Wankers

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

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

Pah-thetic.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Whatever.

      

Tally Ho!

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

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

Pish Posh and Such: A 100 Word Review

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




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










And finally, for Shiner;









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

What Has She Got That I Don't Got?

Boobs for a start. But I digress.

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

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

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

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

Bull's Pizzle

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

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

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

E-Rizzle,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

One Word: No!

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

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

Again for clarification– NO!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Exploring the Rabbit's Hole

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1) Go to Miss Ash’s archives.

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

3) Find a post closest to your birth date.

4) Give it a read.

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

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

           

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

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

                                                                                                       

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

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

Let us in, Miss Ash.

I grant you,

     

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A meh because, well, meh.

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

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

Rip Rip Woodchip

There are two television shows that I absolutely adore but I am not the target audience for; Spicks and Specks and Top Gear. But that doesn't matter - I find the shows so pants-wettingly amusing that I don’t care if I don’t know much about cars or music.

I like my blogs like I like my shows. I don't have to be the intended audience but I insist that the blog is written in a way that is either, witty, insightful, engaging, informative, thought-provoking or God forbid, all of those combined.

Today’s reviewee writes for therapy. It would seem incongruous for someone in that situation to ask for a blog review from us. But nevertheless we steam ahead. Is it like kicking puppies to say someone who is showing the world their therapy journals and emails to therapist is needy? Admittedly my radar started peeping like a chick when she said she had worked through all the therapists in her home town. I know she didn’t mean to be funny here, but really? She wants to give her therapist the third degree and then pay them $20 a week?

Even so Marie seems affable and honest. She is able to articulate her thoughts well enough but it doesn't really feel like the heart-wrenching, scary process that would usually accompany such a subject. It feels no more sensitive than a woman on a mission to find a man.

As a writer I know that getting your thoughts out on paper is a cathartic, de-cluttering process. However blogging is a different animal. A blog has a real audience. That means you have to write for them, not you. Therefore, let them be in the stories, the flashbacks, the emotions. Keep the journal under your mattress, not open next to your PC.

Let’s face it, as a person with some issues, you probably have more material than most but when you tell rather than show, you lose all of the power of your experiences and words. Could you rewrite the story about the autistic boy in thispost? Your experiences with him sound fascinating. But instead of telling us that he made you cry, make us cry too. You say that you like this guy’s work, so try and take a tab out of his blog. He seems to be doing it right, in the ‘genre’ you blog in as well as enough out of it that I am curious if not enthralled. Things get a bit more raw here but it just seems a little calculated. Hindsight is a wonderful thing I guess.

To put it bluntly Marie, we of the internet do not want to be your confession booth or your therapist's couch. Sure, it is shallow, tawdry and all that is wrong with this world, but we demand that you entertain us. Whether that is with laughter, titillation or tears – we don’t care, as long as we feel what you feel too. Until then, stick to the journal.

Although you asked, you won’t receive a rating. I give you a:













For the review title reference, go here. At least listen until the chorus. You can thank me later.

A Lighter Side Order of Pseudo Tween Angst

Is it just me or has there been a distinct whiff of curry about the place lately? Sorry, not appropriate? Well too bloody bad - RedPen Reaper is here. I may be an Ask and Ye Shall Receive reviewing virgin but being an asshole? I popped that cherry a long time ago. Now that the pleasantries are out of the way; my pen is uncapped so let us begin.

Today I am reviewing a blog from India belonging to a young lady by the name of Matangi Mawley who purports to be part of the technology industry. Since I am new here I am just going find my feet and lay it all out, starting with the thing that whacks you in the face first - the template. If a manga inspired tramp-stamp hippie vibe is your thing, it isn’t bad. But it isn’t mine so this, along with the font-fuckery, does my head in. This ‘prettiness’ is especially distracting when the colours chosen engage in a passive aggressive tango with the fading blue to white background.

Squinting at all of the lovely colours made me feel a bit drunk, which inspired me to invent a game with Ms. Mawley’s punctuation. I named it RedPen-must-take-a-lengthy-sip-of-the-alcoholic-beverage-at-hand-every-time -Ms.-Mawley-uses-an-exclamation-mark. She is not a heavy poster yet in a 2 post month there are enough exclamation marks to put me into a coma. I won’t put in a link – just go and pick any month in any year and you too can play. Just keep a spew bucket handy and don’t say I didn’t warn you.

This exclamation mark orgy flows into her poetry. Yes. The P word. Though dare I say it, it isn’t all awful. This is cute but spoiled with too! many! of! these! There is also an overuse of the recently fashionable ellipsis. Why use them when a colon, a comma or even a colon of the semi variety will do? Ms. Mawley is only 22; definitely not crusty enough to have her sentences rambling into unfinished dotage.

Before I dig into the actual content I have one more whinge regarding her functional literacy. (Ha! Look at me pretending to be all expert-like. You buying it yet?) Potentially interesting stories are spoiled with an inability to format dialogue correctly which looks lazy. I am not getting too pedantic here (bugger it if I can remember if the punctuation goes on the inside or the outside of the quotation mark) but for the love of baby cheeses put each new speaker on a new line.

The content consists of the aforementioned poetry as well as short stories and soul searching. Most of it, while noble in intent, is airy-fairy. Ms. Mawley asks questions that are too big, and to my cluttered, uncultured and unenlightened mind, mean nothing. Often it is the minutiae of life that connects people but I can’t connect with her if I don’t know what the hell she is on about. What is going on here? Goddess of Sin? Goddess of What Drugs Are You On? But I can’t even take that jibe and stick with it because although she says she is 22, it is the most innocent 22 I have seen. It may be a cultural difference but even then couldn’t we get an angsty arranged marriage or something out of it?

Ms. Mawley needs to know that she is allowed to tell a story straight. While I applaud her experiments with format, her style verges on 10th grade academic emo. I did that course too. In 10th grade. This story was too choppy and didn’t get the time it needed to be meaningful and while this was quite nice, it started off vague and irritating. I want her to delve, get dirty and get that everything doesn’t have to end with a big tragic cliché. Is this a Bollywood plot device type deal? She says she is not a good daughter but offers no details. We need a pervy snapshot of this bad girl rather than all the grass is green, the sky is blue malarkey – although here she gives a little more oomph to the ‘big’ questions.

I don’t want to totally bash Ms. Mawley’s earnest spirit – she is due some props. She wrote some stuff that I was tempted to google to see if she had whacked it from somewhere else. This story was lyrical and lovely, and with a bit more work, this post could be masterful. I started to think ‘by god she has it in her!’ ... and then this happened. A talking table? This post caused me to ponder that while her English is generally faultless, there are some odd phrasings that hint at a lexicon that Western readers may find twee and trite. Regardless, that post received a nostril spraying of caffeine 39 comments. Oh, that sound you hear? That’s my blogging alter-ego surfacing its comment starved head. It has green eyes and is a monster.

In perusing her blog, Ms. Mawley took me on a journey which is inevitable for a thorough reviewer. From the ages of 18-22 this should have been a real, live bildungsroman. However there was no growth or dawning realisation; her journey is a meandering one, spending too much time inspecting belly-button fluff and looking at the unobtainable stars from start to unforeseeable finish. But I do appreciate a blog that gets me thinking and Ms Mawley did do that. I mulled over my shallow Westernised values and wondered if her subject matter and style is a new wave that I haven’t been exposed to; pseudo-tween? Perhaps her vision is purer and loftier than us Ask and Ye Shall Receiver muck-rakers are used to. Or it could be complete crap. Who am I to say from my culturally imperialist vantage point?

Call me a soft touch, but I am feeling more pokey red crayon than stabby red pen for my first review. I give Ms. Mawley 1 star for just being so darned idealistic! There you go. That exclamation mark was on the house.