No, THIS is tellin' like it is

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

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

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

For instance, look at her word cloud:


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

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

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

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

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

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

Fuck that.

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

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

Wasted Words

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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







For boring the shit out of me with juvenile lists

Hi-Tech Hate

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lazy McLifelesspants

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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







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

Where Everybody Doesn't Know Your Name

At my local watering hole, there are two old man barflies whom we avoid at all costs. They are nice, sweet old coots, but are of the type to babble endlessly about random shit. The times we have felt friendly toward them, they've ended up sitting at our table with us for hours, but don't even recognize us the next time we come in.

"Pops" is an 80-year-old veteran, who drives a taxi and collects old coins, keeping several on his person. He has shown them to me and talked about each for at least 20 minutes, in a semi-incoherent manner. I am unsure if it was because he is old and senile, or because he's probably been drinking non-stop for over 60 years. Before he left the bar for the night (whether he was driving his taxi for personal or business reasons is unknown to me), the bar staff knew to bring him a shot of half and half, his "immediate-sober-up" cure.

The other is someone whom we've dubbed "Old Hippie Man", because of his permanent smile and obvious overuse of acid back in the day. I can't remember anything about our unintelligible conversation. He does, however, continually and randomly say, "Carry On!" while making an "Airplane Taking Off" motion with his hand. Even when he gets caught in the middle of bar fights.

Talking to these two, is what it was like for me to read this blog. If the old man barflies were emo Indian girls, that is.

Sheetal rambles on about her feelings and all the wisdom she's gained in all her 23 years. It reads like a journal she's keeping as personal therapy, but it would be better for her to just buy an actual journal, than to expose us all to this shit by submitting here.

You want to know how incoherent and boring this blog is? I have read (maybe skimmed) every single post of every other blog I've reviewed, but I couldn't even get through one of Sheetal's posts. This is why I can't even give links for examples.

She talks about people who haven't been introduced in the blog, as if I'm supposed to figure it out on my own and give a shit about them. Hell, I have no clue about who Sheetal is at all, because there is no "About Me", and I cannot glean anything about her from her posts for the life of me. I mean, I'm assuming Sheetal is female, simply because "she" writes about meeting boys. That may just be coming from my heterocentric view though.

The blog is filled with run-on sentences, misspellings, and huge slabs of meandering, uninteresting paragraphs, which is frightening because apparently, she's a journalist. I fervently pray to Ganesha that her profession doesn't include writing in English, because she has a mediocre grasp of it.

She doesn't post regularly and only has 66 posts for the past 4 years, which I don't even mind, because that means less pollution of the internet.

My advice to Sheetal: Start a new blog, and write stories from your life. Funny memories, sad memories, angry memories, all of it. Readers want to read the blog of someone who puts themselves out there, which means writing about things that make you uncomfortable, not writing down every little emo thought in your little emo head.

Until then, I'm giving you:







For making it feel like I was listening to drunken, brain-fried, old men yammering on about shit no one cares about. Without the luxury of having a beer in my hand.

It Must Be Karma

You’ll never guess what, my darling little scallops! Today we are going to review the blog of an earnest young Indian woman! An utterly new experience for us all! I can’t tell you how excited I am. I have even had Fanny loosen my truss. This site does attract a great deal of variations on a theme, and we must get almost as many earnest young Indian women as we do self-proclaimed ‘mad’ mommies and sexually-unheimlich humourists.

It was hard to review this blog. I would sit down to read it and five minutes later find that I had wandered without realising into the pantry and had consumed a pound of cheese. Or I would discover that I had been staring for untold hours at the dead wasp on the windowsill, or was consumed with the need to cut my toenails right now. Once when I thought I was making headway I woke up three days later in a burger bar in Penge dressed as Penelope Keith with three new and unsettling tattoos.

The first problem is that Live on Impulse is not overly keen on the paragraph break but does enjoy the exclamation mark, leaving me feeling as though I had been buttonholed by a particularly enthusiastic head girl. I’m sure she makes some good points here, for example, but such a relentless slab of text is as insurmountable to me as a pile of Fanny’s notoriously dense flapjacks. It gives me a headache all over.

This blog was so uncomfortable to read that I found myself not caring a jot about the content. However, because I am a brave soldier I forced myself to concentrate, and after several pots of tea, trips to the W.C. and a twenty-four-hour rum-and-Sanatogen bender, I managed to read some posts. I wasn’t much impressed. Fair play to Live on Impulse, she is a socially-aware young woman who wants the world to be a better place, but we all care about injustice, even me (well, I care about whether I get away with it or not). I’m sure she’s a charming young women with a winning outlook on life, I just found her rather exhausting.

Live on Impulse claims that she is compelled to write, but she doesn’t seem to put much effort into it. Look at this. This is just a series of mentions, it gives me nothing. There’s no thought in it, no detail, it feels rushed and unloved. She worries that she doesn’t produce enough meaningful stuff, but I think she could if she just shut up and thought about it for a while. I looked in vain to find a post actually describing her wedding. And those blasted smiley faces make her look childish and far less intelligent than she actually is.

Liveonimpulse, here are some words of advice. Get out your English grammar book and refresh your memory. Read your posts back carefully. Put spaces after full stops. Using two exclamation marks after every sentence makes you look like an idiot. Paragraphs and punctuation make your work easier to read and less likely to induce a fit of the vapours in rickety old reviewers. Most importantly, remember the old chestnut and show, don’t tell.

I do try to find the good in things, I really do, but sometimes one is faced with something that one just outright doesn’t enjoy and this is one of those times. To be honest, I found Live on Impulse boring and a little tedious. I did not enjoy reading it and I did not enjoy reviewing it, and to top it all off there’s a lot of really buttock-clenchingly awful poetry.

Live on Impulse gets a Meh, and I am going to wrap myself up in a blanket and sit in the airing cupboard.

The Real Housewives of Mumbai

I was utterly tempted to insert into my review some Bollywood Greatest hits on autoplay, however, after a long week spent lashing the masses, I am just too tired to hurt the ones I love. Today Miss Missives is charged with being your interpreter of maladies and a quick look at The Mad Momma tells me that boring has gone global, tedium has been outsourced. My dear readers, would it be better if I didn't absolutely insist on giving the ending away right out the chute? My apologies.

It would seem that Indian mommybloggers have much in common with Western mommybloggers. Of course there are the exceptions to the stereotypical, often vilified mommyblogger, but Mad Momma is not one of them. She hits all of the important milestones for mediocre mommyblogging.

Mediocre Mommy blog checklist:

Uses one of the following words in the blog title:
crazy
insane
wacky
mad
rants
musings

Check.

Take out of focus pictures of food or children or furniture. Make sure photos have zero emphasis on composition.

Check.

Refers to self frequently and fervently as a mommyblogger.

Check.

Have a generous space devoted to badges and awards.

Check.

Fill your space with boring, meandering content.

Check.



Mad Momma, your header image is fuzzy and boring. I cannot read the header text unless I highlight it. Your header

“...is missing her home of five years. BADLY”

is grammatically incorrect. I could say that you use grammar badly. Your About Me doesn't actually tell me about you beyond some basic demographics. You have an entire tab devoted to Our Cesarean Stories. The graphics on your "Badges" page show up in neither Mozilla Firefox nor Internet Explorer. Your sidebar is, okay. Your template is about as visually exciting as a pile of dirt which would fail to matter if the writing compensated. The writing does not compensate for the template.

That's the big problem for me because as we have noted before, when someone writes well, the minutiae of "proper" blogging matters far less. Your writing isn't terrible but it isn't a bit compelling. Your posts are far too long and they meander all over the place rather than have a central idea from which the subsequent branch offs flow. You write about salient topics like feminism and politics but you lack the ability to express your opinion authoritatively or pull in personal experience to draw the reader in. Of course I bring to this review my own cultural bias but truly good writing is universal.

A journalist, I am never short of words or ideas!!

Perhaps the medium you write for is a tome allowing for lengthy verbosity, but I can hardly imagine the editor is your friend. You use words like my five year old uses toilet paper, with no regard for economy. Your pieces, even the more serious among them, devolve into written diarrhea, the prattled chatter inside your head. This is sweet but it goes on so long that the sentiment becomes watered down and tired. This is nearly 2500 words. It goes on forever to make a point which could have been much more concise and interesting at 500 or fewer. Madmomma, organize your thoughts, make a goddamn outline if you have to, edit your words, cull them down to what's necessary.

Until then, I really just cannot be bothered. Yawn.

A Mess of Pottage

The weather has finally changed, comrades. It is sticky, the heat like a man on your back. Today my Fanny and I ventured out onto the battlements with a picnic and a pitcher of Benylin on ice. I managed to insinuate myself into a deckchair, a knotted kerchief atop my head, my pyjama bottoms rolled to the knee. Fanny got the paddling pool out and sprawled in the tepid water, columnar limbs akimbo, fanning herself with a copy of The Radio Times. A ratking of extension leads connected us to the ether and, as the sun flogged down and the sweat seasoned my Scotch egg, we poked our shiny snouts into the life of the fragrant Jennifer.

Jennifer is a thirty-something mother-of-three who lives in Kansas in the U. S. of A. She likes photography and god and organising things. I am a ravaged old clown who should never be permitted to breed. I like overindulgence and toads and other people’s prescriptions. This was never going to be my flagon of eggnog. However, I believe in giving people chances (if it weren’t for me, my Fanny would still be languishing in that Indonesian gaol) and so I bravely soldiered on.

I looked at photos of her children. I looked at photos of other people’s weddings. I looked at more photographs of wheat in one afternoon than I have ever seen in my life. I looked at photos of her kitchen being renovated. I read posts about her hair, posts about her bosom, more posts about her dislike of clutter, posts about things she likes that begin with the letter ‘C’, posts where she accidentally goes out wearing mismatched shoes, posts where she uses the word ‘vury’ instead of ‘very’. And then I reached calmly into the picnic basket, pulled out my emergency pistol and inserted it into my eager mouth. It was only the piteous mewling of my Fanny that prevented me from finding sweet relief. I stayed my hand, thinking she was distraught at the idea of losing her beloved Master. Turned out she had inadvertently swallowed a bee.

It was this post that broke me. “I have SO MANY THINGS TO BLOG ABOUT”, darling Jennifer begins, and then proceeds to discuss, in soul-rending detail, her purchase of some new bed linen. This blog is the most gratingly banal thing I have ever read. Everyone has the right to keep an interweb log if they so desire, and it’s probably quite nice for Jen’s chums to be kept up to date. I am just annoyed that I had to spend a goodly portion of my afternoon wading through this pablum.

I do like to try and temper my scorn with some positive comments. It would be churlish of me not to highlight the fact that sometimes our Jennifer tells mildly diverting anecdotes about her children, or says something a bit poignant. She writes reasonably well when she’s on a roll but overall, this is not writing, it is wittering. To write well you need to marry a unique, readable style with interesting, original content, or at the very least permit them to live together in sin. If you don’t care about writing well, if your blog is just for the personal amusement of you and your cronies, then for the love of Christmas, do not submit it for review.

Oh where are they, the bloggers who can satiate my soul? Where are the people who can turn bread and water into Trimalchio’s feast? Why must I soil myself with this prattle? Jennifer, my darling, I am sorry to have to vent my spleen on you. You seem like a decent woman. You work hard and keep clean and say your prayers (not that I have any truck with religion - I decided a long time ago that I was the only god it was worth my while to worship). I just don’t care about anything you have to say. I don’t care what your hair looks like or what colour your bedclothes are or whether or not you like scrapbooking. In the grand chronicling of the internet, your blog is mere bagatelle.

The clouds have come now, wandering in like grubby sheep, and no doubt it will soon rain. The hottest day of the year so far and I have spent it paddling in this mess of pottage. I suppose I should offer advice of some kind, but the only advice that springs to mind is ‘shut up and leave me alone’. I feel so weary and my head is so full of fripperies that I am going to have to spend the evening doing diabolical things to my Fanny just to cheer myself up.

Jennifer, take this flaming finger and tidy it away.

What Doesn't Itch

A reivew, by Dartboard Jones.

Bienvenidos, Amigos. It must be slim pickin's for writers these days, because one of the crazy bitches at AskAndYeShallReceive is actually going to let me review. Needless to say, I am drunk with power at the moment and I can't wait to tear into someone else's shitty website.

So who's up? Sartorially Inclined. A blog about men's fashion.

Okay, I'll give this a shot. I probably should preface with the fact that I barely know how to dress myself. I buy clothes once a year and it's usually when I pilfer from the discount rack at the Gap outlet.

I think I'd almost rather collect DNA samples from Oprah Winfrey's used incontinence pads than read a blog about fashion, but Madame Bellicose told me if I didn't do it she was going to beat me with a 9-iron.

To start things off I dig the use of a SAT word in site name.

Sartorially: adj. Of or relating to a tailor, tailoring, or tailored clothing: sartorial elegance.

You bust out that word at a Harvard bar and I guarantee you get Minny Driver's digits. How 'bout them apples?

Not much in the About Me: "How would you describe your style?" I asked. He replied, like the perfect eloquent jackass he was, "Smooth and slow burning."

That's it? Well at least I know you are a pretentious pink-shirt wearin' douchebag. Not a necessarily a negative in my book, provided you keep me entertained from this point forward.

The layout is sexy. It's stylish. It reminds of LeBron James wearing an argyle sweater and a polo shirt. You can't exactly explain why, but damn he's looking good. Simple black text on a white background with a neat and recognizable logo at the top. If only every website that is submitted for approval here was like that, I imagine Rassles anger induced hemorrhoids would go away.

So with such a leadup, what would you expect? Maybe some fashion tips for a cro-magnon dude like me who want to spruce up their look. Maybe insider reporting on the fashion industry? Some snarky writing about do's and don'ts of fashion this year?

Nope. None of that. Instead you get....well, I'm not exactly sure what the fuck this is supposed to be. He does things like posting a bunch of pictures of green things. Then he takes an album cover and posts things that have the same colors in them. Then he had a post of pictures of basketball players, recycled from a GQ list. Hey I have an idea, why don't you either post an interesting link, OR contribute something to the blogosphere, instead of repeating what someone else said. If I wanted a list of things to read that other people wrote, I'd go to Digg goddammit! I don't know, I guess for a guy who buys his underwear at Walmart and owns one suit, maybe I'm missing some inner fashion brilliance. Maybe I'm not.

Look, L.A.S., let me be clear. I don't dislike you, I just think you are boring. The frustrating thing is that he writes for Debonair and the articles could actually be contrived as interesting. Well, as interesting as Brooks Brothers loafers and Ralph Lauren cardigans can get. I personally would rather read a phonebook. But it's not like L.A.S. is bad writer. Every once in a while he'll put out a gem. I just wish it happened more often.

I've decided that reading this blog reminds me of a job I had in college once where I swiped ID cards at the campus recreation center. I would sit there staring at the wall as I swiped ID cards for hours at a time. It was safe. It was never stressful. It was also the most boring 20 hours a week I've ever had.

My advice L.A.S. ? Be more insightful than just posting pictures of clothes you want to buy, and then maybe we can talk about giving you some stars.

Because you bore the ever living shit out of me.

We are not amused

By Queen Be

I hear the clip clop of the horses’ hooves as they pull the tumbrel closer. The guillotine’s blade is shining brightly, ready to separate the next victim’s neck from her head in one clean and swift stroke. I do hope today’s splatter is kept to a minimum. Ah, here she is now…

Christina’s blog is thoughtful and well-written. It makes you think of overeducated people sitting around with tiny glasses of sherry discussing existentialism in the works of Camus. Or parallel feminism in Antigone and A Doll’s House. Or, watching C-Span.

So why in the name of holy fuck did she submit here?

Maybe she thought the name, Stacked, would be so attention-grabbing that we would award stars based on that alone. I will admit that it worked ever so briefly. Until I actually clicked onto the site.

Stacked is a book review blog. Not the kind of paperbacks you buy at the airport, but the kind of serious literature that I only pretend to read. But I won’t be reading about any of these because each and every entry held my admittedly short attention span for about 30 seconds.

Christina, please don’t despair though because this is clearly a case of “it’s not you, it’s me.”

I’m a queen. I’m shallow. All my life people have done things for me…they work for me, they cook and clean for me and when someone asks me to do something that requires a few brain cells, well, I often bail.

You’re a nice person. It seems that the only rule you’ve ever broken is not returning a library book on time and your biggest secret is that you were in a sorority in college. And this one I actually liked.

Not so much this, though. I had to read nearly 600 words of this thousand-word review before you even got to the book at hand. That over-long intro describes your strolls through Brooklyn:

“Other days I prefer Prospect Park with its many paths leading to new discoveries and the calm or chaos that comes with different weather, people, a zoo, and fences that get in my way.”

I know that you can make that sentence more entertaining. Look at all the potential—zoo, chaos, fences—tell me about just one of them—in 200 words—and you’ve got me sucked into your review.

Here’s another way to do it—and I chose this example because it’s written by a woman in New York. She is part-time teacher and this is how she describes a few moments at Starbucks:

“So, there I was at Starbucks, grading papers and trying to ward off an Overused Comma coma with a Cranberry Bliss bar, when Tiny Bladder at the next table asked me to watch his stuff for the millionth time. I rolled my eyes, stuffed a chunk of Cranberry Bliss into my mouth and said, “Dude, I don’t care how cold it is outside, no one wants your dollar-store notebook and the ratty goddamn trench coat your mama obviously dressed you in.” Somehow, through the crumbly brown sugary goodness that fell from my mouth he heard, “Sure! No problem!” Then he dashed off.”

Dingo could’ve just as easily written “I went to Starbucks this morning, graded papers, ate some breakfast and chatted with the guy at the next table.” Instead she made me taste and see and care about what was going on.

If you make me care about what’s going on in your intros, I might care about the books. Otherwise I’m just going to shine my guillotine blade and mop up the blood splatter.

Christina, you’re obviously smart and you know how to write. However, just because a sentence is grammatical doesn’t make it interesting. Maybe you’re trying too hard to impress your readers. Maybe you’re trying to get a gig at a serious journal or newspaper. Just lighten up.

This is a blog—have some fun with it. Let your hair down. Eat a Cranberry Bliss.

Until then, the best I can do is:

Behind the Beige Door

I unbuttoned his pants and tugged them down exposing the beginning of his pelvis. Just below his navel was a moon-shaped scar, long since healed it was lighter and smoother than the rest of his skin. I knelt before him, my knees bare on the hard wooden floor. I brushed my lips over the scar and looked up at him. He pulled me up as he stood and I pushed his pants the rest of the way down and he stepped out of them. I lay down on my side and he came to rest beside me. I used my hands to familiarize myself with the rest of him, the curve of his spine, the hardness of his back breaking into the soft flesh of his buttocks. He was still for awhile, just letting me touch him, watching me with curiosity and gratitude. I took his hand and pressed it into the soft flesh of my sex, I whispered, “I want you inside me.” He moved on top of me and pushed my legs apart with his own and pressed himself against me. Bliss, that moment just before, when you know something is inevitable but has not yet begun. Remember this, I thought to myself, remember how this feels. He entered me and my body gave. He let out a deep exhalation and moved against me with an unhurried rhythm. I wrapped my legs around him loosely. We watched each other for a long time, following the sighs and soft murmurs where they took us, the commands of pleasure. He ran his fingers over my cheeks, past my lips and down my neck as he kept pushing into me, hastening the momentum between us. I could feel it starting, the beginning of a wave, feeling every muscle on alert, at attention until relief came over me. I cried out and used my legs to hold him deep inside of me. He looked at me satisfied and increased his rhythm, pushing into me more forcefully as his breathing sped up. I watched his face change from serene to almost pained. I moved my hips with his, Meeting his movements with my own. I climaxed again, more vocal as the last of my self-consciousness fell away. A quiet moan escaped his lips as he pushed as far inside me as our bodies would allow. I could feel small pulses of movement, warmth and then he relaxed.

Oh, hello there. Miss Missives was just reliving last night. Just wait a second, let me get zipped back up. Sorry about that. Oh, a tissue, thank you, how kind. You came here for a review, not to witness the Miss in a moment of masturbatory mischief. Sorry, some things just get me all hot and bothered.

And some things don't.

I was excited to find I would be reviewing a sex blog but a little concerned when I read the title, OMFG Sex!!!. A sex blog begs an answer to the question of why. Why do we blog? Some of us blog to write to an audience, some of us blog to express a part of ourselves that might be hidden in plain day, some of us blog to present a carefully crafted image to the world, Perfect Mom, Clever Hipster, Train Wreck, Angsty Poet and so on. Some of us blog to connect based on common interests. I would think that one would be a big one for the sex blogs. Oh you like Naughty British girls getting spanked for their disobedience? Me too!!

Lolita Vida, the purveyor of OMFG Sex!!! gives her reason to blog about sex as,

To me what matters most besides D. and I being in love, is the fact that sexually, we are a perfect match. He has a higher sex drive than I do (and I’m blogging mainly to change that

I can think of a lot of things I would do to get myself amped up for a night of ass smackery but blogging isn't one of them. OMFG Sex!!! was nominated for freakiest blog, Blogger's Choice awards-- probably self-nominated because really, freakiest? Have you visited the internet lately? Talking about the sex you're having with your husband doesn't even get runner-up status. Now if you are talking about having sex with your neighbor's husband who is a pre-op transsexual who likes to be diapered while you re-enact Two Girls and a Cup and crush bugs with your heels, whilst dressed up like giant stuffed animals, you might qualify but you still wouldn't win. My goodness, I even found this hotter.

I like this mostly, probably because this is the most real thing Lolita wrote. It feels like her and not the pretend her she thinks she should be. I like some of her rules but take exception with this one:

If your partner enjoys being constantly groped while she cleans, changes diapers and slaves over a hot stove, more power to her and by all means, grope away. But we all know that your woman ain’t one of those gems. So, refrain from the hand assaults as much as you can. Instead, caress her leg and smile at her, Massage her shoulders and ask if she is okay or just brush her hair back with your finger and gaze into the eyes you fell in love with.

Mister Missives is a handsy guy and knows there's nothing like a playful smack on the ass, neck nibble or tittie grab to keep the home fires stoked. Not every woman wants to be gazed at deeply and please, don't ask me if I'm ok. If I'm not ok, you'll know. Now as much as I like being groped or even setting up playful power plays, being held down and yes, even being told what a bad girl I am, I have a huge problem with this. If this is a fantasy Lolita is entertaining, fair enough, however, if you are pleading no and haven't agreed beforehand that no means yes and Persimmon means no then yes, it's rape.

Lolita Vida is also an acknowledged squirter. To each their own however, I found far too many references to Lolita's lady liquid than anyone needs.

my orgasm will gush out of me like a faulty faucet, sink deep into my favorite chair and down the tiles

and

My seat is soaking wet from the numerous orgasms my body’s gifted me with and the car is permeated with the sweet stench of freshly produced...

Lolita dear, remind me to never sit down anywhere in your house.


There are many problems with this blog. There are the distracting errors like using costumer for customer. There are the cheesecake pictures which feel like the equivalent of crappy clip art. The About Me is absent and archives are all the way at the bottom. But the biggest problem I found with OMFG Sex!!! is that it reads like nothing more than one big pep talk to get this woman to want to have sex with her husband.

I give OMFG Sex!!

For being a giant turnoff, and basically being to sex blogs what Humor Blogs are to funny.



And these are so you can plug up that leaky hole of yours.

Give me some soul, leave out the crocodiles

When I was 21 and travelling across Ireland, I made my way to the town of Doolin on the West coast where I checked in to a hostel and there I met an Aussie girl. She had been travelling solo for two years, trading gourmet dinners for cans of sardines and Saltines; a wardrobe full of designer jeans for two changes of plain, comfortable travel garb; and prestige for bar jobs and summer teaching gigs. But she got to go down to the shore at sunset and stare at the green Cliffs of Moher and toss stones into the sea. She got to read Down and Out in London and Paris in, well, London and Paris, her hangovers came from too much whisky at Sol discotheque in Madrid and were well worth their trouble, and she wiped the sweat from her brow at the Acropolis in summer.

We sat on that old wooden picnic table and smoked and talked. The hours passed and a cup of tea turned to a bottle of wine and turned to two, and I ate up every story she told. She made me wish I had the balls to give up a conventional life filled with stupid stuff that gets old for a life filled with memories that never need to be mended, never accumulate dust.

I wish I had kept in touch with her just to know if she had a blog today so that I could read it, even if she had gone on to live an ordinary life. Because there are some people who just know how to tell a story, and there are others who just don't, despite having a life less ordinary.

Travel With A Couple is a decently written blog by an Indian couple who are travelling across their country, which sounds promising enough.

But my first problem with today's blogger is that s(he) uses the first person plural, "we" when s(he) writes, refering to both self and spouse. I feel like I'm reading the blog of incestuous Siamese twins. If you wipe your own ass (and I suspect you do or at least you do the water jug and left hand deal thingy that I've heard about) you should be posting in first person singular so your readers can get a feel for your individual personalities. Otherwise you're just this blob of a conglomerated human.

Secondly, I hate the fact that the full posts do not appear in my reader, which means I have to take my mouse and click on the fucking blog on the off chance that I might want to continue reading. Waiting for a page load equals work. So basically I don't even know you and you're already asking me to help you move and pick you up from the airport. For bloggers to get away with this demanding behavior, they better be prepared to blow their readers' minds with some attention-grabbing introduction, like maybe a paragraph about having a threesome on the back of the bus on the way to Bangalore or something, not this PBS-on-codeine shit:

"The Great Indian Bustard didn’t reveal itself to us. But our birding experience at Nannaj Bird Sanctuary wasn’t disappointing. We spotted many other birds (don’t ask for names, though we went there armed with A Field Guide to the Birds of India) and as a bonus, saw two wolves chasing blackbucks. Nannaj Bird Sanctuary, officially called [...]"

Fasten your fucking seatbelts because we're going to a bird sanctuary with a bird book. Jesus Christ, could your intros possibly turn me off anymore? Even if I were into birds, I would already want to brass knuckle your collective nuptial bindi to beat the ho-hum out of you.

Now, don't get me wrong, this blog is probably a wet dream for anyone who happens to be travelling around India, especially if they get turned on by tiresome geographical data and abstracts on the local fauna. If, however, you are not, get ready to not give a shit.

The Couple, my advice to you is to move beyond the travel book writing forte and start thinking about readers like me that are just living our sell-out lives at 9 to 5 jobs with errands to run and dinner to make, that need more than you're giving. Don't you see that the experiences you get to draw from provide limitless possibilities and your pigeonholing yourself into factual reports?

I want to know what you saw from the train that reminded you of your childhood playmate. I want to know about the fragrance in the restaurant that made you think of your mother today. I want to know about the guy with the flaring nostrils that stared at you on the train whose poverty made you uncomfortable. I want to be in the room with you while you two have a fight under a leaky air conditioner.

I want to know this: what does your soul say when you travel?

Until you start answering that, you get a

Mother and Child Reunion

In Mother and Child Reunion, a tune penned by Paul Simon, lyrics mention "a strange and mournful day" and "I can't for the life of me remember a sadder day". This was all fans needed to speculate as to possible meanings. Perhaps the song referenced a child given up for adoption about to meet his or her mother. Maybe the mother or child had passed and now the one was joining the other in death.

When asked about the song, Paul Simon related that the title, Mother and Child Reunion, was lifted straight off a New York Chinese restaurant menu where it was used to reference a chicken and egg dish. Get it? Mother and child reunion? I thought it was clever because rather than be deep, the title referred to something that couldn't be more fleeting, Chinese food.

Anyhow, I'll allow you a brief peek into the twisted thought processes of Miss Missives. Thoughts of Mother and Child Reunion led me to thoughts of the chicken and the egg which led me to the classic dilemma of which came first. This in turn made me think of the Chinese dish, which made me think again of the Paul Simon song, which led me to ponder, which came first, the mother or the child? In this case it is clearly the mother which very circuitously leads me to my main point(yes there is one). The mother came first and with or without the child, the mother is still a woman, or a chicken or something.

My gripe is that so many women become mothers at the loss of nearly everything else. Jesus, no wonder so many women go through empty nest syndrome(see another chicken reference), because they all too frequently define themselves by motherhood alone. If I hear one more person(because yes, we are still people) refer to herself as a mommy to anyone other than her children, I will take needles and shove them in my eyeballs.

This is not exclusively directed at today's reviewee. Lolly, I get it, you're in the first year. That first year is very difficult and balance can be nonexistent. I know it can be hard to define yourself by much else when you are enmeshed in new babydom, but I know plenty of women with babies who still talk about other things.

Mommy Is Rock 'N Roll is your garden variety snoozefest, the quintessential mommyblog where the new baby is all encompassing. I can't sugarcoat it, there is very little here. Lolly has the same excitement of most new moms, figure woes, internal debates, sleep deprivation but her writing skills are not enough to lift this common experience up to a place where others can relate to it.

Lolly, like so many other moms, you are a thoughtful mother with a beautiful baby and almost nothing to say. If you want people to read what you write, you have to vary it a little. It's not that you cannot write about your daughter, or breastfeeding or slings or the things prolonged sleep deprivation does to a person. You can, but you need to pick out anecdotes, funny stories, unexpected things and throw in some stuff completely unrelated to Lolly the mom.

My best piece of advice? Go read great mom blogs and figure out why you like them. Are they funny, confessional, snarky, all out crazy? Figure out what they are doing right and emulate. I'm not saying copy or try to be them but it's okay to use these engaging blogs as a lesson on how to make yours more engaging.

As for the specifics, the template hurts my eyes. I don't like faux animal print. I didn't like it when Dolce and Gabbana used it, I certainly don't like it when it's splashed up on a page I am expected to read. I don't like pink font on black background but thank you for a font large enough to read without inciting some kind of violent head pounding. The sidebar could be cleaned up but it's not out of control. Get the Google ads off your site, the seventeen cents you are making a week isn't worth it. Pare down your blogroll or move it off the main page. If your blogroll is in excess of fifty blogs, it no longer means anything.

Lolly, Ask is a site that will definitely pants* you with no remorse. The reviewers here write and read and I'm not talking about Christmas newsletters or thank-you notes. While we complain about clutter and design and even grammar, you'll notice that people who can really tell a story generally get a pass. The reality, however, is that most people cannot tell a good story. Even if Princess Di and Michael Jackson came from beyond the grave to take them out to lunch, they'd still find a way to screw it up. So to turn around and write about the naturally mundane, like motherhood, is the equivalent of five Ambien and a Gin and Tonic.

Still, don't despair because the good thing about children and motherhood is everyone's baby is beautiful to them and your blog is your baby. So if Mommy Is Rock 'N Roll is what you want it to be, and you can look back over your old posts excited to read how you felt or where the baby was at that moment, then I suggest you pull your pants up and don't look back.














*d.Verb. American. To overpower someone and remove his trousers by force as a humiliation. Equivalent to the British debag. Usually only done to males as removal of the pants, the traditional male garment, is a symbolic emasculation. Pantsing in this sense may be used as an initiation rite, a punishment, or just done for fun.

Better Homes and Bloggers

The other day a friend gave me an impromtu video tour of her lovely home. It was uncluttered and neat and comfortable, with rich colors and personal accents and sentimental corners. Lest you think I've gone all Martha Stewart on you, we were totally drunk, so that may have colored the "aren't we all girly and Suzy Homemaker-ish" vibe. Still, I am a natural voyeur, and I never miss an opportunity to snoop in someone else's home.

My home, on the other hand, is basically decorated by my mother. I realized the other day that almost every single piece of art in the house was given to me or painted by my mother. Much of the furniture has been handed down from Mom, and every time the woman comes to visit she "reorganizes" the joint. I don't personally have much of a mark on my house, which seems to me both perfectly fine and a little concerning at the same time. But Mom is a natural decorator, and I am a natural slob, so it works out ok.

I do, however, love scrolling through design blogs and looking at pretty pictures of other people's homes, other people's ideas, other people's creative, personal, inventive ideas about how to decorate their surroundings. But chances are I'm not going to participate much in the furnishing of my own environment. As much as I might envy those who are able to make their homes unique and personal, lazy trumps everything.

So when I saw that today's reviewee was a collaboratively written design blog, I was both interested and trepidations. Interested because, you know, pretty pictures. But trepidatious because chances are no one here is going to give a rat's squiggly little disease-ridden tail about a design blog. Our tastes generally run to the more word-centric parts of blogging. The more sex-centric, angst-centric, story telling-centric, and pee your pants funny-centric parts, too.

So. Tchochkes. You're design people. Surely you can get a better blog design. I mean, orange and white: blandtastic. But then I hate orange. Three columns? Really? There's way too much clutter here. It's like those, well, tchochkes, my mother gives me that are sweet but that I don't need and they end up piling up on my bookshelves and collecting dust.

Get some tabs, use a two-column design, bump up the font size 'cause my eyes are screamin', and rethink the gadgets and popular posts in your sidebar. I'm not going to harp on the ads because at least they're relevant to your subject matter. But, seriously? "Infolinks" in your text? No. Just, no. Also, your Book Store application doesn't fit within the confines of your blog body. This is where two columns would come in so handy.

For the love of all that's holy get rid of the "Read the rest of the story" links. God, I hate these. Burn in hell, "read the rest of the story" link, you bastard spawn of coding demons. Die, die!

And from an editorial standpoint, consider dropping "such" from your tagline. Doesn't "Because a little decoration is a nice thing" sound better? It does to me.

Otherwise, it's a design site. How good can the writing really be? And how good should I expect it to be? I like looking at pretty things, and I have a boatload of fashion and photography and design blogs in my reader, but my interaction with those blogs is almost entirely restricted to looking at the pretty pictures. And looking at them quickly. I don't spend a lot of time at these sites. They're just eye candy, and I'm not personally invested in them. For example, this post? Looked at the pictures, ignored the text completely. Sorry. I mean, I can get on board with intrusive photos of people's homes because I'm nosey as hell and like to snoop -- not to mention maybe seeing interesting ideas for decorating -- but it's not gripping, evocative, literary, and lyrical stuff.

Not only is it a design site that I can't get excited about, it's a design site for people in Israel. So they've just completely dropped off my radar. I mean, what do I care about buying sheets in Tel Aviv or the predominance of poufs? I don't, that's what. I couldn't give two shits.

Look, the bloggers are no doubt nice people with good and informative things to say about decorating your home in Israel. I can see where your site would be useful to, you know, people decorating heir homes in Tel Aviv. But to me it's just another blog in a sea of them I won't read. Likely the folks who read them love them, and that's as it should be. But you won't be adding me to their numbers, especially with your current design.

Then come sit here beside me.

July 6, 2:41 p.m., I'm on my ass on the couch, watching America's Next Top Model. Unwashed, sexed up slept in hair, still in a satin babydoll nightie. I haven't even brushed my teeth yet this afternoon. Oh, yeah. You know you want somma this.

So, today's blog is called If You Can't Say Something Nice. You'd think that would be a hit here. But, it's a miss.

Randi was reviewed back in January, and has since moved to wordpress and done some house cleaning (something I haven't gotten around to today). But, her work isn't finished.

Randi, your new blog design LOOKS a lot better, but you've only gone halfway. You've left a lot of shit lying around in your sidebar that should be tucked neatly behind those header tabs: About me, your blogroll, and pictures. You also should consider a drop-down archive list to make things even cleaner.

But, even if you do all of that, you still aren't going to be my afternoon cuppa coffee. Your blog is so much like a girl on ANTM who just doesn't bring it. You're there, you're doing stuff, but there is no life or spark or fierceness to it.

I mean, you're writing about why you WON'T be seeing a movie (and using someone else's words to do it). Do you really think anyone wants to read that?

Your blog is still just a recounting of your day's or weekend's activities, with no spice or focus. One thing that would really help your blog, I think, is to make each post about ONE THING. Just one. Not a list, not a weekend activity regurgitation, but ONE SUBJECT, and ONE SUBJECT ONLY. This post, for instance, is really TWO posts, and should have been broken up into two: The story of your husband's crankiness, and the story about your dogs and the chickens. You spend way too much time on "I was here, I did this," and not enough on fleshing out the event or focus of the story. A blog isn't a chronicle, it's a place to tell the stories of your life. And, unless you tell those stories, you won't suck people in and make them interested in your life.

For instance, you tell us about your 4th of July weekend, and mention that you took the best pictures, ever, but you don't tell us how you did it. You tell us you went to a parade, but you don't make it come alive for us.

I've never been to a 4th of July parade in a little town in Vermont. Your experiences would be novel to me, and yet, you don't share the details that would bring the parade to life...the smells, the sights, the small town fire crew blaring their sirens on their fire truck.

In January, Ginny told you:

The average person who looks at a blog isn't going to slog through hundreds of posts to get back to that one story you told that was worth reading. You've only got a few seconds to catch us lazy-asses.

My advice? Do your blog Kegels, Randi. Tighten that shit up. Only post when you have something to say.

She was right six months ago, and you still haven't followed her advice.

So, let's try this again, in photographer terms. Look at your blog posts as pictures. You only have a few seconds to catch a reader's interest, so you have to say a lot with a little bit. You have to narrow in your focus, find a single item in a large landscape, and go for a piece of the whole.

A blog post is this:
















(Image by Chris Ridley.)




Not this:
Does that help you visualize what you are shooting for? In telling a story, it is the small stuff, the little details, that matter, not amount of words. It's a single snapshot, not a novel. It's a door, not a mansion. It's a moment, not a lifetime.

Who am I to say your blog sucks? I'm a mom whose kids are out of town, sitting in all my unwashed glory on a big comfy couch on a Monday afternoon, taking a day off work.

But, your blog bored the bejesus out of me. You aren't stretching, and you aren't ready for this review, yet. But, you are so like 75% of the blogs that submit here weekly that I'm reviewing you anyway, in hopes that they (and you) will learn something.

The thing is, Bob, it's not that I'm lazy, it's that I just don't care.

The world of business and corporations and networking and conference calls and Six Sigma and Someone Stole My Cheese and marketing-speak and power suits is utterly beyond me. It's all so much nonsense. Which is kind of a shame, really, because I'd probably be making a lot more money if things like "branding," "market share," and "competitive intell" meant anything at all to me.

But Dot Com Mom gets it in spades. And she writes about it. Lucky me.

Blogger has, I'm guessing, something like 10 standard templates available for the 36 million (roughly) bloggers using its platform. Each of them are tired, boring, and barely functional not to mention generally ugly. Do you really identify yourself so much with the sea and nautical life that you'd use their lighthouse template to represent who you are? I know one person who can reasonably get away with this, and you aren't that person.

Look, people: a blog is, if nothing else, an expression of self (or at least it damn well should be). Sure, for us it's about the writing, and good writing is more likely to make me disregard the trappings of your blog. You can wrap a pile of dog shit up in pretty bows and lovely paper, but it's still a pile of dog shit. But if you wrap a pile of gold in used diapers, I'm not going to go digging for the gold. Appearance and accessibility matter.

That said, your blog could be gorgeous and cleverly formatted and easily navigated, but if you don't post consistently you're just taking up space. Allison's got a grand total of 18 posts. Two of them from 2003. And she hasn't written since March. This is a colossal waste of my time.

Not surprisingly there's no About page, and Allison's Blogger profile gives nothing away. So I don't know why I should listen to a thing she has to say, there's no impetus for me to be curious about her because she likes something I like or hates something I like or mentions something personally intriguing. There's nothing personal here. It's a small collection of self-important essays on politics, technology, and lord knows what all else because it's so heavily couched in tech and marketing and management terms that it loses all meaning for me.

Allison makes you work for it, and even the good stuff can be an ungodly chore to get through, with explanatory links and marginally obscure references overshadowing really quite fine writing. I didn't care enough to click on those external links. I mean, do we really need a link to a definition of "smart cookie"? No, no we don't. Those links are distracting instead of helpful; they just direct us away from your writing, which is (or could be) really rather good. I'm not denying the very real intelligence Allison displays, but it's off-puttingly lacquered with excess information while being unsettlingly devoid of heart.

I could go through and list my constructive criticism now, but I honestly can't be bothered to expend the energy for someone who hasn't updated since March and managed to eke out a dozen posts this year. Get back to me when you've decided to be a blogger.