Ask And Ye Shall Receive

Guest Reviewers

2009-07-10T12:38:00.000-04:00

We need some.

Go here if you're interested, and apply for the job.

A Litany of Langorous Longings

2009-07-08T05:42:00.000-04:00

Ah, summer, what power you have to make us suffer and like it. -Russell Baker

Yes I'm back and yes, I am aware you probably didn't even notice I was gone. I cast off the dominatrix gear in favour of the gauzy livery of the season. I traipsed across some of the most bucolic beaches, I savored the most theurgical sunsets, I sipped potent potions until I settled into the halcyon disposition I yearned for. And yes, I took my thesaurus along fuck you very much. The summer has just begun in earnest and here I sit, ready to review a blog whilst I down my umpteenth Arnold Palmer and try not to wilt.

Susan, in an entry dated back in April, contemplates whether the malefeasants here at Ask actually read the blogs they have been punished, uh, I mean assigned. Sadly Susan and not entirely lucky for you, we do. Our personal quest to bring readers read-worthy blogs like this and this and this means we have to slog through blogs that are as feculent as the end of the state fair's overfilled port-o-pottys.

Susan also considers the crew here when she tells us,

they fucking scare me. Yikes. I mean, how about that guy with the big eyebrow? Holy Mother of God. Of course, one lucky blog submitter landed herself a "guest reviewer", who was actually kind of nice. Well, she only tore up about half an ass that day. I would take half an ass tearing anyday from this group.

Susan punctuates that with a nice little graphic at the end.

Now dear, if you did indeed get Nutjobber, I'm sure the whole acorn in the arse thing would be right up his alley, pun intended. However, you got Miss Missives, and I am less about ass tearing and acorn shoving and more about spiky boot poking. Hope you're not too tender fleshed.

Your design is okay. I can get behind the header but the small font on the red background gave me a temple-pounding headache. I am biased against the three column design because I never know where to look. I would ditch the three-column and add some tabs for things like your blogroll and awards, as they are better suited off the main page. Things like your About Me and Archives should be at the top.

As far as the writing goes, I think I know what you're going for but you're not quite getting there. The kid stuff is fine, contrary to popular belief, we are not fundamentally anti-mommy blogger around here, but it should be tight and it should be funny. This has potential as does this but they need to be heavily edited and scrap the openers which would have made me quit reading before I had ever got to the good stuff were I not reading in the capacity of reviewer. This is a good example of tight, it's the on-two punch and it's funny.

On a personal note, the reading experience for me was a bit whiny. I know, I know, it's your place to vent as you cautioned in your About Me. Listen, I know how difficult it must be to navigate the waters of divorce and exes and current husband's exes, and ex-exes and currents of exes and new ones and those other ones and well, their kids too. In the realm of divorce, it's rarely about just one parent being the bad guy. When you go on and on about your husband's ex-wife it makes you seem threatened or bitter and I don't think that's you. Seriously, she does not deserve mention on your About Me page. You are so much more than that and I know you have so much more to say. I think you have some good reasons to be angry but I would focus your writing, when you feel compelled to get something off your chest, on what she has done versus your opinion of her. Readers will get the gist based on her actions and you won't appear to have New Wife Syndrome. Or don't, what do I know.

As a whole, this was a little Meh with a side of one wee Star. Most posts went on too long, editing would go a long way to making this far more readable. Susan has snark but she needs to know when to stop writing. There is a lot of potential for great stories like crushing your kid's lemonade stand hopes, but seriously, you need to put a few stitches in that gaping hole because that shit ain't tight.

"When you can take the pebble from my hand, it will be time for you to leave"

2009-07-07T08:47:00.008-04:00

I didn't know how to start this review. For the first paragraph or so of my reviews, I generally like to pull out some piece of the personality or experience of the blogger I'm reviewing to relate to or make fun of. I think of how their lives relate or don't relate to mine, I tell a charming or embarrassing story from my past, I make fun of myself and them, I tell you who I am and who they are: pretty much I find some way to make it about me, too. Because I'm just that self-centered. Also it makes for good story telling. Don't tell me it doesn't because I won't believe you (Remember? Self-centered.).

I feel like over the past year or so of reviewing blogs I've started to know what I'm doing. I've been feeling rather old-hat, really: like I've seen it all now, the good blogs and the terrible blogs and the blogs that are getting by but need some work. There haven't been all that many surprises for me lately, and the reviews come quick and dirty and easily. More often than not, frankly, I feel better than the unwashed blogging masses, which sounds really puffed up and full of myself, and, guess what, I am sometimes. (Both better than the unwashed masses and full of myself, at the same time and independent of the other. I'm also over-explainy and unduly fond of parentheticals.)

But this week I struggled.

First impressions: Nice design, organized, good about page, love the tabs and the FAQs, hate the ads, but in today's economy I'm becoming more lax on that (shill!). The archives are all tidy, but I don't like how they automatically roll back up -- sometimes static wins.

Digging in: The dating chronicles are amusing, although she reveals a slight tendency toward superficiality, which is probably forgivable under the auspices of online dating. Also, she realizes she has issues, and I like people who own their foibles. She wears Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab perfume, which is my absolute fave (I wear their O). But I can't figure out why she sometimes writes "noh" instead of "no."

I want to read the entire thing from the beginning, which is a good sign, although there is a marked gap between 2004 and 2008. Anna, I'd like a bit of a re-introduction when you start blogging again in 2008 -- what happened in the meantime? Now all the sudden there's a kid and a husband.

There are posts about things and products and such, which is fine by me. I'm a material girl and I like a review once in a while. And, true to her tag line, there are pop cultural references (I've never watched a single episode of John & Kate, but I don't have to -- the internet tells me all I need to know.) and thoughts about being a mother that in no way step over the line into dreaded cutesy mommy blogger territory.

Here's where my struggle comes in: I feel like I can't really critique her. Anna has got this shit down. She posts often, she writes so very well, she's insightful and charming and she's got a blog design that works and matches her personality. I like her. A lot. If I didn't have all this pesky work to do, I'd have pulled up close and clicked through her entire oeuvre. I no doubt will at some point. She strikes a balance between revealing herself in bits and pieces and just downright entertaining us. She's a smartypants and she knows it but isn't all sneery about it, and I love that. But she's also totally neurotic and acerbic and funny and honest, which I love even more. I find myself in the unenviable position of wishing she'd review my blog instead of the other way around. I figure she can teach me a thing or two.

Then come sit here beside me.

2009-07-06T14:32:00.010-04:00

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:

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.

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

2009-07-02T06:30:00.001-04:00

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

(Is that one choice, or two?)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dirty old man. Dirty boring old man.

If You Don't Have a Hobby, You Always Have A Buzzy Buddy

2009-07-01T12:10:00.007-04:00

Ten years ago, I spent the first year of my daughter's life slowly going insane. Part of it I spent shut in the house with my in-laws, who were suffering through all the ailments that come along with a diagnosis of cancer and the subsequent treatments. Yes, both of them. The other part, I spent feeling alone, in a place where I knew no one, had no friends and the best company I could scrape up was my infant daughter. It wasn't bad company, it just wasn't what I was in desperate need of.

The beauty of the blogosphere is that there is a little something out there for everyone. If I had access to something like Sleepless Nights, I would have been grateful, so very grateful. I might not have gone as crazy as I did, I might not have been as lonely as I was, and I would have had someone who understood. Someone to relate to that could share her experience.

Veronica has been through the wringer. She recently lost someone very close to her because of that beast, cancer. She's dealt with fertility issues and personal ailments. And through it all, she smiles, she laughs and she masturbates.

The girl talks about vibrators... a lot. Don't believe me? Look:

Here
Here
and
Here

She also talks about her boobs... a lot.

Here
Here
and
Here

Living in Tasmania and raising two children, has its share of hilarity and intriguing moments. Veronica is a SAHM who is not afraid to share anything. And, I do mean anything.

She holds nothing back and puts it all out there with a small nod to the fact that she may be providing too much information or offending the delicate sensibilities of people like...

Well like me.

Veronica's blog may have been my cup of tea ten years ago. Today? Eh, not so much. There were moments I found myself on the verge of gagging and literally cringing. Which is not an entirely bad thing, I'm just not big on the details of breastfeeding. But, there are so many out there that are.

The template is clean and neat. It's well organized, uncluttered and easy to navigate. I have no issues with it, but I'm not thrilled by it either. It's there, it's good. Whatever.

I have the feeling that Veronica is the kind of woman that I could sit and have hours of conversation with, all of it heavily laced with the word 'fuck'. My only real complaint about her writing is that she tends to go on. It's something we've said before and we'll keep saying it. Editing is key. Not just for errors but for content. I love the way she writes, matter of fact, yet conversational. She's funny and entertaining, but just a bit long.

Veronica will make you laugh and let you share in her sadness. She'll also make your belly button tweezle with discomfort. Yes, I'm making up words now. And, through it all, I found myself just loving her. She has a spirit that can't be broken.

Darling, I give you this with a hug and a pat on your back:

Just one more thing though. Who has this much time on their hands?

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

2009-06-30T09:06:00.005-04:00

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.

Clattering Bat

2009-06-29T14:17:00.013-04:00

Bloggers are winsome talky creatures. I had the opportunity of meeting the lovely and talented Gwen Alison, in the flesh last week, and during our 3 hour dinner chat, she told me about a blogger gathering she'd attended in her hometown.

"The entire room was full of people who talked - a lot."

Welcome to Rattle Tat.

This is a woman who is truly in love with the sound of her own voice, a self-described "freelance journalist" (I can only assume that she gets a per-word quota because she sure tries to cram those babies in there a mile a minute).

Let me give you an example:

After the third question it was clear the entire process was going to comprise geometrical shapes in absurd formations in which I was supposed to glean some trend.

Wow. That's pretty fucking exhausting to read.

And I have to say, it doesn't get much better.

It's verbose and sloppy:

This blog is an outlet for my compulsive writing, a ~~recepticle~~ (receptacle) for my verbal ~~squits~~ (squirts?), a haven for my verbosity - an ~~assylum~~ (asylum) from the editor's red pen.

Everyone can have a typo now and again, as I demonstrated so facilely last week. But this is a girl with multiple typos per post, even in her "about me" page. I bet her copy is literally a bleeding gash of red ink. This is a writer who needs to buy a dictionary to set alongside her well-palmed thesaurus.

The layout is nice & neat, and I like the colors. I like the name of the blog. It doesn't need three columns, as most blogs don't, and given that you know how to clean things up and put them behind buttons in your header, I have to ask why you don't do this with your blogroll, at the least. And frankly, I hate the "continue reading" links on any blog, but especially on yours where we get a sentence of introduction and, then, after the link, are confronted by an exhaustive cascade of black words.

But truthfully, any design woes are the least of the concerns here. It's the content. Frankly, it's ALWAYS the content. If we like the content, we will generally ignore the overall crappy look of a blog, but no amount of pretty trappings can whitewash a load of shitty prose.

I could like the blog, but it all feels so forced and contrived, as if each post is a "column" she's test-marketing to the blogosphere.

Consider this. It's very convenient. I don't get the sense that the authoress is actually doing any gut-wrenching soul-searching. It's just for effect, or at least, so it seems.

Almost every post is like this, wry and shallow, perfectly tailored for sale to a women's publication. Every post is about the same tedious length. Every post is full of neatly turned but empty phrases. Every post is cloaked in the same cultural identity-speak (urban hipster mommy). MEH.

I mean, this blog isn't terrible, awful or horrid. She has a deft turn of phrase. But, I don't love to hear her talk nearly as much as she loves to hear herself. Nor are we the sort of place to reward such endeavors.

Cute but shallow can suck my left tit. Thanks, but no thanks. I like real, even if it is harsh, gritty, depressing, and ugly.

But, I know real is hard to sell to the women's publications.

I give it:

Just 5 more minutes

2009-06-25T06:30:00.007-04:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lady Bitchiness

2009-06-22T14:39:00.009-04:00

That would be me, of course. Not limited to, but especially, on Mondays.

Today, reviewing Lady Sarcasm, aka Chica.

Lady Sarcasm is a frequent commenter, which will probably make the fanny slapping sting a bit more, for all concerned. In the spirit of fair play, though, I have to call them as I sees them.

Let's start with the homespun template.

Problems:

1. The header image is fucked in IE. Since that's what we are limited to when I'm at work, and I'm not one to blog for this blog on weekends, I have no idea what the header image actually looks like.

2. The navigation buttons: Maybe they work in front of the header image, but as I can't see the header image, they are practically invisible in their existing form, and arrowing over them only slightly improves things.

3. You have the ability to make navigation buttons, so why in the fuck is your sidebar still crowded with recent post titles, recent poster comments, twittery shit, your blog roll, and other assorted skullfuckery? C'mon, Chica. Clean this shit up.

4. The order of your sidebar is buggered. Think about what will make things most easy to navigate through your blog for a user. About you, recent posts, categories, then get rid of everything else.

5. Your share/save button is all bolloxed up.

6. All the gadgets on this page (who's among us, feedburner, twitterfeed, recent viewers) make this page load slower than old ladies drive.

7. Filed under/# of comments - if you put too many labels in, it kicks in a second line of comments that looks odd.

I appreciate that you clearly took a lot of time to work on this design, but it's still functionally impaired. Given that, I'd prefer a ready-made/boring--but functional--template. The color scheme is also hard on the eyes given that you've chosen a lot of very closely related colors (mauve and plum, for instance) on top of one another. That = illegible.

I give you two flaming fingers for your template, Chica. Either fix these problems, or just go with a functional readymade.

Next up...the reaming of the writing.

Chica: EDIT. FFS, please, I beg of you, EDIT.

You fall prey to a number of sloppy tendencies:

Mixing pronouns...

But since I'm such a nice and loving person, one cannot act on such ideas.

Sloppy proofreading and overly complicating things...

This could cause potential boxes matches for the shiny pile of metal and plastic we call a PC.

General slipshodness:

start having a littering party of their toys, animals, and books?

Wtf?

Speaking of littering parties, there is the writing on this blog. The content is hit/miss (mostly miss), and suffers from mostly non-existent editing. There are all-too frequent typos that distract from the content and slow the flow for the reader, who has to self-contort to figure out what is being said. There is also too much emphasis on regular features like "Captioneers."

Lady Sarcasm, we love you, but your blog needs work. There is almost no depth here, and frankly, it bored me to tears.

Is this really all you have to give? I don't buy that for a second.

And, the fact that you can't be bothered to proofread your posts is a fucking insult to anyone who takes the time to read your blog. Furthermore, overly complicating your prose results in a stitled and uncomfortable read.

You need to spend some time, not on the Nintendo DS, but reading good books, learning how to capture dialogue and tell stories. Here are a couple I recommend:

The Messenger - Marcus Zusak
Hey Nostradamus - Douglas Coupland

Both of these writers do a great job of communicating internal and external dialogue, fleshing out characters, and keeping the plot of the story rolling. They also stay out of their own way (a skill you need to develop). Unless you are one of the main plot actors, you need to shut up. Just tell the story. We don't need your extra perspectives. In fact, most of the blogs we read would benefit from something similar. Stop using I. Start using simple, clear language. Describe the scene. Be visual. Let characters tell the story, through dialogue. Focus on the action and conflict between characters, not on yourself.

Right now, I give your content a . You're a fun commenter, but your blog is the internet equivalent of non-flavorful wallpaper paste.

You could be better, though. And I'd like to see your blog when you are.

Kicking Cripples Ain't So Funny

2009-06-19T12:40:00.003-04:00

Guest review today by Mongolian Girl.

When Hellbilly and I were first dating, we hung out at my house a lot. In the beginning I kept many things hidden from him. Mostly the things in my kitchen, pantry and my fridge. No, I don't keep my Black & Decker Power Pecker collection in the kitchen; that is kept in a colorful Easter basket in the bedroom closet. I didn't want Hellbilly to see the way my kitchen items were organized. Spices all faced forward and were in alphabetical order, refrigerated items all faced forward and were kept in like categories, and having more than two kitchen towels in use at the same time was highly disturbing to me.

One night I finally decided to reveal the truth of my kitchen to him, "I want you to see the stuff in my kitchen pantry and the fridge," I said, then led him to the kitchen, opened the doors to the fridge and pantry, and stood back and watched him 'oooh' and 'ahhhh' over the tidily organized, facing forward, alphabetized items.

When he finally pulled his head out of the pantry he turned toward me with a strange look on his face and said...

Don't worry Askers, I'll get to that later.

The first thing I want you to know is that Jay is fucking hilarious. I mean, I've read some funny shit on the internet, but rarely do I come across a writer who is consistently so funny that I wish they had been a life-long friend. I am not kidding when I tell you I wish I met Jay in first grade or something and had been entertained by him ever since.

His humor is not forced or contrived. It seems completely natural when he writes of a giant spider as something "You would beat to death with your mother if that's what it took," or watching Carmen Diaz in the movie 'In Her Shoes' and then writing, "Her portrayal of a functionally illiterate alcoholic whore was shockingly dead on, almost as if she had been preparing for it her whole life."

He made up a 'pink taco' rating system for chick flicks he forced himself to watch during the entire month of May, and takes a boring old 'My best friend barfed in a bar' experience and turns it into something I wish I had been there to witness.

He even gets away with posting about Craigslist (something that normally makes me want to shove a very sharp pencil into the ear canals of bloggers who try it) by recounting a story of having communicated with a photographer about taking pictures of the events of the fictional 'Furry Fandom & Fantasy' club. Read it for yourself. Yes it's long, but Jay carries it off so well that I even found myself wishing he had responded to our ad on Craigslist for free horse manure with some kind of contrived story about needing a trailer full for some kind of feces fetish club meeting.

(No, no you don't have to start going on and on about the fact that Hellbilly and I actually would take a trailer full of horse shit to some fetish club meeting and watch them slather it all over their nekkid bodies.)

Let's get back to that story about my fucked up facing-forward-alphabetized kitchen, shall we?

When Hellbilly finally pulled his head out of the pantry he turned to me and said,
"Um, that's just straight up fuckin' scary."

And he was right.

Yeah, finding a kitchen full of alphabetized, facing forward items is fascinating and even funny at first. But it's also scary because it was one of the strange ways I had been compensating for the fact that my life had been completely out of control in the years before I met Hellbilly. I had been in a horrible marriage, moved three times in two years, and had been dealing with a bizarre and vicious legal battle with some of my own family members. Being obsessively organized was a busy, albeit ineffective, way to control something in the middle of a bunch of shit that was out of control.

I kept feeling like something like that was going on with Jay's blog. Yes, I kept admiring his writing, his humor and his made up Craigslist character and pink taco rating system. But I also kept having a gnawing feeling that something was going on. Something was 'off' or 'underneath' or....

...and then I found this, and this, and this.

These posts all contain Jay's great writing and sense of humor, but something was causing him to to use those natural abilities to degrade others. It was a classic case of going for the low hanging fruit. There is a tinge of making fun of victims of domestic violence. Instead of being curious and fascinated by a crazy old story teller on a bus, he turns him into a worthless and smelly waste of space. And *gasp* he makes fun of those of us from the south, which, of course, makes me want to go all southern on his ass by lathering his backside up with an extra special personal lubricant we like to call 'Ass Jack', and then letting a few of our neighbors assist him by helping him become stump broke.

But you know all of this, don't you Jay? You actually state you have a policy of 'non-transparency' on your blog, but then get clear about this.

Throughout your blog you also slide in little one liners about dealing with 'mama drama', alcoholism, having financial stress, something like 42 different jobs, a wife and three children. At first I thought you might be one of those bloggers who doesn't get into things you consider too personal or too 'past', but then I realized you link to your wife's blog, and she says it all.

You have this about wanting to achieve balance, but it is something that makes me think of that thing people say when someone isn't fully in touch with their heart or guts:

"You are living from the neck up."

You even titled your blogroll 'mental crushes' and decided this (www.geniuspending.com/2008/10/your-turn.html) was the only information you really wanted to know about your fellow bloggers.

One of the challenges given to me when my blog was reviewed (by Miss Missives, whose leg I am still planning to dry hump) was to, once a month, choose a topic I was afraid to write about and do it anyway.

Yeah, some of the crap that has come out of that challenge has been painful, but getting rid of it has also lightened the load and, if I do say so myself, made my writing and sense of humor even better.

Maybe that would help, because I would hate to see you keep your policy of 'non-transparency' and keep dipping into that crappy territory of using your talents to, even slightly, degrade another person or class of people. You just don't seem like that kind of guy.

Yes, I read your post about how you think part of the reason people blog is to gain readers. That may be true, but is that really why you are blogging? I don't think so. I think you know you have talent and humor falling out of your ass and it's time to get busy with whatever it is that is getting in the way of it from time to time. Bottom line, I think you will end up more disappointed if you use your natural talent to degrade others than you will if you never end up with a huge amount of readers.

Having an 'About Me' page would also help. Actually, it's a must. Otherwise you don't give us a place to start. I also think your sidebar is crap. So you Tumblelog, Twitter, Facebook, have a reader and a Picasa Album. Whoop-tee. Whatever. It's just too much, especially when it's slapped into the middle of your polls, tags, followers, recent comments, 'seen elsewhere' thingy, and popular post. Jesus Harold Christ on a rubber crutch, Jay? What the hell is going on over there? Get rid of some of that shit or, at the very least, just make a whole page for most of it to get it off of the front of your blog.

Some assignments:
1. Figure out how to make a decent (i.e.. less than 10 fucking minutes and contstantly interesting) vlog here.

2. Examine using a brilliant sense of humor without degrading others here.

Take a lesson in dumping the rough stuff here.

I really do.

But this and this is what I'm going to haunt your comments section with for the rest of my wicked life if you don't get to whatever the hell it is that has that lame ass degrading bullshit seeping out of your system from time to time.

Come on baby, I didn't mean it. Don't leave me hanging.

2009-06-17T09:55:00.007-04:00

This week, I've been met with an almost constant flow of inspiration and creativity surging through my being. There may possibly be an undercurrent of booze with that, but let's not discuss such things. Mostly, because then I'd have to admit I could have a problem. Oh and it's not polite in mixed company.

Back to that flow of inspiration. I'm finding that today I'm a tad drained. The creativity I've put forth this week has left me wrung out and feeling just a smidge like the dried up, musty sponge that is currently adorning my kitchen sink. Along with a few crumbs from the frozen pizza I devoured last night.

So here I am, feeling used up, tired and lacking in inspiration, when I've been given this to review. My first thought is, I wonder if she feels the same way, because she hasn't posted in a month. And, this is the second time I've had to review someone that has done that.

My sincerest wish is that she does not feel that way and that her hiatus is simply because she is uber busy taking gorgeous pictures while setting the world on fire with her wit and charm. Because, Death Chick? I kinda love you.

Sassy and smart, she kept me reading and reading and reading.

If I'm going to nitpick here, she can tend to be a little verbose with her posts sometimes tending to be on the long side of the law. (Ha, see what I did there? Ahem.) I actually don't mind, but you know, it's Short Attention Span Theater out there in the internets.

Her 'About Me', however, could be a little more verbose. It's short and to the point, which ain't a bad thing, I would just like more of a hook. How long have you been married? How many kids? Why are you writing? Why should we read? Is it the mortuary school? Her archives need to be rolled up, as they go back over two years. Otherwise, I think the template is a winnah!

What I'm saying here is, Death Chick, come back to me. You're funny and creative, the world needs more of that. Which is why I'm giving you four of these dudes:

Come back to me, I'm begging you, please. I won't be mean anymore.

"What they created was greater than art because you live your life in it"

2009-06-16T09:59:00.007-04:00

I don't really know how to handle a stylish man. I live at the intersection of Izods, madras shorts, and deck shoes and trucker hats, T-shirts with wildlife themes, and Levis. My father has a closet full of lawyerly Oxford shirts and loafers, light blue Wranglers from the 80s, and a captain's hat he wears at every opportunity. The man in my life, although adorable, wears interchangeable blue jeans, khaki shorts, T-shirts, and flip-flips year-round, with little thought for trends or personal flair or tailoring. Hell, I buy most of his clothes, and as long as they fit and aren't red, orange, or brown, he's good. The only fashionable guy I've ever dated looked like Rob Lowe and wore pink Polos and Ray Bans and checked himself out in every available reflection. I'm pretty sure he used a hair dryer. It was obviously never going to work between us. My gay brother is the only man in my life who is stylish: he is impeccably and expensively dressed at all times, his clothes are always tailored and pressed and coordinated, and he has the best accessories, including an impressive and chic eyewear collection. I once spent a delightful few minutes gently stroking the lapel of his Chanel suit.

So it's understandable that, given my background, it took me a while to realize that the author of Getting Beat Like You Stole Something is a straight man. This says nothing about the author (except that he neglected to have an about page) and everything about my expectations for male behavior. Because here is a boy with a fashion blog. A straight boy. No, really.

For a fashion blog (oh, he says it's a "fashion, food, design, art, and culture in general" blog, but it leans heavily on the fashion bit), the design is rather stark. I like minimalism (did anyone see that episode of Absolutely Fabulous where Edina and Patsy visit their friends' ultra white home? No?), and you definitely don't want to over-design your blog when you're featuring so many pictures, but a little pizazz wouldn't hurt. Get a groovy banner, roll up your archives and your categories, and add a punch of color. Make your design more personal: we can't all be The Sartorialist. Consider using tabs; you can easily put "my stuff," "stuff for your girl," and "steez biting" on their own pages. And you need an about page. Who the heck are you, and why should we care what you think?

Greenjeans is an urban hipster, as I understand them, but classy and tailored with a retro-chic vibe. So hip is he, in fact, that I had to urban dictionary the hell out of some things. "Co-sign"? "Dopeshow"? Really? Why did people ever stop saying "radical"? I felt a bit like I needed to wrangle Rassles in on this review, for translation purposes. The author is a pretentious little git, which doesn't mean I don't like him. I'd just spend a lot of time calling him a pretentious little git.

Aside from being a pretentious urban hipster, Greenjeans has his good points. He knows who Nancy Kwan is, for one, and mentions her often. He's got a healthy appreciation for those who've come before, and his writing is spare but evocative.

She seems like the girl you met during that semester abroad in Paris. You were supposed to study international finance and the effects of globalization but instead you marveled at how she smoked endless cigarettes and drank really strong coffee. That and the way she dressed made you feel like you were in a movie.

A good tie is a like a good gun, it won't let you down and is apropos in nearly any situation.

His offers quick, well-written observations and longer, equally well-written commentary. I like his style and his voice, and it was a nice diversion to browse back through his short but consistent history of posts and linger a while.

I have no complaints about your writing, Greenjeans. Your blog isn't expository or personal or even a showcase for your craft; it's a collection of tips, opinions, and observations. And though I generally prefer the former, there's nothing wrong with the latter. It's possible you're lucky you got me for a reviewer, because I'm the one with a hefty subscription to fashion blogs on my feed reader. And congratulations, you just joined them.

Get Wood

2009-06-15T15:55:00.005-04:00

I didn't know what to expect from a blog whose address is "in public interest." Politics, I suppose. Then, unsettlingly, it was titled "Woodchuck Chuck."

I definitely didn't expect the blog to be written by a 20-something Indian girl. Do they even HAVE woodchucks in India?

But surprisingly, for me at least, she did not disappoint. I can count on two fingers the number of Indian bloggers that haven't disappointed, out of dozens.

A few things:

1. The header image is overly large, for my taste.

2. It would be helpful to American (and other readers outside of India) if you put translations of some phrases in parentheses when you speak in your native tongue. That would help us, also, to follow the stories. You're writing to the world, here.

3. Too much crap in the sidebar distracts from your (very good) posts. Clean up the messy graphics to help us focus in on your writing.

4. An "About Me" page/post would be helpful to introduce us to you, your backstory, your boyfriend, your ambitions, etc. Do it.

Ask readers, start here, here and here.

I like her cute wry voice, and I like the chance to live life through her eyes. I like that I can visualize the people in her life as she writes.

The blog design is pretty hideous, but girlfriend can write. She just needs to keep banging those words onto the page.

I give it

Less Crap, More Writing

2009-06-12T09:47:00.007-04:00

Today's reviewee has been "blogging" since 2007. However, Kris Nair has not posted anything in exactly one month.

Which is mostly a relief.

I like to start things off pretty and with kind words, so let's do that first. Your title, less humans, more robots, fan-fucking-tastic my friend. I would just like to see a capital letter or four in there. Your template is clean and well organized, I love it and your archives? Eye candy, archive porn right there. I wanted to lick the screen, you know, had it loaded quickly for me. It didn't, but I'll forgive you.

Now for the bad. Kris is another in our long line of Indian blogging friends. He's not emo, cutting himself or crying out for universal understanding. Thank the heavens for that. However? He is a 'Mentor Capitalist' out of New Delhi. I'll let you click over to his blog to find out just what a mentor capitalist is, while I cough "bullshit" into my hand. I'll try not to let the fact that I was abused for years by a man from India, that was in a business very much like this, stand in the way of objectivity.

Ahem.

No, you know what? Fuck that. Let's stop right here. If your blog mostly consists of:

YouTube videos

Quotes from other people

Clever pictures and cartoons

Cut and pasted articles

Then stop asking us to review your shit. You are wasting our fucking time!

and

Suck it, Kris Nair, Suck it.

Daddy

2009-06-11T14:00:00.000-04:00

Gratz.

Blogger, know thyself

2009-06-10T09:25:00.005-04:00

I started blogging as a way to train myself to write every day. I'd long said I wanted to be a writer, and I thought creating a habit, flexing my writing muscles by blogging, would be a good way to start reaching that goal (almost four years later and I'm not limber enough yet). I thought I'd tell amusing stories, make a few people laugh, comment on the news and pop culture of the day, revive some bits of nostalgia, and just crack my knuckles and get down to the business of writing. What I didn't expect was the opportunity for self-exploration and connection blogging could provide. The more I blogged, the more I learned about myself. And the more I blogged, the more I learned about others, about how we're alike in our differences, about how people are usually more than you think.

What strikes me about today's reviewee is that he seems so self-aware. He knows who he is, what's important to him, what he likes and dislikes and dreams. I don't know how much self-knowledge blogging affords him, but whatever his motivation for blogging, whatever unexpected benefits he may gain from it, I'm glad he does.

Jacob at Jacob's Land of Bliss and Blisters says his blog is "... a little difficult to describe. I'm a scattered, random and eclectic person. So is my blog." And he's right.

He uses a standard blogger template, and though it's not horrible it's also not all that attractive or personal. I'd like a little more personality -- a photographic banner, perhaps. Though it is relatively uncluttered, the font is a bit small. Roll up your archives, Jacob, and consider tabs. Try to fix it so you've got no more than, say, six posts on a page.

Readers take note: he's got a great "about" page. This is what we want: just the basics, a little upfront information on who you are and what to expect. You don't have to shoot your wad there and give us everything, but give us a taste, just the tip. (Although, Jacob, consider linking to the blogs of those you list under "cast" right there in the text.)

Jacob is a frequent, long-term blogger with a backlog of EIGHT YEARS of posts, though only the last three have been consistent. Normally for a blog with that long a history, I'll go back to the first couple of posts just to see how it all started then stick with the current year. But I got sucked in and wanted to read the whole thing. I couldn't, though, not in the time I'd allotted myself to review.

I love a Georgia boy, and they love their football. But like Chris's blog (one Jacob and I both read), sometimes the football talk gets boring for me 'cause they're not talking about Florida State (except here -- Go Noles!). I can forgive him his low opinion of Florida. Barely.

But I just like his voice. Even when he's boring and fatalistic and misanthropic, he's entertaining and well-written and thoughtful. He's dry and smart and self-aware.

True, they're mostly loooong posts. He's got a lot to say and he usually says it very well. It's not that I think you should edit, Jacob, although you probably could prune a bit. It's that I'd like to see more variety in length. Acres of lengthy posts can be a little daunting for a reader. There's a tendency toward tangential and rambling writing, and though this is one of those cases where I think it works in your favor, it would work even better if you switched it up with some more brief, succinct posts thrown in (something it seems you've started doing more of in recent months).

They say you can tell a lot about a person by the company they keep, and I tend to think that's true. This is why a blogroll is, for me, as important as an about page. I wanna know who you are and who you like. In this case, I like who Jacob is, and I like who he likes.

Yippee Kai Yay, Muthafuckas

2009-06-09T09:11:00.002-04:00

Whiny Beyotch Roundup:

Siuilaruin says "I did it my way" and parrots the standard refrain of, "but you didn't give me enough helpful feedback!"

Blue Lanugo actually writes a blog post.

Michelle does not whine and reorganizes her blogs. Kudos.

Travis J. Morgan: The Creative Thinker keeps on with the iphone sketches.

Jessica Gottlieb does the unthinkable, and gets better.

How Twitter Killed the Blogosphere

2009-06-08T11:04:00.005-04:00

I have the ennui today. And you are not helping, Blue Lanugo. I come back from vacation with my kids and my first task, this bright and sparkly Monday morning, is to review you.

What can you say to review a guy who posts screenshots of his twits on his blog?

Perhaps you could choose what you are going to be? A blogger? Or a twitterer.

Frankly, I don't think you can do both. Most of us have only so much creativity in any given day, and clearly, you're spilling all of yours on twitter.

These are things I hate to see on a blog:

Videolinks/youtubes - unless they are quite rare and special

Posts of photos with no caption or explanation

References to twitter stardom and/or wittage and/or comments

Fuck this noise. Your blog is crap. And the worst part is...you're a talented writer. You could have a great blog, I suspect, if you threw yourself into it.

But you don't. So, just do us all a favor and kill it quickly, instead of slowly suffocating it beneath the weight of two years of mediocrity.

Just the Facts Ma'am

2009-06-04T07:00:00.000-04:00

Remember the hey look at my carrots guy with his sum total of twelve posts? Oh how I miss carrot guy. After last week with Michelle and her eight blogs I was really hoping for brevity, you know, that perfect starter blog of less than fifty posts. Instead I got The Bob Files, where Bob has thoughtfully written around five-hundred posts. Sigh.

Alongside a career in computer something or another, Bob writes professionally reporting on sports for a local paper. He has also been relatively prolific writing short fiction, comics and even poetry, but mostly, he reports.

He reports about his job, his hotel accommodations, the state of Chicagoland's icecream and his young son's foray into the newspaper biz. He conveys the facts in a straightforward manner. He covers the who, what, where, when and why. That's what reporting is and writing isn't. As a reporter you can't embellish, leave out details with abandon, condense characters, or create. Just ask Jayson Blair. As a reporter, you are a statistician, a recorder of happenings, not an alchemist.

Bob has a cache of his fiction stored on the blog but most of it is dated and his blog appears to be a repository for his body of work. Miss Missives delved briefly into the fiction but concerned herself mostly with the actual blog entries. That Bob reports rather than creates is my main complaint with the Bob Files. He begins writing about something that could build into a great story, but it never really goes anywhere. And Bob, don't tell Miss Missives nothing good happened, because if you are an observer, a natural storyteller, something interesting always happens. Remember Paul Harvey's The Rest of the Story? That's what kept coming to mind as I made my way through the Bob Files. Where is the rest of the story? Where is the hook, the meat, the twist, the thing that brings it all together?

Every so often, Bob hits the mark, makes the connection, shows his funny side and delves beyond the straight reporting. Still, it happens infrequently enough that I don't think he's going to grab people who happen upon the site.

As far as design goes, the space is clean and uncluttered. The drop down archive is helpful and the categories are manageable, making navigation easier. Bob, I would add a Home button to your tabs and perhaps a Best Of in order to get readers and keep readers. Bob posts regularly and has posts of varying lengths, so he's on track there.

This isn't a case of a blogger that can't write. Bob knows the difference between to and too, he doesn't split his infinitives. He can put words together in a way that is clear and readable, just very little I'd actually care to read. Now I'm not looking for sordid tales or BabyMamaDrama. One doesn't have to slide into the maudlin, dramatic, confessional posting to tell a good story. Is it fair for me to want Bob to spin his class reunion into a tale of boy makes good, or cheerleader got fat? Maybe not but why else will readers come back than for interesting material? Good writers who want readers do not just write for themselves. Good writers don't simply catalogue, rather they selectively add and remove details that make the colors of life a little bit brighter, the heroine a bit more ravishing. That's why we read them.

I will illustrate this with a bright, shiny example. If you look at this post, notice how she left out a slew of the mundane details, the minutiae. Notice that each piece of dialogue is fundamental in pulling together the moment. Notice how she tell you about her grandfather through his habits and actions and words, not a straight head to toe litany. What she writes in very few words builds two characters that you can just see in your mind. Now do you think it happened exactly this way? Probably not, but good writing made it larger than life.

My advice to you Bob is this, read over some of your favorite writers and figure out what makes them good. You can write and you like to write so put some time into making it good for the readers too. Writing is like sex and Old Man Dunphy was right, making sex is like a Chinese dinner, it ain't over 'til you both get your cookies. Because I didn't get my cookie Bob, you get this:

May I Soliloquise Whilst Kicking Your Shins?

2009-06-03T07:00:00.003-04:00

Sigh.

I imagine that today's reviewee does that a lot. Sighs. Without an 'About Me' I had to wade through pages and pages to try to piece together who this person is. The very first post will have to do by way of explanation:

Recently, whilst speaking to a friend about being bored, she suggested that I should start an online journal where I could soliloquise about whatever subject I wanted without having to worry if anyone was interested. So here I am, writing the first entry in what will, no doubt, become an epic collection of my various ramblings and opinions.

For Christmas I was given a fridge magnet that read: ‘Everyone is entitled to my opinion’, which I took to be an indication that, at least in my family’s eyes, I am a highly opinionated person, with no interest in keeping my ideas to myself. So perhaps this journal will not only serve to alleviate my boredom, but also that of anyone who may otherwise have been at the end of one of my rants.

So, let us begin…

Well now, isn't that just dripping with sneering and pretentious use of the English language? Having a strong command of written language is something of a novelty these days, which after having it kicked into my front teeth by the combat boots I suspect this blog wears, I might just be okay with that. I don't know what kind of footwear the actual author wears, but I do know it is not high heels. She's made that clear.

The template is drab and dreary, which is actually suiting. The font is tiny and does not encourage a painstaking wading-through of the reviewee's seemingly self-important views on the world. All of which come across as if they were conceived while sitting in front of her computer, maybe even while looking out an open window. I just had a recurring feeling that this person prefers to sit and form opinions about life rather than going outside to actually live it. She studies the world rather than taking an active part in it.

While, it may be unfair for me to make such a sweeping generalization about this person, I don't feel badly for it, because I read page after page and I still feel like calling you 'this person'. I know all about every minute detail of how you feel about all things feminist, and your bantering conversation style, but I still don't feel like I know YOU. It all comes across as being cold and robotic. And yet, I think that might just be who you really are. I just hope that's not the case.

I do believe the friend that suggested you start a blog was right to do so, and probably had very good reason. However, asking us to review it is just mean. It's mean, because you see, I feel it's necessary to sit here and read rant after rant. Why? Because that is how I produce a fair review. Now, given that you realize that not everyone wants to be privy to your ramblings, why the hell did you do this to me? I suspect it's because you are selfish, egotistical, smug, inherently full of yourself and perhaps even a tad cheeky. That is how it all comes across to your reader. Did you really want someone else's opinion? It appears as if you only value your own.

You are writing for all the right reasons, but you might consider keeping it to yourself. After all, you probably ARE the only one intelligent enough to understand all the minutiae that composes your thoughts and opinions.

I wanted to award you the Abercombie Poser rating, but you mean it, you really mean all of it. You 'fun sucked' my day.

Happy Families

2009-06-02T09:18:00.008-04:00

Dammit. Seems as though perhaps this blogger actually didn't request a review. So the darts and laurels, while apt, may be unsanctioned. Sigh. Stay tuned.

---

Right, well I've taken down the links and identifying characteristics in this post to protect the innocent. The blogger has been awfully gracious about this mix up, so apologies to her for the un-asked for reaming.

-----

I like hippies. You probably wouldn't know that to look at me, what with my professional attire and fastidious grooming habits. Though I own several pairs of Birks, there's not a flowy skirt or artsy messenger bag made of hemp in my closet. I hardly even recycle. But the hippie philosophy and lifestyle is interesting and attractive to me in some ways. I'm down with being green, peaceful, accepting, alternative, global, and friendly to plants bearing red hairs and crystals. If I weren't so lazy and greedy and averse to vegetarianism, I'd be a fairly decent hippie. Well, no, maybe not; but I'm a sympathizer, a sideliner, a champion of hippieness.

Except when it gets as preachy and holier-than-thou as the local Bible thumpers at a tent revival, where speaking in organic is akin to speaking in tongues. I tend to agree with the Greeks: moderation in all things. [Redacted], my reviewee, is a kind of extremist mother hippie with very definite ideas about parenting and child-rearing and birthing and holistic living, which are all well and good except kind of fanatical.

Her blog has a pretty design, although she doesn't need three columns. No one needs three columns. And I was a three column culprit once upon a time! Paxye, get rid of the recent posts and comments, roll up your categories, move your archives, and drop it back to two columns. You'll thank me. Think about tabs instead of the links at the bottom of the page -- best to have those options right up where we can get to them.

Now. The content. Look, I get it. Kids are important. They are, as Whitney so gloriously proclaimed before she discovered that crack is whack, our future. But I don't have kids. I don't want kids. The cult of the baby is completely beyond me and quite frankly a little distasteful. If I had little Mini Me offspring I might feel differently, I grant you, but basically the industry and focus and obsession with tots is, for me, weird. I spent several bewildering hours last Friday listening in on the mothers of young children and it was like hearing about a well-tended garden when I have a black thumb.

And this blog is devoted entirely to parenting, babies, birthing, "unschooling" (don't ask me), child development, co-sleeping, baby-wearing, and any number of other bits of parenthood and family making that I just can't get into. She's all about "alternative parenting," which I find both ridiculous and inspiring, depending on the topic. There are things with which I agree and others I find frankly disturbing. But this isn't about judging her parenting habits or philosophies (a task for which I feel woefully unprepared and yet strangely inspired to perform), it's about judging her blog.

To that end, her blog is one of those here's what we did today types, which I really don't give a flip about. Add in some thinly veiled lifestyle smugness and a crusading atmosphere, and you've just completely lost me. Her 100 things talks about a lot of things that will really offend her: hello, off-putting. There is ellipses overkill, my particular bugaboo. And I get the sense that she has very little humor, silliness, ribaldry, or inappropriate behavior in her life, which is disappointing. Perhaps that's just what she's presenting here, but that's all I've got to go on. It's all peace and happy families and art projects, none of which are bad things, they're just not all that interesting, especially how she writes about them.

Now, let's get to that: the writing. There is no artistry or craft in posting something like this or this stupendously boring post. I'm guessing she doesn't edit or review or experience her writing. This isn't writing, it's typing. People who share her parenting views might get a lot out of this blog, but they could get so much more if she'd tighten up her writing and tell a story instead of enumerating what she and the kids and sometimes her husband did each day. And then there's that -- there's not a lot of writing about the hubs in this blog, which seems curious.

Plus there are recipes with, like, vegetables. I ask you. Where's the bacon? Where's the booze? Where's the SEX?! And, more importantly, where's the weed? I mean, "hippie" is right there in the title; I expect some herb.

In all seriousness, though, we talk so often about what makes a good blog: having a unique voice, being an outstanding writer, or being a hot mess. Paxye, you're not giving us any of these things. The writing isn't enough to keep me interested, the subject is totally outside the realm of my experience, and there's no dirt to speak of -- so, you've lost me.

What you have going for you are some cute kids and really nice photos, a niche audience, and a willingness and commitment to write frequently. If you want to gain other readers, get off the kid train and tell us something else about your life. If you want to better serve your target readers, pay attention to the words you put on the screen, edit yourself, post things that are relevant, meaningful, and above all well-constructed. Never use another ellipsis again, capitalize things that should be capitalized, pay attention to grammar and structure, refrain from telling us your weekly schedule unless you can make it interesting or informative or funny, and for the love of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (in whom you do not believe -- for shame) don't post for the sake of posting.

Blogger Without a Clue

2009-06-01T11:45:00.005-04:00

Today's review: Rebel Without a Clue

Of the ten posts on the front of this blog, 7 involved reviews of American Idol.

I don't watch American Idol. I think appropriately scathing thoughts of people who do.

Time is a gift. You have approximately 168 hours in a week to accomplish something. You'll spend about 56 of those sleeping. They're gone, forever. You'll spend another 40 either attending school or working. That leaves 72 hours for you to dream, cook, read, drink wine, hang out with friends, study, learn something, look out your window, daydream some more, write on your blog. You're wasting 4 hours or so on American Idol. In essence, you're watching other people accomplish something, in lieu of doing something yourself.

Watching other people's lives on the telly is not a substitute for building a life of your own. It doesn't count. It's entirely wasted time. If that's ALL you have in your life to write about, I can only presume that you waste a hideous amount of time watching shows where you learn nothing, and where the impact on your higher brain function is to hulu it into pudding.

If this is what you're using your little corner of the internet to do, get a fucking facebook, and give the blogosphere a rest.

I'm going on vacation tomorrow.

Let this be a lesson to you, Rebel. Get off the fucking computer, turn off your television, and start living. Then, maybe, you'll have something to blog about.

Now, .

Middlesex

2009-05-28T21:52:00.003-04:00

Miss Missives has a general love for the odd, disenfranchised, different, marginalized, and fringe elements of society. Selfishly, I gravitate toward these people because they have some of the most fascinating stories to tell, stories you will never hear from the soccer mom or the angsty teen. They often tell tales that rather than be relatable, grab you for the very fact that they show a part of life you could never see on your own. Sometimes it's just another door to peak in through and sometimes it's a bridge to seeing someone's humanity.

So when I read that my reviewee was a

BDSM loving, dyslexic transsexual

I poured myself a big glass of cheap red and hunkered down expecting quite the read. Michelle, do you want the good news or the bad news first? The bad news is I didn't get the read I expected. The good news is, you are indeed just like everyone else.

It is probably a tad unfair that I judge a blog by what I want it to be, by what I know it could be, by what I know would draw people in and make them come back for more. Michelle's blog is her own and not a Choose Your Own Adventure where I get to pick the direction she goes next. Still, there's so much I want to know, and yes, much of it is her life as a transsexual but not for the prurient reasons you might think. Now after a little digging, I did come across some of her BDSM photos and got my first look at the cha-cha of a post-surgical transsexual--so, okay, a little prurient(it looks just like any other happy cha). Michelle does put herself out there but there is also so much she holds back.

In one post she says

the short time I spent on some psychiatric wards was among the more humorous and enlightening times of my life.

Michelle, where my dear are these stories? How did you figure out you came delivered in the wrong packaging? How did you come to terms with it? How did you tell your family? How did you evolve to the woman you are today? What did you think of Transamerica? Are these too painful, too personal perhaps, but these are the things I'd ask you over lunch and wine.

It is possible that Michelle has written more about this than I give her credit for because I couldn't read the entirety of her, as of last count, eight different blogs. Yes I'm not even joking. Miss Missives can hardly handle her own blog, reviewing duties here and a little Facebook and Michelle manages to juggle eight different sites to which she posts regularly. Who's the better woman now? Michelle is analytical and clearly likes to compartmentalize things, hence eight different blogs. There is the main site submitted for review, there is her home page, there is Linux Crusade, there is Technilife, there is the Story of L, there is her photoblog, and ShootGreen-her other photography site, and finally there is her bondage site. Oh, and she twitters too.

Michelle works in the Computer Engineering field and it reflects in her writing, technically adept, detailed, methodical but sometimes lacking the emotion and fire that I think such life experience would provide. I completely ignored the computer, photo and technical posts because I had my hands full with the more personal works. There are loads of technical posts but even her personal posts feel distanced. Maybe one has to put some space between themselves and their feelings when they have faced a hostile world for so long but I just know she has more to say.

Michelle, I'll tell you the same thing I told MongolianGirl, at least once a month, pick something you are afraid to write about and write about it anyway. I think you have stories to tell that you're not telling. These are your own words and they are right on.

What do I need? I need to shout. I need to scream. I need to take risks and feel the angry wind in my hair. I need to push my limits; to slam down the accelerator and drive like a maniac; to bear arms against the enemy and pit my wits in a battle of survival; to pilot an attack helicopter ... I need to destroy things; but in the name of good ...

You, like most everyone else need to edit, edit, edit. For example, this is very good but a little editing would give it oomph, momentum. There was a great deal of good information but even the most personal pieces often felt distant, plodding and technical. There were some things that stood out, like this and this and even this. And Michelle, you minx, you switched templates mid-review but I like the changes and your clean, uncluttered designs(yes, all 8 of them) get big gold stars.

Michelle, your blog is yours to do with what you will, and the very fact that this blog is a bit boring shows that you are a person like anyone else, and not just a personality, caricature or headline. If you want a good example of how to connect with a reader, share stories--even painful, unflattering ones, how to write about difficult and highly personal subjects, check out yesterday's reviewee. Look at this compared to something like this. One of the most amazing things about blogging is how it can connect people who might never cross paths in life outside the Internet. You have an amazing opportunity to connect with the world and show people who you are.

For having the courage to be your authentic self, you get this

For designing and managing to juggle so many blogs you get this:

For making said blogs feel like a four inch thick Linux Manual and making me trudge through so many, you get this:

She Doesn't Need To Shut Up, She Actually Puts Up

2009-05-28T07:00:00.004-04:00

In this world that we were born into, in this life we've been given, we come to recognize that it is made up of a strange and frightening combination of fragile, strong, evil, love, light and dark.

We come forth and are thrust into this jumble of madness and told to make sense of it all. To experience, but not this or that. To love, but them not those. To take it, but not too much. To give, but to those who deserve.

It's not a clear picture, and there are roads that lead to destinations that are dark and life rattling. Where you become your environment, and it has a hold of you entirely. It all but makes you life's bitch.

If you're lucky something else happens. Something wonderful and just as troubling. Something even harder than sinking to that dark place that you struggled to get to in the beginning.

You recover.

So what happens then? What happens when you've been to the bottom and you lift yourself, fighting tooth and nail, hand over hand to the top again.

This happens.

The Melindaville Blog washed over me and held me close. Her words wrapped around me like a soft, warm blanket. What is The Melindaville Blog about? In her own words:

My name is Melinda Roberts Tyler and many people have told me I have had a fascinating life. In my lifetime, I have been a professional actor and musician, worked as an exotic dancer and high priced call girl, as well as started the world's first fantasy phone call service. I was a member of San Francisco's punk rock scene of the 1980's, performing with the band, "Wild Women of Borneo," during which time I became a hard-core heroin addict. I recovered from addiction in the mid-1990's and became an honors college student, a fully funded doctoral student, and an award-winning professor of psychology. I am currently writing a detailed account of my life experiences in a memoir, whose working title is "Lost and Found: A Journey." My purpose is to tell my story to inspire others if they desire change in their own lives and to increase awareness about the need for free and available treatment in our society.

I could sit here and nitpick about little things like using the word 'blog' in the title, or the crowded sidebar with unnecessary items like the calendar. I could harp about how far you have to scroll down to get to the archives. I could slap Melinda on the hand for saying "dye their hair" instead of exclaiming that wild women COLOR their hair as I learned in hair school. But, then I would be the world's largest douche bag.

Melinda takes you on her journey and when she tells the tale, you are right there in the room with her. Right there in the hotel room as a call girl. You are sitting beside her in her lonely little apartment, infested with cockroaches and library books. She takes you on the path of her recovery without seeming whiny or self-obsessed.

I thank Melinda for asking us for a review, but I have to decline. I cannot review you, Melinda, because simply enough:

Instead? What I want to do is sing your praises and share your words with the world. Melinda is the type of person who doesn't just sit around, telling you how to make the world a better place and change lives. She actually changes lives.