Don't bother with the new tricks, just shoot him

I had two choices yesterday evening, sit and watch more Michael Jackson breaking news, or write up this review of a 'Gringo in paradise'.

(Is that one choice, or two?)

Anyway, I went with the gringo, because he has more life in him. Barely.

Gringo doesn't put himself forward very well, he describes himself as 'an average 50 something who has retired early'. If you haven't slid off your chair in excitement, let me add that the blog is visually terrible.

I think Blogger are having a chuckle amongst themselves by offering it as a template, but seriously gringo, do YOU like the too-much-fibre shade of brown your efforts are decked out in?

You live a life of leisure on a Mexican island, why not brighten it up a little?

Onwards and er...upwards. You bored the hell out of me. Really. I went back as far as March and had to stop because from a starting point of just being bored and feeling a little sympathetic towards you, you ended up making me bored and irritated.

You are fixated on the act of blogging (and bloggers), and not any art that may accompany it. You meticulously churn out posts without putting an ounce of effort into crafting them.

You nearly made me cry when I saw you write this:
'Normally I spend Sunday afternoons putting together my five posts for the week. All neat and tidy, ready to go at 6:05 AM every morning.'

Jesus, Mary and Joseph. If you spent that afternoon writing one post with a bit of heart or spirit instead, it would be time much better spent.

Whether you live in Rome, or New Jersey, or Tbilisi, or Mexico, it will never make interesting reading to dedicate a post to how you got some cheap limes.

You wrote the only account of civil disturbance in existence that is FDA approved for treatment of insomnia. Bullet holes do not equate to bullet points.

I lost all hope when I spotted a glaring contradiction when you moan about kids not wearing shirts in town, or 'gasp' a woman's bra strap showing, yet you have no problem in perving on the topless beach and posting individual's pictures on the internet.

Dirty old man. Dirty boring old man.

Just 5 more minutes

Some people go to woeful lengths to avoid me finding them. The blog up for review was here, but as of a day or so ago, it's now here.

Heidi is the author of 'while my boyfriend was sleeping', and she's a lucky girl she moved her blog, because her blogspot hosted one was ugly. Stretched and mangled and off-putting.
In fact I would go as far as to say that this is a great example of the difference that presenting your blog can make. The new look is a huge improvement.

Although, you do not need, nor will anyone ever have any interest in, the 500 or so categories you list, and the search performance on your new blog really sucks*.
Heidi, you write delightfully. Light, and airy, clear, concise and edited. It is no surprise that you write for a living. You present each entry pretty much perfectly.

Pacing, images, punctuation, all are faultless. Then comes the downside, which hurts me more than it hurts you, the blog is about nothing. Absolutely nothing. The tagline of this being what you do while your boyfriend is sleeping is catchy, but it means, and shows us, nothing.

Maybe you keep your blood and guts for your day job, which is after all what pays your bills, but I'm here to review the blog, and unfortunately that doesn't cut it for me.

There is no passion to be seen. Passing peeves and incidental likes get a mention, but in the dozens of posts I read I didn't get any idea of what you really are about. There must be more layers to your writing, it's a shame we don't see them here.

Your highlights come in the form of observation, for example you captured this brilliantly. We can see the kid's peculiar mind working through the exchange, and maybe even a slight peek at your own personality through the responses.

Your presentation of pen letters from kids highlight what we miss in your entries. They show their personality in a line or two, you don't in entries 700 smartly crafted and edited words long. Or compare the insight to you in your normal posts versus the real glimpses we get through the wee notes you leave your boyfriend. Again more character in 6 words than in entire entries.

You tackle personal moments, you just don't make them seem personal.

It's really up to you, do you want to be a reporter on your blog, or a writer?

This is a case of 2 stars lost, rather than 2 stars earned, but for the good work, high standards, and obvious skill:







* - In fact, it seemed to be unreachable at times as I was gathering the links for this.

What, the curtains?

Have you ever seen the poncy prince from Monty Python and the search for the holy grail?

All he ever wanted to do was burst into song!

This week's blog put me in mind of that. Our author is a 22 year old physiotherapist who only wants to don his leotard and trip the light fantastic.

The look is nothing new, basic blogger template, but at least it's been kept white and tidy. Nothing to write home about.

Kid, you are good at this writing lark, technically at least. You craft and shape posts, they are structured and paced, and read well. Almost methodically.

I bet you line your shoes up according to lace length outside your bedroom door of an evening too.

The thing is, while it's nice to see, it gets boring. You need some flesh on those bones.

You lean heavily on quotes and lyrics as the seed for your entries, too heavily. I'm not bothered what Gary Barlow thinks of things, if I read your personal blog I want to know what you think.

You write a lot there when you are bored, or fed up, which accumulates into one big whine. Regardless of what you write it's to a certain standard, but it would make a huge difference if you wrote more about what excites you, the things you love, your passion. Have a look at the difference between this and this. Or this and this. Which posts are better?

When you write, you pass. When you write about your real interests, you excel. Write about dance, write about the redhead.

I think you blog because you think you should, not because you are driven to. You have capabilities that help you pull it off, but over time you will be found out if it's not sincere.

Personal blogs need a heartbeat, yours is there, but it's faint. Forget the moaning and the 'I-don't-know-what-to-write' rubbish. Live and write, or don't.

For making me chuckle at the campness & ditzyness, and for being a good post crafter, one of these. More? That's up to you.




For the whining and run-of-the-millness:

Gone fishing

First impressions last. When it comes to the tedious task of reading other people's 'random musings', or whatever rapidly decreasing in wittiness title they like to use for their cerebreal secretions, this is certainly true.

I can safely say my first impression upon opening this weeks blog for review would make your grandmother's ears bleed and eyeballs shrivel. 'Why so?' I hear you cry - because I got this:


That's why.

Now listen here, if you think that I have all week to sit and press F5 on your blog waiting for it to come back online, you may well be correct, but it pisses me off.

Being the dedicated reviewer/lifeless misery I am, I actually came back to squeeze in at least a quick look at some of what you had to say for yourself. I have a soft spot for expats, being one myself, and the idea of upping sticks and moving to Mexico is a nice romantic one, and I fancied a good read of it.

I’m sorry to say, Mexico’s gain of a couple of residents, is America’s loss of a bloody dull blogger.

Come on for the love of God, beef it up, show us the romance, the excitement, the fear, the fun, the frollics, or even the tequila associated with this huge life change. This move south of the border deserves better than matter of fact checklists.

At one point you even quote another blog about the magic of it all. Why quote them? You are living it, you are articulate, write it yourself!

I had trawled through the first 6 or 8 months of your planing before your blog exploded ensuring I never go back again, so in trying to think of good things to say I’m a bit short, although I did like this picture of money. Consider the barrel’s arse well and truly scraped.

Where could you improve? Yikes, CPR on your posting approach perhaps? Put a bit of life into it. It’s not a shopping list you’re compiling, you’re living your dream, an adventure.

Not to mention, that header gave me the feeling you were trying to rent me a pair of pedalos.

For absolutely failing to capture my ready to be captured imagination with anything you wrote, it’s a:






For having a blog that vanished:

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.

Non-brutality

There was an old Kat Kat ad when I was growing up, where a dreadful band were auditioning for a record company executive, who said to them “You can’t sing, you can’t play, you look awful. You’ll go a long way”

That is how I feel about this blog, Brutalism. I can’t tell what genre of blogging it’s trying to fit into, but it seems to be somewhere between the mainstream humour and mommy blog worlds. Not to mention that frankly, it looks dull and same-ish, with little or no effort put into the presentation.

BUT....

This woman can tell a joke. She really can. She can choose, time, and pace a funny story pretty perfectly. These are things that just come naturally to some and she’s got it.

A lot of humour bloggers could learn from her, punchlines don’t need to be delivered by circus clowns with cream pies, and mommy bloggers could learn to pick the interesting or amusing from the mundane like she does.

She isn't overbearing, annoyingly opinionated or in your face. Quite unassuming and self-deprecating in fact.

Examples are all through the blog, which has been running since 2004, but in full swing since 2007. Here, or here, are examples of simple stories or quips that genuinely amuse, because of timing and perverse humour. You can dive into any monthly archive and find similar. Even the normally irritating filler posts people do about search terms or adwords can be worth while if you have the knack.

So, what would I suggest? Clean it up. Find a smarter, fresher and more original template. Hone your image and message. It irritates me to see some less than average blogs get all the hits and traffic, when your content is better than average and only slugging along.

I wouldn’t mind a bit more of a peak at the person behind the quips and stories, that would bring me back, and save me from thinking all these great wee stories weren’t just mechanical output.

I think you’ve done well here, you have a natural ability with timing of humour that so many just don’t, it would be a shame to let it go to waste. You seem to enjoy the art of blogging, more so than just listening to your own voice, so it would be a shame to see your potential go to waste.

These were easy come by, the remainder is up to you

Death sentence

Sometimes you find a blog called like something like 'Run of the mill' that you TOTALLY like love and stuff because it talks about all the like stuff you love like coke and daddy and I heart daddy and bikes and being able to catch the bus instead of walking when your hair has done that woohoo thing and you want to cry yourself to sleep and stuff but then you like wake up and stuff and TOTALLY realise that salmon pink is HUGELY your favourite colour and that mammy is like TOTALLY the most fashionable mammy this side of Bangalore and if you like SO didn't know better you would think that you were in like an Indian version of the Gilmore Girls and oh my God you've just realised that you haven't taken a breath in like 4 months and you can't do math anymore and you like fall TOTALLY into a deep sleep and you like dream one of those REALLY cool dreams that you like TOTALLY remember the next day and stuff and you tell mammy because she's like TOTALLY the coolest mammy and you tell her how your blog got reviewed by like this gross middle aged man who TOTALLY wanted to cry just like three posts in because you only ever wrote like you were fourteen and very blonde and like rich and spoiled and stuff and even though it was clear that you like TOTALLY had a like really good vocabulary and stuff and seemed like REALLY dedicated to writing regularly and stuff but you wrote about stuff and stuff that would like TOTALLY make fluff seem like intellectual and deep and stuff and that if the people reading the review only read the review and nothing more they would TOTALLY like know what the blog was like like and that the reviewer couldn’t really blame the you for being the way you like TOTALLY are because that was just the way you were and stuff but that the gross reviewer thought that you like TOTALLY needed a ride on the short bus and should go and get like life experience and stuff like maybe having a friend TOTALLY block you on MSN and making you cry yourself to sleep again but then it all TOTALLY didn’t matter anyway because you like hadn’t blogged for like months now and the reviewer is left to assume that you like choked to death on a TOTALLY.

He knows his claret from his beaujolais

I had so much hope.

An Aussie. Aussies are foul mouthed and direct, some are even clever. I was hoping this was a good 'un.

I saw the title "The discreet charm of the middleclass" and I smacked my lips, this could be really interesting.

I wondered would it be:
A) Quirky or
B) Eccentric or
C) Original

and of course, more fool me, I got D) None of the above.

The header is interesting enough, but all it does in the end is serve false hope that something equally eye catching or captivating will follow.

It just doesn't.

For the life of me I can't understand why self proclaimed 'humour' blogs think the only form of humour available to them is a commentary on which celebrities look like which farmyard animals, or a bad photoshop job with Mariah Carey and a penis.

How about some wit, or irony, or clever observation coupled with articulation?

Think about it, you people are intelligent enough to create a blog, write to, and maintain said blog, you surely are capable of even the slightest peer over the garden wall to see what else could be funny. Something, anything other than the done to death pie in the face.

I sat with your blog open before me for what must have been 2 hours, maybe 3, but my eyes just glazed over. I'd go read something else and come back, and again within moments I'd lost the will.

Picture, caption, dull commentary. New post. Picture, caption, dull commentary. Are you getting the picture(, caption, dull commentary) here folks?

This is where I'd normally show some examples of the good or bad, but every post is exactly the same, so pick one. Any one.

The best thing I can think of to say about this blog is that at least you don't post everyday and I escaped before some parts of my brain hadn't quite rotted.

In a desperate attempt to be somewhat constructive, I will say I admire the dedication you have to that serial, now it's not my taste, but I do recognise the appeal there. I say focus more there, tighten and improve that, or introduce it more into your blog. It shows that you have imagination which for some reason you exclude from the blog as a whole.

I've tried quite hard not to insult your feelings here, I just wish you'd do the same for our intelligence.

Nonsense indeed

Oh joy. A "humour" blog.

All the Indian emos must be busy queuing up for my chemical romance tickets.

Anyway, Mr VE with your fantastical nonsense, I sense you are sitting there, buttocks clenched, waiting to be told how wonderful you are.

So here goes: You're not really. You could be, but we’ll come back to that.

Humour bloggers are starting to become the bane of my existence. This one is more or less the same as all the rest. Post after post of nothingness surrounding yet another quirky picture stolen from the internet, that a thousand other gormless humour bloggers are copy/pasting into another thousand worthless posts in the name of entertainment somewhere else on the planet.

That’s the bulk of your stuff I'm sorry to say. But, there are glimpses of hope, all is not lost. You are, if nothing else, occasionally original. You manage to squeeze out entries on a regular basis where there should be no fodder.

You show that you can write up a storm from almost nothing. This is what I see as your redeeming feature. You are a writer. Unfortunately you are a writer wasting your time on a "LOL" and "I think I threw up a little in my mouth" audience.

Write about yourself, about what you do, about the shit you put up with daily, the ins and outs of the ordinary, the mundane, and the reality. Turn your language skills and fluid vocabulary to that instead of today's Yahoo wacky news headline.

You do the haggard old humour blog "well", and that's as objective as I'm going to get about it, considering I hate everything about it at this stage. What you could do is endless. You have a nice turn of phrase, a purposefulness when you write, and an interesting dark humour that deserves a more substantial subject matter.

I think you are wasting your time doing what you do now, but of course that's personal opinion. I ask you are you proud of what you produce? all of it?

I spent hours reading through you last week and I couldn't come up with anything more than major 'meh'. So in an attempt to not be completely guided by my prejudices, I came back to it this week.

You do a neat humour blog, which to me is akin to performing a tidy home abortion, but each to their own. Two stars through my gritted teeth, with endless possibilities if you changed your focus.

= = = = =

An aside. Lest I be accused of hating an entire sub-continent, I must refer to an earlier review of the cynic's bar. A shit load of potential, but Joe had a tendancy to never shut the fuck up. It was almost unreadable without huge effort.

Fast forward 5 or 6 months and have a look at an infinitely improved template, and posts that actually read like they were edited with being read by another human in mind. You can now see the black humour in almost every entry, the alternating touches of self deprecation and obnoxiousness, and a sinister grumpiness that I enjoy.

It's different, in written pace and origins, and although the comments tend to spiral into incomprehensible screeches and grunts, overall it's no real bad thing.

You are not a cynic, you're just a grumpy fucker, but one who wanted critique, took it on the chin, and acted. A pretty fucking unique effort and I think it deserves a few of these.

I havent got a fucking clue why there are a billion stars in this post, and I can't be arsed trying to fix it any more. To clarify, 2 for funny man and 3 for the slumdog millionaire.

Saale of the century

Let me get straight to point or I'll be here all fucking day, this is "Saale Bhehnchod" the blog of a moaner. A 23 year old Indian law student whinging his arse off. How many of you are there?

I haven't got the slightest clue as to why he would sumbit himself for a review.

I didn't find just one, nor just two, but three, and fuck knows how many more posts moaning about people mentioning he had put on weight or his appearance. Give me strength. Men come 3 groups, skinny, fat, and everything else. The addition or subtraction of two pounds should go unnoticed, and more to the point unwhinged about.

You rattle on and on and on about being addicted and/or not addicted depending on the day of the week to booze. Here's a clue, alcoholics don't usually get around to googling for and posting images of their favourite drinks on their blog. They drink it. You are a fucking student, it's your job to get arseholed twice a week and wake up with traffic signs in your bed. The only thing you are addicted to is the sound of your own voice.

The first post at the time of writing is an 'oh so controversial yet not really of Obama' and the frenzy surrounding him. Kudos to you for calling it as you see it, but you fucked up royally saying he looked like a monkey. At best, a misguided thing to say.

If I were objective I would just say nice job, well written, and you've created an oversized bebo page for you and your pals to play around with. Unfortunately, I'm not objective. The blog annoyed the shit out of me. My blood pressure actually rose while clicking through your posts. You have no interest in writing, only talking.

I couldn't go back further than 2008 because as irritated as I was reading you at 23 years of age, I shudder to think what went before. I really should have just linked to this post at the start and left it at that. Dreadful, self indulgent, unfounded, faux angst.

I had to go back and remove the working 'fucking' 4 times from this post, that's how much you got under my skin.

Constructive advice? You can clearly write well, technically, but you don't write, you talk. If you have any interest to improve, re-read what you write and ask yourself do you like what you read. Other than that, stop fucking moaning. You are privileged, go live your life.

Now I think I hear chants of Obama coming over the hill, so jump in fast, I've left the engine running.

Leave it to Steadman

The tree has been set ablaze, the presents have been exchanged, and the charges have all been dropped.

I stand before you naked and reborn and hungry to be driven. Driven to enlightenment, sadness, and laughter.

So what have you brought to offer me as means to take me there? You bring me a guy's guide to Oprah.

Seriously? that's it? Bollocks.

A poor idea, averagely executed, and short lived.

A gray mass of bored husband, started last Summer and dead in the water by early October.

It's hard enough to encourage me to read the drivel puked up by the general public at the best of times, but if you can't even be bothered to continue to write it you've been licking too many windows if you think I'm going to stretch myself to review it.

Lick on Jeeves.

The entries are dull overall. The original idea of a daily Oprah show review stroke commentary was a novelty that just could not be sustained, not without a glimmer of effort at least.

I'm sickened to my semen filled stomach with this plague of averageness. Another bright idea, another humor blog, another lame attempt full of excuses and lazy six-out-of-ten efforts.

There's plenty of okay, amusing, vaguely not ripped from a wrapper but already done to death entries, but nothing spectacular, or even really good.

This especially goes astray as a humor blog when the episode being reviewed is less than full of joy.

What really concerned me was that on many an occasion you actually did just summise the show, no slant, no joke, just summary. That's worse than going for the jugular with and entry and failing miserably.

In the end you developed crippling stomach pains and ended up in hospital. (Your wife is funny.)

It's possible that you may be dead.

Oh well, next....

So only the first 15 minutes is free then?

I don't have long as I've got to be back at work soon, so I'm going to grab a quick sandwich and tell you that simply put, 15 minute lunch is tight.

What's the difference between this humour blog and a lot of the rest?

He spends his time being funny instead of telling us he's funny.

Johnny Virgil tells us some good funny stories from his own day to day, he picks some of the more obscure stuff from the net and world news, and sometimes he just lets the imagination run.

Consistent, thorough, carefully crafted, and most often, quite amusing.

You could dip into this blog at any time and find a post that tickles your fancy. His unassuming tone, and just on the right side of self deprecating voice, is a nice read, and you chuckle along with him because he doesn't hit you over the head with the 'I'm so funny' rubber mallet.

There really isn't much more to say, it's a tight ship, it promises and delivers.

If I'm going to be picky, and it's my party, so I will be, there are a few things you should do.

A better template, there's nothing really wrong with the one you have, but blue isn't funny is it? and as your posts tend to be quite long, a wider writing space would suit. You're good enough to deserve a nicer stage.

Your archive is crap, that list of yearless months is just dumb.

Those long posts, I admire your dedication and thoroughness but as someone who had to, and wanted to, read your archives it became heavy going, for a light hearted blog. I'm sure you plan posts in advance, mix it up a little, break up the flow a bit and throw out some short sharp shocks of funny once in a while.

Too much scrolling. Far too much, long posts plus a front page that goes back to August is no
good. 3, maybe 5 per page is enough for what you have there.

All in all, this is just nitpicking at what is a very well written humour blog, no clown shoes, no pie in the face, just original humour.

and here's one of me on a bus

Esajudita is a very nice looking blog, clean and white and crisp.

A good start I suppose.

It's tidily laid out, pages hidden behind tabs for navigation by month. There is the ridiculous inclusion of a bad photograph of the author's back to contend with however.

It's written by Lena who is 'totally not an American anymore'. It is technically very well executed

The elephant in the room unfortunately, while I was reading this smartly articulated collection of entries, was that I was bored, very bored.

There was nothing of interest there, for an outsider to your life.

Nothing. Nada. Zip.

I can't think of a single entry that stood out, not one that interested me, or angered me, or made me laugh.

From the last 12 months, which was all I could face, there are four categories of post:

1: Wishy, washy yet very serious Middle Eastern/Israel/Jewish focussed posts.
2: Your dental history.
3: Class reports for whatever trip you've just taken - complete with obligatory picture of you in something neon standing in front of something 4000 years old.
4: Anything else you stumble across.

You drew the short straw with me on the 1st, it just doesn't tickle my uncircumcised fancy, and on another day you may have been reviewed by someone who had the energy to feign interest, but not today.

The rest just sucked the life from me, this blog is dead behind the eyes.

Lifeless, impersonal, cold.

We want to hear the dying man's last words, his fear, his last thought, what he wished he'd said and you hand us the coroner's report.

We learn nothing of your personality from your entries.

Your last entry at the time of writing, is about as animated as we get to see you, and even then you fall short of how you could have shaken that up.

If you are truly serious about writing you need to try and connect with the reader, entice them, catch them by the throat, make them wriggle to get away, or succumb to your embrace.

You are articulate and concise, so you have the tools to do so, but do you have the desire?

All head, but no heart.

Ironically, when you did go out on a limb and show us a little of your imagination (hopefully) and emotion, the quality of your writing suffered, picking up clichéd phrases, and poor pace.

A star for the obvious technical ability and dedication to the blog.




For everything else.

I was dancin', with my darlin'...

If you are anything like me, you would nearly soil yourself with the thought of a blog about a country music singing Jedi knight.

If you were anything like me, you’d be misguided.

Tennessee Jed is the blog of, well, Jed from Tennessee. Obviously.

At first look at it had me ready to go to town. The site loads slowly and all but killed my ancient machine the first time round.

You just about save your bacon with the template, it’s hard to make black not suck, but you just about escape thanks to the text background. Barely.

Navigation is an arseache. All your posts from 2008 are on the front page, and although you have many short posts, the pictures and videos you have make it heavy loading.

You can’t select an individual entry, which is why you miss out on links here. Beyond the last year which is all on the front page, you can only navigate by a monthly archive. It's like being in a car with no bloody door handles and it irritates me greatly.

Please tidy the navigation, standard blogspot options are much better, and cut down the posts on the front page, if only to help with the speed.

Now, I don’t like taglines. You usually need to be really bloody good in order to carry one off. Jed’s tagline is ‘Trying hard not to make matters worse’ and I like it.

It’s a personal blog, added to regularly, if not over frequently, for more than 3 years. He talks about his family a little, his daughter’s health, and a lot about the state of the world through his own eyes.

No great declarations, no demands, and no over inflated sense of self importance, does mean that the blog lacks a certain amount of the ‘ball grabbing’ that’s needed to get people’s attention these days.

Just a very articulate Jed, balancing a dry sense of self deprecating humour with enough confidence to write as he likes, and say what believes needs to be said. Not pushy, not overbearing, but convincing.

When someone believes what he writes, like Jed seems to, you tend to believe along with him.

In all, after a bad first impression, the more I read, the more my stereotype led mind was tapped on the shoulder, and the more I liked.

I could be friends with Tennessee Jed.

Solid sevens

With trembling fingers, and a mind terrified that I would be faced with more terrible shit, I opened the gilded envelope and removed the gold coloured card from inside.

"The blog to be reviewed this week is....

...muskrat!"

I have no idea what the fuck 'Muskrat' is supposed to mean. Yeah man, make me feel stupid, that's a good start.

Luckily your about page cleared that up, and just left me lonesome for my earlier ignorance.

Muskrat has an out of the box wordpress template, which is 'meh', it's not butchered, and it's clean and white which gives me hope that there's good content.

The header image is okay too, gives a bit of identity, but you need to do some photoshoppy shit to it and make it fit properly and not stretched.

I like the way this guy writes, I really, really do. Technically to a good standard which makes the simple act of reading past entries no great chore.

He picks interesting topics for his entries, it's not the usual filler from personal bloggers with no imagination.

He is pushing a stroller in his header so he can't have a problem with being called a 'daddy blogger' even though I think he's a bit more to boot. The variation in topics shows that, along with the fact he's not overly nice.

There is plenty of 'fuck you m'am' in his latest post, and no small amount of attitude to found dotted around elsewhere, a nice blend with his daddyness.

I did get hit with the occasional 'why fucking bother' moment, but they were few and far between.

All of this is good, quite good indeed, but there was one gut feeling I got from almost all your posts.

They seemed to be building up for a punchline, or a significant finish, but rarely delivered.

You can build a story or anecdote pretty well, but your delivery of the snark, the poignancy, the humour, or whatever, just doesn't materialise.

As I said, there are good ideas in your entries, self deprecation that's welcomingly written, but you just seem to miss out when it comes to finishing.

Maybe have a read of some blogs that make you hold your breath as you read a post, and see how they deliver a climax. It's a matter of practice.

Easily the best I've had to review now, which on reflection is not necessarily a compliment, but a real tasty cake of a blog, just no cherry.

One for sorrow

Do you know what a magpie is? Of course you do.

Do you know what a magpie does? Perhaps, but let me fill you in.

They are birds who line their nests with anything shiny or reflective they come to lay their beady eyes on.

Basically, they spy things of value to others, take them, and parade them as their own.

Welcome to the world of Los Cuatro Ojos. A magpie in blog form that posts pictures from around the internet every day.

A decent template, and a catchy title, which is all clever and bilingual and shit so it can leave both Patrick and Paco feeling like they've wasted their time.
It's really quite inclusive in it's monstrosity, I dozed off before I finished the not so hilarious tagline.

This kind of blogging has a place, I'm sure. Just not in my fucking reader.

I've never seen such a misguided waste of technology, web space, and obvious human effort as appears here. The fact effort was taken at all in the name of this cretinous creation is staggering.

I actually plead with you to explain to me what the fucking point of it all is?

Do you rush home daily, casting all other obligations aside, in order to post the same picture that will have been posted on four million other sites?

Do you have a thought of your own in that head of yours? There are mysterious 'essays' hidden away in links never to be explored.

Some of the pictures are funny, yes, but they were also funny on all of the other half billion sites I saw them on today.

This sepsis inducing collection of worthless, hacked to death humour is a dreadful reflection upon your own personality. Try as I might, having seen what you pass off here as a blog, I can only see your image as being rightfully tainted to the world at large.

I can't imagine you ever shaking with true laughter, just sweaty masturbatory residual fat rolling. I can never picture you picking up and returning an old man's 10 cent coin without knowing that you are concealing his quarter under your scabby hoof. I can't imagine you bringing anything of worth to humanity other than this shining example of all that is
wrong with mankind.

I can't imagine you imagining.

Soulless, worthless, and senseless uselessness which just drains my energy.

My life is worse off for having even fucking bothered.