Dick Move, Jargon Juggler.

I am an American. For the most part we are an English speaking country, but there is no amendment or law that explicitly states, “We speak English here, take your other worthless language and go suck on a dead dog’s nose.” Of course, this is a good thing, because other languages aren’t worthless at all, especially not to the people who speak them.

Similarly, there’s no official language of AAYSR. It’s not like we called together a reviewers gin rally and debated the semantics of our FAQ over bucks and Tom Collinses (Tom Collinseses?). Since the FAQ is written in English, we arrogantly assumed like the vainglorious dicks we are that all submissions would subsequently be in English.

Obviously, some asshole out there decided that he was entitled to a review, even with having less an a third of his posts written in a language I understand, as if he's testing me. You sonofabitch, I got a 34 on my ACT because I test so good. Pop quiz, jargon juggler: who's got two fists full of round bombs with fuses of scorn for bilingual bloggers testing my lexical patience? This girl. Dick move, jargon juggler. Dick move.

But I thought, you know, hey--this guy’s got to have some reason for doing this. Hopefully he'll reveal himself as some kind of pretentious fuck, and then we can set him on fire with leftover bottle rockets from this past weekend's patriotic debauchery. Maybe he'll be counterfeit and full of shit. Maybe he'll nearly plagiarize but not quite, and circumvent any accusations of plagiarism because of the nature of the concept he's addressing, thus brilliantly demonstrating the idea he's floating--but did he know that I've read that book? Does it matter?

Fine, so I didn't necessarily predict he would do that last bit, but motherfucker did itnonetheless.

And by golly, I fucking like him. He turned out to be feisty and hilarious and obnoxiously ostentatious because he is totally a Bombay hipster (which he would adamantly deny, true to hipster code), and I love that kind of unapologetic bastardization of self. Sure, some of this poetry crap is just nonsense, but I assure you: although it doesn't look like a standard poem, this blog is all poetry, even if a little wordy and rugged (the entry at the bottom), even if sometimes he comes across as a kind of drunken swan, where you can see how elegant he could be if he weren't such a flashy fuckdunce.

His template is horseshit, the navigation is a sterile, complicated hospital nightmare, sometimes the links lead to streams of shrapnel html and most of the writing is in fucking Hindi. Opening each quarter-monthly archive link is like passing around a live fucking hand grenade. There is no profile, no comments, no way to go back to a homepage, no way to click on an individual entry. He hasn't posted in a couple of months, which makes me believe he either joined Facebook or Twitter, where his brevity could be more immediately appreciated by his peers.

This guy is good. This guy is really, really good. And he fucking knows it. I'm guessing he's a professional (apparently he has already written some film scripts). He's above detailing his life or personality for any potential readers, because if they don't get it, if they cannot just deduce his dreams and self from his poetry, which "does not burnish on paper as much as it embers in the mind," why would he want them reading his blog?

So, Manish Fuckwad, you are a cocksucker.

I want you to take your superior word choice, your smooth, jerkface prose, and your aloof, cryptic layout back to Bombay's version of Brooklyn and dump it in a trash bin at the local ditchwater coffee shop.


Then I want you to straighten up your thick-rimmed emo glasses and start over with a simple template with a plain, classic header that's just your title and a drop-down archive. I want you to tag your posts with "English" or "Hindi" so people can just skip to whatever language they understand or feel like reading that day. And I want you to write more often, because I want it.

Mayor of Red Flag Town

Several years ago, I was all about the online dating. At one point, I'd lined up dates with six different dudes in a matter of two weeks. Through all those coffee dates fraught with weirdos in dad jeans and potential kidnappers/rapists/murderers, I started doing something to prevent my time from being wasted by asshats.

As soon as these dudes would contact me, I'd begin mentally tallying their "red flags". Nothing makes me lose my lady-boner faster than a couple red flags. And nothing makes me lose my blog-boner faster either.

But that's exactly what happened when I began reading The Cool Jerks, which was created to help dudes understand how to meet and date women.

BLOODY RED FLAGS ON FIRE. ALL. OVER. THE. PLACE. PEOPLE. "Twiggy" doesn't understand women, and he sure as hell doesn't know how to blog. And since he is inept at both, how the hell does this toolbag expect to give online advice about women?

Answer: He can't.

Red Flag #1 - First impressions actually matter, Twigster, and you don't seem to give a shit about the impression you're making.

• You have two sidebars filled with meaningless shit. It's like you've dowsed yourself in Axe Body Spray. Less is more, dude.
  
• You have redundant tabs and "click to read more" posts. You look messy and lazy, and in desperate need of a makeover, which is just waaaay too much work.
• You're asking for PayPal donations. What the fuck for? You cheap bastard.
• You have tons of paid-to-click advertisements. You're into money more than you're into self-development. Classy.
  

What's pathetic is all of that could have been prevented, but . . .

Red Flag #2 - You never read our online profile before contacting us.

Did you read the FAQ before submitting here? Fuck no, you didn't. Thanks for making it obvious you care more about getting web traffic, than about having respect for our time, asswipe. Really, what you were looking for here is the blog review equivalent of a "wham, bam, thank you, ma'am".

You need to sweet talk the lady, get to know her a bit, and if you're lucky enough to climb her bell tower, you need to make sure you ring her fucking bell. As of now, I feel objectified, used, and completely unsatisfied. Nice job.

Red Flag #3 - Your online profile says nothing about you.

The "About Us" tab just reiterates what's on your home page. I had to trek halfway down your sidebar and click a link to ANOTHER site, before I got a legit "About Me" page. The only reason I took the effort to figure out who the hell you are, is because I'm reviewing your site, not because I actually care.

If you make it too hard for someone to get to know you, they won't bother, genius.

Red Flag #4 - Your writing is incoherent.

Your grasp of the English language is mediocre at best. Which would be fine, since it's not your mother tongue . . .but you're writing for an English-reading audience. Your writing doesn't flow at all, because you use incorrect punctuation, grammar and spelling, on top of repeatedly misusing words. For instance, here you use the word "viscous". I do not think it means what you think it means.

Microsoft Word's grammar and spell check won't cut the mustard, cowboy. To avoid looking completely bush league, you need to actually look up the meaning of the word before you use it. And why would anyone take your advice (or date your lameass), if you can't be bothered to take the time to be professional and coherent?

Red Flag #5 - You're halfass about communication.

You have blog posts dating back to 2008, but you only have 40 posts. WTF. Your last post was a month ago, which is just an embedded video, and the post before that is from March. Maybe try a little harder, and you'd get more of attention from readers. And the ladies. Jesus.

Red Flag #6 - You have no fucking clue who you are at all.

Your posts flip-flop between "be a real man and develop yourself" and "this is how you play asshole head games with the ladies". You say your site is "dedicated to the self development of men" and your tagline is "Redefining Jerks". But then you make repeated references to being a pick-up artist, and advise men to purchase a whole slew of books on "how to play women". So which is it? Are you trying to help men develop themselves as people, or help them get laid? Because they're not even close to being the same thing, bucko.

Have you ever thought that maybe, just maybe, if you ACTUALLY developed yourself as a person for your own sake, cultivated some interests outside of picking up women, got over your obvious issues and got your shit together (meaning become a fucking adult who doesn't drunkenly puke on himself), you might not have to play games with women? Because all those things foster confidence, which is far more attractive than the shit you have going on now.

Red Flag #7 - I have a sneaking suspicion you're one of those "nice guys" who are actually "passive-aggressive douchebags".

These bitches have been blogging about fuckers like you for YEARS. I'll let them have at it.

Red Flag #8 - On the other hand, I'm pretty sure you're really a full-on misogynistic asshole.

Women are innately addicted to dating assholes. Women are only after money and "feeling good". Women should only be cheerleaders, beauty queens or chefs. Women are just walking tits, asses and vaginas, nothing more.

Those stereotypes exist for a reason, because there are girls out there who believe them and do nothing but live up to them. But there's a difference between girls and women, sweetcheeks.

Have you ever heard the phrase, "you attract what you are"? If you go through life believing those fucked up stereotypes, you will only attract girls who live up to them, which is exactly the type of female your site is trying to help men avoid. Do you see the vicious (not viscous) cycle?

I'm gonna let you in on a little secret. The type of WOMAN you and your Cool Jerk buddies are scheming to meet would have abso-fucking-lutely NOTHING to do with you in real life. Hell, you've got a single, intelligent, smoking hot lady in her 20's writing this review. I'm your fucking dream woman, and I'm gonna tell y'all something: I've had an outbreak of vagina dentata after reading this shit.

So, I award you a nice



for using us to get website traffic, a






for not reading the FAQ and wasting my time, and a






for being a misogynistic fucktard. I hate you.

Give Him a Hand, Ladies and Gentlemen

I think we all know someone like today's subject of excoriation. I know I do. In fact I know several, many of whom have ridiculously goofy names that sound like cartoon characters. These are large men, typically white Anglo-Saxons, frequently very intelligent, possibly over educated. They hang out at your local bars, or at cookouts, or wherever groups of men gather together to discuss the topics of the day. They almost always take a deep breath before pontificating forth on any topic, and at times release an exasperated sigh when you make a statement that they feel is silly, or naive.

Okay. I'll be honest. I don't know if any of that is an accurate description of Dave Hand, author of Dave's Quills and Pixels, today's blog, but there was just something about the way he turns a phrase or states what he feels are facts that reminded me of these other guys I know. Who do fit that description. To a "t".

What I do know: he's 46, he's a grandfather (and by extension, a father), he's married, he lives in Texas, and he is a conservative republican. (I did find it odd that in his About Me page, he capitalizes 'Husband,' 'Dad,' and 'Grampa', but keeps 'republican' in lower case.)

It just so happens that I am decidedly not a conservative republican. But then, I'm not a liberal democrat. Or even a progressive whig, a despondent communist, or a repressed socialist either. I am unaffiliated, as there is no party that properly represents my view of what direction the USA should be going in. So there are some points with which I was able to agree with Dave on and some points where I wholeheartedly disagreed.

So be it. We live in a country where such differing opinions are welcomed and encouraged.

And honestly, I don't give a rat's ass what your politics are. I'm not here to review your politics -- I'm here to review your blog. So here I go with that.

Dave, my friend, you are one seriously long-winded, meandering son-of-a-bitch. And you tend to hash over the same ground more times than might be necessary, although I suspect that observation was the product of my having read big blocks all at once rather than digesting a single post and then waiting a few days until your next post appeared. It did seem that your favorite non-political topics are "Man, it sucks getting old" and "Man, I was such a sci-fi nerd when I was a kid and I still am!"

There's no arguing that you know how to write. I suppose anyone who was a professional journalist and writing teacher ought to be able to string a few paragraphs together. It just seems at time that you aren't sure what your point exactly is. Which makes it hard to know when you're done covering it.

It comes across somewhat Andy Rooney-ish. And, who knows, maybe that's a compliment.

Your template is relatively clean and uncluttered. Your About Me is informative and clear. You commit damn few grammar or spelling errors. (The inner curmudgeon in me insists on pointing out to you, however, that when you decide to enter a state of repose at the end of a long day, you "LIE" down, not "LAY" down. Lay is a transitive verb and demands an object. Lie is intransitive and therefore is something you can do without an object to act on.) My only complaint about your template is that, as a reviewer wanting to delve into your back catalog, your archive navigation was cumbersome and awkward. My only options were to scroll to the end of the page and see Older Entries, or to use the calendar navigation widget, but that presented pages that did not contain full entries -- only snippets that I had to click through to.

So, that's basically it. Consider editing more or being more selective. Maybe expand your topic base. Fix your archive navigation. Other than that, you're pretty much doing this whole "blog" thing right. I'm going to give you two stars for all of this:



But, my friend, some of the cheap shots really got to me. So, for calling President Obama "Osama Bin Bama", you are getting a flaming finger:



I don't care if you like the guy, or respect him, or respect the office or any of that crap. This juxtaposition was a cheap shot that really has no validity. It'd be like if I called our last president Adolph W. Hitler. George W. Bush was a lot of things, but an evil genocidal madman was not one of them. Likewise, Obama is a lot of things, but an evil terrorist mastermind isn't one of them. Dave, you're better than this. Show some class.

Pond Scum

Once upon a time, there was a nerdy college law student who wrote about his ridiculously stupid exploits, and got a book/movie deal.

His name is Tucker Max. And, he has one winning characteristic: he's funny. You read his stuff and you can't help laughing, even though you know you shouldn't.

Fast forward to 2009, and we find that he's inspired an entire generation of insipid, soulless clones with the ethics of pond scum, the writing skills of a kindergartener, and the classiness of Bourbon Street at 2 a.m.

Slopmaster has been writing about his ridiculously awesome life for years and years. I'm somewhat ridiculous and usually try to get as close to the line of appropriateness as possible. I'm now an expat in Africa and recently lost my virginity while here, which seems ridiculous but not that ridiculous. Anyway, I'm having lots of sex now to make up for lost time. I don't tell the girls I have sex with about my blog so I write all the bloody details.

Take one nerdy virgin with zero moral scruples or good judgement, locate him on a third world continent where he is making roughly 10,000 times the average per capita income and has no qualms about sexually harassing the hired help, and you get Slopmaster.

I am in the terrible position of reviewing a person I wish would die horribly in a fire. In fact, I would only want to read this blog if it reported on the author's death, and even then, it would only interest me for about 4.6 seconds.

Don't you wish you were me?

Oh wait.

I bet you do, because then, you'd have the chance to tell this person, in front of an audience of hundreds, that he can fuck off and die. Hopefully, an ignominous, heinous, painful death.

At the minimum, Sloppy, you alcohol-besotted pendejo, my wish for you is that you experience enough soul-scorching pain that you're forced to grow the fuck up and and learn to act like a man. If this requires you losing your dick and balls in a bus accident, so much the better.

Here's your prize:



Thanks for playing.

Less Crap, More Writing

Today's reviewee has been "blogging" since 2007. However, Kris Nair has not posted anything in exactly one month.

Which is mostly a relief.

I like to start things off pretty and with kind words, so let's do that first. Your title, less humans, more robots, fan-fucking-tastic my friend. I would just like to see a capital letter or four in there. Your template is clean and well organized, I love it and your archives? Eye candy, archive porn right there. I wanted to lick the screen, you know, had it loaded quickly for me. It didn't, but I'll forgive you.

Now for the bad. Kris is another in our long line of Indian blogging friends. He's not emo, cutting himself or crying out for universal understanding. Thank the heavens for that. However? He is a 'Mentor Capitalist' out of New Delhi. I'll let you click over to his blog to find out just what a mentor capitalist is, while I cough "bullshit" into my hand. I'll try not to let the fact that I was abused for years by a man from India, that was in a business very much like this, stand in the way of objectivity.

Ahem.

No, you know what? Fuck that. Let's stop right here. If your blog mostly consists of:

YouTube videos

Quotes from other people

Clever pictures and cartoons

Cut and pasted articles

Then stop asking us to review your shit. You are wasting our fucking time!







and








Suck it, Kris Nair, Suck it.

Dog food

First, and foremost, a note to the powers that be here in this fine playground of asking and receiving, I don’t fucking work Wednesdays. I’m like Rainman without the ability or horse toothed brother, and I need my routine. It's early and I'm pissed.

Speaking of horses (see what I did just there?) The troll report is a blog that has a lot of fucking pictures of horses. An awful lot of pictures of horses, and yet not one single farmgirl sucking on one. Well now, isn't that just delightful?

I’ll be straight up, I don’t get horses unless their names are on my betting slip and beardy Mary is counting out my winnings. I also don’t get the frequent use of CAPITALS everywhere and anywhere. I most certainly don’t get the MUTE MONDAYS, and the TROLL POLLS are dull acts of anal gazing and are flogged to death on that blog.

Somewhere about 20% of the time you throw out an opinion or two but always in a shouty arm waving won’t sit the hell down and give me a chance to ram the needle into your neck kind of way. I can’t be dealing with that.

I’m the wrong person to review this, that’s for sure, I don’t get it, I don’t like it, and the instant I looked at it I knew deep down in my spunk filled belly that I won’t be going back.

I’m not a complete prick so I will give you credit for entertaining and engaging your own audience, who I pray to sweet adorable Jesus I never ever have to meet, and I give you kudos for irritating me. That’s not easy.

A star for being an annoying and antagonising blogger, that's half the battle I suppose...




...and a shut the fuck up for everything else until I can click the fuck away.