Breakfast of Champions

My favorite thing to do when I first wake up is to pour myself a cup of freshly ground coffee, go out on my balcony, and read the local paper while enjoying a cigarette.

Yep, that's right. I am a smoker. I've wasted a ton of money, at the end of the day I smell like an ashtray, and I can't even walk quickly without having an asthma attack. Not something I'm proud of, but there it is.

A lot of good things have come out of my dirty, filthy habit though. For instance, I've met people who are now close friends because we were both outside freezing our asses off. One such friend has a theory that smokers are more interesting people, since you have to be pretty emotionally damaged to willingly sacrifice years off your life for a quick fix.

Which is why, given the choice between blogs, I chose to review "Inspired by Caffeine and Nicotine". I figured someone who chooses those particular addictive substances for their blog title has to be interesting.

I wasn't wrong. Robblogger is a sci-fi fan with a twisted sense of humor, who plays fucked up pranks on his very patient live-in girlfriend. He also hates the general public and writes opinionated and snarky posts about popular culture. I like it. He reminds me of my friend with the "Smoker Theory".

However, there are lots of things I don't like. 90% of his posts are rambling, stream-of-consciousness-type monologues. This blog would be much easier and more enjoyable to read if I could follow what the hell Robblogger is saying. Sometimes it's like reading the blog of an ADD-riddled drunken monkey, hyped up on too much coffee and cigarettes.

Oh, wait.

My advice to Robblogger is the same advice we end up giving almost everyone who has potential. Tighten that shit up. Edit, edit, edit. Cut out everything that doesn't move the story along and is just filler to make your posts longer. (Jesus, I have no idea why your posts are so fucking long.) Split them up into individual stories and post them separately. You bitch about people Twittering about their tuna sandwich at lunchtime (agreed), but your blog is filled with similar shit that your readers have to wade through to get to the good stuff.

The other huge faux-pas . . .blogging about blogging. This is coupled with a seeming obsession with getting followers, getting page views, and making money off of blogging. Booooooring.

No one wants to read about blogging. They want to read stories about your life and they want to be entertained. Your blog is only 4 months old. You have more followers and readers than you really should at this point. And this obsession makes me wonder if you only submitted here to get page views/money from clicks. (P.S. That's why there are no links to specific posts in this review. I don't like being used, ass.)

And making money off of blogging? We all wish. I know it's hard to pay the bills when you're unemployed (believe me, I do), but begging for money from strangers on the internet, while posting about how you just bought a new digital camera? Sorry, Charlie, but fuck off.

I'm really pissed right now. This guy is enough of an asshole, I think he'd fit in around here. Maybe even be capable of doing a couple guest posts if he got his writing act together. But the obsession with clicks and page views and making money off of this kind of make me hate him.

For that, you get a:







And for being an amusing asshole:

It is a good divine that follows her own instructions

What the hell is up with all the IFLY's and stars and shit lately? Are you people getting soft in your old age? Feeling the holiday spirit? Suffering from Seasonal Affective Disorder?

Damnit, I want some ass spankings around this joint. I want someone to threaten their asshole reviewee with a back alley lobotomy. Give me some blood and guts and giblets, people.

Later this week? Please?

I say this because you're not gonna get any angry banshee-screeching from my neck of the woods today.

Good for your feed reader. Bad for your entertainment, I'm afraid.

Jayne, the Suburban Soliloquist, is funny and neurotic and just a cool lady. And this bitch can write.


* I don't have kids, but this post made me understand what it might be like.

* She gets sociological and feminist about book reviews on Amazon

* This is exactly how I feel about Twitter.

* This is exactly how I feel about poetry. In fact, Shiner gave me the choice between this blog and a poetry one . . .

* I love this post. It's funny, but is still poetic in its own way.

However . . .

(I feel like a fucking hypocrite for getting on her case about this, because it's MY major blogging flaw.)

Jayne, your posts could do with some major editing. Reorganization, paring down, splitting up posts, etc.

For example, I think this post would flow better if you started with the Halloween costume story, and then worked into the tailor hemming the skirt. The punchline to the story, the kicker if you will, is in the first paragraph ($15). Why would I continue reading the post? Hold onto the "best" part of the story until the end-ish. Make your reader want to find out what happened.

There's also a difference between writing in a casual, conversational manner, and writing out your ADHD train of thought. I tend to be a rambling storyteller in real life, and that inadvertently carries over into rambling story-writing, which does not translate well and bores my readers. I didn't even realize I was doing it until I was reviewed myself.

For instance, the first paragraph of this post, could be completely deleted. It's the rambling storyteller coming out right there.

In that same post, it seems like you're telling two different stories at the same time even though it's ONE outing you're writing about. Different parts of the post evoked different feelings in me and my emotions felt torn all over the place. I understand what you were trying to do, but I think I would have preferred it if it was JUST about you and your son walking around town and your conversation with him about homeless people OR if it was a "you can't go home again" type post.

And I say that, because you are able to write both types of posts. You go back and forth between writing funny little slice of life stories, and writing evocative pieces that allow your reader to imagine what it's like to experience something. That's a good thing. Personally, I wish I could write the latter, but I'm afraid everything I write like that sounds contrived and maudlin.

I'm awarding you:




For being a cool chick and for having serious potential.

Tales of a Bionic Testicled Shoe Shiner

BLOG: AmmoHammerBite!Bite
AUTHOR: Ryan Lawson -- Presumably from Hamilton, Ontario, but I could very well be mis-surmising.

And, to be honest, I do not know how to begin.

So, let me start from the beginning. From what I would consider a rather inauspicious and mundane initial foray into the world of syntactical drivel, Ryan Lawson brings to us a blog of, primarily, stories. Some seem to be fantastical retellings of real interactions that he has had. Some appear to be attempts at self-reflection and at times I would wager self parody. And some just appear to be the output of a tremendously offkilter mind.

There's not a lot of that personal touchy-feely stuff you get in other blogs. Even his telling about the birth of his child doesn't really carry any implicit understanding that this actually happened or even what being a dad means to him. Only by reading the introduction did I even know that such an event had actually occurred.

His design invokes the feel of a comic book or an e-zine, and the content lives up to that invocation.

He is clever. At times, he is possibly too clever. In general, I applaud his creative vocabulary, but at times, he seems to be interested in showing off how well he knows how to work a thesaurus rather than trying to tell a story.

Look at me, picking such nits. Face it. When Ryan is on, he is really on. And if he misses once or twice, I actually am willing to grant that in this case, the fault may be my ability to process the concepts rather than his execution.

In other words, at his best, Ryan writes really fucking well. Laugh out loud well. Dare I suggest David Lynch/Charlie Kaufman well? Could he sustain it for a whole novel? If so, I would buy it. I would buy it for all my friends. And I would tell them "I reviewed his blog."

When you go to this blog, do yourselves a favor and check out the Storyhole and More pages. There are definitely some keepers in there. (Switcheroo, for example.)

Nobody's perfect. So, what could Ryan do better? The template is fine. No changes there. In the writing... I dunno, there were just some times when the density of the words created a short-circuit in my visual processing cortex, which is a good part of the reason why this review was late. Strive for more clarity. Sometimes less is more. Listen to your inner editor.

But by all means, keep doing this.

I am on the fence as far as the rating goes. I abhor hyperbole, and as such am really loathe to award IFLYs, and I admit that the one or two misses made me question whether I could hand out an IFLY in this case, but in the end, I have decided to just let it go and stop agonizing.

Fwd: fwd: fwd: fwd: cut that out, already

Hey kids! Ginny of Praying to Darwin here. Madame Bellicose asked me to fill in, do a review, post SOMETHING for the love of god. She sends her regrets, and will be back as soon as she can. I'm not at liberty to give any details; suffice it to say that when you are picking a "safe" word for the evening, maybe avoid citrus fruits, because in the heat of the moment, it's hard to remember whether it was "tangerine" or "clementine" that meant stop. And by the time you remember which was which, or even which one has seeds, enough time has elapsed for some really freaky shit to go down.

But I digress.

If you were to hack into my email, right now (don't though, please, because I am far too busy/lazy to change my passwords), you'd find a metric butt load of forwards. Forwards from well-meaning folks. Folks who think that by forwarding mildly racist jokes and kookily captioned pictures, they are making my day. And maybe making me think that they, by association, are funny. But they don't make me laugh. They make me sad. Sad that I wasted my time. Sad that although these (mostly semi-elderly) people have figured out the gull-durned interwebs, they're only using it to spam me with this crap.

I read blogs to get away from that.

And then I get to review Venom, Secrets, & Lies.

Uh oh.

Because Venom doesn't just let these high-LARIOUS forwards sit in her inbox. Nope. She turns 'em into posts. A lot. Of posts.

And when she's not posting tired email forwards, she's flogging the living shit out of something called HumorBloggers.com. To the point where I wonder what these people have on her. (In a post where she contemplates shutting the blog down, she second guesses herself based solely on the idea that changing her blog will get her punted by these people. That scares me.)

So it would be easy to dismiss her.

But I can't.

Because when she just lets loose and tells you what's going on in her life, tells you a bit about herself, or sets up her very own, original joke, she's easy to like. When she just talks to you, and stops trying so hard, she's all potential. Her writing style makes me feel like we're having a conversation at her kitchen table, over coffee laced with not-cream. And I like it.

So Venom, here's my two cents (and since we're both Canadian, there's no pesky exchange rate to get in the way): break free. This whole HumorBloggers thing you've gotten yourself into is hemming you in, restricting you, and not in a fun, S&M kind of way. I think there's someone in there, worth reading. When you get her out, on a regular basis, I'll want to read regularly.

The email forward/HumorBlogger stuff gets you a flaming finger.

But damned if I can't stop myself from giving you a star,

because I want to come to Manitoba and talk to you and not hear jokes my grandpa already forwarded me.

P.S.: Please don't think I'm hating on HumorBloggers.com. I understand the idea of community building as a reason to blog. I really do. I just don't like what it's doing to this particular blogger. So there.

Potty Talk?

You have got to be shitting me:

"My blog is up for review this week by Ask And Ye Shall Receive. As you can tell from any of their reviews and URL, they have a tendency to use potty talk and pull no punches, so expect a slaughter."

From all accounts I’ve gathered in my sleuthing of this analogy, anal-sex is uncomfortable, at least at first; Abandoned Stuff is the blog-equivalent of banal-sex, in which the adrenaline-gland is dry-humped by the flaccid cock of mediocrity, and, holy fucking hell, I’ll put that up against anal-sex on the "uncomfortable" scale any goddamn day of the week. In fact, though I’m not gay, I’ll take a poker in the ass just to prove this theory to myself - that’s how serious I am about my displeasure at having to sift through page upon page of sheer, unending boredom.

Look, I’m not using the word "banal" lightly here, or like some hyper-intellectualized snob sniffing down at the peasants who don’t happen to fill my glass with the varied and sumptuous wines of good writing; by any standard, save the rose-tinted glasses Saskboy must employ to read his own work, this blog is indeed "dull and unoriginal", is, actually, the very essence of the phrase "boringly ordinary and lacking in originality". Some examples:

"On Wednesday I played soccer with friends, and fortunately took a ball with me. I’m able to lift my legs on Thursday, so I’m slowly getting into better shape."

"I went to the garden yesterday, and had a beat leaf, and a radish. I also picked some rhubarb, and it’s getting turned into dumplings today, if all goes well :-)"

"I really like Canada Day. It’s fun to spend it in Regina, but I wish I could be joining my friend Jesse in Ottawa again this year. I’ll make due in the Queen City, however. I’ll watch some movies, see some live music, and avoid a sun burn. Last night I barely avoided a burn I think, and spent the dark hours of the evening watching “Arlington Road” [8/10] (for the second time in my life), with Patty."

These are just randomly culled from various posts, and they’re like the drivel that comes out of the overzealous-conversationalist with nothing to say who corners you at a dinner-party - idle-chatter just for the sake of it. For fun, I’m going to try one of these myself:

"I once ate an entire pineapple. My friend Bobby once bet me a dollar that I couldn’t jam my fist in my mouth, but when it got stuck I had to tell my mom. I like birthdays. They are special, though I’d prefer to spend money on doodads and gimcracks than on toys that nobody really needs. Peanut-butter makes my face swell. I am feeling good."

Same fucking thing, and it took me 28 seconds to write...which leads me to believe that he spends less time working on his writing than he does fidgeting with his camera to paste pictures of his goddamn vegetables online. One post is the same as the next, except for this stunning announcement that Saskboy has made the shortlist of Top Canadian Political Blogs. The excitement across Canada is palpable, a frenzied electricity crackling across the country like when Sweden broadcasts their picks for Top Grass-Cutting Blogs, or when the finalists for Top Bulgarian Accounts-Receivable Blogs are given their day in the sun.

I mean, fuck. Empty words litter these pages, and I’m becoming more and more ornery the further into this blog that I get. Abandoned Stuff is why the general population hates blogs: the mundane minutiae of one’s life told so uninterestingly that a wordless post with a photo of one solitary, single piece of toast, slightly buttered, would improve the overall-tone of this thing a thousand-fold.

In the spirit of the sterilized-ambience that the colour gray brings, and because Sakboy isn’t, to my knowledge, some irredeemable asshole, he gets a colour-inverted finger, flaming:



I want the blog to kill itself with a bazooka, but maybe, reincarnated, Saskboy can put a little more effort into the crafting of his new blog which isn’t, in any way, related to Abandoned Things; the writing’s kind of important on a blog, dude, so, maybe, I dunno, focus on it?

Torn Apart Like a Hanky at a Snot-Party

It’s another fine, frosty Canada Day here at the Nutjobber Estate, and though there is snow to be shoveled and wood to be thrown on the fire, well, these are things best left to the overall-expertise of the girlfriend, Nutjobbette; I have a blog to review, and I should get to it before the cold either fogs up my monitor or makes it too difficult to type through these geese-down gloves.

Therein lies the problem: I have no idea why The TrailerParks Farm would submit to us. On top of Ask being the place-to-be if one opts to have their blog fucking torn apart, I, personally, am suffering from a knot in my left calf that feels like a fist fitted with brass-knuckles pushing through the fine, put-upon fibres of my poor, poor leg-muscle; combine that with the sub-zero temperatures of Canada, and you’ve got yourself a mean-ass reviewer with little to no patience.

Firstly, it looks awful: The text-size is so massive that even if someone managed to shrink it down to the point where the entire blog could be grafted onto the head of a pin, I would still be able to read it, unaided, from the furthest reaches of outer-space; the colours chosen, if twisted in a blender, would resemble spewed stomach-bile from the diseased-innards of a three-legged weasel afflicted with late-stage bowel-cancer; the blank, endless space at the bottom of the blog made me feel as though I was staring into a void of such abrupt nothingness that fear gripped the back of my neck like the cold, dead hands of a demon who had finally come to collect that soul I promised him years ago. Yes, there are widgets & sidebar clutter, serious no-no’s, but they’re like graffiti on a condemned-building: the whole thing needs to be blown up, so why sweat the small stuff?

Secondly, the content is reminiscent of those year-end Christmas cards written, presumably, to update an extended family on recent happenings, pictures provided; this, for example, was written so breathlessly that I want to send them an oxygen-mask, and I can’t even begin to comprehend what this means:

"Olin has been the best moral support to me this last year, whenever I need a pick me up, he's only a click away, and nothing makes you feel better than name calling and ugly face with a ten year old boy."

Good gravy, I just read that sentence to Nutjobbette, and she shrieked and chased me around the house swinging an iron-plated cross; she might have said something about castration, but I managed to quell the uprising with an electric-blanket and the idea that she go salt the ice on the front steps.

I can’t, in good conscience, risk another attack by posting more links; this blog is unfit for public-consumption, and, as such, gets a almost solely because the act of reading it aloud brought terror and shame upon the entire Nutjobber clan.

You Ain't Been Funny In a Coon's Age

Keywork, here again, reviewing another blog for the people at Ask.

Well, there's things I know, and there are other things I don't know. I know this, Redneck Bar and Grill is not the worst blog I have ever read. Look, fellas, don't get all excited to the point of drinking lighter fluid, that wasn't meant as a compliment. While Redneck wasn't the worst, it's on my list of 'Blogs I Won't Read Again'. See, as an American, I am slightly more accustomed to a different brand of redneck. Not to say y'all ain't rednecks, I'm sure you are. Things are just different in Canada I guess.

Ok, the blog. Simple enough, easy to navigate, no widgets! Y'all musta known I'sa comin. I hate me some widgets. Really. I didn't really find anything to dislike as far as your template goes. So you get points for that. Unfortunately, I found the content to be simple as well. Look, you guys make beer, and I have great memories with beer. So it's hard for me to tell you this: if you brew the same way you blog, you guys are fucked. Apparently, you don't, from what I've read, so kudos. But, what I'm saying, in short, is stick to brewing. You know the type of humor that is appreciated at Ask, you knew before you submitted. What in the name of hockey were you guys thinking? Tim, Ernie, you guys need to tell us who's writing what. I don't know who to direct my verbal katanas (that's the ninja sword word you were looking for) at, so you're both going to hear it. Remember, I'm trying to wake you guys up, so take this shit to heart. One of you is funny. I don't know which one, but whoever wrote this, you have your moments. I'm guessing you would be the same fella that wrote this, please correct me if I'm wrong. Here was the high point, I really thought this was funny enough to italicize:

'This stuff isn't rocket surgery'

I enjoyed your observations and you showed hints of hilarity. I enjoyed the information on DIY Hydrogen Generators. There's your positives.

Let's glance at some things you should never do again.

1. The Ninja Post. This is what we call literary suicide. Never, ever, ever, ever, claim to be a 'pretty good' writer. Don't fucking do that. Let someone else tell you that. Believe me, if you're not a good writer, someone like myself will call you on that shit. Humility: please have some.

2. Bird Squeezing. One of you missed out on a great opportunity to really entertain the masses. Jesus, if you ever feel the need to post something this bland again, send me an email. I will tell you not to.

3. Have unprotected sex. Not that you have, I just felt like it needed to be said.

So, Rednecks, I must tell you this: grab another Blue Beaver, build some generators, and don't post again unless you're reaalllly fucking drunk. Spelling errors are funny. I don't really have a star rating for you, and I can't toss a flaming finger your way, it wasn't all bad. Hey, Love, give these guys one of those 'meh' things. Yeah.

Canada is the New Black

Confession time: I hate sugared cereals (well, except for Frosted Mini Wheats) and am lactose intolerant. If given the choice between a bran muffin and a gigantic bowl of Fruit Loops, I’d choose the bran muffin every time. There’s just something unnatural about eating that much sugar before 10 in the A.M.

Which is why I was leery when I was assigned “The Surprise in My Cereal Box.” I was afraid I was going to have to review one of those “theme blogs” where the author reviews kids cereals and obsessively collects the prizes at the bottom of the box (BTW, are those even offered anymore?). I instantly relaxed when I noticed the author, Sugar Smacks, is from Toronto. For some reason, I really really love Toronto blogs. They’re usually really well written (or so crazy-cool that you can’t help but love them) and often full of pictures of hip concerts and beautiful Canadian boys with manicured beards and cute glasses. As a matter of fact, there isn’t one Toronto-based blog that I don’t like, and this blog is no exception.

Even though I wish Miss Sugar would post more pictures (because she’s so damn cute), her writing style is exactly what I like about the blogosphere (gawd, I can’t believe I used that word). She writes without being too serious or like she’s trying too hard. She writes in a janky, fast, easy style that seems similar to how she talks (or how I would think she would talk). She uses funny little metaphors, slang, and plenty of swears that transport you into her mind. This is actually one of the few new blogs that I’ve come across in my time as a reviewer that I read EVERY SINGLE POST from the present day to the first day she began blogging. I never do that. Not even with the blogs that I’ve been following for 2 years. As a matter of fact, I loved this blog so fucking much that I’ve decided the only way one can become a better blogger is to move to Toronto. Do not pass Go, Do not collect $200, just get on a fucking plane and become a Canadian (especially now with the exchange rate).

I give it a rare double because what else is there to say, other than “will you be my best friend and sponsor my citizenship?”

Use It or Lose It

OK, I'm not sure if this is going to be a completely fair review, because 1) I'm writing this after a 3 and a half hour Graduate class, 2) it's day 1 of that time of the month when I hate being a woman, 3) it's 4 fucking degrees out, and 4) I have to wash my crock pot tonight or else I'm going to have a total fucking OCD meltdown.

Anyway, the vict...er...blog for the day is Not Afraid to Use It. Basically, it's your average wife and mother pissing and moaning about things that happen in her life or that are on her mind. You know, like the other 8 bajillion bloggers out there (I include myself amongst the bajillions). It's not nearly as nasty and bitchy as I was hoping, what with the Wordless Wednesday posts, Thursday 13's, and pictures of her kid. Now, this isn't really a bad thing, just, well, not crabby enough for my taste. I know we can't all be pissy all the time, because, well, the neighbors might start talking, and before you know it, there's an FBI file with your name on it, but there's got to be more that pisses this girl off than runaway tigers and women watching their carbs (I mean, she is married, after all). Maybe I didn't read back far enough, but that really isn't my thang. Anyway, that aside, she writes pretty well, and there's some pretty good rants on there (I especially liked the little thing about her friend's roommate and the hockey thing, mainly because I don't get the appeal of hockey AT ALL, and I practically live in Canada.

The template is your basic boring blogger template with some blog awards buttons (do people still give those out? If so, who do I have to blow to get one?) and all the archives and links are rolled up nicely. I think she might benefit from getting a free template, or at least picking a blogger template that isn't so goddamn pink, but that's more of a personal decision, not really something I count off points for.

All in all, I give it for not being completely horrible and mostly laying off the mommy blogging.

Diametrically Opposed

Let's begin today's lesson by figuring out the differences between myself and Miss Misery and myself, shall we?

She's 17. I'm 39. She lives in Canada, I live in Pennsylvania. She's in high school, preparing for her prom. I'm at work, slaving away. She's a girl, on the verge of womanhood. I'm a prematurely old cranky dickhead who pretends to be cool.

Yeah, this could get interesting.

I enjoy the template, let me first say that. The header image is a little bigger than I'd prefer, but hey, to each his own, right? She calls the blog "Miss Misery Smiles", but she ain't smiling in that header image, nor in any of the pictures I've seen of her. Kind of an odd dichotomy, but well, there it is. I'm not sure if she wrote the "About" section above the standard Blogger Who Am I area, but this blog is described as "enriching". Kind of a lofty standard to live up to, isn't it?

The sidebar is mercifully short, and hey, a button from IT2M. Are they still in the review business? I can't tell. Nor do I give a shit. At any rate, the front page is long, but the font size is big in Firefox, and it's only a week's worth of posts, so I'll forgive.

The content is simple and to the point, a diary of her life and the people in it. It's not Shakespeare, but it doesn't need to be. I can still relate to being 17, although I'm sure that most of you can, but I was the one in my crew who never got carded and could get beer, so fuck off. I remember listening to Bryan Adams and Journey (I never fucking said I was cool at 17 - gfy) and tearing around drinking Bud pounders, man, what a great time...

Sorry, got lost in the moment there. Look, here's the deal with this blog. She's got a good template, it's neat, it's organized, and the writing is decent, but not great. She's not trying to be great, though, she's trying to be HER, which is more important in the grand scheme of things. A lot of people in the blogosphere (ugh) could stand to learn that lesson, and she knows it at 17. I had a discussion yesterday with a friend about whether I should trash this blog because of the IT2M button. I decided I'm so over that whole thing, it's not worth it. This blog is decent.



Enjoy your weekends, assholes.

Not Even the Ducati Can Save You From My Wrath

I'm a girl who likes her eye candy. So, I'm was inclined to like absent canadian from the get-go, because he has the kind of eyecandy I like right on top of his blog. I think there's nothing sexier than a guy on a nice bike.

And the template...it's clean, it's nice, it's lovely compared to some of the crap I've had to look at lately. Smooches for that. But the text is twice as big as it needs to be. Unless you're trying for the over-70 crowd, text that large really isn't necessary. However, I suspect that the larger type face may just be a disguise for the fact that the content is rather sparse.

And that gets me to....Ugh...the content.

The Absent Canadian is absent from Canada because he was transplanted to the south. He's a Gen Xer, has a rather pleasant photo on his blog, and I'd like to like him...I really would.

But I don't.

He got on my last good nerve. It's a shame one of the yankees didn't review you, Mike, because they might have been less inclined to beat your ass. But instead, you got the girl who lives south of the Mason Dixon line, and loves it. Poor you.

You know one thing I hate? I hate a transplanted northerner who doesn't take the time get past his superficial stereotypes of folks down here, and see the subtle pleasures of the South, the beauty, tranquility, grace, warmth, and slow easiness down here. One of the joys of moving to another country, or for that matter, moving from one region to another, as I've done twice (first from the midwest to the west, and then from the west to the deep South 7 years ago), is the chance to immerse yourself in an entirely different culture, and ENJOY IT. To occasionally laugh at it, but to more often become part of it. To let a place sink into your bones and change you, for the better. To lose that sense of superiority you direct towards your current neighbors, and realize that every place, every person, has something to offer you.

The post currently at the top of this blog (redneck license plate on a truck from Georgia) serves as a case in point. Condescension, condescension, condescension. And from a Canadian, to boot. Do you even understand what a redneck is? The term can be a disparaging one, but in the South, more often than not, it's a person who is saying he came from common, rural parentage, a working class joe, a man or woman who works hard for his/her money. One of my favorite authors, Edward Abbey, once wrote:

I am a redneck myself, born and bred on a submarginal farm in Appalachia, descended from an endless line of dark-complected, lug-eared, beetle-browed, insolent barbarian peasants, a line reaching back to the dark forests of central Europe and the alpine caves of my Neanderthal primogenitors.

I'm descended from a long line of rednecks and see nothing about that as shameful. My dad grew up on a submarginal farm in the Ozark mountains with almost nothing to his name, descended in an unbreaking line from poor white farm folks who broke their backs tilling rocky red soil. There are two uses of the term redneck. One is perjorative, used by outsiders to mock and demean people they assume are their lessers, much like ignorant racists use the n-word. And then there is an internal use of the word bypeople who consider themselves nothing more than plain working class folks. You fail to grasp that distinction, dude, and it's offensive.

Are parts of Georgia backwoods? Oh hell yes. But some parts of it (Atlanta) are as cosmopolitan as any place you're going to find in the world, with fine dining, a rich cultural life, and opportunities to enjoy good living. Other parts, like Savannah or Athens, are rich in history and tradition, and are beautiful, to boot.

The American South is/was home to some of the most famous and prolific writers in Western literature. Think Flannery O'Connor, James Faulkner, Eudora Welty, Alice Walker, Mark Twain, Pat Conroy, Erskine Caldwell, Sidney Lanier, and Harper Lee, to name a few. The South was also the birthplace of jazz and blues, and later, the cradle of rock & roll. The South is home to great eating, from the spice of N'awlins to the low country cooking of South Carolina and soul food. Not to mention that there are at least half a dozen distinct types of barbecue in the South alone.

So tell me...what the hell of cultural value has Canada produced lately, aside from curling and Celine Dion? As a general rule, I don't demean the places other people live. I'm the girl who can even find something nice to say about Cleveland (frankly, I like Cleveland). But it gets on my last good nerve when some jumped up yankee moves to the south and then can find nothing good to say about anything that happens here. My last. damn. good. nerve.

Your condescension is unwarranted. And while your blog looks great, the content is dull and supercilious. Did I mention characterless, insipid, drab, tedious, plebian, prosaic and vapid?

Eh. I don't know if it's part of your anthropology background to sit back and presumptiously observe others without taking the time to appreciate their culture, or if you're just an ass. Either way, you can step off, hoser.

I give you a and a .

Spending money on a template when your content is this lame is a huge waste of cash.

p.s. So, speaking from the perspective of someone who wasn't born in the South, but has come to love it here: Don't like the way things are done down here? Think they were better in the frigid wasteland you came from? Don't let the door hit you on your canuckistani ass on the way back north.

xoxoxo,

Love Bites

Cure-All For A Bad Day

Our dear friend Tear Jerker was too hungover unable to blog-review today, so I'm stepping in. And boy oh boy, did she miss a good'n.

Phil's Proof has without a doubt one of THE BEST templates I've ever seen for a personal site/blog. He created it himself, which I find amazing. Phil, I need a phone number and/or email address, stat (my own blog stinks on ice). Okay, the content is slightly all over the place, and my guess is a lot of it is written for his pals (he is a student, apparently in Canada - I CAN READ!) There's an extremely hilarious bit of IM'ing with someone's Mom, which I'm still chuckling at.

I can't get over how much I like this template. I'm viewing it in IE, 1152 x 864, and man, the colors and graphics are outstanding. It's neatly organized, there's a picture section (for the ladies and alternately-inclined gents). His "Misc" link seems to be broken, but other than that, this thing is sweet.

I know this is a short-but-sweet review, but I gotta say, a billion thumbs up for this one.
for the template and content.

for being too cool for school with the broken link. Fix it, my friend.