Ask And Ye Shall Receive

Hide and Seek in Flatland

2011-05-27T13:31:00.001-04:00

So, I’m clinically a psychopath, a friend impassively informed me over instant messenger. I got tested and stuff.

“Oh yeah?” I replied, equally coolly. “Congrats?”

Mhmm. You might wanna watch out. Apparently being close to a psychopath can ‘negatively impact your life.’

“I’m not too concerned. I can’t see you torturing and eating my pets any time soon, and I can handle anything else.”

I don’t need to torture animals for amusement; there’s an infinite amount of entertainment on the Internet. Plus they wouldn’t be very tasty. He paused for a moment in what seemed to be a thoughtful way. (Though, it’s hard to tell when your conversation partner exists solely as a screen name.) The best thing about this is that my parents have stopped asking if I feel guilty for making bad decisions that impact their lives.

I almost want to offload this review on him. I’m not sure I have the heart to stick to the Ask attitude for this blog, and he – being officially diagnosed with a chronic lack of empathy – could maintain that attitude well.

“Reality Hide and Seek” is written by Sheri: a woman with bipolar disorder in her early 50’s, who posts a mix of medical information, journal entries, baking, inspiration and the kind of comics that distant relatives leave in my inbox. She’s got a link to Cute Overload in her sidebar and spends her weekends on a hobby farm with her boyfriend, fer godssake. It’s as if my own grandmother asked me to beat her with a shoe every time her homemade soup turns out a little bland. I appreciate that people want honest feedback, but I’m more accustomed to judging spoiled twenty-somethings, not making a business of swearing at grandmothers who are battling mental health issues.

Fuck you for making me feel bad, Sheri.

At one point in the conversation with aforementioned friend I said, “Well it could be worse. At least you’re not bipolar or schizo. Those people come off as actually crazy, while you’ll just come off as kind of a dick.” Sheri doesn’t come off crazy, so much as frustrated and depressed. This is, in many ways, probably better for her personally, though it doesn’t make for very good reading material.

Sheri can write: she has a clear, crisp voice that makes her posts accessible, if somewhat distant. I guess the thing that’s missing is any sort of passion. A woman who has lived for over fifty years should have some experiences and stories to share. She should have some unique insights to offer the reader as a well-developed personality who has had a rich, long life. But, I certainly can’t blame Sheri for not having thrilling tales of adventure when it’s an accomplishment to shower every day. Instead we get what is essentially a public journal about how it sucks to have mental health issues.

There are occasional hints at something larger: an insight, a passionate description, a silly memory, an inspirational tale. I was surprised to find a single piece of fiction buried deep in the archives, and every now and then is a flash of poetry or some drawings. But, such things are sprinkled lightly throughout rather than being the majority. There is a fair bit of good, and very little bad, but the two are overwhelmed with a cascade of blank, distant writing that coaxes no emotion from my breast.

I know you can write, Sheri. You are smart, you have the creative talent, and you have a voice. Use them more often and you can build something that will touch the lives of others.

Addendum:
If I were to forcefully maul any one thing on this blog, it would be the template. The base of it is inoffensive enough, (where “inoffensive” means “modest and boring”) but the 20+ badges on the sidebar do that thing where they stretch the page to a ridiculous length. Your sidebar is literally over 7 feet long. I measured. So you could either trim some of that stuff away (your tag cloud could use a bit of spring cleaning), or arrange it in the footer or something so that your blog isn’t two feet taller than I am.

I Wanna Take You to a Gay Bar

2011-05-26T20:18:00.001-04:00

Whenever I write on my own blog I try to tell true stories. Sometimes I'm the main character, sometimes I'm trying to properly convey the character of someone I know or someone I met standing in line at the auto pound. Sometimes I succeed. Sometimes I fail. But my biggest concern, whenever I post anything--here or elsewhere--is can I prove to the internet that this person is flesh with feelings?

It's obvious that Cal, a glib little British puppy who's nearly 21, is also trying to creep into the world of storytellers. Reading his blog is like window shopping at Christmas. It's all snapshots of silliness and droll, nimble conversations lightly peppered with some distancing snark and I usually finished each post feeling glad but a bit lonely. There's very little scandal going on, unless you count being in a healthy homosexual relationship a scandal, like those assholes up in Wisconsin. I like him. I really, really like him. I even like his template, except for the centered column.

Cal's writing is calm and honest, conversational and hopeful, all about having good friends and goofy parents, and just...being twenty. Being twenty was awesome, wasn't it? The world is just spread out there for you, all shiny and rippled and just waiting to be fucked, and you haven't screwed anything up yet by falling into unflattering light.

The (Not So) Fabulous Life of Cal never really dives into raw emotion, but love is lingering in the alcoves. The main difference between Cal's writing and other blogs that focus on light daily life stories is the fact that he's not trying to impress readers with individuality and sassy banter. Of course there is sassy banter, but it's just friends dicking around. It comes across as more of a tribute to the people he loves. That's fucking valid.

The last couple of months on the blog are stretched like a chore. And that's my main criticism of Cal's blog: I was hoping his storytelling and characters would grow and develop, I was hoping to read about new jobs and uncharted waters and becoming an adult.

But he hasn't written on the blog since February, which is a big fat bummer. I want to know what he's up to. I want to introduce him to my friend's little brother, so Cal can show him a young, positive role model.

I don't know what's going on. I like everyone lately. Maybe I'm growing.

No One Cares What You Think

2011-05-24T11:07:00.004-04:00

I'm surprised that a grown woman doesn't know this already, but it's true. No one cares what you think. They might feel what you feel, if you give them a reason to, or they might hear your opinion, if it has value, but as it exists at present, the intrawebs will not be lessened, by one single degree, by your absence. In fact, it might be enriched.

Dirty Cowgirl, you write:

I hate being lied to. If someone lies to me they are gone from my life.
And I am always honest, to the point of causing offense at times. But if your arse is big, or you wanna know if you should leave your crap bitch of a girlfriend expect the truth.

I'm not going to lie to you, in fact, I'm going to give you truth with both barrels blasting, cowgirl style. You're not as literate, as witty, or as interesting as you think you are. Your blog is a horror.

I like opinion blogs. I read a few almost every day. One's a dating blog, another is a political blog. In both cases, the bloggers can be brutally blunt, and dismember someone in a sentence for getting it wrong. But, in both cases, the opinions that they are offering are informed by something. The dating blog is written by a career dating coach who draws on her own experiences, and the experiences of clients, to provide information and feedback to readers. The political blogger has literally years of crunching political policy and wonking it to the masses.

So, what are you serving up with your opinions? From what I can tell, you're a self-professed loud-mouthed middle-aged cunt with no particular skills.

You write:

I like swearing. A lot. My favourite word is Cunt.
In fact I am a cunt - and proud of it.
There is a post explaining why.

I tried really hard to read your blog, but it does not appeal. At all. Profanity doesn't bother me, but it needs to have a purpose. I don't care about your flatulence. I don't want to know about your pussy (the thought offends on some primal level). I don't care that you yowl like a cat on a hot tin roof.

Your blog template is ugly, the font too big, the background distracting, and the content abysmal.

This is doing blogging right.

I care about the opinions of these linked bloggers because their blogs are like a gift-wrapped serving of soul. These people are WRITERS. They are't the crazy person on the side of the road with a sign. You, on the other hand? Roadside crazy with a sign, thinking that the shriller and more profane you are, the more you will be liked.

As a woman in her mid-40s, I simply want to tell you: Grow the fuck up. The world is full-up on middle aged drama queens. Your blog is what's wrong with blogging these days, now that everyone and their mother is doing it. Not everyone with a loud voice is capable of saying things worth listening to.

Are you lonely? Go back to school. Take some writing classes. Read some classic literature. If you want to write, start journaling, and do it every day until you have something on paper that is worth broadcasting to the world.

What you are doing right now is an embarrassment. And, that's the unvarnished truth, as I see it.

You get a flaming finger. Maybe you can use it to spice up your sex life and/or cauterize your weeping vagina. Either way, I don't see that you've given me much reason to care.

List of Portending Pain

2011-05-23T13:44:00.002-04:00

Left Alone With a Full Moon

The Not-So Fabulous Life of Cal

Reality Hide & Seek

Throw another shrimp on The Farbequeue

2011-05-20T20:53:00.003-04:00

It was darkly golden, the thing that was thrust into my hands with little ceremony. Harsh tendrils of semi-molten metal twisted about and obscured the core of indeterminable gems. It was weighty and sluggish as it sat slowly squirming in my palms. It felt… magical; it felt… meaningless. It was named The Far Queue , I was told, though that name seemed to lay fitfully on this strange object rather than being a true part of it. The thing was beautiful, at the very least. It would take further inspection to determine whether the beauty was superficial or born of unfathomable artistic function.

I won’t subject you to any more on that nonsense, but the above is what artsy blogs do to me when I read them for too long. Somewhat fortunately for TFQ, this review actually caught me in the middle of a melodramatic and misanthropic mood which TFQ managed to reflect; unfortunately for me (and you), it reflected well enough that it put me in that mood for a couple of days. Had it caught me in one of my more manic episodes I am unsure how I would have reacted, but I can guarantee it wouldn’t have had me writing soggy mush like that paragraph above, and I doubt I would have had the patience to push past my typical reaction to poetry blogs. (“Yeah, I get it, you’re angsty and everything sucks. Put down that rhyming dictionary. Aurgh.”)

Go look at it right now. I want to compare some notes with you. Go on, it’ll take but a moment. Gather your first impressions. Got ‘em? Good.

If your mind works anything like mine (you poor, poor fool), your experience was probably something like this: the first thing you notice is that the blog is beautiful. It has a dark, simple je ne sais quoi that only comes from actually planning a website and rarely appears in blog form. Of the aesthetics of the blog, I have nothing but good things to say, and so will say no more.

The second impression you got was something akin to, “What is all this bullshit?”
Over the days I was reviewing TFQ, there were five posts on the home page, each prominently featuring an image – mostly works of art, presumably not of the author’s making. Spread over these posts was two short poems and two uncontextualized, unrelated paragraphs that appeared to be excerpts from a larger story. Under each of these posts were rating boxes labeled subterranean, grounded and transcendent. (Did you giggle at those? Because I did.) The only explanatory or introductory text is found above the navigation menu: “ANTI-PROFIT/NON-PROPHET” which I can totally get behind, although at this point I’m really not sure how it has anything to do with anything.

The message being conveyed is “I am a deep, dark writer-type who likes to use words in surprising ways and I take myself very, very seriously. Also I am a huge asshat and I probably wear a fedora.” (To paraphrase my English teacher, “deep” and “dark” are reserved for oceans and pussies; I have no patience for the mystery wrapped in an enigma routine.)

I ended up staring blankly at the pleasantly dark background and then played with the hover effect on the navigation menu for a bit. The realization that the navigation menu is both more interesting and more comprehensible than the content of the blog is, I suspect, a tipping point for most visitors. This time I would not have the luxury of totally dismissing TFQ, so I forced myself to read on.

Bolstered by beer, I first visited the biography. It appears that our author uses a lesser-known definition of “biography,” as I was instead greeted with two thousand words on the history of South Africa before anything personal and relevant appeared. We eventually learn that "Pisces" is a creative atheist who likes music and apparently wrote a book. Super. I rather wish he'd just left it at a simple “I'm just zis guy, you know?” because it's infinitely more brief and just as accurate.

I then realized TFQ is very large. It spans across several domains like a web of dark gossamer silk (sorry) and its archives reach into the dim shadows of 2006. All the inter-linking between posts and indexes creates a novel website structure - more visually pleasing than the use of tags, at least - but the whole thing is terribly awkward to navigate. It's organized less like a website and more like a virtual hedge maze with short fiction at the center.

Oh yes, I finally found what the main strength of this blog is: short fiction posted in paragraphs at a time. (It is mixed in with copious poetry, a form of which I am neither a fan nor a critic, so I will let those alone) There is very little of anything bloggy on this blog – in my reading I didn't get any real sense of Pisces at all, aside from a few flashes of “this guy is a prat” while reading the comment sections of some older posts. Yet, you can clearly witness the development of Pisces over the years, from a sort of generic romantic-misanthropist to someone who actually has some fun without overthinking and forcing "deeper" meaning .

And I suppose that's the main gist of it, eh? It is a feat to walk that line between visionary and self-important twat. A sense of inflated artistic ego and the stench of overwrought depth hovers just above most of the posts on TFQ, occasionally descending to infest the writing itself. To be absolutely fair to TFQ, the cringe factor of the past couple of years is decidedly less than that of most similar blogs. To be absolutely honest, the cringe factor is still there.

So, the big question: is TFQ just another poetry blog? Well, in many aspects it is – a fair number of the posts I read were artistic fluff – inspirational quotes and non-original artwork. A large number was short poetry of the kind that is always in danger of having the multiple multi-syllabic words obscure the meaning. But every writer has their gold, and Pisces produces some intriguing short and micro fiction. Given that I didn't hate it, and that some parts were too good to bore me, I'm awarding two stars:

Use them well.

More Like A Quarter Pound of Splenda

2011-05-17T13:00:00.001-04:00

First of all, I am fucking pissed off that this review got deleted and now I have to write another, and I've forgotten most of my jokes and links, which are now probably hovering nervously over one of the gimpier, glibbier internet sectors that probably has pictures of cats speaking like twits, and my words are all, "O Shiner, why have you forsaken me" and I'm all "if you love something set it free" blah blah "come back here." Everyone gets that quote wrong anyway.

Everyone including Tinker Belle (in a post I linked before but totally don't feel like finding), our young author of Confessions of a Twenty-Something Drama Queen, the most redundant blog title ever, who rightly admits in her blog-blurb-beneath-the-title-thinger that her blog is about "Nothing, really. Just a walk through the world I exist in and observations of the people around. All with a little pinch of salt." I'm not sure if the salt was a late addition to the description, but it's definitely a late addition to the blog.

It's as if she wrote for two years with saccharine, chemically-sweet sentiments, actually read her own damp writing, realized she sounded like a fucking fifteen-year-old Twihard, started to try hard, and just salted the shit out of everything, instantly making things a little more delicious.

The best thing about this blog, by far, is watching Tinker Belle grow up. In the beginning, she's just another girl who uses too many exclamation points, wants a boyfriend, like, really bad, and everything is I'm-so-different-and-special, fanfic-styled stories, I'm-so-deep-because-you're-so-shallow, posts with nothing but soft-focus romancey pictures and horrible song lyrics, bad poetry, and emo heavily detailed updates about cleaning supplies.

But Tinker Belle's growth as a writer and a person becomes obvious as she slowly evolves from a boring, whiny, insecure, hopeless romantic to a layered, confident, honest, hopeless romantic. She turns her feelings into a story. Sometimes it can come across as cheeseball drama, but it works. She's trying new things with her writing, some good and some bad, but interesting.

Although I really fucking hate the posts that are just bad music videos and lyrics, one eye-rolling line about Tinker feeling sorry for herself, and her ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY EIGHT LABELS. I would lose those lame posts because they're awful and stupid, but I know she likes them, and if I were her I would tell me to fuck off.

Seriously, though. How many labels does one need? I can understand having a great deal of labels if you're like, using them ironically instead of tagging posts with a new celebrity whenever you drop a name, which is the blog equivalent of a Tiger Beat locker collage. Don't put them on your blog at all. Get fucking rid of them. I'm not a big fan of the orange-on-rainy-window template - but just using a color other than orange would fix that. Try to let readers view more than one post at a time. Create an "About" page. And please, please, please change the title. Maybe "The Confessional" or "Emotional Salt" or something. Because yes, she does confess things. Yes, she's in her twenties. But she ain't no drama queen.

Take Half the Clothes and Twice the Money

2011-05-16T10:42:00.006-04:00

The other evening, over Thai food, the man looked at me across the table and said, "I wish I were trekking in Nepal right now."

I can't speak for Nepal, but a wave of wanderlust washed over me, and I rebutted with, "Well, I'd like to be hiking in Denali right now." And I would, and did, and still do. The wild open desolation without human in sight, where the land is so big your eyes feel too small to see it all, where cell phones stop working and you can only get where you're going on your own two feet--that place, it sings in my chest.

Plus, truthfully, I'd like to see another bear up close and personal, just for the sheer braggadocio of the thing.

Isn't that why we travel, really? The first why--to open our eyes and souls wide so we can absorb the entirety of new. The second why--for the stories we tell the people we've left behind, and the stories we retell with the companions on our journey. We take pictures along the way, of course, so we can remember what we've seen, tasted, heard, and felt; and so we can share our adventure.

Of course, the more interesting the destination, the grander the tale. So, what if you wrote a travel blog, but you only rarely traveled, and only told a tiny fraction of the tales, and never took any good pictures?

Such a blogger would be like a bloodless Edwardian era virgin who fondles your cock, strokes 10 or 12 times out of spiteful naughtiness, and then turns her attention to embroidery. There are no bears in your pictures, Heels, and no grand tales in your blog.

When I read a travel blog, I want to be swept away to a place of spices and mystery. I want to inhale cumin and cardamom and the clean biting smell of the forest. I want my eyes burnished with the dust from a red road clogged with an infinite variety of humans. I want the flavors of a Michelin 3 star restaurant to engorge my tongue. I want my calves to burn from the western slope of Denali, and my heart to pound from a close encounter with a bear.

Camping in Heels, YOU FUCKING TEASE.

Oh, you travel some. I've seen the pictures.

But, you don't tell the tales and you take terrible pictures. You go to Spain and give us boiled dinner in a British pub and a shopping trip to H&M. You eat the Michelin dinner, but don't describe the flavors. You tell us how to save for the journey, but you never take us with you.

Apparently, you think we want to hear about you. My god, you ninny, we want to hear where you've been. We want to go with you. Or rather, perhaps not you, because you strike me as a terribly dull traveling companion who rarely leaves the beaten path.

You go to the most wild and wonderful parts of the U.S. (Grand Canyon, Yosemite, and the Olympus Peninsula--where I'll be hiking later this summer, on the beach), and you show us the Salt Lake City Airport.

Dude, really? Are you a travel blogger, or aren't you? If you are going to write a damn travel blog, then DO IT. Tell us what you saw, tasted, smelt, and felt, with details that let us experience it with you. Don't fill your blog with pictures of you sitting on a couch drinking a glass of beer, fill it with stories. Who did you meet? What did you see? How did it smell? What near-death experience did you have?

You have the ability to write, but you aren't doing it. You've created an idea, but you think it can be milked for money, without providing substance (or for that matter, sustenance).

Matt, actually, says more, with zero words, about how small and big this world is, how much we share with people a thousand miles away, and how beautiful it all is. There is wonder in that video, and mystery, and stories, and danger, and joy.

That's what a travel blog should be. I watch Matt dancing in a gorge with strangers in a land I can't even spell, and I want to grab my suitcase and go. I read your blog, and I want to take a nap.

I give you a meh.

Fix it. You have the capacity, but do you have the will?

From the frying pan, straight into the fire

2011-05-13T15:11:00.003-04:00

Yes, there will be reviews here next week, starting on Monday:

Confessions of a Twenty Something Drama Queen (oh, joy)

Camping in Heels (otherwise known as "improper preparation for adventure")

The Far Queue (always challenging to spell the word queue)

The bitch is back

2011-05-11T16:36:00.003-04:00

And, she missed you.

It's time for changes, yet again, at Ask.

You may or may not have noticed, but we need regular reviewers. Apply within.

Caveat: We need reviewers who can be counted on to write ONE REVIEW each week. If you can't, please don't waste my time. I really am not around enough to chase people down who don't really want to write on a regular basis.

Found: One Nutjobber, A Little Brevity-Challenged

2011-05-02T13:34:00.010-04:00

As part of my near-constant running monologue, I said “oppositty” out loud this morning and immediately earmarked it for further exploration, as you can well imagine, considering the almost-tactile fabulousness of such a verbal slip. Wildly enthused, I twisted it around on my tongue coolly, jabbing at various pronunciations, at varying volumes, in various locales, refining my plans for its eventual usage; I stroked it, comforted it, mollycoddled it until I had shaped it into “oppocity”, the ingenious foundation for what promised to be an incredibly clever blog-post contrasting cities I don’t live in with the qualities I find most enjoyable within the one I do, culminating in a tournament of oppositional juxtapositions that would eventually reveal the city to which I have the least reason to dwell, or my most “oppocity”, if you will. It turned out, however, that I not only didn’t inherently know very much about my own city, much less any other (thus necessitating research, which, ugh), but also that “oppocity”, as written, looked as though it was meant to rhyme with “atrocity”, which I felt to be contrary to the overall tenor of my proposed post. I also simultaneously came to the conclusion that my idea was actually pretty dumb – really, truly, spectacularly dumb, especially in retrospect – and viewed the decision to abandon the project as less a failure of creative fortitude than it was a triumph of mercy, figuring instead that “oppositty” was of more comedic value if simply used as a replacement of “opposite” in random discussions with soon-to-be aggravated friends.

The truth is that the etymology of “oppositty” is not nearly as interesting as inventing a series of conversational points that would allow me to orchestrate a dialogue heavy with dichotomous blather so that I could ultimately call my girlfriend at work and say, “Hey, honey – did you know that the hypotenuse is the side oppositty to the 90 degree angle in a right triangle?” Phile Not Found is like that: when one feels compelled to explain the joke – less a funny ha-ha, in this case, than an overwrought attempt at cleverness – it probably isn’t very funny, and exponentially less clever than intended. Or, one is talking to idiots who are incapable of understanding anything, much less the contrived inventiveness of a title like Phile Not Found, and judging from the About Me page I’m guessing Ms. Nanobeagletwonames presumes she’s engaged in the latter.

Our intellectually-ambitious blog-author uses a photo of a galaxy as “a constant reminder to be humble” on that About Me page – not because of some capitulation to the majesty of another unfathomably expansive universe extant entirely separate from our own that dwarves her (and everyone else’s) comparatively meager existence, but because she’ll “never be as smart as the folk who devised the instrument that took that photo”, which kind of makes me wonder why she uses said galaxy-photo and not one displaying the camera that took the picture itself... and though I imagine that aesthetic considerations such as these are to be applauded in some cases, despite the fact that, in this case, they seem a mite self-defeating in light of the above-mentioned and spurious justifications invoked in representing oneself as a galaxy, I prefer a more logical progression of symbolic personal-identification in my blogs.

I mean, obviously, right?

So, why this need for reminders of humility, you ask? Well, quoth the brainiac: “Sometimes I feel like I’m the smartest person on the internet”. This, needless to say, is an unfortunate turn of phrase, not only because it opens the door for petty nitpicking, but also because she misspells “suffix” not four sentences later – a pretty catastrophic faux pas when combined with the above assertion, even if made ambivalently, that colours any reading of the blog with the stain of arrogance. For instance, this is a research paper slapped up without regard for context, this is unnecessarily and almost startlingly condescending, and this contains a dialogue that reads

Someone: So, what degree program are you two in?

Me: I'm in Computer Science, and he is in Computer Engineering.

Someone: Oh, what's the difference?

when it should probably read

Someone: So, what degree program are you two in?

Me: I’m in Computer Science, and he is in Computer Engineering.

Someone: Ah.

Me: You see, the difference is―

Someone: Mm-hm. No, that’s great. I’m super, like, happy for you guys. Oop – gotta run.

This is prefaced with a warning that should be applied much more liberally, and though each one of these is heaving with salient points, they retain the faint but unmistakable sneer of adolescence, as though her personal awakening to the terrible manipulations of culture is one shared by the collective at this precise moment in time. As a fellow Canadian atheist whose worldview leans heavily on iconoclasm, I understand. In fact, I believe that a lot of the irritation I feel when reading this blog is a direct result of recognizing my own predilection for pomposity, for the irrational need to prove my stupendous and otherworldly intellect to the faceless masses of subterranean dolts who plague the interweb like a rotten pastiche of herpes scars, and this realization gives me pause; not enough to retract any of my criticisms, mind you, but enough to allow me to see Nanoo as, perhaps, a younger, more computer-savvy me... minus, of course, the staggering bravado and mind-blowing creativity that is so clearly evident in the construction of ideas such as “oppositty”.

If I, then, am forced by my own logic to use my 34-year-old self as a case-study for this 21-year-old student (which I am – shut up), I would have to conclude that her metamorphosis from self-absorbed youngster to slightly wince-inducing writer to absurd deconstructionist incapable of maintaining any kind of writing routine due to both the prevalence of a nineteen-month-old daughter and the delusion that any sort of prolonged concentration is feasible whilst warding off sippy-cup attacks and an alarming preoccupation with the movie Madagascar is a distinct possibility.

In that Phile Not Found is not horrible, I am awarding it one star:

I would also like to represent myself thusly:

This is not because I regard myself as a much-beloved marvel of form/function synergy, or equate myself with the manifest and intrinsic artistry emblematic of a freely-galloping horse, but because I know I’ll never be involved in anything as fundamentally useful as those ensconced in the horseshoe-manufacturing industry are.

Why I Am Not A Poet

2011-04-18T19:59:00.006-04:00

For awhile I hated poetry because I didn't understand it. All poetry was sensitive glitter, reserved for smug, self-important assholes, who were haughty and deep. Like Linda Lovelace. Or dungeons. Or secret dungeons. Or French people. French people who locked their souls in secret metaphorical dungeons, where their poetry was chained and whipped daily because it plundered baguettes, tongue-kissed Madame Dupont, and took the road less traveled by, but someday we will have jaunty berets (je ne sais pas) and be free from le tyrannical aristocracy, oui? Tres bien! Louis! Richelieu! VIVA LA REVOLUTION!

So...that's what I think about when someone says "poetry."

One day, I discovered what became my favorite poem. Another day I went to France. You know what? I like smug and glittery when the constituent is sardonically aware of its own narcissism (this is more prevalent in poetry than in France).

And about half the time, that's what it's like over at From Quiet Thoughts. Brown is a poet from San Francisco with dreamy bedroom eyes, thoughtfully propped up against a pillow in his profile picture looking pensive and bored, as if porn just doesn't get him off anymore since the internet made it all socially acceptable to jerk it all the time. He could so be French, especially with all the cigarettes and wine.

Honestly, I fucking love about a third of his poems, I want to edit the hell out of another third, and the rest? Fucking dungeon, like he's trying to be a poet instead of just being poetic.

Because sometimes, this happens:

About Me: Increments of time, attach themselves to light, creating impassioned pixels of reality. We are what we see, feel and hope.

which sounds like lyrics to low-fi-electro-indie-rock and other things that are trucked with hyphens and pictures of mustaches that lack any real hair. What does this say about Brown, as a person? We're just particles fueled by our perception of reality, who can really know anyone, and if you can't figure it out then you don't deserve to know and all that priggish bullshit and SHUT THE HELL UP.

Which means Brown is a cheater. Fuck that distant, vague crap. He should do it better because I know he can, even though sometimes he could benefit from an editor, a little more self-awareness,

and a little less of that thing, you

know.

That thing that "poets" do, where lines are
separated
for no apparent reason, although
the idea is free verse
and the pauses between phrases can be inconsequential and

the result
is annoying.
(dungeon)

I'm a big fan of Rodin (OMG YOUR PROF PIC MATCHES YOUR HEADER OMG), so the header is fine, but poetry thrives on suggestion, aesthetics, and rhythm. Brown excels at the first, does a good job at the second, and needs to work on the third. Part of aesthetics is not just avid prose, but how the poem looks, and honestly, that template reminds me of fungus. Stop feeding shit to your template. Pick a paler, less offensive green for the words - that alone will improve things. Think about flow and meter. You know how to write. Do it better.

I applaud the flows of nonsense because he's practicing his attack. Sometimes the prose is a bit awkward and clunky, but he's exercising and I respect that, despite the overt naval-gazing, mostly because there isn't a lot of filler. There's just good and bad practice. Sometimes his spelling is fucking barbaric, he does the "your/you're" thing and if that shit is intentional to prove a point, like we're too hooked on grammar as a society or something, or if you purposely substituted "poured" with "pored" as a play on words, know this: that doesn't make any fucking sense, but I'm over it, because I read that one about the snail about 500 times.

I'm a sucker.

for effort and skill, but

because sometimes he sounds like he's trying to be a poet instead of just being himself.

Drivel for Nice People

2011-04-07T07:13:00.000-04:00

So I have this friend, Blubbering Vlad, who's the type of guy who you want to be around when there's trouble brewing. Not that he's all that handy, or good with his fists, or even all that smart; he's just a hell of a lot of fun. And he's likely to help keep the heat off your trail acting as a distraction to any authorities who may be inclined to give you a second glance.

Needless to say, when I go on the prowl, his place is one of the first stops I make on my way out of town.

But when the phone rings and the miracle of modern caller ID tells me that it's Blub, I will not ever pick up. Never. Because, fun and useful as he is out running through the swamps, trying to have an actual conversation with him on a phone is excruciatingly dull, dull, dull. The guy simply has nothing to say and uses way too many syllables to get that nothing conveyed.

Reading today's blog (A Hundred Indecisions) reminded me of my dear friend.

The author, who reveals her name very reluctantly and tells us virtually nothing at all about herself directly, is 24 year old Gini from Delhi, an architecture student, and .... Well, shit, that's kind of it. She writes in complete sentences. Complains about poor spelling in text messages. Seems to grouse regularly about the life she has laid out before her, as though she is powerless to effect a change. Hell for all I know, she is. But it seems pretty fucked up that she seems to have virtually nothing positive to say about becoming an architect for all the time she seems to devote to it.

What does that leave me with? I am left with another iteration of the same old question -- what the hell are you writing this for? You do not seem possessed of literary demons that must be unleashed, lest they eat you up inside. If anything, you seem to have literary kittens that occasionally need a ball of yarn to play with or to have their bellies scratched. I am not transported within your words, I am instead driven to fits of ADD. The remotest shiny bauble captures my attention over your words.

So. What the hell can you do about this? Is it so awful? No, not awful. Just dreadfully mundane. And I suspect that this is a direct result of Gini writing this blog before she has experienced anything.

No, that's not true. She has. As a newly hatched from the nest High School grad she traveled alone from her home in Delhi to Chennai, over two thousand km distant, and took up at school there, trying to fit into a culture very different from what she was used to. A writer would have wrested an entire novel from that setup alone.

So, let me leave you with a question and then a rating. First the question: Gini, when you sleep at night, what do you dream of?

And now for the rating.

Meh. Meh. Meh.

Figure out why you're doing this, and if you aren't doing it because your muse will fucking kill you in your sleep if you don't, don't submit for a review from a bunch of clove cigarette smoking, beret wearing, edgy, aging hipsters like us. We'll all be that much happier. I promise.

No, THIS is tellin' like it is

2011-03-25T04:01:00.007-04:00

You know what we haven't had around here for awhile? A mommy blog.

Fan-fucking-tastic. Am I not the perfect person to review this blog? The single, childless, 30-year-old. Woot woot.

Anyway, why the hell did this chick submit here? While we have people who happen to be parents affiliated with this site, I really don't think we're the audience she's looking for.

For instance, look at her word cloud:

Are you kidding me? The only time I willingly read shit like this is when I'm in the waiting room of a doctor's office and my only other option is Sports Illustrated.

I mean, this lady took the time to write a post about the evolution of her hair. And uploaded pictures at each stage. Who gives a shit about that? Other mommy bloggers and the ladies from her birthing class.

(Check out the results from the poll in the link above. It should give you an idea of her readership.)

She uploads tons of boring pictures of her kid. The only people who want to see pics like that are grandmas. Not just any grandmas, but the grandmas of the child in question.

About a month ago, she gave a play by play update on her kid's illness. Ended up being just a fucking COLD. Again, grandmas only care about that shit.

Now, one could claim I have nothing in common with this blogger, therefore her blog is not my cuppa and to just move on.

Fuck that.

I have plenty of mommy and a few daddy bloggers in my reader. There's a huge difference between those blogs and the blog up for review today. The bloggers I read haven't let their children completely define their existence. Their blogs aren't about being parents; they're about their real lives, which just happen to include parenting. They don't try to portray their lives as idyllic and Stepford-esque. The bloggers make me care about them and about their kids. They actually make me want to be a parent myself, even when they write about the kid getting into his own diaper and smearing poop on the walls.

Polka Dot Hippo makes me want to go out and get a hysterectomy. If parenthood equals zombies with no personality, who have no life and nothing to talk about besides their kid, I'll pass, thank you very much.

Wasted Words

2011-03-23T12:22:00.008-04:00

Tits. Tits. TITS. See, television is a great spectacle even if the people on it seem to take themselves way too seriously. In fact, the world is filled with people without a sense of humor, and that's never fun when you're trying to make a balloon animal out of someone's guts. "Oh human cruelty" this, "mother of five" that - party tricks aren't what they used to be. But on TV land, there's a show that simply doesn't give a fuck about this human concept of "reality" and is an orgy of tits, guts, blood and more tits. Yes, I'm plugging Spartacus, go watch it - it'll be a lot more entertaining than anything you'll see today. That dull pain I'm feeling is the sensation of a hot poker up my arse, a gentle reminder from Shiner that there's a review upon us.

So Astrodominie, welcome to fantasy island. I'm not sure Astrodominie means, and my gut tells me not to investigate. So let's pick a random letter and go with it - how's J? So J blogs on "The Thick Plottens", and aw shucks, ain't that clever? Says J - "I’m a 23-year-old girl living it up in India. That’s all you probably need to know". I'd be happy to cut my losses and move on, but she tells us more about herself anyway - in style reminiscent of a piss poor dating website from the past. Not that I would know, I was simply checking to see what the fuss was all about SHUT UP.

Just about every post on the blog is a list of some sort, and I hate lists. Lists are bad for a blog. They're an easy way out churn out words, add no cohesive thought and make the reader care very little about the post in its entirety. Take this and this. Cut the posts into half and mix them up. Does anything seem out of order? Will it hold a reader's attention? Will it make him/her care about the random shit that happened in your life last month?

I must admit, I liked the idea of using a line from a song as the title. I found myself scrolling down to catch the name of the song owing to the dim sounds of bells ringing in my head. But in doing so, I ended up skipping most of your generic posts one after another.

Now J, it might seem I'm sick of you and want to phone it in by tossing in a finger or two. But the thing is, I do like you. A little. Kinda. See, you're a 90s child and think much like I would. We're in the same age group, and of similar backgrounds. When I visit a blog I want to see something I can identify with but see it in a way I hadn't thought of before. Even though you cop out with your lists, you're clearly capable of sustaining a thought and writing about something that matters to you.

But you lose focus too soon. Going back in time through your blog, I see a clear pattern. There's a thought, an idea that leads to a post. Then there's another thought, a vague mashup of words that probably mean something to you, but really, waste a reader's time. Then there's silence on the radio, and you comeback with a stupid list.

J, when you finish writing, how about reading your post once more and guessing what a first time reader's reaction might be? If its "hmmm, so?", then don't hesitate to hit the delete button. Say nothing if you don't have anything worthwhile to write about. You clearly read more than I do, and that's always a positive when you're trying to flirt with writing. In fact, its when you talk about books you seem to hold your own and have something meaningful to say. Its not terribly original but I can see evidence of something I'd bother revisiting your blog for.

When I visit a blog, while I do appreciate familiarity with the subject, I want to read a different take on it. From this list, I actually chuckled at the idea of a single girl with a Harry Potter bawling her eyes out on a plane. Why couldn't this have been a single post? If you don't mind vague posts under 100 words, why not write something meaningful even if sacrifices word count?

There's a constant subplot about moving to Hyderabad for what I imagine was your first job, and then back(?) to Chennai for hmm, I don't know. so why not explore that in better detail? Instead of itemizing what you miss and what you don't, how about picking one and bitching the shit out of that motherfucker?

Too many questions J, and I'm not sure if taking it easy just to post on your blog will answer any of them.

For the occasional blip in the radar, you get a meh

For boring the shit out of me with juvenile lists

Wankers

2011-03-22T08:00:00.007-04:00

You are all a bunch of wankers. No, not today’s reviewee. YOU. The one sitting at there with your eyes glued to your screen of choice.

I got six pissing comments on my last review and three of those were from Shiner. Poor show, people, poor show. That is not to say that I don’t concede that my review may have been pissweak boring, but if you can’t rip the shit out of the reviewee, couldn’t you at least turn on me, telling me what a useless pile of pap my review was and make a day of it?

Pah-thetic.

I have nothing if not an ego that needs to be stroked, even if I put in a starfish performance, so I can tell you, it was an effort not to throw my hands up with a “Fuck the lot of ya’s” and bail on this review. (Insult must be said with broad Aussie accent or else it loses all effect) However, along with my need for validation I also have an overblown sense of responsibility, so here I am.

Fuck you Shiner. Fuck you cause I heart you so much and didn’t want to let you down, cause bugger me backwards – I had to spend an evening with this dickhead.

Kavisolo. You moron. Go back to the heathen shithole myspace den of iniquity from whence you came. (There is no real iniquity in your ‘blog’ – I just like the word) Far fucking out. Ugh. I don’t know who you are or what you do, except stick up youtube clips and photos of yourself. I do know that you have glasses and look like a nerd. Albeit an ironic hipster-ish type nerd. Book. Cover. Judged.

Are you Indian? Gay? That is what I can tell seven pages in but the little legs on my inferential skills are paddling like crazy to keep this semblance of a real person afloat.

Hold the phone – I FOUND something. Page 17. You left Australia fourteen years ago to live in Canada. Well there ya bloody go mate. And shit. I just saw that I was seventeen pages in and you were only in January of this year. I am sorry Kavisolo but even with your minimalist template and lack of side-crap, your stupid way of only being able to navigate from page to page sucks ass. Wait – hold that telephone receiver yet again my dear reader-come-telephonist. Here we go. Retarded Redpen just hit the archive button and lo and behold all is revealed. The archives appear in one damn funky looking collage. I like this bit.

But the rest sucks. It is all poser crap with ‘I’m-so-clever-cos-I can-find-quotes’ fraudery (it’s a word because I said so) and no writing, at least none that I can be arsed finding.

All style (kinda) and no substance. You miff me in your need to be reviewed. Is it a postmodern joke that I don’t get?

Whatever.

That's What She Said

2011-03-17T22:04:00.003-04:00

I'm usually pretty perceptive. At least I am when I'm tuned in and paying attention. I can walk into a room and sense the vibe going on pretty accurately most of the time. And I can open a blog and pick up pretty much from the get go what sort of experience I'm in for.

Are there lots of crappy little doo-dads scattered around the perimeter? Hundreds of blog awards? Pukey pink background? Massive header screaming out for attention? Maybe a few links here and there to crappy writing that's been "published" in an ezine or via some vanity press? Yeah, guess what - that fucker's gonna be a chore.

So imagine what I thought when I first arrived at the home of one Laura Jane Williams, with her pink background, her name in 106 point type across the top, a shameless declaration that her high self-esteem was my problem, and links down the side to her magazine. Yeah. That's what I was thinking. Attention whore. The type of person who prefers volume to subtlety.

And I was sorely afraid.

So I rolled up my sleeves, prepared to brush the foul taste from my mouth soon enough. And I read the first entry. A fairly amusing description of some guttersnipe trying to pick her up in the street and clearly failing miserably. So I read on. And I happened on one after another reasonably amusing anecdote of life as a young woman in Britain after another.

It was a moment of severe cognitive dissonance. A blog that starts out like this is supposed to suck from the git go. And, aside from the header, this kind of doesn't suck.

Although it comes across as pretty Bridget Jonesy on the whole (and I have more in common with Bridget's father than Bridget herself), it is all well enough written, well enough thought out, etc, that I found myself cognitively humming along before too long.

Would I come back on a regular basis? Sure. Would I read it every day? No. I find this sort of thing to be a pleasant enough distraction, but when I read post after post that has the same sort of sour-sweet sassiness that this has, I find myself needing to cleanse the pallete with something a bit more weighty.

Now for the funny part. As I read, I was having the hardest time with some of the entries as she kept referring to her being in school for her undergrad degree. And although I know that there are all sorts of students out there, the photo of herself had me thinking that she was a mid-thirties aged crazy-cat-lady-in-the-making. And I was having the biggest trouble imagining why she was describing the life of a woman in her early twenties. It wasn't till I wandered to her video page that I discovered that Laura Jane Williams is not really who she appears to be at first. She appears to be putting her worst foot forward on purpose. Like a little sort of performance art.

Bravo.

By now you'll have noticed that I am including very few links to anything specific. I think that the biggest reason for that is that, although there really aren't any clunkers in the mix (she does occasionally repeat a thing once or twice too often -- like the "Quote, End Quote" thing, but the ones I read were all reasonably amusing), there exists also a dearth of "holy shit, you must read this now" posts. It's all pretty evenly keeled.

So, to give you all a taste, here are a few random posts you may want to check out...

On being offered money for sex. She thinks.
On being an unintentional racist. And having OCD.
On being ridiculed by her boyfriend and her flatmates. At the same time.
On lacking cake for tea.
On being very self deprecating.
On the love of a dog.
On parental acceptance.

Etc.

I don't have any specific advice on how to improve. This seems to be working for you. Keep it up if you're still fed by it.

Two Stars. Because one is too few and three is too many. And because I said so, that's why.

Oh! The Places That Are There That You Will Point Towards!

2011-03-15T13:43:00.017-04:00

I have a favorite coffee shop. It's pretty standard, as far as coffee shops go. The owner/barista has a tattoo of a fox curling around his ear, with the tail tracing underneath his jaw and I am in love with him. He eyes me with pleasured surprise, tickles my palm with the tips of his fingers when he hands me my change, brushes eyes with me at the exact moment of contact and grins wickedly. I hold my breath, blushing like a proper whore. He is the most charming man I've ever met. No force can shatter our lusty, caffeinated kinship. That shit is spiritual. I turn shyly to catch the next customer getting the same treasured gaze, and it smells like cinnamon and desire and I'm sure he douses his carrot cake with aphrodisiacs and I'm proud to be a part of his business, because that dude is sexy as hell.

Caryn also has a favorite coffee shop, but I don't really understand why. It just sounds like another coffee shop. She's a Jewish ESFJ who likes a tidy little Sunday, having a boyfriend, and reading her Kindle and eating giant tins of popcorn, but who doesn't like Holiday popcorn? Fucking everybody likes Holiday popcorn. Except for the haters, who can suck it.

But you see, Balance Overload is not really so much about the story of Caryn as it is about stuff, and stuff that is very safe, and her advice about stuff that is safe. Since she's a college career counselor, this is unsurprising. But as we all know: the information a blogger chooses to omit says just as much about them as what they include. Her mom reads her blog, poor thing. Caryn, honestly, what the fuck were you thinking?

Yeah, I know, your mom is your best friend and you tell her like everything, you fucking liar. You write with bland assurance and mechanical perfection, you give us at least one adorable aside per post and you end with questions intended to illicit small discussion. Clockwork. It's the sort of masked dynamic that makes me angry and then very, very sad, as if you want to articulate something important about yourself, but you don't want to reveal too much so you say it about the fucking Bachelor instead.

It's shit like that that brings me to my next point, which is integral: it is more important to me to defend the honor of Cottonelle over Charmin than it is to hear about your "religious odyssey", and my reasons are twofold:

1. Cottonelle is like wiping my ass with rainbows after shitting gold.
2. You give me no explanation as to why you and JB were conflicted in your interfaith relationship. I sense no tension in your words, I can find no reason for wasting your time on counseling. You are speaking in generalities. If I want to read generalities on interfaith relationships I will buy a book written by a fucking expert. But I want to hear about YOU, nancy-girl.

Your most telling entry, and your best, is this, and I like it so much I will link it twice. This is who you are. You are energized by simple pleasures and conclusions, and I dig that because it's personal and it fits you. It also tells me you're concerned with the destination rather than the journey. Yes, you are. YES YOU ARE. Don't argue with me, I'm right. Your blog is about general conclusions you make about stuff, with nothing detailing how you got there.

Unfortunately, that's not at all what I care about.

Jambo

2011-03-10T09:00:00.006-05:00

People like to make connections. Diving head first into Blonde’s little list on herself I noticed she used to speak Swahili. My dear old mum speaks Swahili. Blonde has been to Tanzania. And I have been to Tanzania. Snap! So with those little connections Blonde wormed her way into my affections. A little bit.

Her ‘cast’ is long and all edgy 30-something TV show. Really? If I had to cast my mates and exes it would be all ‘Dude Who Didn’t Age Well At All – SUCK IT!’ and ‘Clingy Bitch Who Dumped Me Cos I Didn’t Visit Her in London When She Lived There – HELLO I Was a Student Back Then!’ See? Definitely not as cool as her mates.

I got the distinct feeling I am not as smart as her. Look, I don’t mind coming to my own conclusion that my grey matter is not as well stocked as someone else’s but when I feel I am being gently taunted with it, I get all pissy and insecure and jealous and write reviews that possibly turn into a bitch-fest. Maybe. We’ll see.

Blonde writes well, but she writes like a chic-lit novel. With a blog, more so than in a novel, the reader expects to connect (there’s that ‘c’ word again) with the actual real-life author, as well as get a good story. I felt that sometimes her style of writing, while wry and funny, held me at a distance. She doesn’t have to be the slatternly Bridget Jones type of gal but being so self-contained must be tiring.

Blonde is champagne – she is witty, crisp, urbane and very consistent – she is certainly advocating a good ‘brand’ but after a while she clagged on my tongue and I felt like something a little more down to earth. Like Coca-Cola.

Even so, if I was a single gal about London, I would probably want to be her, first world gripes and all.

Two stars because she writes well, as a PR person should.

The guilt. She suffers, I suffer. There are some things a teaching stint in Africa can't assuage.

Hi-Tech Hate

2011-03-09T11:17:00.000-05:00

Sigh. If a review opens with a sigh, chances are, things aren't getting any better in the near future. See, English isn't everyone's first language and it's a concept that takes some getting used to. Yeah yeah, the dotted ones claim to use English as their first language - but don't you deny it - it's not what your racist granma uses to complain about your tan looking girlfriend. It's not the language your movie stars use to shill for "fairness creams".

But the thing is, the language has a few easy to understand, and follow, rules. Mind you, I don't care too much about grammar - that's a beast very few have tamed. But the Queen's tongue does lend itself to simplicity at the worst of times, if you tell yourself -

I will always say I, not i
Capital letters are great, when used correctly and WHEN NOT LIKE THIS
Commas break a sentence like this, and this, but do not end it like this,
Those red wiggly lines you see are might look like they're somewhat annoyed, but in reality what they're saying is HOLY FUCKNUTS BATMAN!! THIS IS A FULL SIZED KEYBOARD THAT YOU CAN TYPE FULL SIZED WORDS ON, SO COME ON TAKE A GODDAMNED CHANCE!!!
You typing is not the same as you talking. If you mix up the two, chances are most of us don't want either

Anyhow, when was the last time we saw an IFLY? When was the last time someone published something on my reader? Oh wait, I don't know - I haven't logged in for the last 3 months. So it angers me to no end to see a blog with semi-regular new posts (or so I think - I can't figure out the bloody site navigation) that has nothing but useless drivel.

In the past, I'd rip on blogs called XYZ Journal, useless updates, and simply missing the point about blogging. But now, 2 minutes away from the next day, I simply don't care. I'm not even sure if my idea of blogging holds up anymore. I thought it was a place to weave stories, to conjure posts with the magic of words. But perhaps it is a medium to vomit what you can't fit into 140 characters. If the meek shall inherit the earth, maybe the lame will keep the blogs alive.

This was supposed to be a review but I'll end with a plea instead. Shakti, and the others still "blogging". Read a book. Just one. Any one. Please?

I'm Not Dead Yet

2011-03-08T16:34:00.008-05:00

I haven't written anything on my personal blog since, oh . . .Christmas. I have nothing to say. Nothing even remotely interesting has happened to me. So, I just decided not to post until it's worthwhile.

I wish my reviewee would have done the same.

This is what's supposed to inspire me to write? A damn photo blog? The only writing is lame captions written in poor English. Aces. Ours is a blog that reviews WRITING. What in God's name am I supposed to do with this shit?

So yeah, Jidhu? Thanks for bothering to read the FAQ before submitting. Or any of the past reviews. Also, thanks for using us to get hits. You know what happens when asshats use us to get hits? I don't link anything other than the original link to the blog.

I don't know what to do right now. I'm here to review writing. I'm a "writer" (note the quotes), not a photographer. What the hell do I know about photography? I mean, I was the photographer for my junior high school newspaper 15 years ago. I got some awesome shots of the JV Boys Basketball game. I took a photography class in college and spent my time shooting gravestones at this old ass cemetery. Yeah, pre-emo, baby.

Where was I? Oh yeah, I'm not a photographer. So here's a layman's critique of your photography, Jidhu. It SUCKS.

Your minimal "About Me" says this blog is for you to express your feelings, ideas and interests. What feeling does this express? (Yeah, I linked. Sue me.) Your caption "Guys repairing pipes" is RIVETING. Does the photo mean something to you? Was your father a mechanic and you spent weekends working him, so there's some sentimental value to the picture? Does your "interest" in those guys bring up romantic "feelings"?

What the picture expresses to me is that you went out into the parking lot and took a picture of some shit, just to have something to post on your pretentious blog.

I'm done. I estimate there are more words written in this review than in the entire blog reviewed.

We have had one of these for awhile, so you get a . . .

Q Cue Queue Que

2011-03-02T23:30:00.000-05:00

BLOG: Que the Lights
AUTHOR: Xavier Burgin a.k.a. Xay B., college student at University of Alabama

The first time I pulled this site up, the first thing that ran through my head was "Oh my god, why the hell is this header image so big?" The second thought was equally critical and went something like this "What the hell is a 'Que'? It's spelled 'Queue' or 'Cue,' depending on your meaning, but I don't think I've ever seen 'Que' before."

Xay never explains why he made his header image so big that it pushes all of his content below the fold on my screen (and I'm at a 1650x1080 resolution -- there's really no excuse for it), but he does address the whole Que thing. I guess. (Sorry, I'm still not okay with it, and I think that you'll see why shortly.) Which leads me into my first substantive concern with the content of this blog. Unless you are involved in or interested in the greek life at the University of Alabama, much of the subject matter on this site is going to fly over your head or under your crotch or around your big fat gut, or somewhere unintended. Even when I was a young man in my late teens and early twenties, the allure of greek life completely eluded me. So, although I get that many young people love to have a place where they belong and all of that, I still felt as though I was standing off to the side observing rituals of a group that I could (and in truth, would) never be a part of.

Frat life aside, Xay is an aspiring filmmaker and photographer. Que the Lights is meant to serve as his online portfolio. This is an area I was hoping to find some commonality of experience. I've never studied, but I have been dabbling in the visual arts, photography, and aspects of film for years, primarily as a screenwriter, but also in the realm of some light directorial work. I was actually looking forward to reviewing this site, big ass header aside. I love short artistic student films. Generally.

So, my next biggest complaint is that there aren't more of these films. Instead, he spends an inordinate amount of time talking about what he's working on, or what he's interested in and why, but this writing comes off like a required school assignment. So, I want to go back to the films now...

I like watching the technical growth. Sure, not all were to my liking. The advertisements for frat events weren't really meant for me. Nor were the rap duels. But the films that told a story showed promise. And I would be very interested in seeing where this goes.

His photography is pretty amazing too. He does a lot of photographing people, something that I am not very good at. I feel that in order to photograph a person, really capture the essence of that person, you have to establish a very intimate bond with him/her. That intimacy is clearly on display in his photographs of people. My only quibble with the photography content is that his photography posts had way too many photos. They swiftly became overwhelming, diluting their individual impact. A lightbox style gallery that shows just one image at a time would be a much more suitable showcase for this work.

To tell the truth, the best part of Xay's filmmaking is the visual aspect. Sound sometimes was lacking, story sometimes vague or obtuse, could have used a bit less generosity in the editing process, but the visuals were almost always striking. Xay, if you were to ask me, I'd say focus on cinematography. I really think you have a gift there.

So, about the blog. What could you be doing better?

Edit your writing. I know, I say that almost every time. But in this case, you have interesting ideas, but too often a word selection is enough off the mark to yank me right out of reader mode and into red-pen wielding editor mode.
Shrink the header image. It should be 1/3 the height it is. Or less.
If you are serious about using this site as your portfolio, remember that a lot of folks who you want to see your work and look on it favorably won't be in your fraternity and so won't know what "Roo to the people" (or "Roo the people" as you say about 1/3 of the time) is supposed to mean. I still don't. I assume that this is not a statement of love for the offspring of Kanga in Winnie-the-Pooh. Correct?
Your use of tabs is confusing. The top row works, where it serves as an entry point to a page on your blog about that topic, but the second row? I was annoyed that clicking on those took me out of the blog to an external site without really warning me that was going to happen. It would be clearer if you were to use the YouTube logo or something instead of a tab.

Okay, that's enough for today.

Four stars for your photos.

And three stars for your completed videos.

And zero stars for your writing, which should have been two, but my inner editor redacted two. Sorry. It happens.

Be Happy: It's One Way of Being Wise

2011-03-01T11:33:00.002-05:00

People don't describe me as sweet, chill, laid-back, someone with a good sense of humor. More would say a poor sense of humor, someone who is inconsistent and hard to please. The whole situation is arcane at the least, because for me to genuinely like something, anything, I must be surprised. Surprised at its beauty, its horror, wit, insanity, humility, romance, hysteria, darkness, splendor - just give me a fucking adjective and shock me into using it to describe you. Okay? Please. Because reviewing blogs is fucking exhausting. Why do you think we took such a break?

It began in the Diminuitive Corner of Her Mind, as many other reviews do: with severe annoyance. There's no profile for our blogger, who calls herself $$ (the blogger formerly known as Shalini Surendran) which at first seems contradictory to a template flourished with aged parchment romanticism and a golden ornamental header, but that shit's very hip right now so never mind. Worldly old souls, the polarizing wisdom of antique keys and modern technology and all that. Honestly, I love that shit. I really do.

Even though she sometimes traps herself into posting a sentence beneath an inspirational photo of a tree in the sunset, DollahDollah can write superbeautifully, with a hazy glow or solid awareness. Sometimes she shitbombs her prose with alternating text colors, and sometimes she's meandering cheese, and sometimes she uses too many explanation points, but the words work so in the end that's just aesthetics. I am pleasantly impressed with her. Surprise!

In fact, I really like her, even though she's not a feminist (although I suspect, as I find with many women, that she really cannot define feminism. Feminists are like hipsters: the original social movement has lost all meaning and credibility because motherfuckers don't what the snot they're talking about) I know. I know. What the fuck. Who am I.

Most of her crowded posts could be punched out of their meh-ness. There's a great deal of purple prose and utter crap, but she's got enough gall to keep me reading. But what I love, and I do love this about her, is her uncompromising thankful dreaminess, full of hope and love. She is so genuine and infectiously pleased that I have to like her, I don't think I have a choice. It's rare that I find a blog where someone claims to be happy and I just believe them because their words smell like joy.

So DollahDollah, well done. Two stars and a very happy puppy.

Tally Ho!

2011-02-08T12:52:00.000-05:00

I can’t believe it. I am an anal retentive bastard who never forgets, misses or is late for anything, and I totally fell prey to the curse that is Shiner’s List of Doom. Granted, the internerd in my part of town has gone all crazy spaz so I didn’t even know I had a review to do, but even so, I hang my head in shame.

But finally, here we are. Now, a little while back, someone joked about/suggested doing reviews as Haikus. Even as skilled as I am, I wouldn’t dare attempt that but I thought I would go down the Mr London Street and give the 100 Word Post a bash here. I wouldn’t want Becky to feel ripped off with a scarcity of words, so if requested, I will cheat a little and elucidate in the comments. . .

Pish Posh and Such: A 100 Word Review

Becky, when I dug back into your archives you didn’t charm me. It was travel updates and ‘this place is soooo beautiful’. Blah and meh. When you started drawing, I was charmed. I felt young, silly, guilty and nosey. Delighted I remained at your off-beat style of cartoon and your whimsical, everyday observations. I could almost forgive that you spelled obesity as obesidy and salute as solute.

Alas - where are your fans? Many a muppety reviewee has legions while someone actually worth liking, such as yourself, is bereft of comments. I hope this review can change that for you.

PS: ‘4 Stars’ is not included in my 100 words, just in case you were wondering. Or counting. Neither is the title.

PPS: Do you like how my Intro of Shame is longer than the actual review?

Clinical

2011-01-27T15:49:00.002-05:00

Several months ago, in this space, I had occasion to review the ramblings of an antipodean young lady who self-described herself as "crazy." Among her other sins, I took a bit of offense to this self label. It was inaccurate and signaled an underlying disregard for the identification of the correct descriptor. I berated her for choosing "crazy" because what she meant was "impulsive" and "impetuous." If I may quote myself, I told that young lady at the time "Real crazy and real insane is actually scary and dangerous. Not fun. Real crazy is hanging off the edge of the Golden Gate Bridge or hearing voices that aren’t there telling you to kill John Lennon."

Jacki, if you are still reading here, today's reviewee is somewhat close to the epitome of who I was talking about in that review. (Also, Jacki, if you are still reading here today, I encourage you to submit for a re-review. You have corrected your egregious sins. You would likely get a much improved review today.)

Pandora has been dealing with mental illness for years, and Confessions of a Serial Insomniac is where she records the trials and tribulations of what goes along with that.

She has a very full About Me section. Pages and pages and pages of orienting material. A glossary of terms and acronyms. A run down of who all the major players are and what her relationship to them is. Full background on what she has been able to identify as the inciting cause behind her initial breakdowns.

And let there be no question -- assuming that this is all honest and true (and there's no reason to doubt that's the case as far as I can tell), whatever mental illness she is experiencing is well earned and owned. Go through what she has and you'd likely be mentally ill as well.

Pandora generally writes clearly, yet very clinically. She conveys the facts of her mental illness very well, but only rarely seems to give real insight into what it feels like. It reads like a bit of a case study in a text book. And if the purpose of this is to serve as a record of a life or as a resource for others who are going through similar trials and tribulations, that may very well be appropriate. It wasn't what I was hoping for when I first saw the topic, and maybe that's just prurient selfishness on my part. Hard to say. But as one who's deepest experience with mental illness is a very occasional bout with Seasonal Affective Disorder and or mild depression, I wasn't able to latch onto this material the way I really wanted to.

The thing is, it seems to be something that she struggles with in her therapy sessions as well:

“OK,” Paul said, “but what did you feel?”
Not an easy question to answer. I thought about how the way in which I’d described the incident here, but in the moment, that didn’t really seem to ‘get’ it.

So what can I say? That I'd like to see more catharsis? Feh. Easy for me to say from my comfortable house with my complete LACK of mental illness and trauma. Still, what I'm saying would probably make the individual entries a bit more compelling. The fact is, she doesn't glamorize or romanticize any of it -- she factualizes it. And perhaps that's a good thing to do. I'm not qualified to say anything about the illness part. But take a look at this, because this is more like what we're looking for here.

Okay, then. So what can she work on?

The entries are too long. If I were hired as her editor, the first thing I would tell her is to cut everything to 1/3 of the currrent length.
Lose the goddamned "Read More" links. Yeah, okay, they're probably there because the posts are so long, but I hate (hate, HATE, HATE!!!!) them. I probably didn't read as much of this as I should have partially because of that. (Partially because I have a deadline. Deal with it.)
Too much crap in the sidebar. At least the sidebar isn't longer than the page content. But there's still a hell of a lot going on, and the stuff I was looking for (archives) was hard to find in that haystack.
Reconsider the white text, black background. Although it doesn't bother me as much this time as usual because it kind of fits the subject matter, white text on a black background is hard on my eyes.

My final word of advise is going to come across as a bit condescending, maybe. I don't mean it to, but will understand why it is interpreted that way. I am trying to figure out why Pandora is writing this blog. What is the goal? Is it simply a diary of her mental illness? Is it to serve as a form of advocacy? And because that goal wasn't clear to me, it was very hard to assess whether she was successfully achieving her goal. Which is one of the key things I try to assess in these reviews. It seemed to me that she may be writing "just because" without a clear goal in mind. If that's the case, I might encourage her to find a goal for this and strive toward it. If it's NOT the case, and she has a goal, I might encourage her to identify that goal for the readers.

And that's that.

For what it's worth, I bet I know several people in real life who could have written this blog, except for the residing in Ireland part, and I like them all. So, in the end, I am willing to bet that if I were to know Pandora in real life, I'd probably consider her a friend.

Pandora's rating: One star.

High Speed Dirt

2011-01-26T12:13:00.001-05:00

Greetings flesh bags. It's been a while, and I can't say I've missed you. Since my last review, I've gained a few hundred pounds, broken an opposable digit, and have lost all interest in blogging - reading, writing, and reviewing. The good lady hid my PS3 controller to accelerate my healing, and I haven't hunted a dim-witted herbivore in the last month. I am PISSED off and sure as hell hope I'm reviewing fuckin' Wodehouse today.

No? Fuck me and my broken claw then. "My Tumbling Thoughts to the World ...beware, here I come" (fuck, fuck, fuck) treats visitors with a list of "Amazing people who make me go on n on n on:)". I had flashbacks of karaoke nights in a basement bar, peanut shells, the overwhelming smell of urine, and asshole frats "ironically" singing Journey. And they ask me why I hate people.

When I visit a new blog, I usually page down to the bottom to get a quick look at the sidebar, template and general design. Not that I care about aesthetics, but historically speaking - crappier the sidebar, worse the content. But hey, if she has so many awards, she must be AWESOME right?

Sure, English is not your first language Suruchi, but must you make it so hard? You're a teacher, and your profile reads

I think I am wise, which makes me the unwisest of all theoretically...but rest assured, I can be what I wanna be and there's so much in me that I wanna share

If this were the first class of the course, I'd be getting ready to drop it right about now.

So what does a harebrained teacher write about? There's advice on kissing, new-age bullshit, and random thoughts no one deserves to be subjected to. It's one part emo, two part mommy blog - but complete bullshit whichever way you slice it. You yack about how you're different and how wise you are. But your writing simply can't shake off the unmistakable smell of bullshit.

I had a lot of trouble getting through your writing, and a small part of it was due to your frequent switching to Indianese. There's nothing wrong in using other languages in passing if they're translated (or obvious) and used in the proper context. But "writing" like you're "talking", and all the time at that is utter tripe. Also, you do know that writing like *this* is to *emphasize* something, and that the helpful duo (parentheses) are used to interject sentences? Right? Right? *RIGHT*? And, why in the name of Vishnu do Indians use so many ellipses? You have a full sized keyboard, and presumably a normal sized brain, what's the deal with the chat acronyms?

You don't seem to check yourself in light of your identity for all to see, but is this the best you can do? We get people who can't reach their full potential because their mothers and cube neighbors are frequent visitors, and we advise them to go anonymous just to explore their boundaries. I'd suggest the same for you, but only to spare your loved ones from the trash you churn out.

This showcases almost everything that's wrong with your writing. When you aren't stabbing grammar in the balls with a corkscrew, you get all cutesy, mix up tenses, styles of speech, overuse ellipses, use languages I don't understand. Even if I were to ignore fuckin' ALL of that, there's absolute no substance in a page long post. And for God's sake SAY FUCK WHEN YOU MEAN FUCK.

An hour at her blog, and I was down three glasses of my cigar malt but got nowhere close to finding something redeeming. To entertain myself, I began scrolling wildly, and came up with a composite post from a page of Suruchi's manure farm.

Presenting... the best post ever.

And suddenly I hear moans...
She put her fingers lovingly against the flaccid face of Sushant, the deepest of peaceful sleep spreading across his pallor.
Where men get ready to fist a loafer’s face blue if he raises so much as an eyelid at the girl on his arm...
What maximum can happen?
Come out...say as you feel...be as you are...

That got boring quick, so I substituted words in her posts to keep me going.

Between the duration when a vibrator would reach from the ground floor to his doorstep through the elevator, he said he would have written an article.

I was having an interesting conversation with a dear friend the other day when a kind of penis appeared quite conspicuously to the fore!

Fuck this shit. As bad as the writing is, there are several dozen "readers" to keep her going, and I think that's a tragedy nearly as big as this blog is.

Suruchi, get on the bus. And here's another for your "followers".

Also, since you like awards, here's one. You know where to stick it. *Your sidebar is an option*

The Future Looks Dark, Dank, and Dreary

2011-01-24T13:39:00.002-05:00

Okay. This time it's going to work. This time I'm going to post a review schedule and it is going to go as planned. This time the preview post is not going to curse itself.

Pish Posh and Such

My Tumbling Thoughts to the World

Confessions of a Serial Insomniac

Good luck to the reviewees, because you're going to fucking need it. Oh, and Green Bay is bullshit.

Epidemic

2011-01-22T17:31:00.007-05:00

So, I've been selling my possessions online. Skeins of new yarn I purchased for an ill-fated knitting project. A vintage dress I wore one time in 2001 for a costume party. Etc, etc. Whatever I don't need anymore, I'm trying to get some money for it.

However in doing so, I've discovered the alarming rate of obliviousness and illiteracy in the world. These idiots email me questions all the time, and it takes all my willpower not to go caps lock on their asses.

"Will these jeans fit me? Will they be too short?"

I DON'T FUCKING KNOW WHAT YOU LOOK LIKE. I'VE GIVEN ALL THE MEASUREMENTS OF THE FUCKING JEANS. CAN YOU READ THEM? CAN YOU MEASURE A PAIR OF JEANS THAT FIT YOU AND COMPARE THEM?

"Can you post pictures of the back of the jeans?"

THERE ARE 4 PICTURES OF THE JEANS, NUMBNUTS. YOU SEE THAT DOWN ARROW AT THE BOTTOM RIGHT OF YOUR SCREEN? CAN YOU PUSH THAT AND PAGE DOWN?

I have to deal with that shit, and then I get assigned this blog.

How many emo Indian girls have submitted their blogs here? Too many to count, people. Have they not read this site at all? Can they not see we have a tag, special just for them? Reviewing this blog is a waste of my time, which is why I've procrastinated in writing it. Part of me wants to just copy and paste any number of other reviews I've written and call it a done deal.

But, no, I can't do that, cuz it's cheating and the other reviewers will get pissed at me. So, here goes.

Aparna hasn't posted since November of last year. Which means she submitted her blog for review, and then just stopped posting. WASTE OF MY FUCKING TIME.

Strike one for you, Aparna. Strike one for you.

Her header is some shit people used to post as a MySpace comment. She switches between font colors, making the blog unreadable at times (thank God for small favors). She has a widget bar that extends halfway down the page, filled with GIFs, a Twitter box, an IM box, awards, a blogroll of about 50 and all of her post labels.

Strike two. (Please read any number of other reviews if you're uncertain why.)

Her labels are as follows:

which could easily be consolidated into one label call "My Personal Diary Scribblings That No One Gives a Shit About." In fact, if you go back to 2007, she actually posts her boring-ass diary for the world to see.

You know why we hate emo bloggers? It's because they think their personal dramas are special and have only happened to them. Of course! No one else has EVER had their best friend backstab them and peace out. No one else has EVER had their heart broken either!

Maybe it's because we're all just a bunch of old coots who dealt with our adolescent dramas before the dawn of blogging. We just wrote them down in an actual diary which we burned in the fireplace when we grew the fuck up, because we'd be mortified if anyone ever read our simpering, melodramatic drivel.

But nowadays, everyone posts this shit on the internet.

Anyway, strike three. You're out. Get on the fucking bus.

R2G2 and C3POmigod, Why Is There So Fucking Much Clutter?

2011-01-21T00:04:00.008-05:00

I have just been face-fucked by the icy cock of winter, and, as such, am both chilly with shame and frigid in want of vengeance. But, truly, is there a better mindset for the act of reviewing than scrolling through some unfortunate soul’s bloggage whilst harbouring the still-crisp memory of Jack Frost raping my face? I think not; in fact, I would go so far as to say that an entirely unpleasant environmental assault is often just the kick in the pants (or fuck in the face) necessary to fully tear someone the fuck apart. That being said, fellow Askers, hear me when I say that I am severely disappointed in 2Gooeysphere (which is not the actual name of the blog, but more entertaining by a pretty substantial margin); it needs neither the kind of evisceration that would help me banish thoughts of my frozen face-fucking to the part of my brain reserved for hazy recollections, nor is it good enough to warm the chill from my cheeks. It sits on the fence, and I daresay I fucking hate fence-sitters.

Now, if given the choice between sucking out loud and writing brilliantly, most would choose the latter, surely; but if you actually want the latter, you need to fucking focus. You, g2, put a remarkable amount of work into your posts and you do so with an enthusiasm that's obvious even without your tiresome excessclamation points… but you can lick my balls sideways if you think I enjoy lurking under the monolithic shadow of that overzealous goddamned sidebar to read your shit. The posts are already little clusterbombs of plenty, what with the photoshopping and written commentary and such - fuck off with that extraneous clutter. Simplify, man; there’s not much to differentiate your header from the rest of your insane-asylum gray background, and it looks like someone threw a handful of cats at a Ouija board to determine the placement of those wholly-unnecessary flourishes that crowd the title. The overall effect of your flare on my concentration is devastating.

There is also the small matter of the 8000 mile cultural divide to reckon with, globalization be damned. When I see "I am going to Hyderabad for Diwali", I read "I am going to [action-verb involving badass eight-headed water beast] for [someone named] Diwali", not "I am going to [location] for [festival of lights]", and that right there isn’t the aforementioned cultural divide’s fault so much as it’s mine for wanting what you’re saying to be exciting. It’s not, mostly, especially when you’re rocking two-part automobile-permit scandal posts that stand outside my frame of reference or comparing Jesus to someone I‘ve never heard of. Oh, I could do some research, as you yourself did in regards to comedy, but, really, am I going to research something I’m not particularly interested in for the purposes of superficially rounding out a free blog review?

Pfft. Please.

So, where does that leave us? Well, I don’t think you should throw yourself off a cliff, but I also don’t want to read your blog anymore than I want to slapped in the genitals with a hammer, so something must be done. I’ve invested far too many intermittent moments over the last month to backhand a "meh" at you, but as much as I enjoyed both The Pigeon Fool Principle and its Implications Of sequel (if for no other reason than the titles), I fucking despised this cloying piece of fluffery, and am thus inventing a new rating:

Smarten up.

Helicopter Mom

2011-01-19T14:28:00.000-05:00

I want to get this out of the way: I avoid advice columns, and I avoid blogs that read like advice columns. Blogs, to me, and to most of the reviewers on this site - are about people sharing their lives creatively, with the semblance of honesty and a penchant for story. This means, you semantic bastards, that even a manufactured personality writes with honest vision, a fictional persona is written to feel real.

To most of the world (I AM LOOKING AT YOU, APRIL!) blogging is about...you know what? I don't know. I don't fucking know at all. It's about book expose's on single parents, or being angry that you're bored, or sad that teachers don't try hard enough or impressed with your daughter's ability to feel things. All things that are probably worth discussing, but couldn't you find some way to do this with a little more pizazz?

It's about irrelevant updates and opinion pieces, it's about pushing your transcendence into the internet because you must share what you have learned because no one has ever fucking learned it before ever. It's step-by-step summaries that are about as interesting as filing cabinets (I went to a hotel and there was good food I met people and they were good My hotel room was good because it had stuff Lunch was good because it was food I went for a walk and it was good). It's all very straightforward and unimaginative, but I get the sense that she's just systematic hovering over everything in an effort to appear balanced. I get it. You are balancing your blog topics because "It's All About Balance." Very clever.

Balance is delicate and shifting, it's a feat. I don't think it can be scheduled. That's a regiment, not a balance.

Right now April's writing suggests that she is the type of person who glances down and takes things at face value, and someone who is struggling to overcome her previous role as a victim by writing aggressive essays opining everything she sees without really taking the time to see things from another's perspective. It makes sense, wanting to take control of her future without being in control for so long. On the whole though, except for very few pieces, I'm not the biggest fan.

And that's just because April is not my style. And my style is the best style. April, you are well-suited for mommyblogging because you write about things that mommybloggers care about and you aren't a bad writer. I think your no-nonsense approach to writing is good for what you're going for. But I like nonsense. I like a lot of nonsense, actually, and I like individuals that light my brain on fire with nonsense and then drunkenly spray more nonsense across the screen with a fire extinguisher.

What was so fucking delicious about your mini burger? Or is it just that the novelty of tiny food makes you giggle and tastes better because it's quaint? Did you utilize all that business in your hotel room, or were you just glad it was there? Details like that can turn posts from one of those End of the Year Bragging Letters (the ones your acquaintances send during the holidays with pictures of their children wearing matching sweaters or Being Spontaneous) to little glimpses of insight into someone's personality. We'll get the sense you were there instead of just hovering, passing through.

So if I were you, because like my previous reviewee you have well over 500 posts - create a page with direct links to the best things you've written on your blog, or the best things you've written on any other parenting blog. I would create a page that has a more in-depth profile detailing why you're blogging and what you hope to accomplish. I am sure you will use the phrases "I hope to accomplish" and "I am blogging because" when you do this. Move all of your personal template widgets to the left column, and keep the Blogher shit and links in another. Consider a header image that reflects your blog. Perhaps a woman sitting at her laptop with a cup of coffee, while two children play in the background. That would be new.

Because you are good enough at what you want to do.

Not Quite D.O.A.

2011-01-13T08:40:00.002-05:00

There's a scene in the 1988 movie D.O.A. in which Dennis Quaid's character regains consciousness after a rowdy night and tries to get his bearings. As he looks around at his surroundings, it becomes increasingly clear that he is not in his own home. Nor his own bed. Going from memory here, as I haven't seen that movie on over a decade (Fortunately. I don't actually recommend it unless you have a serious thing for a young Dennis Quaid or a young Meg Ryan.), it seems to me that he looks around and sees pink fluffy bunnies and shit like that. Shit that starts sending his early warning system into overload. And in his case, that warning is warranted. It seems, he is waking up in the bedroom of a young lady. A very young lady. Fortunately not twisted and sick young, but clearly too young for him.

And for some reason, my first impression of today's blog brought that scene to mind. The template is decorated just like a fourteen year old girl's bedroom. It's cute, and watercolor-y/pastel-ly with big loopy looking sans serif text. So imagine my surprise to find out that this is a blog of a male physician/med-student who describes himself as "Vampire doc" who is "67% evil."

Guess what pal. You aren't fooling anyone.

The template also includes an inane "Wibiya" bar at the bottom that provides no advantage to me, the reader, and instead presents a significant disadvantage in that it slows page loads down. A lot. Annoyingly so.

A template isn't everything. I can forgive a lot of bad decisions in the template if the execution is Very Good or better.

Which in this case, it isn't so much.

I had high hopes, based on a quick scan of a few posts. Certainly that vampire/67% evil thing had me intrigued, but then I started reading. And I learned that, while Ramanathan Kannan does have some amusing stories or insights on occasion, he frequently doesn't seem very clear on what is amusing to an outside reader as opposed to someone who was in on the joke.

And like many Saturday Night Live skits, his posts continue much longer than the content warrants. (In this example, I very much wanted to get to the heart of the matter with him, but the frequent detailed tangents derailed me. I still don't know if that was even a good story or not.)

I mean, a list of 49 things that are different from going to school back home and going to school away from home? Forty nine? This would have been significantly better had you chosen ten or fifteen and focused only on the best ones.

Too often I found myself in the middle of a post asking myself how much longer this was going to go on. And, I confess, I almost always skipped to the next, having exhausted my patience with the post at hand.

Don't get me wrong. It's not all bad. There are a few like this that I came across. And there were some that were interesting to me personally that I wished were written better so I could reach the end before getting an embolism.

In the end, I have to conclude that I like this Ramanathan guy, but I really wish his writing would be more focused and concentrated. Not this rambling on and on. I am reminded of a quote I heard once, I think attributable to Churchill. After spending an evening at a dinner party next to a rather loquacious woman, he apparently quipped something to the effect of "She talks a lot, but doesn't say anything."

Ramanathan, my advice to you: Trim the fat and say something.

That said, your potential gets one star. Live up to it, and come back to get more. If you can.

Here Comes Another One, Just Like.....

2011-01-10T05:21:00.015-05:00

Happiness is an Internal Pursuit is the name of the blog being reviewed today. That sounds pretty deep and meaningful and shit. But you know what else is an internal pursuit? A pap smear. However, you don’t see women putting that one in their blog readers to be revisited at weekly intervals. From what I have heard, it is a once in every two years experience that is akin to having fingernails scraped down a blackboard. Except in your vagina.

So already this review has taken a review south. But I knew that when Shiner gave me my next mission, which I chose to accept. It unfortunately did not blow up in a delicate-ball-of-paper-sized explosion when I had finished with it.

Here is the bit where you realise I am a grouchy old dinosaur. Not to be confused with the hip young thang we know as Johnny Raptor. He is all up with where it is happening and whatnot. Not so much me. I still like to think of blogs in ‘book’ terms. Number one: it has to grab me on the first page. Usually someone in the book publishing process, least of all the author, will make sure that this will occur with a decent percentage of the people who have picked up the book. Unfortunately for the blog world, there is no editor to tell the blogger, ‘You know, I just think it needs a little more boom, pow, pizzazz? You picking up what I am putting down?’

Sufficed to say, the writerly stylings of Bipasha did not lure me willingly into her world. And here we come to number two on Redpen’s Good Blog list. Use correct punctuation. I am not a nitpicker – I won’t get all up in your grill if you try, and fail, to use a colon or semi-colon properly, but a capital letter at the beginning of a sentence will work wonders if you would like people other than baggy-assed jean wearing tweens with cell phones surgically attached to their fingers to read what you have to say. The ellipse, contrary to the belief of those under 18, it NOT an acceptable fill-in for any other form of punctuation; nor does it make it seem like you are soooo deep and there are so many other ideas peering out from within those little dots; ideas which your awesome intellect could not be bothered elucidating upon. But like the good Indian kid she is, having listened thoroughly to her teachers, Bipasha does manage to give the exclamation mark a good airing. Good girl!

Look, Bipasha is a compassionate woman who lives in a fascinating country. At times she tries to highlight it and I get a little bit intrigued. The problem in that scenario is that it ends being me that does all the imagination leg-work while trying desperately to ignore the abominable teen email/text speak…and FUCK ME. I really thought this chick was young. Like early 20s at the most. I seem to have been proven otherwise which disturbs me on all manners of levels. I really don’t think I can continue on. Thirty-one? Is that a typo?

I really don’t know what else to say Bipasha. You are an intelligent lady who lives in a scary and cool place. You are sweet and idealistic and I am a little bit in love with your dog Dexter. And I like you well enough. You are thoughtful and observant but fuck me if you write (in English at least, the only language in which I am fluent) like a fifteen year old - all grand ideas, a little bit of heart and terrible techno short hand.

This rating isn’t really for you. I mean, just for you, you would get a:

But for the culmination of Indian blogs with the same bloody issues I give you a:

And finally, for Shiner;

I am sorry I made you post my last four reviews. You can tell why by the bloody lay-out of this one. I also did try to think of something more 'hip' to give you but meh. I am nothing if not unoriginal and mother-lovin' lazy.

My Subscription to Psychology Today Makes Me an Expert

2011-01-05T18:16:00.006-05:00

Readers, have you ever known someone who has some life-changing, emotionally traumatizing experience happen to them, and they never deal with it and get the help they desperately need? In my experience, these people tend to be frozen at whatever age the experience happened and fail to evolve in mental and/or emotional maturity. Does anyone know what I'm talking about?

If not, meet Violet.

Violet watched her mother die two-ish years ago. Her father is gone as well, I assume, given her blog's title. There may be a post dealing with him, but I can't be arsed to read all her posts. She has other family though, because she wrote about them during the holidays. I'm confused about why they don't know how screwed up in the head she really is.

Violet bides her time being unemployed and crashing on people's couches. To support her lifestyle, placate her daddy issues, and distract herself from dealing with her problems, she signs up for Sugar Daddy websites and meets rich, much older men. Currently, Violet has a regular boyfriend closer to her age (early 20's, I assume), who doesn't know about her desire to be a kept woman or about her meeting potential Sugar Daddies/Johns behind his back.

This girl is a fucking trainwreck and has no shame about broadcasting it for the world to see. That's one thing I'll grant her. I don't have to complain about her not opening up. She writes about her boy troubles, albeit in a very Carrie Bradshaw-wannabe fashion. She writes about dreams she's had with her mother in them, ones where she and her mother are the same age. And she does so in an intriguing and image-provoking fashion. I just wish she would write more about what's going on in her head, rather than what shenanigans her latest John has pulled.

Violet writes somewhat coherently, with somewhat correct grammar and spelling, although she avoids the shift key like she thinks she's on par with ee cummings. Any mishaps can be chalked up to typos and not editing before posting. However, there is an abundance of caps and bold and ellipses and too many youtube videos and pictures for my liking. An indication of her age, I suppose.

The feminist in me, the woman who's witnessed male friends and relatives get put through the ringer by manipulative women, the woman who's been treated like shit herself because dudes think all women are users . . .wants to hate this girl. Desperately.

But I'm here to review a blog, not put on a German accent and have my reviewees lay down on my couch so I can play Armchair Psychiatrist, even if it comes naturally to me.

Which is why I'm generously awarding Violet one star:

For actually being able to write and for laying it all out there. Sometimes.

I'll let the commenters rip into you all they like. Shagnasty Freud has some advice for you though. Your mental health is just as important as your physical health, and way more important than frivolities. Maybe consider forgoing your gym membership and weekly salon appointments and find a therapist.

Fuck.

2011-01-04T11:11:00.003-05:00

There are people in the world who have time to write like, every f__ing day. I have barely enough time on my hands to scratch up one post a month, having chosen a career that makes data entry look like the f___ing Superbowl. Also, how can I expect other reviewers to finish their posts when I don't even have time to pretend I'm going to write one?

The main reason it took me so f___ing long to write this f___ing review was this: JennyMac is a mommyblogger (she would probably write a response to this that says, "NO, I am a MOM who BLOGS) who likes "cocktails" and has well over a million bajillion entries. She also has a million bajillion fans, who would probably rush to her aid at the slightest criticism because they don't like being told they have generic taste.

Mac, when you've been blogging long enough to have over 300 entries: consider creating a "best of" page. Are you proud you wrote this? Do you wish more people would read a particular entry? Because sifting through over 500 of them is no easy task. Your header image almost fits into my screen...ahp, nope. No it doesn't. It leaks sideways because it's huge and full of water martinis and thin, chic, casually-leaning models. Fix it.

Whatever, Jenny Mac seems very nice and cute and should probably have her own Chuck Lorre sitcom where hilarity strikes with a stressful moving day or a naive misunderstanding, where taking the Lord's name in vain (so bad!) and covering it up quickly with a well-placed pun results in uproarious laugh tracks and stray giggles, but I'm afraid I just don't have the skill to pretend that I find that s__t funny. It's too formulaic. She takes small events with the idea of turning them into something bombasticly hilarious, but it's just set-up, punchline. Set-up. Punchline. Set-up. Punchline.

Rarely does the punchline have any relevance to the set up, it's just a little snappy comeback she's proud of slapping on the end of a sentence in a random situation. These things don't add any human quality to the mix, because she's only showing us her self-approved quirks, not hopes and blood and secrets and fear which becomes hilarious because it has to be, because if it's not funny then it's sad and sad is bad. Ideally we want all honest knuckles and laughter...but no, that's not what JennyMac is.

From a technical standpoint, JennyMac is nonpareil. Her spelling is impeccable, her grammar has improved greatly since the beginning of the blog (there were so many unsatisfying run-on sentences I almost quit reading it and flame-fingered her a__), she uses good words and gets her point across. Sometimes she's super cheese, but I like that. Sometimes. When it works.

For the most part, though, it reads like cartoon bubbles between disembodied Jennifer Aniston and Kate Hudson, adorable and relatable because of they are "real women" with "flaws" just like "you and me." She tries to describe awkward and embarassing situations, but I'm never embarrassed for her. I never get that, "Oh s__t, no f____ing way, dude. No. F___ing. Way." And sometimes I feel awful. I feel awful because this made me feel nothing. I feel awful because she doesn't want to share her fears and desires, or she has no fears and desires and I can't tell which, and I feel awful because I don't give a s__t about her fears and desires because she doesn't seem like a real person.

But it's fine, right? It's all fine. JennyMac, your blog is fine, moderately enjoyable, and you seem like a nice, genuine person. Genuinely nice people are hard to review. Like most nice people, you claim to have a bitchy side every once in awhile but I honestly don't think you do, and that pisses me off, too, because it means you're either a liar (not nice) or delusional (most likely) and that is always frustrating.

Maybe it's because in the grand scheme of crazy and ridiculous, you aren't. I just can't get all giggly over a walk of shame, because bitch? I did that last night. The only good part about that story was the note from Action Jackson, and that's just because I've put bike locks around drunk people before and it's hilarious. Once I duct-taped two people together in a lawn chair and threw them in a river.

Don't get all butt-hurt, it wasn't a very deep river.

But one of my biggest pet peeves is getting cheated out of a good, well-deserved fuck. What the fuck? Just fucking say fuck, you fuck. Not saying fuck is fucking annoying as fuck. Either you mean fuck or you mean something else, and if you mean something else THEN FUCKING SAY SOMETHING ELSE.

Fuck.

and

because I am awesome at irony.

Also? Sorry about the wait.

Just Buy an Umbrella Already

2010-12-29T11:44:00.002-05:00

I owe all of you an apology. This review was technically "due" last week, on December 23rd. But, and here's where I proffer up excuses when as far as I can tell you really don't give a flying rat's ass, last Thursday was my last day at work before a year-end, sanity-restoring, very much needed break. And although I was able to compile my notes together for this review, I was simply unable to write a single word. My writer bone was simply snapped in two. So for a few days, I let it be. I went where I wanted to go. Did what I wanted to do.

And as of this morning, I feel oddly healed. Partially.

So, Vishwa, are you ready for me?

Back in the months I spent in the monastery in the Alps, there was an unusual fellow from Colombia who had the chamber adjacent to mine. When it would rain, he would wander outside and just wallow in self-pity and self-loathing. He was otherwise such a nice person, but this behavior indicated so clearly his underlying demons, it was of no great surprise to anyone when he was hospitalized for a series of mental and emotional breakdowns. As I understand it now, he is stable and runs a chain of Tae Kwon Do dojos, so perhaps the breakdown was necessary.

I mention this only because Vishwa's blog -- A Walk in the Drizzle -- seems to indicate early on a similar sort of potential downward spiral. For those of you sick fucks who think it might be fun to see someone spiral into the pits of despair, I suggest only that you will be disappointed, because that actually never seems to happen. That said, he expresses such a joy at the misery of walking in the rain, at the self flagellation thereof, that I was in the early years a bit worried about the guy.

Instead, though, we get a person who is contemplative and spiritual, and yet possessed of a pragmatic core. He spends time with a spiritual leader and yet works in IT. This sets up a conflict inside of him. The spiritual and contemplative side bemoans the fact that working in IT doesn't feed the spiritual, and yet the pragmatic side rules the roost. It's fine to want to be a philosopher and what not, but you don't get dental with that, and the part of him that likes to eat and live with a roof over his head wins.

Vishwa writes well enough. I wasn't constantly wanting to bash him over the head with a Strunk & White or anything, but his boring choice of templates is a bit of a canary in the coalmine for what's to come. His writing is a bit self interested for my liking. He splashes a bit of humor and humanity here and then, and rewards the patient reader with a nugget of truth about who he is rather than what he's thinking about, but it doesn't come often enough. He comes across as a navel gazer who only occasionally looks up to interact with anyone who might be in front of him.

To complicate matters, his last post was three months ago. And I really hate reviewing abandoned or retired blogs. On the one hand, like studying Latin is nice because it's a closed system that never needs updating, a dead blog is easier to review because you never have to worry about a recent post completely changing your whole perspective, but on the other hand it seems a bit pointless. If you are done, you obviously don't need tips on how to improve.

In the end, I have to conclude that Vishwa is not living up to his demonstrated potential. But he isn't totally abysmal. So, for him, I proffer a single star.

Consider it a belated Christmas gift.

Hoochie Coochie Man

2010-12-23T14:58:00.008-05:00

Christmas in the Raptor family is a low key affair. We nod politely at our neighbors who're desperate to inject some cheer in their lives since the only other attempt at family bonding is during turkey day, and is almost always a failure. I mean, imagine a herd of stegos staring quizzically staring at meat, not knowing where the grass is. Still, this season gives me the chance to empty whatever's left of my scotch inventory and stock up for the coming year.

This time of the year, I need all the help I get from inebriation, for there are more colors to behold than an acid trip in a 70s disco. Kind of like today's blog. Cogent Ascending is authored by someone who describes himself thus "My mind is the waste management facility of the gay intellectual". I must confess, that makes no sense to me, and would have made no difference if I wasn't this hungover. My pounding head aside, this review took a lot of hard work. Well, a lot of focus anyway. I use a battery of filters and blockers to keep my browser light and functional, and to blot out shit I can't be wasting my time with. So when I fired up cogent ascending, I was surprised to see large empty spaces and captions floating in the middle of whitespace. I turned the filters off, and lo behold, my eyes were subjected to more flesh and absurdities than a B-grade horror flick. And this review would have taken a lot less effort if EVERY FUCKING POST didn't look like it was printed on a pamphlet for a lame garage sale.

Jorge(?), your interests are listed as "writing, reading" but how the fuck do you expect your readers to appreciate any of that if you fuck up the presentation so bad? There's a reason every piece of prose is written in left-to-right orientation, and no "personal preference" justifies formatting otherwise. I deserve a fucking medal for braving on, for tolerating this assault on my senses. Jorge rips on creationists, homophobes and religious douches. These days any talentless schmuck can get a soapbox to to pick right wingers (hi Fallon!), so reading the blog bored me. Making fun of Palin is like tweeting. Everyone does it and no one brings anything original to the table.

Look Jorge, don't get me wrong - it fills me with uncontrollable rage that a section of the society is still persecuted against. I cannot fathom why you puny humans need legistlation to deny basic happiness to your own kind. I see the need for debate, and can understand why someone in your position would be so cynical and bitter. What I don't get is why you try so hard. When things are this bad, a blog should write itself. It doesn't need to be supplemented by lousy pictures, bad formatting and histrionics. Fine, even if it is "your thing", it makes no sense cramming it down your readers' throats 3000 words per post.

You're an opinionated, educated, gay man living in Vegas. I see opportunity. I see you have a platform. I see you wasting it. Clean up your act already. Here's an exercise. Write 5 posts in a row with no pictures and a 200 word limit. Right now you're that out of control wierdo at the bar who won't shut the fuck up. I have a lousy hangover and your stupid blog sure didn't help. I'm going back to sleep.

For your terrible formatting and all those stupid pictures you get a solitary finger

For banal self indulgence you get a meh

What Has She Got That I Don't Got?

2010-12-21T16:07:00.001-05:00

Boobs for a start. But I digress.

When I first opened Helena’s blog, as I do any blog, I read the first couple of posts, checked out the layout and had a gander in the comments. First impressions? Neat - a bit girly pink, but in non eye-molesting shade, wannabe Hyperbole and a Half personalised header, widget bar that is a bit wide and full, but perhaps I am just envious because this young lady has decent amount of followers. Unlike myself.

Next I headed to the archives – starting in January 2009. When I got there I wanted to stab myself with the closest stabbing implement. What were all these links? Could I be arsed figuring it all out? No. So I moved on. It was in September 09 that I found a post that I didn’t have to click on to read, nor was it the crap arse badge fest of February 09. In 09/09 I found the wondrous tale of Larry the Majestic Palm. Holy crap - hold me back. I doggedly continued my trawl and well, what can I say? She is cute, she is inoffensive, rather wholesome and delightfully crafty. Some posts definitely tickled me and she done taught me stuff I never knew. This was hilarious but unfortunately Helena was only the conduit to the awesomeness. I also liked this idea for the shopaholic in your life. This post took ‘Life in the Pitts’ to a whole new level. As an aside, I recall a rather famous blogger professing her love for the lack of a shower. Perhaps because it is stinking effing hot in the Antipodes we shower once, even twice a day. To not do so is foreign and horrifying to me. Aside over.

Did Helena hook me in and make me want to read more? In a word - no. I actually thought I had found a blogger who was happy just to blog, show us her wares and prattle on about her husband. But alas - she is also one of ‘us’. If she wants to join the gang, I do wish she would practise a bit more. (I do NOT mean write more; the sheer volume of her blog has cramped up my scrolling finger.) If a blog is not a place to hone one’s writing skills, where else can one do it? I think Helena already has the idea that she can do it here. It sounds like she has some sad stories that need to be told.

Helena, you provide a space that is fun, friendly and mildy diverting. That in itself is no mean feat. (Other than our initial archival linky link disagreement, I had no beef with you) However, if writing is a lifelong ambition, you need to start getting on with that. It doesn’t mean I want you to get all wankery and introspective and start wearing a tweed jacket with leather elbow patches, but I do want you to experiment with words, rather than just blurt out the funny thing your husband said. Get some imagery and atmosphere going on. Now go!

Exit Music (For A Blog)

2010-12-17T09:57:00.007-05:00

Radiohead apparently made In Rainbows to be a track-by-track companion album to OK Computer, their monster album from ten years prior; all you have to do is alternate the tracks (giving them each a ten-second crossfade) and you’ve got yourself a complete, flowing super-album with songs recorded a decade apart. It sounds amaaaaaazing, seriously. It’s nerd-honey poured directly on the tongue of your ear, the most orgasmic headphone rock ever spliced together by man or beast, and if I had more ears I’d be catatonic. As it was, I almost shit myself when "Paranoid Android" shifted into "Bodysnatchers" and had to borrow one of the kid’s diapers as a cautionary measure…

What? Oh, the blog. Right. So, I’m kind of blissfully gurgling as I start my read, getting my head repeatedly kicked in by the awesomeness of RadioheadÜberAlbum, when I hear this muted caterwaul blip through the chorus of "Electioneering"; I pause, thoughtfully, expecting to hear the kid upstairs wailing away, but no - there it is again, like a shrill champagne flute resonating with the echo of a tortured budgie and it’s in my headphones. Slightly panicked, I tenderly pause my music and listen instead to what I soon discern to be Mariah Carey.

Ah, I think. Super Single Mom must have a music-player at the bottom of her blog. I’ll just scroll down, shut Mariah up, and then go back to reading whilst Radiohead kills me nerdly. Sure, no problem… but for the fact that she has FORTY FUCKING POSTS on the main page. Oh, I counted - oh yes: More than a couple, twice twenty, the big four-oh, FORTY. Ah, I think. She doesn’t really care about her readers, then; she’s more interested in an overabundance of posts right off the top because… well, I actually don’t know why. I calmly return my music player to the "rad" position (if sopping-wet syrupy pancakes were distilled down to sonic vibrations, they would be "Reckoner" coming out of "Electioneering") and go about sifting through said overabundance.

Eventually, I find that she uses some variation of "beyond X" ("it was beyond fun", "it was beyond painful", "I am beyond tempted") an awful lot. Let’s link that! I say, excited to find something remotely noteworthy to write about. But, lo, what’s this? "Function disabled"? I cannot pull the links to individual posts without creating a link on one of my own blog’s pages? Surely I’ve made a mistake somewhere, I say, my voice rising. SURELY I’m not going to post a review without any links, the lone indicator we Askers have of proving we read our assigned blog. I click the archives, hoping that this link-dysfunction is but a front-page issue, but as "function disabled" zings me click by click, over and again, something that sounds like a trash-can being stabbed with a chainsaw interrupts "No Surprises", and it’s WHAM! singing "Last Christmas". Oh, of course - I switched pages, which means I get another snoot-full of autoplay. Awesome.

In what can only be considered a foolhardy maneuver, I figure to escape by clicking on another month in the archives section instead of scrolling down and shushing George Michael, but there I find the archives… missing! Ah, I think, smiling mirthlessly. Those fucking snowflakes she has cascading down the page are messing with the sidebar loading. I turn off iTunes. Ah, I think. She is trying to murder me.

What the fuck, Crystal? Why would you do that to me? You can’t just autoplay me like that, not when you’re trying to get me to hang around and read your shit. As a reviewer, however, you’ve got me by the short hairs because I have to read your shit, though now I’m doing so with a heart heavy from Radioheadlessness and am thus enervated. Here’s the thing, my dear, about your writing: you’re not, really. Technically, sure, you’re putting words on the page in sentences that far too often end with multiple exclamation marks, but you’re not delving or crafting or creating anything. You’re pedantically writing down what happened without any flair or verve and strangers who happen upon your blog are given utterly no reason to care. You’re trapped in a vent/update/upload-pictures-of-kids cycle, and without the glue of interesting writing to hold it all together your blog is only a facebook profile with autoplay music and snowflakes.

(Instructions to readers in regards to the next paragraph: when I say this post, imagine a hyperlink to the actual post, but then click here, scroll down to the bottom, turn off the music, then scroll back up about a third of the page to Who cut the cheese? from October 19. Thank you.)

Example: This post about your kids fake-farting in a pharmacy should be hilarious and yet, sadly, it is not. Why is that? Well, partially because "He was using his lips, his arm pits blowing on his arm" doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, and partially because kids fake-farting really isn’t anything close to "insane". Now, a kid shitting his pants, taking off said shitty pants and folding them inside out to paint a feces-mural of The Last Supper across the pharmacy bulletin-board, that would be insane. Blowing a mouth-fart into the crook of an arm? Kids do that all the time.

In fact, most things happen all the time. To everyone. Constantly. So, instead of merely telling me what happened, show me what happened, and I’m not talking about photographs; I’m talking about constructing a narrative that paints a picture for your readers and allows them to participate, at least cognitively. When you announce "X happened, and that makes me feel Y", it’s stale and lifeless; if you start with X, skip Y, and go to Z (the consequences of X), you can allude to how you feel while letting readers reach their own conclusions. A blog might seem like a monologue, but that doesn’t mean you have to talk at people.

Merry X-Mas.

Breakfast of Champions

2010-12-15T10:00:00.001-05:00

My favorite thing to do when I first wake up is to pour myself a cup of freshly ground coffee, go out on my balcony, and read the local paper while enjoying a cigarette.

Yep, that's right. I am a smoker. I've wasted a ton of money, at the end of the day I smell like an ashtray, and I can't even walk quickly without having an asthma attack. Not something I'm proud of, but there it is.

A lot of good things have come out of my dirty, filthy habit though. For instance, I've met people who are now close friends because we were both outside freezing our asses off. One such friend has a theory that smokers are more interesting people, since you have to be pretty emotionally damaged to willingly sacrifice years off your life for a quick fix.

Which is why, given the choice between blogs, I chose to review "Inspired by Caffeine and Nicotine". I figured someone who chooses those particular addictive substances for their blog title has to be interesting.

I wasn't wrong. Robblogger is a sci-fi fan with a twisted sense of humor, who plays fucked up pranks on his very patient live-in girlfriend. He also hates the general public and writes opinionated and snarky posts about popular culture. I like it. He reminds me of my friend with the "Smoker Theory".

However, there are lots of things I don't like. 90% of his posts are rambling, stream-of-consciousness-type monologues. This blog would be much easier and more enjoyable to read if I could follow what the hell Robblogger is saying. Sometimes it's like reading the blog of an ADD-riddled drunken monkey, hyped up on too much coffee and cigarettes.

Oh, wait.

My advice to Robblogger is the same advice we end up giving almost everyone who has potential. Tighten that shit up. Edit, edit, edit. Cut out everything that doesn't move the story along and is just filler to make your posts longer. (Jesus, I have no idea why your posts are so fucking long.) Split them up into individual stories and post them separately. You bitch about people Twittering about their tuna sandwich at lunchtime (agreed), but your blog is filled with similar shit that your readers have to wade through to get to the good stuff.

The other huge faux-pas . . .blogging about blogging. This is coupled with a seeming obsession with getting followers, getting page views, and making money off of blogging. Booooooring.

No one wants to read about blogging. They want to read stories about your life and they want to be entertained. Your blog is only 4 months old. You have more followers and readers than you really should at this point. And this obsession makes me wonder if you only submitted here to get page views/money from clicks. (P.S. That's why there are no links to specific posts in this review. I don't like being used, ass.)

And making money off of blogging? We all wish. I know it's hard to pay the bills when you're unemployed (believe me, I do), but begging for money from strangers on the internet, while posting about how you just bought a new digital camera? Sorry, Charlie, but fuck off.

I'm really pissed right now. This guy is enough of an asshole, I think he'd fit in around here. Maybe even be capable of doing a couple guest posts if he got his writing act together. But the obsession with clicks and page views and making money off of this kind of make me hate him.

For that, you get a:

And for being an amusing asshole:

If All Your Friends Jumped Off a Bridge, Would You Do It Too?

2010-12-09T14:27:00.001-05:00

I know that none of you care about my troubles, but I have to tell you the truth. The thought of writing a review for today's blog just makes me feel exhausted all of a sudden. It's not that it's a particularly bad blog. Indeed, if that were the case, I would have something to sink my fangs into. And it isn't that the reviewee is particularly problematic or annoying or anything. In fact, based on the very little I know about her, I actually think that I'd really like her. She has a great optimistic way of looking at life that I can only imagine is infectious in person.

I am exhausted because her execution is just another in a seeming endless series of blogs that are in essence the equivalent of Cheech and Chong's "How I Spent My Summer Vacation."

That the details vary from blog to blog matters little. This one lives in Chicago. That one in Bangalore. This one's in IT. That one's a nurse. That one over there's a teacher. Ho hum. She has a dog. He has a two year old son. Whatever.

I think that it is very telling that the only reason Prathima even has a blog was because other people she knows have them. And that it was pretty much dormant until she spent a certain amount of time unemployed, when it seemed to give her something to do to while away the hours when she would have rather been working. Even now, it seems that the only thing driving her to write at all is so that she is not strictly a consumer on the blogosphere.

As much as I admire those who want to give back to the community, I do want to let everyone know -- you don't necessarily have to give back in kind. Not everyone needs a blog. Especially if you're not necessarily all that enthused to say anything.

I realize that this is overly critical and possibly even harsh, but the fact is, you seem to derive more pleasure from reading others' blogs. And that's okay. Maybe I am reading this wrong. Maybe you do get jazzed up writing about a day in the life of an H4 visa holding individual residing in the US of A, but if so, that excitement just didn't come across.

My advice to you. If I am reading you wrong, and you really are really excited to be writing these blog entries, try to find a way to convey that excitement to your reader. Convince us of something. Tell us what you love and why. Tell us what you fear most and why. In other words, challenge yourself and us. Expand our minds through what you uniquely bring to the world.

I'm not going to tell you the versa to that vice I set up up there. That is to say, I will not suggest that if you are writing out of obligation, perhaps that is energy best spent elsewhere. Far be it from me to tell you what to do with your energy, and if you think that this is making the world a better place, I won't ask you to stop. But I haven't found anything in here to keep me coming back if you keep on with what you're doing.

As it is, I am feeling compelled to introduce a whole new rating. You don't deserve anything negative. You didn't even earn a "Meh." I am taking ths opportunity to introduce the brand new "No Stars" rating. Again, you seem like a really great person, so it really isn't personal.

Now pardon me while I go take a nap.

Bull's Pizzle

2010-12-07T11:40:00.004-05:00

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

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

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

E-Rizzle,

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

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

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

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

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

E-Rizzle, I quite like you and I get what you are going through, however your writing doesn’t move me. If you would like to resubmit this assignment for a higher grade I suggest (if you haven’t figured it out already) you:

Drop the swearing. It just doesn’t sit well for some reason.
Try and tell a whole, stands-by-itself story in a post. Check out Mr London Street’s 100 Word Posts for an insight as to how one may do this. By all means have bits and pieces updates, but keep them to a minimum.

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

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

Death Trap

2010-12-01T11:38:00.002-05:00

A few weeks ago, there was a spirited discussion on this blog about Indian kids showing up en masse seeking reviews from the soulless jerks that run this outfit. Amidst the usual talk about skull-fuckery and sodomy, we were left scratching our crania for answers. This week is the perfect example of a week in the life of this blog - 1 blog was decomposed cat litter, 2 blogs are from where this guy lives. And this guy.

I've always thought humor was universal, that a man eaten alive by a pack of compys would be as funny in Swahili as in English. But reading today's reviewee has me doubting that assumption. Forgive me for the bias, but "Kaushik's Magical World of Nonsense" already sounds like a bastard child of H2G2 and the Discworld series. But I shrugged off that feeling and dove in for the review. Kaushik, from his blogger profile, is a shoe. Well that didn't make any sense, so back I went to his blog. It appears that Kaushik is a student of the assembly line of Indian geniuses "Indian Institute of Technology" which means he'll soon make more in a year than I ever have.

Where do I begin? I ignored the 2 latest posts - I don't read poems, and will not follow you on to your "other" blogs. So a post imaginatively titled "My trip to Bhutan" is a start. As I read on, I realized I was badly mistaken in my bias and that I was in the company of a literary heavyweight who made words do his bidding. His thoughts opened up a tired old predator's mind to the mystical wisdom from the east. His posts were sublime, evocative of what every aspiring writer hopes to become, and should finally change everyone's opinion about bloggers from India.

Just kidding. Kaushik rambles on without pausing once to breathe, think or contemplate editing. He repeats phrases and humor "devices" (lame ones at that). Back to your post on that trip to Bhutan - I tried reading it Kaushik, I really did. About a third into that cesspool of minutiae, I scrolled down to check on how much was left and all I could do was yell "FAAAAAAAAAK YOU". Why bother with verbiage if it adds up to nothing? Why is brevity such a lost art? Stretching a story out for comedic value has worked in the past, but it took a Kaufman-esque reveal in the end to keep things interesting.

I do not need to prove that I spent time reading your blog, that I tried searching long and hard for something redeeming. And what I dfaskl;dfhasfkljas';asjdglkasdgjaskl;dgjasdkl'gjasdg. Wait sorry, that was me banging my snout to the keyboard in frustration. You seem to have attended some sort of writing workshop, and if this is the product, I'd suggest asking for a refund. And the heads of the idiots who encouraged you. It also appears that you've authored some prose or a play or whatever the fuck this means. Good lord, mercy be upon the souls subjected to your dimwitted humor.

I really have no "advice" for the reviewee, some things are beyond repair. To those looking for some entertainment this Wednesday afternoon, I'd recommend stabbing your eyes with something sharp and metallic, and downing a gallon of bleach. The ambulance ride will keep you more engaged than this inane collection of thoughts, poems and "jokes".

Five Fuckin' Flamin' Fingers.

One Word: No!

2010-11-30T10:47:00.001-05:00

I flirted with reviewing you a while back, and now is your shining moment, which isn’t actually going to be very bloody shiny. I am going to start off where I left off. It goes something like this: ‘No, no, no, no, no, no, NO!’

Did you hear that Lil Miss Out of My Comfort Zone? NO. If I had a rolled up newspaper I would smack you like the puppy who has just peed on the carpet.

Again for clarification– NO!

You sure are out of your comfort zone, if the zone of comfort was something to write about that people actually gave a shit about. And on another note, do you know why else you suck? You haven’t posted since September the 7th. I am guessing you picked up on the fact that you were going to be reviewed in the near future when good ‘ol Shiny Pants asked you to unprivate your blog. But no, you obviously didn’t pick up that a steaming pile was headed your way.

How old are you anyway? It is clear that you are very young, using ‘n’ for the word ‘and’... and you know what? I have no idea what sex you are. I assumed female and then there you are, crapping on about Cricket. Not that girls don’t like Cricket. But I liked to make assumptions, my little discomfited girly-boy.

I am not going to link to anything on your blog here. Why? Because I don’t wanna; you pissed me off. Why the hell do you need to regale us with R. Kelly lyrics, which will now have many unfortunate Ass-kers believing they can fly and can touch the sky? Why do you crap on about Religion, Napping, Michael Corleone, Cricket and Being an Introvert like you are an expert on any of those things? (Okay, I will pay you the napping) Just because someone said you write okay, it doesn’t mean you have to torture the rest of us and start grandstanding. Start small. Tell a story, a little one. I knew a guy who could reduce you to tears just from writing about how he woke up and took a piss. He was that good.

But you, kid? You need to go away, grow up, get some experiences. Just small ones. And not ones that include how much your sucker parents love you and buy you a new phone every time you bloody lose one. To quote Shiner, that is just obnoxious.

Now, I do realise I am tarring you with a very broad brush. I am sure if I had a blog at your age it would be a little sick making and a lot of ‘Why am I so Heartbroken, Misunderstood blah blah blah.’ Shit, I do that now - but bugger me, I was always a good writer. I was totally precocious man; my first grade story on Brontosaurus’ made the cover of the class book, dude – prehistoric butterfly in the illustrations and all. You? Well, you are doing well for someone who probably isn’t a native English speaker, but even so, watch your spelling; they like you to done spell good in ‘collage’ you know. And lay off the ellipses. And CAPS. And font fuckery. And learn the correct your/you’re. And the right their/there/they’re while ‘your’ (ha – see what I did their? And again! On fire today, Redpen, on FIRE) And, lastly, no more ‘ur’. Gah.

I want to say something nice, but at the moment all I see is a train-wreck that I am desperate to look away from; an off-key, ‘but my mum says I have a lovely voice’ screecher, that has people on the other side of the world watching you with through their fingers.

So what can I leave you with that won’t crush your young, tender soul? You seem happy and upbeat, but that could be because of all of the exclamation marks you use.

I am going to leave it up to our dear readers and your 6 followers; please, someone, find something in this young person’s blog that will give them the will and the hope to keep on. And just to punctuate that thought, my delightful dog, who is sleeping in the hallway, has just spiced the air with the delightful fragrance of meaty chunks, via his colon.

Comfort Zone, while you are at collage, study, study your arse off in physics or whatever else those crazy whipper snappers are jiving to these days. Cos a writer you will not be.

Oy Gevalt!

2010-11-26T09:45:00.007-05:00

The Real Stuff Cats Like is blindingly, astoundingly stupid. Lighting-a-smoke-in-a-pool-of-gasoline stupid; stopping-to-ask-a-hooker-for-directions-with-a-police-cruiser-sitting-across-the-street stupid. It takes an IQ measured in popsicle-sticks to look at this blog and not immediately decide they’ve got better things to do, which is why I considered just posting a naked link with the title, 'Why Bother?' (and, perhaps, why it‘s taken me so long to finish this review), but, despite not being on the payroll here at Ask for a while, I am a professional. Of course, all that affords me is the arduous task of whittling through brainless drivel like I was settling an argument between two stringy-haired, slap-fighting harpies down at the laundromat, but whittle I did…

A horror-slash-political-slash-cat-face blog, Stuff Cats Like appears to have been designed by a triage of blind squirrels with but a cursory understanding of photoshop and makes dogshit ground into the bottom of a shoe look like an aesthetic fucking marvel. I’ve seen better designs in the light-patterns exploding behind my eyes after being punched in the face, and more impressed, too, because at least that guy, unlike ol’ Teddy here, put some effort into it.

It’s not just that I’ve heard tighter narrative focus from a trepanned creationist who speaks only in Avril Lavigne lyrics, or that seagulls alighting on land-mines hold together better than this blog’s at-best limited premise (which consists mostly of moronic script-treatments/faux-celebrity reportage featuring Nick Cannon, and is far more interesting in description than it is in practice), or that Insane Clown Posse rocks a slicker shtick despite being legally retarded, no… what really sets this fuckwitted nonsense apart is that, all of a sudden, for no discernable reason, this shitstain of a blogger just decided to start throwing around offensive epithets like they were his mom’s apparently-defective morning-after pills. To wit:

She can handle a whip like Indiana Jones and unless you’re a fag her sexy gams will make your dick as hard as a diamond.

Notice that I didn’t call the guy a Jewboy either, I said J-boy.

Shocking? Hardly - I’ve been more appalled by a fourth-grade production of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and having spent a fair amount of time with the British I’m pretty desensitized to the word 'cunt'. No, the most offensive aspect of this blog isn’t the ham-fisted name-calling or the flailing use of pre-adolescent vernacular but that it’s fucking boring: tepid, insipid, limp and unimaginative, Stuff That Cats Like is an unreadable reminder both that a complete and utter lack of creativity is no impediment to starting a blog, and that the platform of Blogger is evidently idiot-proof. I’ve never seen a more pathetic cry for attention, and I’ve read Madonna’s Sex book.

Some, like Mr. Teddy Puertodipshit, would doubtlessly brag about receiving flaming fingers from us, so I award him this

because I’m confident he hasn’t the cognitive capacity to fill in the blanks, and he was obnoxious enough to submit this dripping sack of horseshit three times. Well, here you are, fuckball, your review’s all done; now you can delete your blog and go back to scratching clever notes into the stall-wall of your favourite public washroom. Oh, and don’t forget that a drawing of a penis needs a huge amount of pubic-hair, because that’s fucking hilarious.

It is a good divine that follows her own instructions

2010-11-23T10:00:00.000-05:00

What the hell is up with all the IFLY's and stars and shit lately? Are you people getting soft in your old age? Feeling the holiday spirit? Suffering from Seasonal Affective Disorder?

Damnit, I want some ass spankings around this joint. I want someone to threaten their asshole reviewee with a back alley lobotomy. Give me some blood and guts and giblets, people.

Later this week? Please?

I say this because you're not gonna get any angry banshee-screeching from my neck of the woods today.

Good for your feed reader. Bad for your entertainment, I'm afraid.

Jayne, the Suburban Soliloquist, is funny and neurotic and just a cool lady. And this bitch can write.

* I don't have kids, but this post made me understand what it might be like.

* She gets sociological and feminist about book reviews on Amazon

* This is exactly how I feel about Twitter.

* This is exactly how I feel about poetry. In fact, Shiner gave me the choice between this blog and a poetry one . . .

* I love this post. It's funny, but is still poetic in its own way.

However . . .

(I feel like a fucking hypocrite for getting on her case about this, because it's MY major blogging flaw.)

Jayne, your posts could do with some major editing. Reorganization, paring down, splitting up posts, etc.

For example, I think this post would flow better if you started with the Halloween costume story, and then worked into the tailor hemming the skirt. The punchline to the story, the kicker if you will, is in the first paragraph ($15). Why would I continue reading the post? Hold onto the "best" part of the story until the end-ish. Make your reader want to find out what happened.

There's also a difference between writing in a casual, conversational manner, and writing out your ADHD train of thought. I tend to be a rambling storyteller in real life, and that inadvertently carries over into rambling story-writing, which does not translate well and bores my readers. I didn't even realize I was doing it until I was reviewed myself.

For instance, the first paragraph of this post, could be completely deleted. It's the rambling storyteller coming out right there.

In that same post, it seems like you're telling two different stories at the same time even though it's ONE outing you're writing about. Different parts of the post evoked different feelings in me and my emotions felt torn all over the place. I understand what you were trying to do, but I think I would have preferred it if it was JUST about you and your son walking around town and your conversation with him about homeless people OR if it was a "you can't go home again" type post.

And I say that, because you are able to write both types of posts. You go back and forth between writing funny little slice of life stories, and writing evocative pieces that allow your reader to imagine what it's like to experience something. That's a good thing. Personally, I wish I could write the latter, but I'm afraid everything I write like that sounds contrived and maudlin.

I'm awarding you:

For being a cool chick and for having serious potential.

Inventories Suck

2010-11-22T14:12:00.002-05:00

For my next trick, I will provide you with a list of blogs set to be reviewed this week, followed by a brief bloggerific description in the authors' own words...

VOILA!

Suburban Soliloquy: Ok -I know- "Suburban Soliloquy" - you want to gag. But there it is, and it's been my identification for some time now, so I can't very well up and change it; however, I'm still feeling brave (sort of), so... I am not a young, hip blogger that uses words lifted from Urban Dictionary (well, you may find a few, but I didn't pull them out of THAT dictionary). I've been blogging since the beginning of the summer - not long but I meet your criteria for entry numbers, and I aim to entertain, throwing in a bit of sentiment, satire, humor, and hopefully, provocation into the mix.

It's All About Balance: just another single mom blog

The Real Stuff Cats Like: A blog dedicated to the interests of cats and horror movies.

Tales of a Bionic Testicled Shoe Shiner

2010-11-20T13:21:00.001-05:00

BLOG: AmmoHammerBite!Bite
AUTHOR: Ryan Lawson -- Presumably from Hamilton, Ontario, but I could very well be mis-surmising.

And, to be honest, I do not know how to begin.

So, let me start from the beginning. From what I would consider a rather inauspicious and mundane initial foray into the world of syntactical drivel, Ryan Lawson brings to us a blog of, primarily, stories. Some seem to be fantastical retellings of real interactions that he has had. Some appear to be attempts at self-reflection and at times I would wager self parody. And some just appear to be the output of a tremendously offkilter mind.

There's not a lot of that personal touchy-feely stuff you get in other blogs. Even his telling about the birth of his child doesn't really carry any implicit understanding that this actually happened or even what being a dad means to him. Only by reading the introduction did I even know that such an event had actually occurred.

His design invokes the feel of a comic book or an e-zine, and the content lives up to that invocation.

He is clever. At times, he is possibly too clever. In general, I applaud his creative vocabulary, but at times, he seems to be interested in showing off how well he knows how to work a thesaurus rather than trying to tell a story.

Look at me, picking such nits. Face it. When Ryan is on, he is really on. And if he misses once or twice, I actually am willing to grant that in this case, the fault may be my ability to process the concepts rather than his execution.

In other words, at his best, Ryan writes really fucking well. Laugh out loud well. Dare I suggest David Lynch/Charlie Kaufman well? Could he sustain it for a whole novel? If so, I would buy it. I would buy it for all my friends. And I would tell them "I reviewed his blog."

When you go to this blog, do yourselves a favor and check out the Storyhole and More pages. There are definitely some keepers in there. (Switcheroo, for example.)

Nobody's perfect. So, what could Ryan do better? The template is fine. No changes there. In the writing... I dunno, there were just some times when the density of the words created a short-circuit in my visual processing cortex, which is a good part of the reason why this review was late. Strive for more clarity. Sometimes less is more. Listen to your inner editor.

But by all means, keep doing this.

I am on the fence as far as the rating goes. I abhor hyperbole, and as such am really loathe to award IFLYs, and I admit that the one or two misses made me question whether I could hand out an IFLY in this case, but in the end, I have decided to just let it go and stop agonizing.

It's Out There Now, Lurking Like a Big Hairy Rapist at a Coach Station.

2010-11-16T12:14:00.017-05:00

I've never been political. Sure, I feel strongly about certain issues, vote with my fists and fight people when they disagree with me, but that's just who I am by nature. Really has nothing to do with politics. Okay, well, so by strict definition you could say my life is only politics, just outside the realm of Big-G-Government. Modern political discourse gives me fucking indigestion. Some dumbfuck mentions Glenn Beck or Michael Moore and I need wintergreen Pepto-Bismol with a burning, clenched Pavlovian fervor - seriously, right now anyone who glances my way probably thinks I haven't shat in a week.

Still, I'm reviewing the blog of a twenty-year old, bright, impassioned British boy who plays for the conservatives. Being a self-absorbed American with no party affiliation and a limited exposure to British politics that includes getting hammered and watching a shit-ton of C-Span 3 archived House of Commons videos in 2001 and salivating over Malcolm Tucker insults from In the Loop, I figured I'm about as qualified to review Richard's blog as anyone else.

Like I said, Richard is bright. At the wee age of twenty, he easily understands more about politics than the last American President, littered with the proper astringentositinessery of defensive youth (I make up words). He recently chose to forego university, a decision I fully support (I hate that college is becoming a requirement instead of a compliment) but he seems to be bitter as fuck about it.

In fact, that's really the only thing I like about him: it's hilariously frustrating watching him temper with rationality while he's obviously whipping his personal rage into submission and trying to squeeze it out into logic, but that fury seeps into the cracks and we know, we can tell, this Type A boy is fucking struggling to be a sensible, model citizen.

Richard, you fucking puritan: chill out. Take a deep breath. Go get yourself into some good, clean mischief, because boy, you are wound tight. Are you this serious about everything you do? You're even serious about Doctor Who and World of Warcraft. Take a lesson from Tenant's incarnation: life, like time, is like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey-stuff. Nothing is certain, progress is never linear, and retaining your humanity does not mean rein in, repress, and repeat, it means allowing yourself to feel all the colors on the spectrum with zeal and triumphing out of the sheer love of existence and a fascination with and mad respect for the world that allows you to exist in the first place.

You are an intelligent, passionate boy and your blog is informative and formal and I feel like you're choking the life out of your writing when you should be choking the life out of your dick. I think this blog is important to you and you want to keep it professional. That's fine. But you're fucking twenty years old and this is boring as shit. You're a "good writer." But all that means is you're grammatically accurate and have average-to-above average word choice. You aren't afraid to tell us your opinion, but you're afraid to put yourself into it. Maybe you're going for textbook, informative opinion pieces and that's fine. If that's what you're going for. It's...you know. Fine. It's not for me.

But here's what I want you to do.

1. Start anonymous blog.
2. Go to video store that has porn.
3. Rent some porn.
4. Overcome your shame of facing the clerk.
5. Pay for porn in all small coins.
6. Go home.
7. Watch porn.
8. Jack off.
9. Review porn on new blog.

Am I evil?

2010-11-12T13:17:00.006-05:00

History was made recently. There was so much awesome in one place that the universe imploded and folded upon itself. What you're experiencing now is merely a vivid dream by a medieval teen called Percy. Unfortunately, Percy lacks imagination, and so this universe does not feature Raptors with jetpacks carrying laser cannons.

Since we must persist with the mundane, let's ask ourselves a few questions and try to be honest. What do we do on this site? Provide gratification? Traffic? Donations? Is it difficult to understand that a review biased only by lack of acquaintance is the best service anyone can provide? Better still for free?And why do humans lack edible flesh? Even Texans barely qualify as a mid-morning snack.

I ask these questions because more than a few times a month we get submissions from self-proclaimed celebrities who're convinced of their greatness and expect us to kiss their ring of mediocrity. and so when shiner sent me over to "Quotidian Vicissitudes", I was tempted to roll my eyes. Ah great, a blog URL called "David Rochester"? What a ponce, I told myself. Ponce poncy poncity ponce ponce, there goes the evening.

And this would be the section where I would link and prove how silly a realtor-copyeditor's (!) thoughts are. How vain and incomplete his posts are. But I can't. And won't. Because after sifting through mountains of horse shit in the pursuit of something worthy on a slot in my reader, I may be on to something here.

David's writing is clean, dry and funny. It's like Sedaris without the annoying voice. I've read QV all this week, and even put off the review by an extra day (thanks for the idea Mrs. Raptor), just to find something to hate. Well, his about me is impossible to find I guess. He tends to overdo the "talk to people who got here by searching for weird shit". And why do people like ~~lazy furballs~~ cats? I can't really complain, though, after reading this, this, and this. David, we may not get along in person. We might meet at a cocktail party and I might excuse myself in the pursuit of dimwitted prey. But I'll read your blog.

The heartless bastards here like variety. I recommend they pour themeselves something dry, put their feet up and read. YMMV. So, still in a state of disbelief, I give you

I'm still not kissing your ring though.

Window Lickers All of Them

2010-11-10T11:30:00.005-05:00

That's it, enough is enough. I am getting good and tired of the bad karma following me around like Jacob Marley's chain. We have tried to review earnestly, we have tried to provide unflinchingly honest feedback from and to people who really want to write. I am tapped out on being the bad cop dammit, I am going to be the fucking Tooth Fairy from now on, goddamn Glinda the good goddamn witch. So I propose we dismantle Ask, take a respite from the ripping and turn over a kinder, gentler leaf.

So here is what is still available:

www.trophiesforeveryone.blogspot.com
This is my personal favorite. Everyone is a winner, no one is better than anyone else, so says the trophy.

www.yoreawesomenomatterwhat.blogspot.com
A nod to the homophonic and a good place of rest for those not grammatically astute.

www.youshoulddefinatelywriteabook.blogspot.com
Because everyone thinks they have one in them.

www.youaregreatandtheywereallwrong.blogspot.com For those who have already been unfavorably reviewed.

I give you all stars!!!

FIVE, because you are all AWESOME!!!

Exploring the Rabbit's Hole

2010-11-09T12:28:00.000-05:00

Oh, I tell you, it was going to be beautiful; an ass-ripping like has never been seen. There would be pumpkin muffins, crow-bars, ‘praise’ and sharts flying hither and thither in the comments. You would have been proud to be part of the Ask and Ye Shall Receive Mutual Admiration and Procuring of New Bum-hole Society.

I even had my first line worked out. It went ‘No, no, no, no, no, no, no!’ in the vein the Fairy Godmother in Shrek 2 when she is flipping through her fairytale library trying to find a story in which the Ogre has a happily-ever-after with a Princess.

However, alas, alack, and woe is you, the imminent reviewee got cold feet and made her blog private. And then in the words of our fearless leader and word maker-upperer, Shiner, she ‘unprivateded it’. Well fuck me if I can be bothered by that shit. In the meantime I was given a different blog to review.

Unfortunately I didn’t hate this blog nearly as much. It was neat and clean in, what my uncultured eye would peg as, an art deco style. It had a classy selection of badges and thingamebobs in the side-bar and....

Okay. This is where you find out I am real person rather than a gory cartoon avatar; my internet at home pooped itself, only coming back on line the day before the review was due. I will now regale you with my quickly put together notes on a thoroughly read blog. Keep up if you can:

From the shadows of the comments, to the limelight of the reviewee’s position, I introduce to you, Miss Ash.

She is rather thorough here, we like that round these parts.
Dear Lord, you have to be shitting me! Perhaps it will get better. She has been doing this for a while and we all need to find our feet in the early stages.
Interesting, lacking in context. Is it supposed to be metaphorical? I want more sauce.
Still dry.
Ooh, getting juicier. (I was going to say wetter, but well, we all know where you lot will take that)
There seems to be a LOT of caps lock going on to EMPHASIZE certain POINTS.
This is cute, though still elusive. I am not really getting enough of a picture of her yet.
Who is Amber to Miss Ash, if anything? I was confused at Miss Ash’s role in this drama and who was speaking. (Ah, further on – a glimmer, a glimpse!)
This is indulgent, only in that it is interesting but could have been fleshed out more, and she left us high and dry.
Why so much ‘she’, ‘they’, ‘you’? I feel like she is holding me at bay. Give people some names; own them, their actions and emotions, even if pseudonyms are used.
Fuck – really? Then this sombitch is in a whole world of hurt, if I could muster up the energy to give a shit.
I guess I pictured this, like you asked, but the clumsy ending was a spit bubble in the corner of my smile.
Controversial – I like what you don’t say here.
Cute – even though cats are evil, evil animals.
I like the ‘light’ touch of this.
Wholeheartedly I agree we all need these types of relationships. But show it to me – make me jealous or wistful or happy that I too, have this.
I can totally get on board with this – are you in my head, Miss Ash?
Nice imagery.
Oh, I am all about the air biscuits lady, but you didn’t even raise a smile here. Shame. Love a good fart story. (Did you know, that the sort of thing you find amusing is supposedly indicative of your intelligence level? Shit.)
Short and not so sweet – evocative.
Again, you seem to say what I feel at times. I recognise it.
This is lovely, but in a WHOLE four year blog, I have only had flashes of her situation, so when it comes down to it, I think ‘Aw, how sweet!’ when really I should be wiping away a tear, shouldn’t I? I don’t know, you tell me Miss Ash - the kid could be the next Damien.
Hilarious first paragraph here.

Now, dear reader and armchair reviewer, I would like you to get off your metaphorical date-hole and do some work for once. (Geez, I am making free with the holes this review)

1) Go to Miss Ash’s archives.

2) Select the month of your birthday, in any year available.

3) Find a post closest to your birth date.

4) Give it a read.

5) In the comments here, give a seasoned opinion on said piece, perhaps providing a link if you have the technological aptitude, and even a score out of 10 if you feel so inclined.

Here. I will do one for you. (By the way – if I was clever I would be able to make it actually look like a comment box here etc etc but you know the drill. I am a writer daaahling, not a fucking IT specialist)

On March 18^th 2008, Miss Ash wrote this post, about decision making, consequences and such. I give it a 4 out of 10 because it was preachy and boring. Instead of saying this: “I could name a thousand different things I learned, and I do feel confident that when I acknowledged a behavior that wasn’t working,” she should have manned up and told me some of the juicy stuff because I wanted to identify with her, rather than get lectured.

Okay, so maybe that was a bit more complicated than the game I want you to play but you pick up what I am putting down, yes?

As you can see, my birthday is not terribly far away – enough for a savings plan to be put in place. Feel free to send presents; Shiner will undoubtedly pass them on after they have been rifled through.

Miss Ash, you write well – you are more than literate but I feel that even though you have this mystic, spiritual thang going on, you hold me at arm’s length, when in order to benefit from your thoughts and wisdom, I need to nestle against your breast.

Let us in, Miss Ash.

I grant you,

Physician, Heal Thyself

2010-11-04T14:55:00.001-04:00

BLOG: Godyears
AUTHOR: Pythoroshan. Indian. Male. Thirty-ish. Physician. Recently passed his examinations. A bit of a movie and food junkie.

Roshan, I sincerely thought I was going to hate your ass.

I count nineteen reasons why I gasped audibly when I first viewed your blog. That’s how many little useless gadgets and doo-dads are scattered around the perimeter. Although none are particularly intrusive – they don’t prevent the reading of the writing or slow the page loading or anything – their prominent display made me wonder and worry about what sorts of priorities you place on style versus substance.

And now, I am going to peel the curtain back a little on my process for reviewing a blog. I start with a brief scan of the two or three most recent posts. Then I usually look for an About Me page, if it exists, to get a sense of what the bloggers goal in blogging is. (I couldn’t find one here.) Then I survey the volume based on the archives. I then sample a random post or three from various epochs of the archives. And then I decide where to start my review from.

In this case, based on my initial assessment, I couldn’t go more than a year back. Although you’ve been writing for significantly longer than that, I felt that the earliest stuff was not truly indicative of the direction you are currently going in. And that wasn’t fair to you or me. Mostly me.

What I learned along the way:

You are a bit of an idealist.
You like to write movie reviews. (I don't agree with them, but that's okay.)
You hold no truck with caste-based or religious divisions. You see bullshit and call it for the bullshit it is.
You are worse than a hopeless romantic – you are a hopeful one. Ugh.
You like to eat. (Little references interspersed throughout -- not a single link to use as an example.)
You write fiction.

And having read what I did, I have to say, I like you. You’re the kind of guy I’d want to hang out with – fun loving, yet can get down to business when that’s the appropriate response. Funny and self deprecating, and yet not a gloomy gus who brings everyone down.

But, for the most part, I found your writing a tad bit turgid and clumsy. Too many posts were a bit of a chore to get through. I was down with what you were trying to say, but you just took too many words to get there. I suspect that you write the way you speak. A lot of people do. I just think that in a lot of these cases, less may very well be more.

As for the fiction, I liked what you wrote, but didn’t necessarily love it. I could probably provide specific feedback on your Guardian Angel piece, for example, with an eye toward tightening it up, making it better, etc. I’m not sure if that sort of constructive criticism is welcomed, so I will hold off.

What to do to improve: Try to write less densefully. Yeah, that’s not a word. I just made it up. But it captures the essence of what I mean. Sometimes this means simply rewording things. Sometimes it means you need to get out the scissors and excise an extraneous concept or two. And sometimes you can get a tad preachy in a way that I think undermines your intentions. Try to avoid that.

Your rating. One star.

Some artful editing and a bit more care in crafting your fiction will elevate this higher. you've got potential, my son.

Did the vibrating universe tell you this shit ball was coming your way?

2010-11-02T14:32:00.013-04:00

I'll admit it, I worry about my karma sometimes. I worry that this nasty little endeavor may somehow putrefy my already gangrenous, skid marked soul with each review I write. I know that sometimes the energy I'm putting forth into the universe is riddled with negativity and I know that this energy will somehow find its way back to me and probably wreck anal havoc on me with a giant spiked dildo when I least expect it.

I know the world doesn't need more assholes. I get that. Really, I do.

But El,there are certain things I can't read, walk away from calmly, and not want to set your minivan on fire, I'm sorry.

Reading your blog is like having someone try to convince me to sign up for a seminar on the power of positive real estate when all I want to do is bury my dead cat that I've been keeping in my freezer. Does that make sense?

Listen, I'm not going to any fucking seminar, so you can forget about it. And I don't want to buy any of the shit you have in the back of your van. You can keep your insight about crystals and your tips on how to connect with hummingbirds.

Oh, what? You're not selling anything? Then why does every one of your posts read like a mix between a condescending infomercial and a scaremongering headline read aloud in baby talk?

Why does reading your blog remind me of all that I hate about our consumerist media culture because the only way you can think to frame your writing is in the context of a cheesy, poorly executed sales pitch? I cannot for the life of me figure out why you want to sell me on your perfectly green spiritually vibrating ohmified life of oneness as if it were an erectile dysfunction medication or a box of cereal.

When you aren't selling me on your perfect life, you're telling me about the problems you have already overcome, your posts being akin to self-contained sitcoms where everything resolves itself before the 30 minutes are up. No cliffhangers, no character development that I can even remotely identify with, no compromised heroes, no layers of emotion. Just a big ass pile of happy perfection wrapped up in a moldy tortilla of tired, greener-than-thou proselytizing.

This is all interspersed with your being salted and pummeled by your own mental shit show, confirming to the reader that you are far from having your shit together like you're constantly reminding your readers with the graceful subtlety of an ice pick to the head.

I wanted to give you a MEH, really I did, just to not filth up the universe and all. But you earned yourself a MEH based on exclamation point abuse alone and so once I added everything else I hated about your blog, I could only give you this:

The Ugly American Speaks

2010-11-02T08:00:00.001-04:00

I am unabashedly American. Not in a jingoistic, patriotic sense, but in the stereotypical manner. I am overfed and under-exercised. I have too many TVs, computers and cars. I have too few…hmmmm….don’t think I have too few of anything because if there’s something I want, I go to the mall and buy it. My house is big and so is my ass.

But unlike most Americans, I have traveled quite a bit. Granted, the majority of my international travel has been to Europe, which is easy. However, a trip to Japan last year reminded me of what it really meant to be in a foreign land. In Europe I can fake it—thanks to a few years of Latin topped off by several semesters of French, I can decipher most anything in a romance language. But in Japan, I couldn’t even tell you the name of my hotel. It was daunting.

Aside from a few places in Africa, I can’t imagine a place more foreign than India. What I know of India comes from Kipling, Ghandi and Eat, Pray, Love. It’s not a place that’s high on my wish list of vacation spots. But then neither is North Dakota.

All that brings me to Kavitha Murali and her blog, Namesake. Please, for the love of Ganesha, why do I have the blog of a young Indian woman to review? Kavitha, you seem like a perfectly lovely young woman. You seem to have an energetic mind. So here’s a thought—why not open up the eastern branch of AAYSR? You could be queen of the realm and then all the Indian bloggers could be reviewed by their peers. I think the franchise price is low.

Because, dear Kavitha, as nice as you seem, I just don’t give a flying fuck in a rolling doughnut hole about your blog. Equally, why do you give a flying fuck in a rolling doughnut hole about my opinion about your blog? When you submit here, you roll the dice on which reviewer you get.

I’m sorry, but you got me. A small-town Southerner. About as far away from you as I am from the moon.

Your writing is fine. Like 90% of our submitters, you need to edit. When you write a post, check your word count. Then decrease it by 100. I promise you’ll have a better blog.

White type on a black background should be illegal as far as I’m concerned.

It’s the content that’s the problem. I read blogs from around the world. Good bloggers are storytellers. They grab my attention from the first sentence and keep it until the last. Dear Kavitha, you did neither.

Mundane. Mediocre. Middle of the road.

But, like I said: why do you care? Why do so many of your countrymen submit here? This is not a rhetorical question—I really want to know.

If your blog makes you happy, keep on writing.

In the meantime, I bestow a

I don’t hate you. I don’t love you. I just don’t care.

I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you.

2010-11-01T12:22:00.001-04:00

Another week of horror and shame, and boot-quaking anticipation. Sometimes reviews feel so sneaky, like I'm pouring iocane powder in all these bloggers' drinks and wondering who's got the proper immunity.

Namesake

Blooming Where I'm Planted

Godyears

All About the Bling*

2010-10-28T08:00:00.001-04:00

A couple years ago I befriended a co-worker, a 21-year-old "woman" who was married to a 40-year-old "man". The quotes are an implication about their maturity levels, rather than their genders.

After I picked the wife up from the side of the road at 3am one night, she asked me to drive her to the hospital. She felt like the only way to get away from her physically and mentally abusive husband was by killing herself. She wanted to be admitted to the hospital to be put on suicide watch. I stayed with her there until her husband figured out where she was and texted that he was coming to get her. At that point, she told me to leave, "so he won't get angry that I'm spreading our business all over the place".

This was the start of my involvement in their dysfunctional relationship. She'd call me crying about once a week, stoned out of her gourd on opiates, to bitch about some new shit he'd pulled. I'd tell her to leave his ass and move back home to her parents. But she wouldn't leave him. "It's different when you're married," she told me. "You wouldn't know what that's like."

Several weeks later she called me in tears, because her husband had stolen the inheritance money she'd received from her late uncle for her education. She didn't know what he'd spent it on until several weeks after that, when he ended up in jail for possession of crack cocaine and solicitation of a prostitute. She still didn't leave him.

After the crack and whores bit (possibly crackwhores), I was done. I couldn't invest any more of myself in the situation without wanting to smack her around myself. I avoided her calls and avoided talking to her at work. In the end, she showed up to work (with a black eye) to tell the managers that she was finally moving back to her parents.

Am I a bad friend because I refused to enable her dysfunction and self-destruction? Am I hyper-judgmental and overly opinionated, to the detriment of most of my friendships?

Possibly yes, but that's also probably why I was asked to review for this site.

The Blog O' the Day is "Long Distance Love Affair". Do not click this link if your computer is more than a year old -OR- you're using internet that is slower than fiber optic. It's not worth crashing your computer.

I say that because I counted no less than 13 widgets and doodads. It's like accidentally stumbling onto someone's Myspace profile circa 2004, complete with that fucking music player smack dab in the middle of the blog, those awful flashing blingy things people used to leave as comments and an extensive use of text and chat speak, with different font colors and sizes.

How many fucking times do we have to bitch about people not reading the FAQ before submitting? Shit.

I'm not even gonna get into the grammar and spelling because "Miss Innocent's" first language is not English. If you've gambled and clicked the link, you can see a blatant affront in the sub-title.

Now onto the content. Miss Innocent is a spoiled Filipina princess, "on vacation" in California because she's followed her boyfriend from Manila. She's still not living in the same town as "her future husband", hence "a long distance love affair".

She spends the majority of her blogging time obsessing about her controlling boyfriend who's most likely cheating on her, and throwing temper tantrums over trivial matters. Randomly interspersed blog entries include her repeated use of her daddy's credit card to go on shopping sprees, and her adoption of desirable American traits, like eating shitty, unhealthy food.

I've already told a story about how I give the fuck up on people who bitch about their dysfunctional and abusive relationships but don't do anything to change the situation. Why the hell would I read a blog about one?

There's only one post in the whole blog where Miss Innocent gets down to the nitty gritty and actually does SOME self-reflection. I don't know if I kind of liked this post because of my current situation and the fact I've been having a quarter-life crisis for the past 5 years, but I did. I would have liked to see more of this.

My suggestion for Miss Innocent is to start a whole new blog, where the main focus ISN'T her fucked up relationship with her boyfriend. She says she's on a mission to find herself. That would be WAY more interesting to her readers than the shit going on now.

But for a co-dependent person, finding oneself sometimes requires one to be single. Unfortunately, I think that's easier said than done for Little Miss Innocent.

For the WORST blog template I've ever seen and the asinine blog subject:

For wanting to be reviewed, even after the site admin asked you if you were being serious:

* Since we'd already traveled back in time to 2004 and all.

I Reviewed A Blog.

2010-10-27T06:30:00.009-04:00

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

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

Jobber: [rolling eyes] Please do.

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

Jobber: No, I don’t suppose so.

Billy: There were no bills to pay.

Jobber: Right.

Billy: No mortgage.

Jobber: Gotcha.

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

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

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

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

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

Jobber: Awesome.

Billy: It was a summer job.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Billy: After that I wasn’t too pleased.

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

Billy: My mind suddenly

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

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

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

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

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

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

The underlying principle of MEHtaphysics is still MEH.

Lazy McLifelesspants

2010-10-26T11:00:00.007-04:00

I really, really don't want to review this fucking blog. That whole muted polka dot blogger template thing is easily my least favorite pre-made template. I am a big fan of polka dots but automatically antagonistic towards things that fade away, and all I want to do is draw lit fuses coming out of each dot, like a spread of Martha Stewart's sage round bomb collection, and wait for the fireworks.

Specator Speaks is run by Chandu, a journalist in India. He...okay, so his grammar is impeccable. His sentence structure is very safe, trained, and reined in from controversy and excitement, with vocab words of the month splattered appropriately and deliberately throughout his posts. You remember when you were in college and you walked around asking random students about the easiest major on campus, and it was almost unanimously "Communications" so that's what you chose for your major, and all of your textbooks were like five editions behind because you couldn't afford the newest one? His blog reads like that.

I hate that I cannot click on the title of a post and have it open as an isolated entry, and I have to click on the comments, and then click the link at the top of the comments page to view the blog, and I just realized that this very thing is also my biggest problem with the AAYSR site, and I should probably fucking remedy that instead of being a goddamn hypocrite. Crap.

On the plus side, you titled your blog well. I can't imagine you doing anything but watching from the sidelines.

I hate that he tells the story of his friend and her willingness to stand up for herself, and instead of being left with a sense of justice, I'm exhausted. I hate that he uses "clever" name ploys to trick the reader into subconsciously assuming unimportant traits about uninteresting characters. This isn't Tango and Cash, and you know why? Because Tango and Cash is a riveting, action-packed cinematic masterpiece* and I can tell: even you are bored by your blog. If you weren't, you would feed it regular meals instead of throwing it grizzle and apple cores whenever you remember it's there.

Speaking of Ray Tango, this is the worst tribute to Stallone I've ever read. I'm almost impressed. Stallone is the stuff of steroid nightmares: just a giant, hard, veiny penis with buckled flamingo legs and fucking rocket-launcher arms, how the hell do you make a man like that sound so dull and useless? You couldn't even pay tribute with your own dull words, you had to steal them from someone else. If you admire someone so much, do them fucking justice, don't just tell us over and over again that your obsession is eccentric, because I don't believe you. There's no passion in your words, no opinion, no punch. Lazy McLifelesspants, that's what you are.

See this? I don't even know what this means.

I'm very angry with you. If this was just the blog of a bystander, I'd give you a Meh, but you're a fucking professional journalist. I never want to read your articles. Ever.

* I will fight anyone who says otherwise. With my fists.

...And Gloom

2010-10-25T12:19:00.004-04:00

Just to give everyone a little tickle, a pinch, a breeze of what's to come:

Spectator Speaks

Billy Apathy

Long Distance Love Affair

Word.

Mungo Writes Blah

2010-10-21T07:30:00.002-04:00

BLOG: Mungo Says Bah

AUTHOR: Mungo – from Canada, by way of England. Married with one child. Works in IT. But none of this is what Mungo’s “Bah” means. Mungo writes about camping and bushcraft, tramping through the out-of-doors, if you will.

Full disclosure. For me, “camping” means that the hotel doesn’t have HBO. For me, “survival training” means that I know how to navigate inner-city streets without getting trapped in a conversation with a panhandler trying to bum Ripple money off me.

Oh sure, when I was a kid, I’d go into the woods with a sleeping bag and a tent and “camp,” but if I needed to take a crap, I was well within walking distance of indoor plumbing, and anything I ate was brought from home.

So I guess you can imagine that someone who’s blog topic diagram looks like this:

might have precious little to offer me. And in general you’d be right. Especially given the fact that Mungo does very little actual writing. He’ll tweet the shit out of you, and then make sure you didn’t miss any of those tweets by reposting them all as blog posts, but the actual blog writing is few and far between.

And yeah, I’m not interested in any Twitter Posting Round ups, or whatever you call them.

When he does write, it seems to be relegated to one of the following topics:

This is what this is a picture of
Here’s some cool resources you ought to know about if you’re interested in bushcraft/camping/nature photography
Here’s some good survivalist information

The writing is clear and straightforward. He is occasionally witty or self deprecating, but it doesn’t seem that his goal is for this to be a very personal blog. He occasionally talks about his family, but mostly only in the context of “Here’s my son. I want to teach him about all of this nature.”

Bottom line – if you are the type of person who likes bushcraft or camping, or even just enjoys spending hours in front of nature documentaries, you’ll probably really enjoy this blog. When he actually fucking writes something rather than recycling something old. For me, Mungo Says Bah was mostly Mungo is Blah.

With one exception.

The nature photography. Which was stunning. Like coffee-table book good. If you’re into such things. Which I sort of am. The people photos? Not so interesting. The photos of people on his blog lack the depth and vividness of his nature photos. The people don’t stand out from the background – the plants and animals do.

So for the near constant twitter recaps, I am giving you a Short Bus. That's annoying. Please stop doing that.

For the writing you actually do, along with your portrait photography, I am giving you a “Meh.” From another reviewer, or someone into these subjects, you’d probably have faired better. But you got me. Suck it.

And, last but not least, for your nature photography, and your nature photography alone, I am going to hand out my very first ever I Fucking Love You.

Weird, huh?

Unfortunately for you, when you average it all together, all those twitter regurgitations really drag your GPA down leaving you with an OVERALL rating of just one star.

How Dare You?

2010-10-20T08:00:00.005-04:00

Dearest Mongolian Girl, would you write a review for us? Because there's all this sex I've been having, and I forgot how to read. Thank you kindly, you are the tele to my vision. LYLAS.

In 1976 I was in 5th grade and my teacher, Mrs. Lowrey, took time to explain how the election of a US President happens. She then broke us up into ‘Camp Carter’ and ‘Camp Ford’ and explained how to campaign for our candidate. I was the ‘Camp Ford’ campaign manager. I organized my team, created posters, talked about the benefits of Candidate Gerald Ford to any elementary school kid who would listen, and did my best to inspire ‘Camp Ford’ to generate a Ford voting frenzy on the day of the election.

Everyone should vote! It’s your right to do so! Exercise your power by casting your vote! I won’t understand it if you don’t vote! I once had a fight with one of my Aunts because she doesn’t vote! Who doesn’t vote!? It’s crazy!

The end!!! (I think this little blurb was confusing, but am posting it anyway. Hope you don’t mind. Sorry about that.)

See how that works? See how I did that?

I’ve got a little story I want to tell you
The way I write this little story wouldn’t know depth if depth back handed it in the face with a crow bar
Since I know the way I’m presenting my story has no depth, I’m going to get all lazy and try to make my point by highlighting the shit out of my point with bold-ness and italic-ness
Also, I’m going to highlight my point even more by telling you I’m willing to fight with my Aunt about it
And then I’m going to let myself off the hook for posting my little depth-free story by saying I’m confused, saying I’m sorry, and asking for your forgiveness

Whatever happened to writing that tells the truth - gets down into the guts of it? The truth is that my 5th grade teacher, Mrs. Lowrey, was a tyrant that often had scotch for breakfast and had exactly 10 polyester pant suits that smelled so deeply of cat piss, scotch and cigarette smoke that, to this day, I can close my eyes and catch a whiff of it. It is also the truth that my rise to campaign manager of ‘Camp Ford’ was one of the first times in my young life that I was fully aware I was degrading myself by doing well at something I did not believe in. The fact is that I was a huge fan of Jimmy Carter but was afraid to say it after having done so once and getting a quick slap in the face from my mother as she yelled the word ‘stupid’ in a way that seemed to stab the four walls of the living room we were standing in.

Cee Kay is the author of “My Two Cents: Take it….. Or Leave It!!”. Even her description of herself leaves me wanting. She calls herself an optimist and opportunist and tries to back her claims by describing life handing her lemons and not only making lemonade, but also selling the lemonade and making air freshener from the lemon peels. Color me utterly unimpressed, uninspired, uniformed about who she is and bored silly.

Throughout her blog I found myself consistently thinking, “How dare you?” Honestly, Cee Kay, how dare you? How dare you bring to the fore such intricate, important, deep, and even bewildering topics and then lambast us with some kind of exercise in your ability to use the bold and italic features of your word processor.

From what I can gather (though it’s nearly impossible to be sure), Cee Kay and her husband and two daughters are from India but live in the US. She manages to make it clear that she is consistently negotiating and considering the fact that she is straddling two cultures, two generations and two realities. She describes the worthlessness afforded Indian women here and here, but then dissolves into some sort of finger wagging bravado that carries no weight. She doesn’t even bother to tell us how painful it must have been to realize the seriousness of what she is dealing with; how mind numbing and crushing it must have been when she first realized she was in disagreement with an entire culture.

Did you read that, Cee Kay?

Let me put it into language you seem to understand:

You tell us you are in disagreement with an entire culture, but the way you write about it DOES NOT inspire, inform or impress.

Let’s get to that letter you wrote to your daughters as a place to start – to see if we can’t rattle your cage a little bit. I actually kind of like that letter. It has some good points, but reads like one of those little books of inspiring quotes I pick up at the corner convenience store when I need a birthday present on the quick for someone I don’t know very well. (I swear, by the time I’m 70 I hope I’ve lost enough of this proper shit I go through on birthdays and spend one year buying everyone I know a giant dildo and some lube as a present.)

Your kids are cute as the dickens. And I know you love them and want to do well as a mother. But what is that letter going to actually do for them? What is it doing for you? I propose it does nothing in either case. It’s a bunch of empty, albeit well intentioned, gibberish about ‘Stand up for yourself’ and ‘Don’t take any shit’ and ‘Respect yourself’ that includes nothing about what it’s like to actually do those things when it’s the hardest thing in the world.

What would it be like if you revisited that letter and wrote about each of those things from the perspective of making them happen even when you’ve been alone, filled with rage, just been betrayed by someone you love and want to give up? What if you wrote about respecting and standing up for yourself even when you’re in the middle of an entire culture that completely disagrees with you? And please, if you intend to respond with some more of that tripe about making lemonade out of lemons, don’t bother. Just keep writing in capital letters and practicing being able to use your word processor’s bold and italic features.

I suppose this is a dare, but I’m not sure if I care to really make it. So many bloggers submit to AAYSR and then thank us for encouraging them to dig deeper; making grand statements of turning over a new leaf and then go on blogging with their half-witted, uninspiring drivel as if the whole thing never happened.

Maybe, Cee Kay, you will be different. Goodness knows you have enough grist for the mill.

Whether you do it or not, I promise I will be contemplating being 70 and buying everyone I know a dildo and lube on their birthday.

for knowing what you're dealing with.

for not having the guts to really write about it.

Seasons in the Abyss

2010-10-19T10:56:00.014-04:00

There is a part of town I live in that is even more hipster than the rest of elitist central I call my above ground home. This street is home to an Army Surplus, oriental gift stores, coffee shops frequented by the ones of the sapphic persuasion, and bookstores on metaphysics. It comes complete with a bike store, vagrant hippies and lunatic army vets. I once stumbled into a musky bookstore that was only a door on the street, and found that it housed quite the collection on witchcraft, pagan literature and rows upon rows dedicated to the "dark arts". What made things even more weird was that there was not a soul in sight, and the eery silence urged me to exit before some inter-dimensional portal sucked me away.

Not that it has anything to do with the victim of the day - Nikhil Narayanan, author of "Half an autobiography". Nikhil is a copywriter and is into ~~hawking~~ advertising. He says about himself - "The less said the better as familiarity is bound to breed contempt." So much so for an autobiography, and good luck with readers' contempt. The location, blog template screams Indian emo kid, but we'll do what Gandhi did - walk on with the other ass cheek exposed. Or something like that. I personally don't hate the template - it is simple, no bling or widgets. I've always felt that light text on a dark background can be easier on the eyes, as long as the contrast isn't black and white, as it is on Half an. Nikhil would be better served by wider columns and a different text color.

The latest post is somewhat interesting. We love stories here, and we get one right off the bat - about adultery no less. I had half a chuckle at the reveal, but it took far too long to get there - longer than the ride from Frazer town to Langford road. Since there is no formal intro. and I slacked off way too long to spend a long time on the review, you'll have read along as I make shit up.

I guess "autobiography" is one way to describe this blog - he does fuss about things that happened around him - even if it is about a team that hasn't done anything noteworthy in the last decade. There's introspection, isn't that what autobiographies feature? It wouldn't take much to dismiss this as part of the collective depressed lot we get from India, but it's better worded than most of his peers. I really wonder what's eating them, don't they have all our jobs? Still, a point for quoting from The Doors.

There's fiction and interviews, and you can't shake off the feeling that all this is just filler. Nikhil can write, but doesn't seem to be focused on a theme. It's hard to take a blog seriously when there are two poems about "life" followed by a prank call to a bank. He has loyalties, strong enough to carve on his skin, but shows an unfortunate taste in clubs again (Manchester United? Really??). Nikhil ventures into fiction, and oh bother, it's getting really difficult to tolerate him at this point.

But every now and again, like Rooney playing once a season, he brings things back. I was reading this thinking "oh boy, another dialogue", when bam, there was raw emotion, real feelings, and effort. Nikhil, you can be funny and eloquent. But dammit man, why so serious? Why do I get the feeling you're just being lazy? Whatever brain cells you haven't killed from alcohol and nicotine seem to be capable of imagination and random humour but why serve stale ideas that you might have thought while on the can?

I had to dig through 2 years of writing to get to something linkable, something that caught my eye. You have things to talk about, causes to support and places to visit. So I must ask again, what's up Nikhil? You've been writing for five years now, how about some consistency and quality control?

Pour a drink, turn on some music and light one up. Get that shit out of your system and cheer the fuck up. You can think, you sure can write. Try harder, edit more and write more often. Stop trying to be clever and funny. Don't force it, and good writing will follow.

For general doom and gloom you get,

And for somewhat engaging writing two stars.

Slam: This Week In Review

2010-10-17T21:50:00.006-04:00

eventually, as reviewers we learn
to accost your fucking perspective
without remorse, we can't adjourn,
apathy is such a wicked burn
and scathing audits might give you motive
to pay attention to your shit,
coalesce your self into your works
however jumbled you transmit
we can smell what you omit
because we're nitty-picky jerks
we read too much and live too hard
to bother with hurting your feelings
when you don't give them much regard
or prove you have an ounce of nard
it's frustrating having these dealings

Half an Autobiography

My Two Cents

Mungo Says Bah

That's not to say this line-up's bad
after all, I haven't read them
so to this up and coming triad:
bare your soul in shades of plaid
or be prepared for mayhem.

(as an aside: I apologize
if this post makes no sense
I've been drinking 'nuff for twice my size
all day, so you should realize
I'm declaring chemical defense)

Misanthropic Drunkenness

2010-10-14T06:58:00.004-04:00

The only time I watch reality television is when I visit my parents. There, I am forced to sit through hours of random shows they've saved on their Tivo. Sometimes it's kickass, like "Pawn Stars" (FYI: a kickass Antiques Roadshow, run by assholes and idiots). Sometimes it's mildly watchable and can hold my interest, like "Survivor" or "Dancing With the Stars". Luckily, my parents' tastes don't run towards the the more voyeuristic side of reality television.

I say luckily, because I would gouge my own eyes out from boredom if I was forced to sit down and watch that shit.

And now, I've been asked to review a blog which recaps the latest episodes of "The Real World". Jesus.

First off, I don't understand these shows at all. Why is it entertaining to get sucked into a stranger's fucked-up, self-destructive world? Does it make you feel better about yourself? Because your life isn't as fucked up? Do you think you're better than them?

Funny story. You're not.

My advice to THE WORLD: Maybe spend some long, hard hours thinking about your life (maybe with the help of a therapist). Because seeing fucked up people like those who pimp themselves out on reality television makes me weep for the future of our world and contemplate ever having children. If these are the type of people my precious, genius-babies would have to deal with, it makes me want to schedule a hysterectomy ASAP.

I'm not gonna wait for the unnamed, ungendered blog writer to show up in the comment section and claim they're actually making satirical commentary about the whole show. No, sirree. I'm gonna beat ya to the punch, bucko. You've invested time and effort into watching this show and recapping the events. You actually care about it, otherwise you wouldn't write about it.

Do you realize you can actually put together a sentence, have correct grammar and spelling, and can tell a story fairly well? What the fuck. Why are you wasting your life living vicariously through other people's fucked-up ones? We want to hear about YOUR REAL LIFE. If we wanted to know about the "real lives" of the cast of "The Real World", we'd just watch the fucking show.

That's another thing. Why would someone who is into that godawful show want to read about it online? Didn't they watch it themselves? And if they didn't, why wouldn't they just Tivo it or watch it streaming from some other (not quite legal) source? Or watch the 8 million reruns that MTV airs every day? I don't understand.

Writing this review has made me hate people even more. I didn't think it was possible. Congrats.

I especially hate you, Unnamed-Ungendered-Blog-Writer, because I forgot about writing this review until I was three drinks in at the bar and you've ruined my buzz.

For renewing my misanthropic side and harshing my mellow, you get a:

And now I'm going to pass out.

Why Cultivate on Your Face What Grows Wild on Your Bum?

2010-10-13T06:00:00.000-04:00

I am guilty of locational friendships. For the sake of my job I was once stuck in a bleak, sheep and wheat ridden town in the middle of Bumfuck Nowhere. I made friends with people I wouldn’t normally and we all played happy. I even fell into the trap of thinking I wasn’t someone else’s zip-code comrade, which was a karmic kick in the crotch when I returned to the big smoke.

Please don’t misinterpret my intentions. I love making friends. I am a big galumphing puppy dog in that way, minus the leg-humping. Friends that are relegated to the locational, well, they don’t start out that way – I always dearly hope there will be something real there for us. So when I meet a new blog or person, I want to like them, relate with them, laugh with them, and if the hero worship is high, be best buddies them.

Reviewing the blogs of others, I am forced into a locational friendship of sorts. I don’t necessarily want to be there but for all intents and purposes I must. I am a beggar but dammit if I am going to give up being choosy. Sure, a lot of the women in this part of BF Nowhere have breasts that are well acquainted with their navels and the men haven’t seen a brush of the tooth or hair variety in years but I must persist. I have to have someone to drink with.

Weary blogger, I ask you this: When a stranger happens upon your blog, do they want to make friends with you or do they cross to the other side of the street muttering ‘don’t make eye contact, don’t make eye contact - I will drink and die alone before I hang out with you’ ?

When I first met Wildhare, I was harangued with this. Here lies an aura of crazy cat lady at the bus stop who practically sits on your knee, offers you a fluff covered butterscotch sweet and proceeds to tell you about the skin tag she has that bears a resemblance to the Virgin Mary. Like the old lady at the bus stop, Wildhare seems to ignore that the person whose lap she has clambered upon has no vested in her life or her history. She may believe that her readers are mostly beleaguered family and friends but I am here to tell her that regardless, she must tell her stories like the person reading them is a stranger.

Peeking into the archives with pinkie finger delicately raised and nosed wrinkled, I saw that Wildhare is only partially a crazy cat lady; she genuinely seems to be a lovely person who keeps some good company. Her posts consist of random lectures, photos of family, outings, trips, garden projects, crafts, recipes, song lyrics and poems. I don’t get why she includes poems and lyrics, finding it redundant and vaguely insulting.

Just in case you were wondering, this mutual circle jerk and part-time review site is called ‘I Will Fucking Tear You Apart’. This is not scrap-booker hipster code for ‘Here is a lovely pattern for you to tear out and keep – enjoy!’ Some of Wildhare’s stuff is cute and all, but it is for a specific audience and I am at a loss to why she asked for a review from here. Even so, I was impressed with her wares and skills. (And fuck it if I don’t want one of these bunnies now).

Wildhare isn’t just about the crafty stuff. In her ‘about me’ she writes: I am a wife, a daughter, a mother, a grandmother, a pet owner, a nature lover. I enjoy reading and writing, working with my hands, crafting, creating, holding fine papers and marking them with fine inks. I am enamored with science, physics, facts. I love the complex, the mysterious, the simple, and the sublime. I am a reader of hard science fiction, an admirer of chaos theory, a lover of mathematics and art.... and so on.

This all may well be true, however in my thorough archive dive I didn’t see sufficient evidence of this interesting person; it hasn’t translated to her writing. She loves the complex, simple, sublime - to be fair that doesn’t mean she has to BE those things. But happy snaps and birthday wishes to family members does not an appealing blog make. This meme shows us a bit more about her. I want to hear these stories in detail, with nary a dot point to be seen.

Wildhare mentions she is gearing up for her second NaNoWriMo. Why in the name of Charles Dickens does she not use her blog to hone her writing skills? Are they a finite resource to be saved for these future novels rather than her loyal blog readers? Why write about thievery in numerical dot points? Does she lack the writerly wherewithal to meld all of these into a story that has her reader boo-hooing into their banana bread, instead of a staccato, seemingly contradictory lecture? The story about her brother’s death is rife with an undercurrent of disharmony; what is she not telling us? That is what us nosey bastards want to know. And why the ‘egad’? I have respect and sadness for her loss but why not chuck in a ‘gadzooks’ while she’s at it?

I am as full of ego as the next person. I have been guilty of bloggy locational friendships, adding blogs to my roll just because a blogger had paid me a bit of attention. Starved for companionship I clung to the crumbs handed out by the bedraggled and droopy-boobed. I was soon cured of that fool-hardy venture when I realised that I would be judged on the company I keep. (It is okay, I am at peace with my shallow nature.)

When it comes down to it, I was happy to keep the company of Wildhare for the duration of this review. She has a gift for craft, a nice life, a loving, talented family and I am genuinely happy for her. But this, my dear, is where the friendship ends.

A meh because, well, meh.

And this one because I wanted to be part of her family, just a little bit.

And this one? Not for Wildhare but for Blogger, for fucking with the head of this techno-lame Wordpress user. It took me over an hour to figure out how to post the bastard. Editing, what editing?

Brown Paper Poo-kages Tied Up in String

2010-10-11T09:22:00.002-04:00

At first glance, I was intrigued with today's reviewee, Stranger in A Strange Town. The title was a good start and though the template is your standard blogger one we all probably started with, at least it wasn't jaundiced, replete with brain-bludgeoning bebop or soul stabbing symphonics, flashing bits and bobs, or fauxwards and badges reminiscent of boy scouts.

I start with the profile, hoping as always to get a little back story on my mark. Legacy 2000, who exactly are you? From the staggering amount of info in the profile, I garner Legacy 2000 is an XY involved with two other blogs. Given the spartan nature of his profile, I peruse the other blogs looking for clues but no such luck. A once over of Stranger in A Strange Town tells me that Legacy 2000 last blogged in August and has logged a total of sixteen posts for 2010. With the busy week of lashings Miss Missives has had, I have to say, I salute the brevity. Still, 92 followers on 16 posts? This Legacy must be a veritable savant. It isn't often that a blog has so few posts that I am allowed the pleasure of reviewing it post by post, picking over its meat and marrow with my sharpened nails until only the carcass remains.

Okay, first post, 1991:
It is barely two paragraphs. I love flash fiction but the mere seventy-five words on the page, perhaps intended to convey a certain ennui, are utterly forgettable. The words are gone faster than a Tic-Tac between my molars and far less memorable.

On to post two, Into the Looking Glass:
Again, it is brief. If it is meant to be symbolic, I don't get it. Miss Missives is beginning to think Legacy 2000 needs to be put over her knee.

Post three, This Old House:
Well, this one is quite a bit longer. This post did elicit some feelings but I am confused as to whether he buried someone in the basement or lost a family home in the widespread mortgage crunch. There is the hint of a narrative here but it is somehow, detached from the writing.

Post four, Stranger in a Strange Town:
Ah, the title post. Perhaps there is a profile buried here.

We are all travellers, our destination the same, the journey itself all that matters.

Feh. This strikes me as Fauxlosophical and Legacy 2000's words are beginning to feel like giant swaths of heavy, beige, velvet weighing down my eyelids.

Post Five, Then and Now:
Here is the sum total of what I took from this post, Cheers is no longer Cheers. Where's Norm? Who's Norm?

Post Six, At the End of the Rainbow:
So it would appear that he is recently divorced. It feels like he is trying to talk himself into something, I don't find it compelling.

Post Seven, Death of a Stranger:
All I can say is what the fuck man, what the fuck?

Post Eight, Old Friends
At the very least, I get this but it still feels removed some how.

Post Nine, Song on the Radio:
Is Legacy 2000 smoking pot or under the haze of a plethora of prescribed painkillers? At this point I am entirely unsure of the point of this blog.

Post Ten, For Crying Out Loud:
I am thinking the same thing. Am I done yet? So he went to a strip club and met a girl who needed him for a few minutes. So what. He should be thankful he wasn't talked in to paying for her breast implants. I know it is meant to be poignant and full of regret but Legacy 2000 still fails to tell a story. I know there is a story in there somewhere, beneath all the packing material but it fails to surface.

Post Eleven The Girl with April in Her Eyes:
My own eyes are glazing over and all I can think is this is what people write when they are thinking too hard about how "writers" "write".

Post One-Hundred and Twelve, oops, Post Twelve, just feels like Post One-Hundred and Twelve, Original Sin:
This is the best post yet and offers a glimmer of hope that this guy can actually write. There is narrative, there are impressions and even one very memorable sentence. This is better, much better.

Post Thirteen, Strange Days:
Poems are not my thing but this is at the very least evocative.

Post Fourteen, Old Man:
Ok, so dad drank him self to death and now I get a visual of our author stuck perhaps, safely encasing little tidbits of emotion in thick kraft paper, wrapping it in loops of twine until the small gift inside is entirely obscured.

Post Fifteen, The Prisoner:
Nothing to see here folks, move along. Ok, I am the real prisoner here but I am nearing the end.

Post Sixteen, Lady in Red
Again, a modicum of evocativeness but the mere skeleton of an impression.

I am left feeling like this is a shell of a blog. It's a brown paper package and I know there is something underneath but I don't know what's there and I'm not sure I even care anymore. The brown paper package could be filled with poo, a tween's Halloween prank or it could be a man who is trying to write in earnest but cannot get out of his own way.

From the Miss with the Missives, you get a

because like many before you, you're doin' it wrong

you get one of these for being purposefully enigmatic

but for your brevity, you get a half star.