpants – you should always make sure yours are fabulous, lest you be hit by the 539 to Cleethorpes (for these purposes, Greg Stock, you can imagine said bus bearing down on you with my grinning, roseate face). It is easy to become lazy, and think that yesterday’s underkecks will suffice, that wearing any old pants is better than wearing no pants at all, but this is not at all true, unless you take your pleasure in contriving traffic accidents whilst going commando. This metaphor is exhausting, I must have more gin.

If you want to be a ‘brand’, you need to start acting professionally, and that means taking your writing seriously, because it is on your writing that you will be judged. Your writing needs to inspire your readers if you ever want to get any comments, and at the moment you have an ugly tendency to hector and kvetch.

I would recommend, Greg Stock (although the last person to take one of my recommendations is now languishing in Wormwood Scrubs), that you study the art of the vignette and read travel writers ‘til you rupture. Read everything, for that matter. If you want to become a better writer you must become a better reader.

When you are grown fat and sated on the talent of others, Greg Stock, take your many blogs and think of them as raw material. Comb through those hundreds of posts and pick out the juiciest morsels, then use them to craft twenty-or-so beautiful pieces, one on each of your favourite subjects. You could have one on each country you visited, one on each of your projects, one on Canadian politics, even one on ice hockey if you really must, or your unfounded and downright racist misconceptions regarding British dentistry and the availability of pastry snacks in Fleet Street dives. You could make each piece into a perfect, complete story, and then you could start again.

In one fell swoop you could smite your maladapted, many-armed monster and put in its place a sleek, toned god of a website. You absolutely must get a new logo – yours is almost identical to the logo of the cut-price travel agent who sold me that dreadful weekend on Little Sark. All my luggage was lost, and that was a terrible inconvenience as I had stowed my Fanny in the steamer trunk. We readers would be able to find you from your updates on Twitter, were we that way inclined, and over we would surf on a tsunami of enthusiasm to find you standing on your new threshold with your arms open in welcome. We would step inside and marvel.

What’s that? A concise introduction to the man Greg Stock? Clearly titled stories on a range of fascinating subjects that offer up complete worlds with memorable details and niftily-characterised inhabitants? Stories that make me feel I not only know Greg Stock as a political livewire, philanthropic titan and disgruntled barkeep, but also as a man? A regular blog that keeps me updated on all the things I leaned about in his stories and all the interesting things that he does and sees and learns and that reads like a scintillating serial rather than a series of disconnected statements about how rude people have been or how in his day tomatoes tasted like tomatoes and bananas were real men and you could take a jaunt to the Milk Bar and catch the matinee and still have change from a thrupenny bit to get the omnibus home? And we readers, enraptured, would get to know you a bit better, and by knowing you would feel more involved in your life and your charity work, and I know that it is important to you that people engage with the good work you do. People might even comment, as well.

My penultimate point is this, and I say it in my most serious voice: get rid of the adverts, they make you look like the kind of tawdry whore my Fanny invariably ends up with after one too many Snakebites down the old Duck and Cover. It is jarring to read a post about the deadening effects of consumerism and then scroll down to an advertisement for a £22 T-shirt. Your sidebar is a filthy pimp, continually trying to set me up with sexy singles in my area (but which area?) and attempting to pressgang me into marriage to one of its ethnically arbitrary stable of Indian or Tamil women. I don’t know if it is possible to choose who gets to advertise on your blog, but if it is, I would recommend that in your brave new world you plump for Fair Trade toffees and organic hemp as opposed to haute couture and hookers.

In conclusion, Greg Stock, you are probably a very nice man. We should all do more kind things for other people, and we know it, but still we draw the curtains and turn on our machines. As long as you aren’t secretly a terrible old murderer, I think you’re a decent chap who has the potential to turn his fascinating experiences into a fascinating blog and perhaps even into the ‘brand’ you so desire. All you need to do is learn how to write.

Ah Greg Stock, I could write about you forever, but Fanny has drawn my mustard bath and I have protuberances to soak. I have relished the opportunity to offer you some friendly advice. You don’t have to take it, old stick, it’s just the gin-soaked gibbering of a rickety old clown, but you might want to consider it, lest we meet one tight and airless evening somewhere you didn’t mean to go.

I think, though, that I will give the last word to Greg Stock himself, or rather, one of his discoveries. Look at this, and think about what you have done.

I give you two stars, one for your heart and one for the effort.







P.S. Dear Greg Stock, my Fanny has requested I inform you that The Guardian is an excellent publication and that she could never respect a man who thought otherwise. I myself take only The Daily Sport. For some reason these days I just can’t stomach the news without an awful lot of tits.

Wishing You Could, But You Didn't.

Today, we are lucky to have Ellie from The Daily Smoke lending out her subtle, hushed expertise in the form of a review.


This morning I arrived for a business meeting with 40 minutes to spare. I hadn’t thought to bring a book or buy a paper. Fortunately, the sun was shining, and there was a bench. I resigned myself to sitting. In the sun. Luxuriating. A couple of minutes after sitting down and telling myself not to check my watch, I was startled by a flash of black fur and a rustling in the bushes near my bench. A young cat emerged and sauntered over to what I would have thought was a pile of stones, but turned out to be a pile of cat food that some nice person must have dumped for the gastronomic delight of the feral cats living in the bushes of this metropolitan business park. I sat and watched a total of 5 mature kittens come and go, munch on kibbles, sniff each others’ butts, and silently prey on insects (or something else) I couldn’t see. Before I knew it, my 40 spare minutes had passed. I went inside to get my visitor’s pass.

At some point as I sat on that bench, I thought about this review. I wondered where I would start. Whilst watching a couple of cats sniff each others’ asses, I worried about the reception I would receive. I thought I would start by saying, “Be gentle. This is my first time.” Then I told myself not to be ridiculous: it might be my first time, but it’s up to me to decide to be gentle or not. Now, I reassess: it’s really not up to me. It’s all down to Nate. It’s his bed; he made it; he’ll lie in it.

Nate’s blog isn’t great, but it’s not awful either. “Uninspiring” springs to mind, which, considering the topic, is possibly the most damning of adjectives. Nate intends to change the world. I’m afraid his blog is a little bit like Obama’s presidential election campaign: no matter how many times Nate chants, ‘Yes we can! Hope. Change. Hope. Change.’ he’s not going to make a dent on the American psyche. At least not this American’s psyche.

Presentation:

Itstartswith.us is more than blog. It’s a “project” and as such has a series of navigation options. There is an ‘about Nate’ page, an ‘about this site’ page, and a separate, general ‘about’ link. There are links to twitter and Facebook, a ‘Change the World’ link and one for ‘Partners’. It’s all a little overwhelming. I didn’t know exactly where to start.

The template for the blog section is different from the project template, which is cleaner and more professional. Nate has filled the blog’s margins with a lot of crap. Clean it up, Nate. You’re technically savvy so try to better integrate the blog template with the overarching project template.

There are a few links that require you download PDFs and another to download the ‘ebook’. You’ve got to be kidding me. You want me to download something? Forget about it. I’m here to read a blog not clutter up my hard drive.

Writing:

Nate deserves kudos for his writing. He writes well. He gets his message across. Neatly and concisely, even if he overuses ‘cool’ and ‘awesome’

Content:

Nate’s ‘About Me’ page made me smile. I like that he likes cheesecake and milk and wears hats. After that, I grew weary of the platitudes. It’s the same old thing over and over again. Nate makes references to feel good stories without making me feel anything about them. I like the idea of doing nice things like feeding stray cats or providing critical medical attention to women in Afghanistan. Nate's aggregation of 'inspiring' examples and 'words to live by' falls flat mainly because he fails to get specific. He talks about big ideas and passion. Nate: stop talking about other people's stories and tell their stories.

I’m not a likely convert; I’m a bit cynical. Even so, I like your sentiment. I believe you can make a difference in the lives of those around you. Just not with this blog. I'd rather be watching cats.

For where your heart's at, I give you a pat on the back and a hug. For your writing I give you a couple stars and maybe some confetti.

But for the fit of narcolepsy I suffered as I really tried to give you the fair shake you deserve, I give you a 'Meh'. Sorry.

The Voices In My Head Can Be Wrong

Our first review after the departure of Love Bites comes not from me, but from one Jessica Gottlieb, who blogs over at, well, um, Jessica Gottlieb. Based on what I've gleaned from her blog, she's a regular fucking force paradox. Quite the feat, don't you think?

When Love Bites asked me to review The Real Suburban Housewives I said yes, but inside my head a voice was screaming no more housewives.

Thank gawd I don't listen to the voices inside my head.

The Real Suburban Housewives are real. From sandpaper pedicures, to kissing sweaty strangers for a discount in Cabo, these ladies are the neighbors you wish you had.

The housewive are awesome, and they're smart too. The blog is nice enough looking, posts are readable and every so often they give you some video too. How can you not love women who train their dogs?



To be fair, I'm not crazy about the music selection. There you go, The Real Suburban Housewives don't choose good music for their dogs to jack off to, they are imperfect. But not really.

The Housewives are an interesting bunch, but at the same time they're just like you and me. They aren't clear on why you pierce an infant's ears and they include recipes that make mornings easier.

If the internet wasn't made for the Real Suburban Housewives I just don't know what it's for.

I have one complaint/suggetion: when I click on each of the housewive's about me pages I'd love to then be sent directly to their posts.

When push comes to shove, I'm just delighted to waste an afternoon poking around the site, and if the navigation never works, I still fucking love you.

Not Quite a Review, But a Little Revolution.

I understand I've got a big bra to fill, and I just want to assure you all: my breasts are impressive. They are a goddamn handful. To quote one who put it so eloquently, "I have big boobs and poor hand-eye coordination, which is why I am not a fucking surgeon," and why I blog instead.

Now that we've cleared that up, I have a few things I want to get off my chest (breasts?) before cranking into latent reviews.

There's this thing that Love Bites taught me, although unintentionally. Unless she was sneakier than I suspected and planned it all along, in which case: well done, madam.

Anyway.

All personal blogs fall categorically one of two ways:

Do you like this?

or:

YOU FUCKING LOVE THIS.

Neither is stylistically better than the other. Both have merits and faults.

Love Bites pilots the latter. She commands our attention with transparent, honest, emotional rhapsody. You know what mood that bitch is in even if you've never read her words before (does anyone else imagine her sipping willingly-given blood out of a teacup?) because you feel her zeal slapping your face. More importantly, you like it. That's why you stomp in front of her with a smuggy shit grin when you see her swinging her arms around like fury on fire.

There are a lot of people 'round these parts like that.

Even if you don't jive with her style or nod along to her opinions, you like reading what she's got to say just because she says it fuckin' good, and she's says it good-er than the majority of the other assholes with a homerow. That's red, raw talent.

You know she's not really going anywhere, which is why I wrote this in the present tense. She's no longer our fearless leader, and we will miss her terribly.

Still, I'm taking the hell over. I would like to thank Love Bites for this opportunity to be an asshole, and I hope that I'll do her justice.

Well.

This is going to be fucking interesting.

So long, farewell, auf wiedershin, goodbye

I never thought I'd write this post, but never say never. I'm done owning this blog. It's been a joy, a trial, a bright golden moment, a crown of thorns. But right now, it just feels like a heavy, heavy sack, and I have other gardens to till.

However, I'm not killing the blog. I'm giving it away to someone who will till it, plant it, and water it, as it deserves. She may even occasionally fertilize with bullshit, as gardens require.

I'm not going to write the ending, because that's a mystery. This is just a new chapter. But thanks, y'all. You've given me a lot of laughs and a lot of joy. And, I'll still be around occasionally.

xoxox,

Love Bites