The Nice Girl

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mundane in Manhattan

One of the reasons that I’m not so good at this gig, and thus only turn up every few months, is that I hate being mean. I’m the nice professor here at the University of Colon. Bright eyed students flock to my course in Introductory Bootology because they know that with a vaguely plausible sob story they can earn an easy A.

So if you are Mandinka, author of Motherhood in NYC, you would have to be pretty happy about your luck. You got ‘The Nice Guy’ at Ask. Easy 4 Star review. Woo hoo!

But.

But, you got The Nice Guy on the wrong day. It’s been a long semester and I’ve given far too many A’s to far too many sub par aspiring bootologists. I’m in a bad mood.

Here’s the thing. I love Mummy/Daddy bloggers. I kind of am one. I respect the genre. I have a high tolerance for cute kids stories and the moaning of the stay-at-home Mum. I can relate to the trials and tribulations, dull as they are, of a parent. Hell, I’ll go out on a limb and say that I love parent blogging.

When it’s done well.

Mandinka, my dear, you don’t do it that well. Or you do it as well as the legion of Mummy and Daddy bloggers around the world. I have a handful of specific issues that I would like to discuss with you:

1. The Bloggess. I like The Bloggess. Her brand of neurotic/obscene humour is pretty original and fairly entertaining. But, there is a disturbing trend among a certain type of Mummy Blogger to try and be The NEW Bloggess. Stop it. She’s funny because it’s kind of her schtick. You aren’t because you come off as a try-hard wannabe. That goes for the rest of you that are pulling this crap. You know who you are.


2. Twitter screen captures. This is plague on the blogosphere. Don’t ever do it again. If people wanted to follow you on Twitter, they would. If they do, they’ve read these inanities. Most people are not interested in your ‘unfollows’ or what the hell ever you’re blabbering about on Twitter.


3. Advertising. Now, I’m tolerant of advertising. Like you, I run a self-hosted site and I feel justified in using a bit of advertising to recoup my costs. But fully forty percent of your site is dedicated to advertising. I suspect that if you could squeeze more in, you would. Do you really need two Blogher tower ads? Is one not enough? There’s a fine line between classy and trashy, darling. Find it.


4. Be fucking original. I will admit that I didn’t tread too far back into your archives, a few months or so. I got bored. The title of your blog is intriguing. Motherhood in NYC . This gal is going to tell us the gritty truth about raising kids in Gotham. She’ll either make us glad we don’t live there or make us wish we did. You do neither. You may as well be living in Orange County or Highland Park or Darien. I mean, a story about the GAP? Seriously? Do you know how writes a great site about parenting in NYC? This guy. And he lives in fucking New Jersey! You’ve got less urban cred than a suburbanite.
   
   Phew. I’m glad we’ve got that sorted. Look, you have a reasonable following. Good on you. Be grateful for that. You’ll get a bunch of traffic for a couple of days from this review; I’ll expect 10% of your advertising revenue as a finder’s fee. But what did you really think we were going to say about your site? Did you really expect to get an IFLY? You’re a Mummy Blogger and a very slightly better than average one (I mean, you can write in complete sentences). What more did you want?
   
   Because I’m physically incapable of handing out flaming fingers, you will be spared that indignity. So take this
   
   
   
   
   
   and be grateful you got me.

I waited for the joke. It never did arrive.

The Professor, despite being several years and several thousand miles removed, is still a Southern boy at heart - polite, well mannered and genteel. I was raised to say "Yes, ma'am" and "Yes, sir" to my elders, to open doors for ladies and to never, ever be arbitrarily rude to another person. Well, to their face anyway. This upbringing makes this particular gig a bit of challenge sometimes. Today is a good example.

I grew up in the steaming pine barrens that straddle the Florida-Georgia line. Once I had done my time in my hometown's one-room school house, I headed west to the Capital City to continue my education. A couple of my fellow reviewers may know a stretch of Interstate 10 in north Florida that runs, pointlessly, between Dickert and Drifton. Going to and from university, I became painfully familiar with that length of tarmac. It's long, straight, flat and unapologetically dull. You've got to be pretty vigilant, because it will put you to sleep quicker than a handful of Ambien and before you know it you're a hood ornament on an eighteen-wheeler. It's also littered with billboards flogging all manner of crap that nobody needs.

Do you know what else is long, straight, flat, littered with billboards and unapologetically dull? Stuff and Nonsense.

I could pretty much leave it there and call that a review done. Get on with my Fundamentals of Bootology lecture for next week. That's what the Southern gentleman I was raised to be would do.

But I had high hopes for this one. Joel Klebanoff is a published author. He's been at this blogging gig for three years. He's a Canadian. What's not to like? I waded through a couple of posts until I found this one on Darwin. Now, as most of you probably know, Bootology is a core life science and thus the professor is intimately familiar with the father of evolution's work. I spent much of last week reading some outstanding posts celebrating Darwin's 200th birthday. Joel's post? I couldn't finish it.

It's not just that it was too long, nor that it was riddled with bad jokes. It was dull. And kind of lacking a point. Story of this blog.

Based on some of the widgets and gazoos on the sidebars, Stuff and Nonsense strives to be a 'humor blog'. Why is it that any site with a 'Humor Blogs' ranking is, almost without fail, painfully unfunny? This post is a perfect example. I get it - a mock interview about our current economic woes, overdone to get a laugh. Not funny. Not even a little bit. Painfully awkward, lacking in originality but not funny. Story of this blog.

If I have to be mean, I'd like more than anything to at least be constructively mean. I'm struggling to do so. I just don't know what to tell you, Joel. You could certainly pare down the junk on your page. I don't know how much revenue all those Google Ads are pulling in for you but you'd be better served by building your readership and then working with a real advertiser. One that won't make your page look like some poorly published free newspaper. As for the writing - it's stilted, awkward and long-winded - all I can suggest is edit. Make it snappier and cleverer. Don't ape humor that you've seen elsewhere. Try and come up with something original - funny or not - and go from there. The average blog reader just doesn't have the attention span for dry multi-part satires about the economy, for example. The exceptional blog reader - the one that you covet - demands exceptional writing and, I'll put this as politely as I can, you just ain't got it.

It doesn't work for me and I'm kind of your target audience, Joel. That's bad news for you. My unshakable Southern gentility forbids me from giving you any kind of finger - flaming or otherwise - and you don't really inspire that level of hostility anyway. What you do deserve is a solid:






Story of this blog.

Wendy I'm Home

So does all work and no play in fact make Professor Booty a dull boy? Well, while the rest of us have been busy handing out lashings left and right, our Professor has no doubt been handing out bright shiny A+'s to fair, daft co-eds for the promise of, well, I'll leave that to your imagination. Welcome back Professor Booty, ready for your pop quiz? -Miss Missives


Well, hello my little askers and receivers. It's been quite some time since last we met. But, Miss Missives requested my presence here today and when a specimen of womanhood such as herself commands, who am I to demur.

The Professor wasn't born in the phallic ivory tower in which he now resides, pondering deep thoughts in the field of bootology. No, I used to spend a fair bit of time on ground level among the unwashed masses. In fact, I ran around with a crowd that was more interested in the intricacies of Black Flag lyrics than pursuits of philosophy. These ruffians offered the sallow fledgling Professor a measure of protection, entertainment and intoxication. I've lost touch with most of my punk rock compatriots and I occasionally what happened to them. What happens to a punk rocker when the leather jacket no longer buttons over the beer gut, the peg leg pants get tight in the wrong places and there is no longer hair enough on the top for a Mohawk?

Well, Punk Rock Dad may be able to shed some light on that query.

OK, let's get the bad news out of the way first. The site is pretty unattractive. Maybe that's the point, maybe it's punk rock to have a pixelated header and a bland on white template. If so, well done. Is it also punk rock to have a site that's incredibly difficult to navigate? No way to get 'Home', no archives, no search box - makes it very difficult to move around the site. The Professor would also like to know a bit more about you, Punk Rock Dad. How about a bit more of a biography or a cast of characters. Without an archive, it's hard to tell how long you've been around but I get the feeling that it's long enough to put some of your favorite posts out there as a "Best of Punk Rock Dad" page. I'm going to make a suggestion that runs counter to the AAYSR party line - put a bit more on your sidebar, put a bit more onto the page in general. Most people that stumble on your blog are going to form an opinion based on the way the place looks before reading a single word. You do yourself a disservice by having a rather dull looking page.

Because the real story is that Punk Rock Dad, well, rocks. Ultimately, blogs should be more about the writing than template choices and when it comes down to the meat of the matter, PRD has got it right.

He's got lots of personal history posts, written with a detachment that demonstrates growth and acceptance with his current life but with an intimacy that is compelling as hell. There's scathing humor and touching tales of his Quasi-Yuppie Wife. There's the requisite posts on the intricacies of a genre of music that pretty much has been in creative decline since the early 1980's. He's even twisted up the meaningless and endless blog award - creating one that I'd be proud to receive rather than burdened by the necessary reciprocity.

As good as these posts are they feel like filler when compared to his best work. It's probably worth noting that the Professor has a night gig as a Daddy blogger, but Punk Rock Dad is at his best when writing about fatherhood. This is where we break through the bullshit facade - the leathers and the mohawks and the piercings - to get underneath the skin of Punk Rock Dad. This is where the stereotypes fall apart and this is where the aging punk earns the respect of this aging academic. Like any good dad, he's equal parts proud of and fascinated by his kids. He relays the feelings that all Dad's are stricken with from time to time - being out of place and ill qualified for the task at hand - and the immense joy brought on by the simplest success as a father. The post that hit the Professor hardest, the one that clinched Punk Rock Dad's grade for today, was a short and simple one. With a photo and a couple of lines he nailed the emotion that hits hardest every Dad who spends time away from home - longing. A fucking plus, my friend. My only criticism - I'd like to see more of it. This is your strength - focus on it.

There are fewer Daddy bloggers than Mommy bloggers on the internets, but the ratio of crap to gold is approximately the same. Per capita, there are as many dull, whining, loathsome Daddy bloggers as there are dull, whining, loathsome Mommy bloggers. Punk Rock Dad is one of the exceedingly uncommon class of Daddy blogger that can tear your heart out, make you laugh - cringing - with recognition and keep you coming back for more.

Our typical declaration of love doesn't seem quite right for Punk Rock Dad, so here's a new one that the Professor had one of his students whip up for you.

Don't cry for me Ask And Ye Shall Receive

My reviewee for this week stood me up. Because of our little troll problem, I contacted the author of Ration Reality to make sure that the submission was legit. Apparently it was, but The Bagel of Everything sent along a sick note and asked to be reviewed in "a month or so". Well, honey, it's not the fourth grade and I'm not your mom. I nearly went ahead and reviewed it anyway, in the recent spirit of things. Instead, I decided that I shan't review your site because I can't be bothered to waste the time writing another unwelcome review. I do have a little something for you, however, for making bullshit excuses:

The ironic thing is that I had already decided that this was to be my last review. Now it is my last non-review. The Professor is lucky enough to be going back to professing. This will leave little time for the minor things in life (family and dogs and such) nevermind the major things like blog reviewing. So, I'd like to wish all you little Askers a fond fare thee well. I've enjoyed my abbreviated career as a critic but will happily join the rest of the plebs in the comment stream. Godspeed internet peoples.

The very model of a modern major clusterfuck.

Here's the thing: I'm about fed up with reviewing people that didn't ask to be reviewed. The name of this site says it all - and that's what I signed on to do. The two or three unsolicited reviews that I've done have made me feel like the kind of guy that stands around on the street corner hurling insane invective at random passers by. It makes me feel like the school yard bully who picks some poor little defenseless kid to sucker punch. This kind of thing only works when the reviewee asks for it. Hence the name.

That being said, I'm going to take one more whack at it. I want to offer Matthew S. Urdan, the author of Meltwater. Torrents. Meanderings. Delta. a disclaimer and an option. If you did not submit your site then leave now. Go with peace and have a nice life. Do not read on.
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If you're still here, Matthew, then I can only assume that you willingly asked that your site be reviewed. So, let's get into it. First things first - your site, visually, is nothing less than a clusterfuck. It is, in fact, the very definition of a clusterfuck. It is such a clusterfuck that I didn't want to even bother reading your posts. Let me make this perfectly clear: GET RID OF ALL THE FUCKING TAT. By tat I mean 97% of the shit that you have on your sidebars. If you want to make a tremendous improvement to your blog do the following: cut it down to one sidebar with an "About" paragraph, an archive and a very short blogroll. Nobody is going to translate your blog into Portugese, nobody gives a toss about your disclosure policy and if someone wants to write his or her congressman they can probably do so without relying on your blog. Get the fuck rid of the shit. Clear?

Now, once my eyes stopped spinning in their sockets, I had a good read whilst trying desperately to concentrate on your words rather than trying to figure out how your blog is worth $28,000. It's all very butch, Matthew, isn't it? Lots of Red Wings hockey and Grizzly Adams stuff. Not my thing, but nothing wrong with it either. But in amongst the testosterone there are some thoughtful gems. This political post, which I was prepared to hate based on a pigeonhole in which I had stuck you, is nicely representative of a transition that I think a lot of Americans have made over the last few years. I've also got to give you credit - some of your sports posts are excellent, if maybe not entirely objective.

You seem to have gotten sucked into one of my pet peeves - pay per posting- and by doing so have earned my contempt. I despise pay per posts. If I wanted to read ads, I would read ads. If I stumble across a blog that runs pay per posts, I'm gone and unlikely to ever return. I just find the whole thing contrary to what blogging should be about.If you want to run ads on your sidebar, fine. I have an ad or two to pay for my hosting. But you're on Blogger and thus have no costs. Here's another thing: almost nobody makes much money blogging. I really don't think you're going to get enough by pay per posting to buy your bicycle. In the meantime it just makes you look like a mercenary.

If you clean your site up a bit, it won't be as painful to look at. The writing, well, knock of the paid work and try and write about the things your passionate about - that's when your blog's at its best. I'm a bit suspicious about whether or not this was a legitimate submission, so I'm going to refrain from giving you the rating I think you deserve. I suspect the little slimy troll who's submitting people's sites gets off on the flaming finger. So let's call it a:

Isn't Dancing A Sin?

Arulba, the author of Dance of the Mind, really drew the short straw this week when it came to reviewers. I like to think that I'm usually pretty fair-minded and objective as a critic. This week, however, I find myself in a stupid-ass blogument with some of my more religious readers over at my personal site. Therefore, the ice on which the God squad can skate is pretty thin in my neighborhood. When I saw the sea gulls that festoon DoMs header, they did not elicit the serenity that I'm sure they're designed to.

Now I need to be honest. I didn't read a lot of DoM. I went deep into the archives but the problem is that the vast majority of the posts are lessons from "A Course In Miracles". I didn't know anything about ACIM, as it's apparently known, and Arulba's description is far too verbose and jargon heavy. A quick Wikipedia search later and I found out that ACIM was a book "divinely penned" by two American psychologists in the 1970's. Great - disco era self-help meets Christianity. It's developed quite a following over the years much to the consternation of a lot of the more established Christian denominations.

I don't know what ACIM preaches, but if it's brought to you by the same people who want to make homosexuality, abortion, birth control and teaching evolution illegal then I'm not really interested. Even if it's brought to you be the more liberal theologians that had me singing "Kum-bay-fucking-ya" at summer camp in my formative years, I'm pretty happy with my spiritual life as is. Thank you very much.

But, even if I were more open minded to what DoM is selling, I would find it a difficult read. Arulba's posts are long-winded and are written with the assumption that the reader is already well versed in ACIM. It looks fine - clean, simple and well organized. But even the posts that aren't about ACIM aren't all that compelling. DoM is a blog for a very specific audience.

Which brings me to the real question for Arulba - why did you submit your site? If you're really after a review, then fine - far too wordy, a bit single-minded, but nice clean template. Verdict - "Meh".

But I get the creeping feeling that you're not really after our opinion. You've seen the goth avatars, you've read the foul-mouthed critiques, I wonder if your not here to proselytize. I know that the way a lot of these religious movements work is by conversion. Call me paranoid, but I can't fathom why someone who essentially writes a religious blog would submit here. If that's the case, if you're in the market for converts, then in the words of Jack Nicholson as Melvin Udall "sell crazy someplace else, we're all stocked up here." That being said, your site will no doubt get an increase in traffic from this review. Maybe you've got what you wanted after all. You know what else you've got- a new rating, the Melvin*. Congrats!

* I hope I haven't exceeded my authority as fuckin' new guy. But I feel that we need a rating for blogs that, like a Jehovah's Witness, we'd just like to shut the front door on and hope that they go away. The Melvin.

UPDATE:
There is every indication to suggest that Arulba did not submit her site to be reviewed. That being the case, then I'm sorry for comparing her to a Jehovah's Witness.

Now, to the malicious ass monkey who did submit her site: knock it the fuck off. It's not funny, it's juvenile - like volunteering someone to be bathroom monitor in junior high school. If it happens again, I'm coming over to your house and pissing on your PC.

That is all.

Coming up short

The natural complement to the Mommy Blogger is the Daddy Blogger. Due to those pesky lingering gender roles, the Daddy Blogger is a rarer beast than it's feminine counterpart. Like Mommy Bloggers there are some fantastic Daddy Bloggers (check out Dutch, Jim and Ray) and some truly crap Daddy Bloggers (come on, I'm not that nasty). If you'll indulge the Professor a little secret, come a little closer, I'd really like to be as good as one of the great ones. Maybe it's because I yearn to be one of the fraternity, but I love a good Daddy Blog and was thrilled to see that the Lady Bites had sent one my way this week.

I really wanted to like Greg, the author of Dissonance. His story, from what I can glean, is a great one. He's a single Dad raising his teenage daughter Gabby in Houston, Texas - a difficult gig. I get the impression that he and his wife didn't part on the most amicable of terms. It's a great back story for a Daddy Blog and enough to give it the potential to stand apart from the crowd. Problem is that Dissonance doesn't live up to its potential.

Sometimes Greg is fantastic. This post, which at it's root is just the story of a bad day, is so good that it's almost painful to read. I can relate on almost every level to the frustration of a modern civilized man who has to deal with the reality that there are more choices than just flight or fight. When Greg is honest and bare about his struggles and questions about raising a teenage girl Dissonance is dynamite. The problem is that there are more duds than there is dynamite. Greg falls in to that trap that so many of us do - posting far too much of far too little. In other words, too many posts with nothing that people really want to read. I include in this category things like which American accent you speak with (don't care), whether or not the new Wordpress dashboard works (test it and keep it to yourself) and all manner of life's minutiae that you can't turn into a humorous, heart-rending or just interesting story.

You've got template problems as well, Greg, it's dead dull. And a pretty ugly shade of dull. Liven things up a bit, or if you're a fan of clean (bland) then go for a nice simple black and white. Chris Pearson does some wonderfully simple Wordpress themes. I like that you post pictures on your blog, but play with them a bit and they'll shine. You also have a bad habit of posting the link to videos or images rather than just posting the video or image. Call me lazy, you wouldn't be the first, but I can't be assed to click. I want to see it in full color in front of me.

I'm not trying to go all harsh on you, Greg, because I do dig your site. I spent a fair bit of time wandering through the archives and did enjoy myself. I want to help you make it better. Here's one idea. I trolled through your site for ages (add a search feature) looking for more about what happened to get you to where you are in life now. I found little teases and snippets but not the whole story. How about instead of going for the pithy one-liner About, tell your story. Tell it in a humorous way or an emotional way, that's your chance to get my attention as a new reader and to suck me in. Tell me about your wife-turned-violent-shrew, tell me what happened for you to get custody of your daughter, tell it to me in a way that tears my heart open and makes me yearn to know more about you. Make me want to read more.

As I said at the start, I really wanted to like you. In a lot of ways I do and not just because of empathy. When you're at your best, Greg, your on par with any of the best of the genre. But there is far too much filler. My suggestion - don't write just for the sake of the exercise. Write when you have something to say. For now, I'm going to give you three stars and a sincere hope that you take this review in the spirit it was given. Live long and prosper.*



*I am not now, nor have I ever been, a Trekkie. But "Godspeed" sounded suspiciously religious.

Tell me, sister morphine, how long have I been lying here?

After a hiatus that has gone on far too long, the Professor is back. I’ve missed you, my little askers and receivers, but some unforeseen personal relocation trauma kept me all tangled up. Hopefully I’m back for the long haul now, so let’s get on to business.

When I read the name of my assigned site for the week, Peanut Butter & Pickles, I cringed in anticipation of yet another mommy blog. So, it was a pleasant surprise to click over and find that I had a whole different sort of animal in my sights. That sense of relief didn’t last long, I’m afraid to report.

The author of Peanut Butter & Pickles uses the pseudonym Marvin the Martian. This conceit of author as alien observer is a bit dopey and doesn’t really make Peanut Butter & Pickles stand apart from the legion of personal blogs out there. It doesn’t add anything to the blog and it occasionally takes away from it. Everyone needs a good pen name and if Marvin the Martian does it for you, that’s fine, but when you go all sci-fi for a couple of sentences in the middle of a post about spurious law suits it just sort of shoots your credibility to shit. There's a fair bit of wing nut brand politics and a sense of morality that makes my skin crawl a bit - who knew Martians were such reactionaries.

Template is standard Blah-ger, in fact I’m pretty sure it’s the default. Why so many people see this template, with it’s shades of dull green and say to themselves “This is what I want to represent my personality to the whole interwebs” is just beyond me. Marvin doesn't junk it up too much with tat, so it's nice and clean if a little bland.

The writing. Marvin says that he writes for a living but that it’s pretty boring writing. That sounds about right. The writing on Peanut Butter & Pickles is kind of like recreational morphine use – sedative, numbing and not as much fun as you thought it would be. Marvin seems to have a strange and probably unhealthy attraction to death, which comes off as less cutting edge than creepy. There's a fair bit of wing nut brand politics and a sense of morality that makes my skin crawl a bit - who knew Martians were such reactionaries.

Now, Peanut Butter & Pickles is not all bad. I like the eclecticism of the site; Marvin covers music, politics and family minutiae without coming off as all scatterfucked. I don’t like his politics and find his music taste erratic, but that’s not my business here. It comes off as a healthy mix. He also posts some quite nice images, but they’re far too small. I don’t know if it’s a Blogger size limit thang or you just doesn’t know what you’re doing. But big them up and edit what you’re posting and Peanut Butter & Pickles will pop despite the shit template.

But, it’s the writing that makes the blog and the writing here falls well short. The longer I read PB&P the more numb and vaguely irritated. Reading Peanut Butter & Pickles is a little like coming down - the very essence of “Meh”.

My kingdom for an editor

The Booty clan is on the move again this week, thus The Professor's appearance a couple of days early. I've got to fit this week's review in amongst the chaos and disorder so I'll keep things short and sweet. It's an appropriate approach. One thing I'd like this reviewee to remember: keep things simple.

Probably one of the most undervalued occupations is that of the humble editor. The copy editor at a newspaper is treated like a nagging, slightly-senile auntie. But, it's she who prevents a story being led with "Governments, food companies and consumers are feeling new pleasures to relax resistance to genetically engineered strumpets." It's the editors of the world who make the writers of the world sound magnificent. I wish I had an editor right now, as a matter of fact. You know who else could use an editor? Erika could use an editor.

I like Erika. I like Erika a lot. Erika sometimes writes in ways that I could only dream - with passion and craft and soul. The post that she wrote about finding her biological father is simply some of the best blog writing I've read. She charms me with her personal philosophy - you're as happy as you make up your mind to be - and her description of She's clever, sharp-witted, funny and charming.

Erika's only problem is that she tends to be long-winded and occasionally errs on the side of too much information. Now, as much as I like you, Erika, I just don't need to know about your bowel movements. This is where an editor would come in handy. It's hard, as an author, to decide what to leave out. I know from my own experience that it's hard to leave out a pithy and carefully-constructed phrase because it doesn't fit. But that's what you've got to learn to do, Erika. I loved your writing, but found my attention wandering whilst reading some of your posts. You do yourself a disservice by not being a harsher self-editor.

As far as appearances go, the template is fine - clean and simple if a little dull. I love the header image but hate the title. As has been said many times on this site, don't use the words "my" or "blog" in your title. You're clever enough to do better than that.

As I did with Headbang8, I'm going to have to play it coy. I just can't declare my undying love. Tighten things up, Erika, make it crisp and I'm toddling behind you like a smitten puppy. Until then, take these:



and, my apologies for a hurried assessment.

Let me tell you about journeys

The Professor has been on the move this week, crossing oceans and time zones and continents, and finds himself slightly jet lagged and grumpy. Travel used to be an exciting and invigorating experience, now it's just a pain in the ass. Strangely enough, after all of the journeying of this week the Professor finds himself just a few miles down A-1A from the home of Barry Atkins, author of Photographic Journeys.

It might be my physical location, I find that the Sunshine State sucks me creatively dry. It might be the lassitude that comes with time-zone hopping. Either way I really struggled with what to say about Photographic Journeys. In fact, I wrote an entire review that was fairly tempered and polite. But, I threw it in the trash because I realized that I was doing Barry a disservice. Presumably Barry, like most folks, submitted his site to us to get blunt criticism and to have someone tell him the truth. By mincing words and acting all Paula Abdul, Barry wasn't getting what he paid for.

Well, Barry you wanted the truth and the truth is that your photography is not very good and your writing is just plain bad. Probably not what you wanted to hear but I'm doing you a service. You see, a few years back The Professor took a whack at freelance photography and I'm here to tell you that it's an extremely tough gig. Every Tom, Dick and Barry with an SLR and a bit of spare time fancies himself a photographer. The market is absolutely flooded and you've got to be exceptional to come out on top. I know that you've had a couple of shots taken by stock companies, but that doesn't make your photography exceptional. The headshot of your friend makes her look pretty unattractive and your breakfast in horribly flat lighting does not make a great still life. In general, the photos that you're posting on your blog are technically and artistically poor. You say that you're making money in stock and, if so, that's great. Your most recent post claims that you can show me how to recreate what appears to be a booking shot at the Duval County jail. Thanks for that. You're right about the umbrella and single light source but angle and distance from subject are your problems. From what I see on your site, I would keep your day job.

More troubling to me is your writing. I know that photography is your thing and that the words are just there to flesh out the images a little, but for fuck's sake use the spell checker! Your shocking grammar is a little bit trickier, but most word processing programs have a grammar checker that will pick up the most blatant offenders. as well. It may not catch everything, for example Word may not know what to do with a sentence like "When I first approached this turkey vulture (Cathartes aura), I was moving at it so fast that I got scared and flew away" but that little bit of extra effort will make you revisit your words. In fact, since writing seems to be an afterthought, why not just do a straight photo blog. This one, this one and this one are great examples. That way the photo becomes the reason for post and the words are there just to describe conditions.

There are some nice shots - the night images of the Jacksonville River Walk on your header are great (I suspect that those are the one's making you dosh in stock. I don't think we can really argue about the badness of the writing, but hell, I may be wrong about your photography. Like you, I was self taught with a seminar or class here and there. But I think I have a grasp on the basics of composition, lighting, exposure, subject, and so on. I like to try and keep things constructive, so if you were to make a change to more of a photoblog, here are some practical suggestions to make your site better:

1. Get rid of those stupid copyright watermarks. I know that you want to protect your images, but those things just bugger up your photographs. If you are that paranoid or legally obligated, put the copyright discreetly in the bottom corner.
   


2. Make the photos in your posts bigger - that's what you're trying to show off, so show them off.


3. Clean up the side bar, there are lots of gaps.


4. Add an "About" page, if I knew more about you I might be more compelled to read and look at your images.
   


5. You must, must, must get rid of that audio pop-up ad on your site. It's just annoying. Don't know what you're trying to sell, but if I weren't stuck here reviewing I would move on as soon as I heard that voice.
   

The biggest problem that I've got, Barry, is that I just don't feel anything from your site. You've got no introduction of yourself, so I don't know why I should be paying attention to what you have to say. Your photography is not enough to bring me back to your site. You don't tell me funny tales of your photographic antics. You don't tell me about your journeys. As far as journeys, in fact, you only seem to make it a few miles down the coast. My seriously jet-lagged infant can tell you more about journeys. My dog that's locked up in some jail on a different continent waiting for us to come and spring him, he can tell you something about journeys. In the words on The Princess Bride's Montoya "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

I'm going to give you one for your writing because bad writing pisses me off. I'm going to give you for your photography because I don't like it, but I'm not an expert. And I'm giving you four flamers for your title because until you drag a family 3/4 of the way around the world in three and a half weeks you don't know shit about journeys .

English Major Bugaloo

The Professor has been on the road this week and is suffering from that bleary-eyed jet lag that is a special bonus to international travel. So, Book Crazy might have been a bit too much for me to take on this week. But, that's why they pay me the big bucks.

Early on in my schooling I thought that I should be an English major. All the most interesting (hot) girls were studying English and it seemed that all you really needed to do was smoke too many cigarettes, read some books and occasionally wax poetic about the metaphors in Joyce's "Ulysses". I would be willing to wager a month's wages, particularly now that I'm unemployed, that the author of Book Crazy has spent far too much time in the English Department of some liberal arts school. Most of the posts read like a college junior's term paper on existentialism.

Now, after a couple of years as an English major, the Professor came to the realization that there was a limited market in the workplace for people that could compare and contrast (at great length) Jean Rhys' and Virginia Woolf's views on feminism and moved on to a different discipline. So, I'm not really qualified to critique the writing here. As far as I can tell, it's fairly competent pseudo-academic deconstruction of some existential philosophers and novelists. Not my field, not my thang. What I can say, as a reader, is that with titles like "A Useless Passion, Condemned to be Free - Sartre’s Definition of Man" and "Albert Camus - The Absurd Hero" you've left most potential readers scratching their heads at the door. It's a standard academic mistake - the sin of exclusion. If you want to get something across, if you have something to say, you have to say it in a way that people will understand. Pitch it too high and nobody is going to pay attention.

And then there's the poetry. God, I hate blog poetry. Most of it is naff and self-indulgent tosh in a self-indulgent medium. One of the advantages I found in giving up my English major is that I no longer had to try to suck every possible interpretation out of a William Carlos Williams' poem. But since you've thrust it upon me, generally your poetry seems like a lot of the other writing on your site, pedantic and lacking in personality.

But every now and then something personal comes through - your Harry Potter post is a wonderful example. It's wry, self-deprecating and accessible. You recognize the absurdity of your pseudo-intellectualism. That's what I want to read when I'm reading a blog. I want some personality. That's the biggest problem with Book Crazy, a complete lack of personality. There's not much on the "About" page to tell us about you, even whether or not you are qualified to be writing all the existentialism and absurdism bugaloo. Who the hell are you? Why should I care about what you have to say?

Beyond the content, the appearance is standard Wordpress blah, nothing special, nothing annoying. You don't need three columns and you don't need all the tat. You give the impression of wanting people to take you seriously so get rid of some of the junkity-junk on the sidebars and that is more likely to happen. I do like your use of images in your posts - very effective. But, you need to sort out some of your tabs. Auroville Diary, for example, what the hell is that? You jump into the middle of some travelogue without preface or explanation. I read the first couple of paragraphs, felt like I had joined a story in the middle, and promptly clicked on to your Book List - where there is nothing. Dead links piss me off. Fix it or get rid of it or else you're just a lazy bastard.

Now you may think, Book Crazy author, that I'm about to lay the H-bomb on your Gauloises smoking ass. That would be a fair assumption, as I've spent a lot of time slagging you off and for good reason. But despite all that, I like you. I like you for the same reason that I liked my ratty-bearded English professors who used to hold their classes under an oak tree on the quad. I like you because as a recent academic escapee I understand the struggle to get people to listen to your drivel. And, hell, it's probably pretty good. What I could understand seemed fairly interesting. BUT, and this is a big ass bold italic but, I would be unlikely to ever come back to your site as it is now. You've either got to do something to make your site more compelling or be satisfied with the few sophomore English majors that are reading you now. Most people submit their blogs here because they want to increase traffic a little bit and pick up some tips. Oh, and there are the crazy fucking masochists like George. So, my advice? Let some of the human behind Book Crazy out and release some of that passion that you purport to have for books. For now, be grateful for this lone star:

George ain't write

As an Ask and You Shall Receive debutante, I was more than a little anxious about how to approach my first review. I've always fancied myself a jovial fellow, so should I take on the mantle of the gentle, friendly Ask reviewer? Or should I unleash my inner critic and come out, six guns blazing vitriolic lead into my unsuspecting victim? The decision was made for me when I was handed the great steaming turd that is Georgeiswrite.com. One sec, let me just cock my revolver.

Georgeiswrite.com, as far as I can tell is a vehicle for the glorification of George - a Singoporean jack-of-all-trades. George claims to be an actor, engineer, entrepreneur, executive, web designer, writer and male beauty contestant. His latest gig seems to be a campaign to be elected the hottest executive in Micronesia. I can only assume that he submitted his site for review in order to drum up support for that cause because he certainly can't have thought that this was going to go well for him.

The Professor is a little bit of a grammar tyrant (some say pedant) and nearly couldn't get past the legion of spelling, punctuation and capitalization problems on this site. First of all, what does the title mean? George is correct? George is a writer? On his "About" page, George says - "When things aint right, George is always write." I still don't know what the hell he's talking about.

Let's not get bogged down. George is from Singapore and English may be his second language or there may be a different dialect at play. So in the interest of international relations, I'm grudgingly willing to leave most of the grammatical issues aside. But I must say that 1) The first person singular pronoun (I) is always fucking capitalized and 2) If English is your native tongue then don't quit your day job, mate.

Moving on from the slaughter of my mother tongue, let's take a look at the meat of the matter - content. There are countless people out there who, on one unfortunate day, ran up on a website that convinced them they could make millions of their local currency by publishing a blog. The blogs that these people put together are inevitably poorly written, self-aggrandizing pieces of shit. I typically navigate quickly away from sites like these if I'm unfortunate enough to stumble on one. I didn't have that luxury this time and I'm in a foul mood. George seems to be one of these bloggers, but I struggled to figure out what he is trying to sell. He says that he will "Consult, Convert and Create" a simple and beautiful site for me. Even though I'm a sucker for alliteration, I would be reluctant to hire George because he uses a standard Wordpress template for his own page. Oh, and George, here is a hint - if, despite all evidence to the contrary, you have a web design service to sell then link to it from your blog. Most people aren't going to be unfortunate enough to have to review your site and try and find your crappy service. And, it's clothe my site, not cloth my site. God damn it, I can't keep giving you these free lessons!

What George really seems to be selling is himself. He wants me to vote for him for this and vote for him for that. I'm not inclined to do so because I don't really get to know George. I feel no connection to George. George claims that he's opinionated, but I can't find any of his opinions. For the most part, there is just no substance to his posts; most of them are just a few semi-comprehensible phrases. Some of them are just a title, presumably designed to draw search engine traffic - "She’s Effing Matt Damon" or "Big Girl You Are Beautiful...". Come on George, give me something! My beloved has a slightly harsh term for those that don't inspire her passions - "nothing people". With apologies to Eddie Vedder, I think that's George - a nothingman.

Still and all, the Professor is hesitant to pull out the H-bomb on poor George. I'm inclined to go with the "Meh" rating here. George doesn't inspire loathing or hatred, he's just one of a countless number of bloggers that's probably coming to realize that blogging isn't going to make him his first million. That being said, if George's first language isn't Tamil or Malay or Mandarin then he gets the big explosive finger for crimes against the Professor's mother tongue.

EDIT: I'm posting a photo of George's original comment to this blog just in case there is any question as to whether he submitted it or not. I think the comment makes his willingness to be reviewed perfectly clear.