Brown Paper Poo-kages Tied Up in String

At first glance, I was intrigued with today's reviewee, Stranger in A Strange Town. The title was a good start and though the template is your standard blogger one we all probably started with, at least it wasn't jaundiced, replete with brain-bludgeoning bebop or soul stabbing symphonics, flashing bits and bobs, or fauxwards and badges reminiscent of boy scouts.

I start with the profile, hoping as always to get a little back story on my mark. Legacy 2000, who exactly are you? From the staggering amount of info in the profile, I garner Legacy 2000 is an XY involved with two other blogs. Given the spartan nature of his profile, I peruse the other blogs looking for clues but no such luck. A once over of Stranger in A Strange Town tells me that Legacy 2000 last blogged in August and has logged a total of sixteen posts for 2010. With the busy week of lashings Miss Missives has had, I have to say, I salute the brevity. Still, 92 followers on 16 posts? This Legacy must be a veritable savant. It isn't often that a blog has so few posts that I am allowed the pleasure of reviewing it post by post, picking over its meat and marrow with my sharpened nails until only the carcass remains.

Okay, first post, 1991:
It is barely two paragraphs. I love flash fiction but the mere seventy-five words on the page, perhaps intended to convey a certain ennui, are utterly forgettable. The words are gone faster than a Tic-Tac between my molars and far less memorable.

On to post two, Into the Looking Glass:
Again, it is brief. If it is meant to be symbolic, I don't get it. Miss Missives is beginning to think Legacy 2000 needs to be put over her knee.

Post three, This Old House:
Well, this one is quite a bit longer. This post did elicit some feelings but I am confused as to whether he buried someone in the basement or lost a family home in the widespread mortgage crunch. There is the hint of a narrative here but it is somehow, detached from the writing.

Post four, Stranger in a Strange Town:
Ah, the title post. Perhaps there is a profile buried here.

We are all travellers, our destination the same, the journey itself all that matters.

Feh. This strikes me as Fauxlosophical and Legacy 2000's words are beginning to feel like giant swaths of heavy, beige, velvet weighing down my eyelids.

Post Five, Then and Now:
Here is the sum total of what I took from this post, Cheers is no longer Cheers. Where's Norm? Who's Norm?

Post Six, At the End of the Rainbow:
So it would appear that he is recently divorced. It feels like he is trying to talk himself into something, I don't find it compelling.

Post Seven, Death of a Stranger:
All I can say is what the fuck man, what the fuck?

Post Eight, Old Friends
At the very least, I get this but it still feels removed some how.

Post Nine, Song on the Radio:
Is Legacy 2000 smoking pot or under the haze of a plethora of prescribed painkillers? At this point I am entirely unsure of the point of this blog.

Post Ten, For Crying Out Loud:
I am thinking the same thing. Am I done yet? So he went to a strip club and met a girl who needed him for a few minutes. So what. He should be thankful he wasn't talked in to paying for her breast implants. I know it is meant to be poignant and full of regret but Legacy 2000 still fails to tell a story. I know there is a story in there somewhere, beneath all the packing material but it fails to surface.

Post Eleven The Girl with April in Her Eyes:
My own eyes are glazing over and all I can think is this is what people write when they are thinking too hard about how "writers" "write".

Post One-Hundred and Twelve, oops, Post Twelve, just feels like Post One-Hundred and Twelve, Original Sin:
This is the best post yet and offers a glimmer of hope that this guy can actually write. There is narrative, there are impressions and even one very memorable sentence. This is better, much better.

Post Thirteen, Strange Days:
Poems are not my thing but this is at the very least evocative.

Post Fourteen, Old Man:
Ok, so dad drank him self to death and now I get a visual of our author stuck perhaps, safely encasing little tidbits of emotion in thick kraft paper, wrapping it in loops of twine until the small gift inside is entirely obscured.

Post Fifteen, The Prisoner:
Nothing to see here folks, move along. Ok, I am the real prisoner here but I am nearing the end.

Post Sixteen, Lady in Red
Again, a modicum of evocativeness but the mere skeleton of an impression.


I am left feeling like this is a shell of a blog. It's a brown paper package and I know there is something underneath but I don't know what's there and I'm not sure I even care anymore. The brown paper package could be filled with poo, a tween's Halloween prank or it could be a man who is trying to write in earnest but cannot get out of his own way.

From the Miss with the Missives, you get a










because like many before you, you're doin' it wrong

you get one of these for being purposefully enigmatic







but for your brevity, you get a half star.

Princess Di You Are Not

There are websites I don't fancy but regard with a degree of politesse because while they fail to be my cup of Earl Grey, may be someone else's Red Zinger or Constant Comfort. Then there are blogs so heinous, so woefully lacking in even the smallest shred of redemption that I cannot refrain from peeling off the well worn suckling pigskin gloves and sharpening my fingernails for a soul satisfying pick through their viscera. If The Power of Only One is a fenestella into the soul of Lisa(who by the way is one of two followers of her own blog), then all I can see is piled high plates of moral superiority, a pretentious lack of awareness and false academic snobitude, all worthy of little more than steaming handfuls of schadenfreude.

I'm going to get right to the point here and skip any red herrings or needless hand wringing, Lisa is going to get a few Flaming Fingers on this one. I will, however, do her a solid and not review her other blog in tandem. Lucky girl you are Lisa, because I don't think you have room for all the fingers I'd be offering.

In the Power of Only One, Lisa sets out to "empower" readers with the "knowledge" and "means" to change "key global issues." I couldn't find any credentials or experience that make Lisa just the person to help us understand the problems of our larger world but hey, everyone can aspire to Angelina Jolie no? Lisa's profile on the reviewed website offers little more then platitudes but one can glean a bit of info off the profile of her personal blog. The Power of Only One itself is a mess with a header stuffed full of tiny, empty words, a dull layout and messy, overcrowded sidebar. Lisa posts beginning January 1 and manages until April. So it would seem this blog was an ill-conceived New Year's Resolution that got boring just about the time Lisa got herself a boyfriend perhaps. Looks like Lisa's commitment to the global community lasted a bit longer than one of Miss Missives overpriced whipping sessions. Professionally pinked-cheeks don't come cheap these days, thanks be to Jezebel that some thing are just recession proof.

This is what it was like reading The Power of Only One:

Now sit down y'all readers of the internet, nope don't put your dirty feet on my purty carpet just listen while I elucidate you on the state of the glo-bal community. Can y'all say trafficking, yes that's it, tra-fick-ing, good, good. Now I am going to define for you prejudice. Look I am linking to a definition of prejudice. I hope you understand now. Look at the sad little pictures of African children. See I am doing my part to be a good citizen of the world by showing you what clearly you must not know since you are totally unawares of things like Da'fur and the Sedan, well and even the search capabilities of the internet for that matter.

Okay, that is not a direct quote from Lisa and yes, I will cop to it's mocking tone but this is what it felt like to read her words.

Here are a few of Lisa's actual words(not my poor, animosity-laced, ambiguously-accented renderings) just so you can really soak it in:

dedicated to helping the ordinary one person become an extraordinary impetus of change. This site will address key global issues such as poverty, hunger, AIDS, human trafficking, and domestic violence. The main goal is to empower individuals with the knowledge of the issues & the means to make change--one person, one step at a time. The united efforts of the many “ones” will create a mighty change. "A waterfall starts but with one drop, and look what becomes of that". (somehow Lisa got confused and thinks it's her job to give us knowledge, which of course, in Lisa's mind means linking to real repositories of knowledge)

I am not a company or a non-profit organization. I am just one. One person. One mom. One teacher. One American. One Texan. One daughter. One sister. One friend. One member of the human race who has challenged herself to save the one...one day, one word, one post at at time with the POWER OF ONLY ONE. (Uh, until April that is)

I would wager that most among you are pondering why I would even link the two together, Kipling and racism. Perhaps you did not know that Kipling penned the White Man's Burden, a poem that extolled the racial superiority of the "White Man(this is what happens when someone audits one literary criticism class and then fancies themself an expert)

I have spent all day trying to come up with a new global issue to address here. (Really. All day huh?)Several different ideas came to mind, but none of them "got the blogging juices going." (Nothing like human despair to get the ole juices flowing.) So I did what I always do. I "googled". Googling Top Ten Global Issues solved the dilemma. There in the search results, I found the answer. Racism. Instantly, I knew which direction to go.(I bet that's exactly how the Dalai Lama comes up with ideas too, lord knows he twitters.

I will spend the next month delving into and exploring the issues of race and racism. We will discover the many ways racism rears its ugly head in cultures across the globe, as well analyzing as the legacy of racism in these various cultures.

To start this journey, I would like share a video produced by The American Anthropological Association (AAA). Use the this video to start thinking about race and racism. (Ok, now Miss is starting to feel like a six year old sitting on the "reading carpet" at the back of this bitches class, does she really address adults this way? )

One of the things I found most distasteful about The Power of Only One, was this undercurrent of unacknowledged white privilege and colonial view of social problems. Lisa also reposts some Langston Hughes poems, oblivious to the irony. Every time I read her I just kept seeing this well-meaning perhaps but completely unaware Scarletty O'hare type, uppity school marm, and Miss Missives knows uppity. I am not saying or even intimating that Lisa is a racist, I don't think she is. I do, however, think that she likes to bath in the juices of her own superiority and is lacking in some badly needed perspective. Let's just recall for a moment that she undertook a do-gooderish blog that lasted about as long as a Britney Spears marriage, and then minutes into it, submitted it to Ask for some kind of hearty back slap or humanitarian award.

This blog feels false, like all the unseemly greening of consumerism that has become so rampant. Companies implore us to save the planet by buying something and Lisa aims to save the world by uninterestingly compiling some random words of others together in an effort to display her vast knowledge of global issues via her rare direct access to Google. The writing is wrought with one part emotional hand wringing and seven parts look at me doing something important and worldly. Never mind Lisa does little more than link to other, more credible sources of global enlightenment. The space is little more than links to sites with original content, some reposted videos and lifted quotes on prejudice, lots of liberal unattributed quote lifting--they say teachers don't cheat. The only thing that could have been more cliche was the Indigo girls set to auto play.

And now for the good news because you know Miss Missives likes to hand out a little candy with her spankings. The good news is, just four months in, Lisa threw up her hands and said to the disenfranchised of the world, this is just too hard.

There are some people who empower others and then there's Lisa.

I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now

Trillian,

I realize you're only 16. That makes it easier for me to forgive some of your more angsty or boycrazy moments, since we've all been at "that age".

But you presumptuously call yourself a writer and you've submitted your blog to be critiqued here, so I'm going to attempt to treat you like an adult and be bluntly honest because I genuinely like you and think you deserve that.

Have you noticed that as soon as you were diagnosed with bipolar disorder (over a year ago), you have written about little else and your blog has become super emo? I'm not trying to discount your illness, but do you have anything else going on in your life that you could possibly write about?

UN Peace Mission to Bombay but never write about it. You do the same thing with a school trip to Singapore. You actually write about a school trip to Malaysia, but it ends up coming across as a journal entry where you literally talked about cute boys and what you bought when you went shopping at the mall. Where are the hilarious stories involving the people you met? Where are the descriptions of the things you saw on your trips, written so I can imagine being there?

Hell, you even spent some time locked up in an institution of sorts, and all you could do is give us a description of the people who were there with you. You've given me a cast of characters, but no actual play. I feel gypped.

I'm frustrated, because I know you can write. You use correct spelling and grammar, which is amazing when most of the reviewers get stuck with the blogs of grown-ass adults who have no fucking clue. You write about things other people are scared to. You can turn a phrase beautifully and take pride in your writing when you take the time. I want more of this.

But 80% of the time, you only talk about your current mental state or write pretentious pseudo-artist crap. I'm not sure if you've noticed, but we don't have a lot of patience for people who think writing about their angst makes them deep, introspective and unique.

Here's some big-sisterly advice from someone who's dealt with depression herself: if you wallow in shit, your cuts are only gonna get infected.

I'm not telling you to repress what you're feeling, but just to avoid things that trigger your depression and anxiety. Yes, writing about pain sometimes helps one deal with it, but there's a difference between that and relishing the pain to the extent that you end up defining yourself by it. And you really have much more potential than just a fucking definition, chica.

While we're on the subject of immersing yourself in your drama, why aren't your comments set to be moderated? Since you have an ongoing problem with trolls, it makes me think you enjoy the antagonism.

The problem is . . . I actually agree with the trolls half the time. I don't agree with how abusive they are, but I can see where they're coming from. You mention your maids, your tailor, spending a shit ton of money on shopping, and your FIVE expensive cameras. True, you have a mental illness and abusive/emotionally distant parents, but nonchalantly acting like a rich bitch makes it hard for me to feel that much sympathy for you.

Some more big-sister advice: I really think you should do some volunteer work for people less fortunate than yourself. It'll help put things into perspective, give you something to do other than think about your drama and provide blog fodder that will probably be more interesting to your readers.

And PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, take your fucking pills. Who gives a shit if you get fat? Imagine all the mentally ill people who can't afford their medication. You being flippant about your pills is completely offensive and makes you look like a self-indulgent princess.

Anyway . . . because I actually, truly, love it when you quote a relevant song, book, or poem at the end of your posts, these are for you:


You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You are the same decaying organic matter as everyone else, and we are all a part of the same compost pile.






That I must be their scourge and minister.
I will bestow him, and will answer well
The death I gave him. So again good night.
I must be cruel only to be kind.
Thus bad begins and worse remains behind.

Unless you have four fingers on your right hand, there's no excuse for you

Listen, I don't have much time today, and less to read thick, carcass-like slabs of text which suggest that I am to read without breathing.

Today's lesson will be to the point, omitting the mind-numbingly repetitive part about why I hate fugly ass templates with stupid ads about ulcers and 6 feet long sidebars with no proper About Me page.

That shit's a given.

Ed, your blog about being a dad and about your son’s ear deformity and partial deafness is an excruciating goddamn test of perseverance that I failed very quickly for one simple reason.

It is not because you can’t write and you’re not funny and you haven’t made me care about your kid; you can write and you are funny and you have made me care about Ethan. You made my hard heart laugh and you even made me happy that your kid can hear better now. You’re foul mouthed and full of attitude and introspective and your self-deprecating nature is the only thing keeping me from wanting to beat you senseless with my keyboard. You can write a decent sentence, I'll give you that.

Your problem is that you offer up solid, unappetizing hunks of visually suffocating, time-annihilating texts where I cannot discern where one mangled thought-juggernaut stops and another begins. Are you missing your right pinkie by chance? Why do you refuse to hit ENTER to help the reader visually? Do you not ever click on "View post" and see that your blog is a slop of grey matter filled with soul sucking skyscrapers of unending words? This, for example, was the blogging equivalent of someone on coke at two in the morning that won't shut up long enough to let the people being aurally trespassed upon make a lick of sense out of the jabbering.

Here's some advice:

Relax. Inhale. Exhale. Come down off of whatever it is you’re on that makes you litter your blog with parenthetical side notes in italics every ten words (which are seemingly arbitrarily thrown all over your posts and due to overuse retain none of their intended effect whatsofuckingever). Slow your hair-trigger thoughts down to a moderate hurricane, finish a thought, and then hit the motherfucking ENTER key before starting a new one.







Buckle in boy, and don't forget your helmet and when you get off you can pick up these for somehow managing to entertain the hell out of me despite your birdbrained way of presenting text:

When Too Much Information is Not Necessarily Enough

Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends. What's that? Do you know me? I don't think so, but I can assure you, I know you. All of you. Having lurked long enough, I thought it was time to give you what you need, a dose of my opinion.

A hefty dose.

So the question of the day is, what do I think? What do I think of the intellectual regurgitations of one Blonde Goddess? Do I like her? Well, do I?

I didn't think I could. Between the Russ Meyer inspired header art and the blogroll that surely lists everyone in the entire Blogger directory (with the exception of any blogs that I read on a regular basis) and the otherwise plain vanilla template, showing little to no signs of any original thought, I felt a certain sense of joy, as I have not had the pleasure of ripping anyone apart with my bare fingers for quite a while.

My anticipation was palpable as I settled in for my first post -- a diatribe about refusing to perform oral sex on her husband/boyfriend.

Hmmm. If that's your kind of thing. But not "ripping a new asshole" worthy.

What else have we here? Depression and menopause. Something about pervy dolls won in a contest. Boob sweat and farting. And more of that TMI sort of shit.

The further back in the archives I worked, though, the more fun I had. (Fun!?) I was finding myself enjoying what she had to say. Not an every day sort of taste, but the kind of thing you help yourself to every now and then. Like Burger King or an episode of South Park. An irreverent, self-deprecating, "I don't give a fuck what's proper" sort of attitude, like what you'd get if Sam Kinison rewrote all of Erma Bombeck's old material, that was ... well, goddammit it was infectious. Which pissed me off. Because I really wanted to rip SOMEONE a new asshole.

And the worst I could say to her was ... the nickname's kind of a cliche. Blonde Goddess? Really? And she hasn't written anything new in over a month. I mean, who the hell submits for a review and then stops posting? What kind of grade school shit is that?!

But then I found this, which I thought expressed the whole "Why we Blog" thing pretty damn well. And then there was this, which gave me a pretty open and honest glimpse of the person behind the stupid avatar and nickname.

So, in the end, the Blonde Goddess isn't the best writer in the world, and she's maybe not the most original, but she did something really difficult. She made me give a damn. And she made me laugh occasionally without being too forced or telling me ahead of time how fucking hilarious she is...

So, today, (BEGRUDGINGLY) you get one star out of me. Write more often, put up an About Me page, and give us a short "Best Of" section and you might get another.

And God help the poor miserable illiterate fucknugget who gets me as a reviewer next (if there is a "next"), because I was denied a good ass-reaming today.

- Scorpio Woperchild

Oh Very Young What Will You Leave Us This Time?

Hello Askers, Miss Missives here. Now before you get too excited about my return and soil your pretty little knickers, let it be known that I am only here doing Madame Bellicose a favor. She is one brooding broad but while Miss Missives lay ravaged on her tattered velvet chaise longue nursing a mighty malaise, Madame B. took over her workload wielding that whip from her hand like she was born with it. Now there are clients asking for her by name--that devilish Iron Maiden. Still, I'm glad to be back brandishing red pen and trusty paddle.

Speaking of paddles, today's victim needs to be put over my knee toot sweet. If Chamuca's life had an accompanying required reading list, it would read like this:
Doing Nothing: A History of Loafers, Loungers, Slackers & Bums in America
The Underachiever's Manifesto
How to be Idle: A Loafer's Manifesto
Lazy Daisy
What Your Poo is Telling You(I threw that one in for good measure just because I care.)

Chamuca is lazy. I don't mean lazy like a Sunday morning, I mean lazy like a slug on Quaaludes. Slow and steady can actually win the race but dear, you have to at least put your shoes on and step away from the idiot box. Oh Chamuca, I bet you didn't think you were going to get the mom treatment from Miss Missives today but darling, I whip because I care.

Sometimes Chamuca's writing reminds me a bit of Richard Linklater's Slacker, more characters, less narrative. She even employs the odd but no doubt fitting monikers like Uncle Ponytail Bachelor, Uncle Fighting Illini, Masturbating Cousin and Three-Finger Jack. If Chamuca was a character here and not the author, she'd probably be called Girl Who Refuses to Reach Her Potential. The fact is, Chamuca is a talented storyteller and an adept, if a bit lazy, writer.

She retches her stream of consciousness onto the page and at times it's too meandering for my liking but she has a strong point of view and a decidedly wicked, funny bent. Her writing suffers the most common malady of even great writers, a lack of editing. Now I don't want to scare Chamuca into over-thinking her posts because she posts regularly and sometimes not over-thinking is what gets the job done. Still, if she spewed it out and then went back and cleaned it up later I think it would be so much more engaging.

Chamuca, you are hilarious, candid and yes, a bit of a whore you brother-fucker but you can write the shit out of a story when you pull it all together. Stop giving us everything and just dole out the good stuff. Look at something you have written and keep the broad strokes but eliminate the filler details that don't move the narrative forward. A little of the stream of consciousness is good because that is part of your voice but you need to do some literary Kegels and tighten that shit up.

As for the template and other such nicities, you get a resounding fine. Your template is simple and uncluttered, keep it that way. Your archives are in the preferred drop-down format which makes it easy to go roaming about. You also have a search feature that made it easy to look up what I needed, thank you. Your Blogroll is small enough to be meaningful though you might consider moving it to a tab on your Header.

And Chamuca, if you are going to work for a pittance, dear, fuck Olive Garden okay? Go get yourself a job where you either have time to fuck off and write or a lackey admin job where you can at least make enough money to be able to have casual sex without worrying that your lack of health insurance will make the accompanying vd unaffordable. Stop telling prospective employers you were shit-canned and put that pretty little storytelling mind of yours to good use.

For your work, taken as a whole you get:





With a promise of an IFuckingLoveYou if you tighten up.

For having to dig a bit to find the really good stuff, you get:

Must you tease me?

Alright class, settle down.

I see you've enjoyed your time with me away trying your hand with some newbie teachers (god bless them for some of the blogs they've had to put up with). With winter holiday nearing, I know your concentration is limited and all you can think about is your Secret Santa's giant package.

All I can think about are giant packages too and god do I wish they were those kinds of packages.

You see, I've been moving house. And knowing that my ass-reaming stilettos and my metal beveled ruler were buried somewhere at the bottom of an unidentifiable cardboard box made me very irritable indeed, obviously rendering me incapable of providing the ass kickings expected of me (it also made me incapable of properly expressing to my beloved school janitor the urgency with which I needed him to reassemble that fucking Ikea closet).

But with boots and ruler unpacked and at my disposal, the janitor at home soaking his calloused hands and other tender bits I may have been too rough on, I come to you, my sweetlings to see if any cognitive development has occurred in my absence.

Well, let's have a little lookie, shall we?

First of all, sweet baby Jesus screaming in a manger, when are you kids going to get it through your heads that having an About Me page is essential for ADD readers like me? I don’t want to have to click through post after life-sucking post like I'm solving a murder mystery before I connect the dots that your blog sucks balls. Tell me who the hell you are and why the hell your blog deserves me to be reading it.

Secondly, for an artist and clever ad designer, Kedar's template should shame him all the way back to kindergarden fingerpainting for its absolute lack of originality. I mean, I know he likes to keep his art simple, and I can appreciate that, but a little more effort put into the design would be nice. Put some goddamn tinsel on that poor lifeless tree, some popcorn on a string, a reindeer made out of popsicle sticks, ANYTHING. I'm about to faint from boredom and I haven't even taken one look at your posts.

As to the blog's content, despite me really digging on some of his artwork and loving his subtle way of communicating, I have to admit that many of his posts left me almost hooked but wishing there had been slightly more to them. Kedar is sort of a tease. I know he's got the goods but he doesn't deliver all the time.

Like many of the ASKERS around here, for me, blogging is about the writing. I know this blogger is more into his art, but I want more words than this to accompany them, and not just any words, the words that he's hinted at being capable of writing. Don't just show me the pretty picture you painted, give me more background. I want the stories, the reasoning, the juicy brain details that I know are part and parcel to the artwork. I fucking love it when he gives me the tiny glimpses into the disconnect he feels with people, but dammit I wish he'd quit teasing me and give me more of his juice, his essence, implicating an uninvolved reader like myself.

The real test for me with this blog is that I started at the beginning and went through post after post and realized that unlike most of the blogs I review, I didn't feel like banging my head against the screen until the blog went away. I was actually gawking my head to the right and then left and and wanting to show my coworker and wanting to buy the t-shirt and wanting to mass email this stuff and annoy the fuck out of every one of my contacts. But despite my inclination to really get into this guy, I was left feeling like I was being denied some really good stories.

For now he gets two measly stars but I hope he really does get better by developing his voice and thinking about the writing outlet that is this blog. I hope he will one day slam some of those colors and that subtlety evident in his artwork directly into his keyboard. Because that combined with his images would make this one blog I could really fucking love.

Way Way Bad

This review courtesy of guest reviewer, Lolita LeBruise.

Okay, kids, I had a kind of popular lesbian/parenting/middle-age miasma blog for a few years and just shut it down. Love Bites, who sadly is not a lesbian, but a slutty little man-magnet, apparently felt I’d have a little time on my hands. So, she handed me my first assignment: The Way Way Up Blog.

Okay, let me put on my best Salmonberries parka and get started. The template is boring blue Blogger. Anyone who has requested a blog review here ought to know better – I mean did you read the rules? Even I knew better when I was reviewed a few years ago. But, I failed miserably. The next day, I got down on my knees before LB offering her anything to look at my blog again only to find she is strictly a slutty little man-magnet and I could continue to kneel to no avail or just rebuild my damn blog. I did.

This blogger is a young man who has made his career teaching in the uppermost reaches of northern Canada in the newest territory, Nunavut, which is the least populated and geographically the largest. Thanks Wikipedia - because even after reading this for quite some time, I had no idea beyond the random ice berg photo, where he might be blogging from. We could chalk it up to my geographic ignorance of an obscure Canadian territory, or we could just blame the blogger who can’t be bothered to draw new readers by letting us know why we’d ever want to know where he is or who he is. I vote blame the blogger.

While reading this blog, I just kept shaking my head saying, “Has he actually met any of the people in his life?” What had the potential to be a poignant “To Sir, With Love” or “Stand and Deliver” kind of blog is merely a litany of questionably studied opinions and the mundane day-to-day tasks that are his life. What could have been an exciting National Geographic adventure is a bunch of lifeless photography. What could have been an adventure in discovering the Inuit people and the descendents of the original European settlers through their stories and lore is post after post of soulless, dry lessons in history and culture with no connection to the people who actually lived it. Even his stories about his family, whom I would assume he knows fairly well, come across with all the flavor of cardboard.

The only times I detected the faintest heartbeat was when he defends seal hunting. His rant against Sarah MacLachlan sure told her. Uh, huh – take that Sarah – and may your musical dry spell continue! Yeah! My personal favorite is his Nazi/seal hunt comparison – um, don’t know if he thought of this, but we might actually formulate the thought that some people might think both are bad. It’s a complicated issue, seal hunting by indigenous peoples, but his trite rants do nothing to advance his case. Logic and reason aren’t his strong suits. Hopefully, he doesn’t teach math.

I finally gratefully tumbled headlong down the iceberg into the hungry polar-bear filled waters after reading the most recent post on the need for social workers in the area. His solution? Parents need to do a better job. He opines that some parents suck and some children might be better off on the street. Alert the media. I wanted to pick him up and slap some emotion into him. We’ve all heard it, but why do you feel this way? What have you seen? Who have you met? Give it some soul to illustrate the point without the banal conclusion.

The Inuit have many sociological and economic challenges and a rich and vibrant history and hearing about them and the European descendants in the area could have made for fascinating reading.

Summary: Blog template sucks, stories have no life, blog has no direction. It’s not a travel blog, a study in culture, a look at education, or a place of personal introspection.

He wants to take his posts and write a book. Heh. Yeah, this is the next Julie & Julia. But, good news; he has a new blog and a new job posting in yet another place that he will totally miss. Oh, and he’s a new dad. It’s got the best of the worst of daddy blogging written all over it with his scintillating post on contemplating the greater unpleasantness of baby poop over baby pee.

I give him a big: