Little sister don't you do what your big sister done

I grew up with an older brother, he of the interminable Risk games and Rush cranked up to 11 and hours and hours spent on his Atari. I was the pesky little sister, looking up to him in all his nerdy glory, even though he stole my Halloween candy and told me he was always right and never wanted me around, at all, ever. He was still my big brother, and I wanted him to like and respect and include me. He didn't, though, not until he moved out and away and we both grew up and into our own people. Before then I was always vying for attention, being annoying and singing all the damn time and stealing his Star Wars action figures and D&D dice, thinking, I guess, that would get me noticed, that would get me included. Although why I wanted to be included in his geektastic life is beyond me. Still. Big brother, little sister and all that.

Sierra reminds me of that quintessential little sister. Not as annoying as I was (seriously, I sang all the time), but that same eagerness to please, that same look at me look at me I'm playing with the older kids vibe, that wishing and hoping to be included. But it's not the dorky older brother from whom she wants approval, it's bloggers. And not just any bloggers, mommy bloggers in particular. She loves a mommy blog. And she's kind of a mommy blogger in training, a mommy blogger wannabe. I know. It takes all kinds.

My first thought when I went to Sierra's blog was if you can't be bothered to post for a month, why should I bother to review you? Something just petered off for Sierra around December and she's let her blog go by the wayside. She's Twittering up a storm but not blogging.

My second thought was pink! Which is actually fine with me, but be glad you didn't get fluffy-hater LB. She'da ripped you one.

So, for the design... There are 3 columns, and you don't need 'em. Drop down your archives and your categories. I do like the pink and brown, and because I'm a bit girly I like the swirly little flounces, although the large signature and swirl at the end of every post is overdone. Shrink it or get rid of it. I love the font for your section headings, but it gets a little hard to read on your post headings, especially if they're long. And the font for the post text is way small and hurts my eyes. Good for you for having links to About, etc., and putting your blog roll and the rest of those bits on separate pages.

We all have our little blogging peccadilloes, and I HATE little cartoon sassy girls (disregard my avatar because at least I don't have an entire face). Especially if they don't look a thing like the blogger, which seems to be the case here. Who is this girl gazing slyly at us from your header, with her shag hairdo and hip-shot stance? Not you, that's who. Find something more representative.

Sierra is 20. Ah, youth. It's hard not to like her because she's kind of goofy and sweet. And she likes Anne Sexton. Much like yesterday's blogger, she's an awfully pollyanna 20. There's not a post about dicks or booze or booty calls or being busted for breach of peace, which would have been the subject of any blog I might have written around this time in my life.

Instead there are lots of memes and however many things about me (all of them too many) and these are my thoughts and blah, blah, blah. I mean, it's written reasonably well and with an engaging(ish) voice, but the subjects are, like, America's Next Top Model and going vegan and celebrity babies and Post Secret commentary and crap I just don't care about. And there's the Haiku Friday and Thousand Words Thursday and Spit on my Sphincter Saturday (I made that one up -- I needed some crass).

But then there are others, like this, that make me just want to hug her and tell her it'll all be ok.

But then she'll turn around and type things like 'puter and I want to throttle the cutesy right out of her.

She doesn't let us in very far, and when she does she password protects it. Almost all of October 2008 is links to other places, Post Secret crap, or gushing about Ingrid Michaelson. There are no boys on the entire blog. None. Unless they're of the celebrity kind. There's just not a whole lot of exposition going on. What there is is good and I'd like more of it, but ultimately she's writing puff pieces. Amusing puff pieces, but still. There should be some delving, some exposure, some heat.

Sierra, you're 20! Live a little. In your 100 things you say, "I know I’m supposed to enjoy my college years…but I honestly wish that they were over. I just want to have my degree, be working in a good hospital, be married, and have a family. That’s all I really want." This irks me to no end. It shouldn't because, after all, it's your life and you've got to live it how you see fit and not everyone has aspirations toward Olympic gold medals in debauchery. But, jeez. Why succumb to the mundane so easily? Put up a little fight. Just a smidge? For me? For the sake of having anything at all to say on your blog? I'm not saying go out and have a threesome (although, hell, don't rule it out). Just do something and write about it. Unchain yourself from your laptop and get a life so that when you get back to the laptop you have something to say other than "I'm sorry I don't have anything to say."

Sierra, you write about blogging and being a blogger and trying to be a better blogger. Here's a hint from Yoda: There is no try, only do. Forget about all the Dooces or whoever you look up to in the world and just do your thing. It will either be good or it won't, but if it feeds some part of you, it's worth it whether you get a zillion readers or three. Blog because you have to, because you want to, not because you think it's something you ought to do, something you should be good at, or because you admire others for blogging.

I can tell you're big on the community aspect of blogging, and that's fine. Blogging does tend to create microcosms and relationships, and that's part of the draw. But if you write just for that aspect -- while looking up to, and wanting to be included with, the "more successful" bloggers -- you lose some of the guts of writing, the craft and creativity and storytelling and here I am, this is me, whole and unique and in the round. Don't write for the hits or the visits or the stats or the link backs. I know it's hard to avoid, and, yes, that can be a part of your process because it's natural to want to be heard. But when you devote too much of your blogging life to that spotlight urge, your words become hollow, sterile, and canned.

Perhaps you've already decided that the community means more to you than the writing. Maybe that's why you're tweeting instead of blogging. And that's fine, too. But I do think you have an interesting way with words and an engaging voice, so if you can stop giving us filler and fluff and start giving us some real life -- with hurt and anger and fear and delight and dirt and heart -- you could find yourself more "successful" than when you were trying to follow in your big sisters' footsteps.

All apologies

I'm sorry, Rachel, that the universe picked the one reviewer who loathes fluffy, empty-headed suburban chicks whose brains have apparently been hulu'ed by the hot Florida sun with a special passion verging on virulent nausea, for you.

I'm sorry that your blog suffers in comparison to that of a high school student's in terms of depth and creativity.

I'm sorry that I loathe pink polka dots with the icy hatred that Hilary Clinton's vagina reserves for Bill's wandering penis.

I'm sorry that I reserve a special disdain for women who can't cook, and in fact, don't even know what a clove of garlic is.

In short, I'm sorry you got me, because I FUCKING HATE YOUR BLOG.

Should you have received another reviewer, they might have been tempted to cut you some slack.

I am not so inclined.

Your blog is everything that is wrong with the blogosphere, in specific, and humanity, in general.

Who would read this hot mess? I can't find anything, at all, in your blog that makes me care about you or want to know you. It's all superficial nonsense, like what kind of shoes you want, or what you ate for dinner, or your daughter's vomit, without anything REAL.

I want you to do something. Read this post.

Then, read this:

The world is so much bigger than me. & in a way, it took me until just now, on july 13, 2007, at 1:10 in the morning to figure that out. I'm at my dad's apartment laying in bed and I start thinking about an article I read on myyearbook today. It was about a teen who had become a vegetarian. That isn't what made it so memorable. It was the part about how many fast food restaurants like Mcdonald's are paying to clear-cut the rainforest so they can graze cattle and other animals for their food products. That's terrible yes, but then a few minutes ago, i went onto google and searched for rainforest clearcutting. I came to a site, that even though it's information should be extremely reassuring, did not help my state of mind whatsoever. I'm not sure what to believe about global warming, and Clear Cutting, and Fossil Fuels. I want so much to believe that global warming is just a natural stage in the Earth's but what if it isn't? It just freaks me out. I mean, I'm 13, I'm confused, I'm not sure what to believe and i'm worried. Honestly, I cared more about finding a boyfriend and being with friends more than i cared about things going on across the world. I'm just a shallow teenager Lol. How depressing.

Guess what, Rachel? Your blog just had it's ass kicked by a teenaged blog. My teenager, for the record.

Sure, I'm filled with parental pride, but I also want you to see how your blog starts at mundane and never leaves it. There is never any point, there is never any growth, and there is never any introspection or reflection. You have less depth than a middle-schooler.

Your blog, in fact, reminds me of a conversation I eavesdropped on between two teenagers in my backseat this weekend.

Sarah: "I look around at life, and I have all these thoughts going on inside my head at once, and I feel like my head is hardly big enough to hold them all in. And, I look at Jessica, and I see that her life is incredibly simple. We're sitting down to eat, and inside her head, as clear as day, her brain is saying, 'Pull out the chair. Don't slip. Sit down.' And, I wonder what it would be like to only be thinking at one thing at a time, but maybe I will never know."

My daughter: "On the other hand, Jessica hardly ever falls off of chairs like we do."

Rachel: Your blog is Jessica's brain. I bet you never fall off of chairs. However, your blog sucks balls.

Here's my advice:

Go to facebook.
Create a profile.
Talk about shoes.
Give the blogosphere a rest.

That's all. I apologize for hating your blog and everything it stands for in my head, but I can't help myself.

Review a Reviewer...

...it's almost too delicious in its incestuousness. Now, I read lots of foodie blogs, movie blogs, and pop culture blogs, but no book blogs. So, I entered Bitterly Books with an open heart and was immediately pissed off. First of all, the author had to pick the goddamn ugliest fucking template offered by Blogger. Seriously? I mean, all the templates suck pretty hard, but the shit brown template with only a little more pizazz than a well formed turd ranks far below the pink template of death. If you're going to take the time to read and review obscure books (not to mention including IBSN numbers), I think you can take an hour or two out of your busy schedule to search google for a free template with a book theme.

Furthermore, what's with all the fucking labels? The list is longer than a whale's dick and most of them only have one entry. That's just moronic on all levels. You might as well categorize them by the Dewey Decimal System for all the good that 30 plus, ultra-specific labels will do your readers. How about rolling up Kate Moss, Kat Von D, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Warren Buffet, Anjelina Jolie, et al into one category called "People of Note/Celebrities/Attention Whores, or whatever. Furthermore, is a label for "Dr. Benson Honeydew" really necessary? And who the fuck is he anyway? You'd be far better off with just a few descriptive categories, because really, and I'll be honest here, that mile long list is so fucking distracting I had to physically force my eyes over to the middle of the screen to read your reviews.

As for the content? Eh, it's little more than quoted lines of text with very little of the blogger's opinion. Thanks, but that's what Amazon is for. I feel like I'm reading some of my early English comp papers that were heavy on cited text to make the page quota. Add that to the ass ugly template, labels out the wazoo, and you get this steaming pile of boring. Take the effort you're expending by pulling quotes from the books you read and redirect it into forming an actual cohesive and elegant review and you'll be on to something.

I give it because all those labels make me want to set fire to the internet and there's just no fucking excuse for that template choice, which completely obfuscates a good blog idea.

It's Not Your Barbie's Blog

Frequently in my life, I feel like I need to wash my mouth out with lye soap, scour my tongue with 60 grit sandpaper and gargle with bleach. Especially after I have posted certain reviews at this site. As a kid, my mom nicknamed me Garbage Mouth. Thanks, Mom.

Deep within my psyche lies a steaming pot of sarcasm, profanity and off-color humor, precariously held in check by my upbringing, which included weekly fire and brimstone sermons. I tend to let the cork out during my reviews, and then feel guilty for days afterward.

So anyway, I was sitting at church this week, and we were subject to yet another liturgical flogging about being a good example to other churchlings. I was wracked with guilt. I pretty much know I am scum to the core, but I felt like I should reform and be a Good Girl* henceforth.

Right then and there I said a little prayer to try to help me deal with my mouth:

Dear Lord,

Please help me not to use bad language this week. And please forgive the bad things that I did to the cat last week with the fork. Help me to be more muthaly to my children.

Thanks in advance,

Mutha.

As Sunday turned into Monday, I started to become mightily worried. Could I actually review a site without using a slew of cuss words? Must I delve into profanity and potty mouth to make a point? Does sarcasm cut less deeply without the F Word? We may never know the answers to those questions.

That's because this week, I was given Queen of Her Own Universe to review and choirs of angels sang.

Frighteningly incongruent images, gotta love it.

Jasmine has a sweet ride, although Blogger is her chosen highway. It's a crimson-flushed custom template that is as creamy as triple extra mayo on a Whopper with Cheese.

Yes, I know it's pink. That's sort of hard to miss. I know that some of you hate pink. Personally, I hate white type on black. You may equate pink with Pepto-Bismo or Mary Kay Cadillacs. Listen, Jasmine does pink well. It is unashamedly pinkedy, pink, pink, and yet, the colors jive, the accents are attractive and the site is laid out nicely.

The entire site is easy to sink into. It is thoughtfully composed and funny. She sharp-edged and sometimes raw. I like that. Read about Jasmine seeing a jpeg of her adult son, nude, with a major erection. Read her 'Best Work', which she has properly placed, smack dab, on her front page and see if you don't love her.

Getting into her archives, I found that she's much better now than she was a year ago, even six months ago. She was into loud fonts and colors and tended to run on too much, but she's refined that. Jasmine, don't slide back into that. Let your words speak for you, but be their master.

In fact, the more I read, the more smitten I became. I even found out that I am not alone on the blogway to H-E-Double Toothpicks.

Here's some helpful hints from the Mutha:

• Link your site address into your banner.
• Lose the major spacing which is used for emphasis between certain paragraphs. I hate scrolling. It makes my index finger get all muscular and that's so unattractive.
  
• Roll up your archives, eventually they will get excessively long.
  
• Keep an eye on length. We have to fight not to run on, don't backslide on that.
• Add some navigation on the bottom of your front page to allow users to access older posts.
• Consider using categories, but don't run a whole list down your sidebar.
• If you are the only author, you don't need your name on every post, just the date is fine.
  
• That's about it, Chickie Poo, just keep writing and don't let things get sloppy.
  

Stop by and visit. She's great fun. The only problem is, to rate her, I have to swear.

Damn.

* Don't feel bad for me losing my language on this site, I pretty much blew it on Tuesday when I called my mother-in-law a life-sucking Shelob-bitch from Hell. But if the shoe fits...

Under the Pink

I must confess that I was prepared to hate you, Formerly Fun. I cannot tell a lie. As soon as I saw the barftastic pepto bismal hues of your blog, I thought, "Oh, fuck me now. I can't do this today. Nothing good ever comes from a pink blog."

But you surprised me, you charming little minx. You totally did.

Your blog design is hideous. The header clashes horribly with the background color. They're both pink, and they remind me of the non-matching hues of my internal organs from a laproscopic surgery I had a few years ago. Your header, in case you've ever wondered, is the color of my kidneys. Your background is the color of my uterus. If that doesn't motivate you to change this template, nothing will.

And you should. You REALLY, REALLY should, because I fucking love your content. I LOVE IT. I would totally have a long weekend with your content, slowly sucking the goodness out of every single morsel, licking it laciviously until there was nothing left on my screen and my tongue was numb and raw.

It's delish. It's the perfect mix of snark and sarcasm and humor, all mixed up and spat out with just enough verbal acuity to make me moan with pleasure. In fact, I think there may be a wet spot on my office chair right now.

Oh, you're gross. Don't get me wrong. But you're gross in all my favorite ways. I'm still searching for a post to hate, but I can't find one.

And so, I say to you: please fix your fucking template. We have links on our FAQ to sites with some pretty, easy to use, templates. Fix the spacing between your posts, so the date of one post doesn't run into the title of another post. While you're figuring out how to update your look, create a tester blog like most of us do, a place to play with cascading style sheets so you don't muck up your main blog. Move your stuff "about you" away from your header and onto a page all of its very own. Roll up your archives into a drop-down button. Just figure this template shit out, because your writing deserves better.

And, keep writing. In particular, as a brazilian customer, I want to hear some funny, juicy, horrifying brazilian stories. I want to know what the person who is ripping my hair from my pudenda and vulva is thinking while she's staring down at my exposed vagina. I want at least one a week, and I know you have them. So, bitch, give them up.

And, then, just keep doing what you're doing, in spite of the annoying anonymous critics. Just keep on being you, because you seriously rawk.

I give you three stars, with the promise of an "I fucking love you" if you fix your ass-ugly template:

You're No Diablo Cody, My Dear...

I must preface this by saying that I am no prude, neither am I one of those old skool feminists who loudly denouce stripping and other matters of the sex trade. While I wish we lived in a world where womens' sexuality was celebrated for what it is, rather for what and how much it can get them, I have absolutely no problem with strippers, women who want to be strippers, or even middle-aged moms who take strip-aerobics or a pole dancing classes...albeit, I do find it kind of stupid.

Anyway, I have been charged with reviewing The Pole Affair, written by a Brit who I can only assume is either a peeler or one who fills her free time by learning about the Burlesque arts. I haven't yet figured that out (I'm assuming it's the latter, due to the explanation under the title). Wanna know why? Because this is probably the most boring blog about pole dancing I've ever read (and I've read quite a few...the Midwest is lousy with them). Most of her posts are insufferably long and detailed to the point where my eyes glaze over and I start contemplating a new recipe for pot roast. I tried, I really tried, to read over 2 dozen posts, but they were far too full of words (very few of them sexy, a lot of them highly technical screeds about pole dancing class and the people who attend them). She needs to either edit or break those fuckers up into more manageable chapters. This post is just one example of something that would be highly interesting and readable, if you would only either break it up or get out your goddamn red pen. Christ on a bike, I never thought walking on hot coals would actually be preferable to reading about walking on hot coals. I think you could do well to take note of what these three women are writing and always leave us wanting more (yes, I know the third is D.C.'s MySpace page, but her blogger site seems to have gone away in the past month).

As to your template, well, can I just say, what's with all the fucking buttons and awards? Either get rid of them or roll 'em up, same with your archives. There's just too much fucking useless garbage stinking up your side bar. Oh, and it's pink...blech. We all know how I feel about pink, so I won't beat a dead horse on that issue.

I give it a gigantic for the insufferably long posts that seem more like literary valium then titilating nuggets about learning to be a "vamp."

Can I be your guru?

When the lovely and talented (and absent) Love Bites handed me my blog to review this week, there was a note attached: "she is looking for guidance." Honey, aren't we all? I'd like some guidance about lottery numbers and full body liposuction, but that's neither here nor there. I'm happy to offer Allie at Friday Night Ambulance the benefit of my vast experience and completely biased and unprofessional opinion.

First, it's pink. Pepto-Bismol pink. And I like pink, just not this much of it. Jumping Jesus, it's too much. But wait, wasn't this a different design when I stopped by briefly yesterday? Or have I had some sort of aneurysm? Maybe it's all the weed, but I seem to recall a different (less pinkified) design. If so, Allie, dear heart, change it back. Or change it to something else. Because this? Hurts.

You love art, but there's no design on the blog at all. I know there's a tech element, but get in there! Jazz it up. Also, roll up your archives and your categories, and check out a blog design with tabs: I always like an about page. And about your categories/tags, condense 'em. You have many with only one post, and that's spreading it all a little thin.

Allie and I both know she's not a writer. This is not a writer's blog. There are quite a few its vs. it's snafus and other grammatical glitches along the way. You can get away with this (ok, not really, but I'll humor you) if you have something to say, if you have an interesting way of saying it, if you let your voice carry us away and distract us from the grammatical boo-boos. But you're not quite there, so those lapses in construction stand out and detract from your words.

Now, it's fine to blog if you're not a writer. I happen to prefer blogs with more nuanced writing, blogs where the writers have style and an eye for language and storytelling and proper apostrophe use. But the web is a wide open world full of all kinds of bloggers, and there's room for non-writers, too. It's just, I don't read a lot of them. The ones I do read have something to say, a story to tell that engages me, a personality that comes through the screen and keeps me coming back in spite of their writing ability.

Chances are, if you blog because you're bored, you'll bore your audience. Some of these posts are ever-loving long, and with the lack of spacing (I assume this is a blogger/template change issue), it's just impossible to read. Edit, edit, edit. It's a lot of "I did this, then we did this, and then the kids said this, and then we played Xbox." Pick a topic, stick with it, try not to ramble. And if you do ramble, hell, toss in a few bullet points. I do read one blogger who rambles on an ungodly lot (you know who you are), but it works for her because her voice is so engaging. But she's the exception that proves the rule, so keep it concise, go back and edit, and thank heavens you quit with that whole Blog365 thing because that, my dear, makes for some boring blog posts.

I do love your haiku, though. And there are flashes of humor. And I gotta love a girl with a porn box. But these are overshadowed by a lot of memes and the aimless rambling and posts about nothing.

Look, I like you. You're kind of bitchy and fun, and you're giving this blogging thing the old college try and I commend you for that. You know there's something you're missing, and you're willing to let me rake you over the coals to find it. Good on you.

You've already taken a good first step. You're reading some blogs with good shit. Let them influence you. Next, clean up your design. I hope that this pink overload is just a placeholder for something else, because this needs a facelift something fierce. And clean up your writing. Stay focused. Tell us a story. Post when you have something to say. Refrain from recaps unless you can pull us into the experience and make it mean something to us, otherwise it's like you're emailing with your best friends, and why not just do that over email instead of posting on a blog? Find a reason to blog other than boredom -- I suspect you have one, but maybe you haven't owned it yet.

Today I'm giving you





and a







You wanted guidance, now you've got it. And our trusty commenters will likely give you more. Pay attention, take heed, show us your artistic flair, and get to work. I think you've got it in you to punch this up a notch or two. And I'll be checking your progress.

I'd Like a Little Hot Fudge for my Cheesecake, Please

Well, hello there my lovelies! Guess who's back? Yup, it's me, your favorite ice queen from the Great White North, back to tear apart some blogs and flirt with all your boyfriends.

This is going to be a short review (but sweet…maybe) since I totally spaced last night (read: engrossed in BBC America) and have to write this from work. Today we have Bittersweet Confusion, a young lady living in NYC, but I'll try and not hold that against her (heh).

ANYway, I'll start with the template, and what can I say? Yes, it's neat and clean, professionally designed, and organized (I'd look into rolling up your archives, though), but, Holy Christ on a Bike, is it PINK! It's the kind of pink that makes my ovaries quiver in fear. You know, that color of pink generally favored by 6-year-old girls and 22-year-old sorority chicks? Yeah, that shade. Hell, I like the color pink (albeit a more slutty shade of magenta) and usually don't mind it on a blog, but, fuck, that's alotta pink!

Pink (shudder) template aside, the girl can write. Her posts are mostly "day in the life" stuff and are pretty PG. Which is kind of my problem with this blog. It's kind of like plain New York cheesecake. Mild, creamy, with just a hint of that tangy cream cheese goodness. You keep eating it (because, hello, it's cheesecake) but keep wishing for something more, like hot fudge or caramel syrup to sex it up a little. This is not to say I hate plain cheesecake, but for a chick living in NYC, there's GOTTA be something going on around town or some weird thing you saw in the subway to write about to sex it up a little (not actual sex, but something gritty, weird, and out of the ordinary) to cut the cloying sweetness of cream cheese.

I give it for being well-written and mostly interesting (love the e-mail exchange with a Classroom Admin), but it could be three (or even four) stars if you took a break from navel-gazing and gave us some City Gritty.

You can't handle the mommy wars

Earlier this week, I spent a couple of hours reading a blog from beginning to end. It's rare for me to do that. Most blogs we review on here, even the best ones, can't keep my interest for more than a couple of dozen posts. The ones that do pull me in are the ones with a compelling story that moves me emotionally beyond just mere interest or a laugh.

The people whose blogs I read daily are people who struggle, who are fully human--warts and all--and are aware of their own frailties. They show me their souls.

So, I was assigned to review this blog. I read for an hour or so, and made several visits. I have yet to see a blog with more words and less substance.

The most striking parallel I can offer is this. Read it. If you can read that goddamn post and not fucking cry like a baby, then you have a black soul-sucking abyss where your heart should be. Then, compare it to this.

So. Your template is like a hideous explosion in a scrapbooking store. Are you sure no one was injured in it's creation? I had awful visions of firefighters walking away from the scene, covered with flowered stickers. For the record, I hate that kitschy brand of faux cute. It's like those Vera Bradley purses that everyone in my neighborhood carries these day, overpriced and hideous. And everyone pretends to like them, and says how cute they are at the bunko party, and inside their heads, if they are sane at all, they are thinking, "Girl, in what world is a puce and hot pink paisley purse gonna match anything?"

Think of me as your crotchety old Aunt Ruby who will stand up in the Chuck-a-Rama and speak truths like: "Why are you wearing that ugly leopard-skin shirt?" The truth is: ugly is ugly. I have nothing to gain by lying to you and kissing your ass.

I would say that you write acceptably, if this were high school and the teacher was counting words on a page for an assigned number. At least, you use correct grammar and punctuation. However, after reading for an hour, I find that I don't give a good goddamn what you have to say because there is no heart. Even when you write about the mommy wars, you write meaningless tripe that doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of the complex issues and emotions involved, and even manages to misunderstand the perspectives involved.

Your blog is the same as millions of other blogs from standard-issue, boring, cookie-cutter, entitled, overpriced-kids'-clothes-shopping, SUV-driving, suburban women with too much time on their hands and an incredibly superficial view of the world and their place in it.

Every single one of your posts is about 3 times as long as it should be, and filled with so many words that reading them brought me within an inch of a fatal head explosion. Take this post. Do you not realize that it really could be said in a single sentence? Maybe two. How about this:

"I need to lose weight."

There's your post...5 words. Now, do the same with the others.

PEOPLE: Writing is more than stringing a bunch of words together on a page. If there is no point, DON'T FUCKING DO IT.

I don't hate you. Frankly, I can't muster enough energy to hate you. Your blog bores me to tears. I'm sure there are other people, just like you, who would read it. I'm not one of them.

Here's a life tip: Get off the damn computer. Go hug your kids. Thank your husband for the fence. Tell him that you don't appreciate him nearly enough. Give him a well-deserved blowjob. Go outside. Sit in the sunshine. Shut the fuck up. You can thank me later for this one, when you're old and wise like me, and have actually been through some shit.

I know you are probably going to think this is a hate-filled and unfair review, but in some tiny part of your soul, you also have to know that what I've written is true. Every post is an apologist treatise for your life.

Before I end, I want to show you some real, compelling blogging:

This.
This.
This.
This.
This.

Please, stop with the posing.

Lizza, Please

Hey kids, Charlotte Sometimes, guest reviewer here. Let’s get started with a little bedtime story.

One day I was sitting on top of the world, feeling a little too good about myself so I decided to submit my blog to be reviewed by this very site that you are reading right now. The luck of the draw put my sweet, little, pink blog into the hands of Love Bites to be chewed up and spat out. At the end of the ass-whipping that was my review, I was bruised and bloodied but I limped away knowing one, very important thing. I needed to learn how to edit my shit. I took that criticism to heart and turned that mother out.

Our blogger today needs to learn that same lesson. So with that in mind, let’s turn this mother out and start the spanking.

With the title of ‘I Am Woman, See Me Blog’ dashing all my dreams of awesome things to come, I hesitantly ventured into the ‘About Me’ section and read her profile. What I saw there sent my hopes careening back to me. Excitedly, I read about how she is a beer-loving woman in her mid-30’s living in the Philippines. She loves beer. I love beer. She’s in her 30’s. I’m in my 30’s. She lives in the Philippines. I live in the Mid-West. Well fanfuckingtastic but don’t wet your shorts just yet.

One thing life has taught me is that hope is a fickle bitch. I tried like hell to connect with this woman and I just couldn’t do it. There was absolutely nothing that made my no-no parts tingle here. I have three basic issues with Lizza’s blog: template, title and content. Nothing major, right?

Babe, your template blows. Seriously, I’ve seen this template before. It sucked then and it still sucks now. Ditch it for something cleaner that says something more about you, because frankly, your title doesn’t cut the mustard on that front either. We’re looking at more of a “cuts the cheese” type scenario.

Yeah that’s right. I compared it to a fart.

Darling, surely you are aware that using the word “blog” in the title is a big, “oh no you didn’t” around here. Your title tells your potential reader nothing more than you have a vagina and a keyboard. So do I. No one cares.

Lizza has a writer’s spirit but what she is lacking is an editor’s eye. Her sentences are creatively and artistically woven together with a rhythm that is comfortable. She loves poetry and it shows. What she’s missing is the point and a little soul. Don’t get me wrong - it’s there. It’s just not always there.

Rambly Meanderton does just that. She meanders and rambles on. If I were her, I would be more rad. But more importantly, I would go back after I typed my post and start cutting out the unnecessary fluff and bullshit. You’re wasting your words and your reader’s time. Your posts should be concise with a clear beginning, middle and end.

I’m giving you two stars for your writing because I don’t hate you.



However, I am giving you a flaming finger for making me wade through the fucking meme’s and ‘what kind of fruit are you’ generators.

I choose Vodka. And Chaka Khan.

Ten years ago I was 23 and just finishing up college. I was part of a group of women at that time who were influenced by a change in media representations of women that would resonate for years. Bridget Jones's Diary was released in 1996, followed swiftly by Sex and the City in 1998, ushering in a decade of martinis and Manolos and mad women. Chick lit exploded, and I was an eager participant in that cultural shift.

And now, 10 years later, it all feels a little tired to me. I've been there and done that. I've had my many one night stands and mortifying hangovers and friends with benefits and living for the next party. Those of us who felt empowered by "fucking like men" and being single are now, most likely, fucking husbands or fiances or long-term partners. Those singletons have generally become smug marrieds.

So for me, reading today's blog was a bit of a blast from the past. The Compulsive Confessor feels familiar because I've read it before. There are now literally hundreds (thousands?) of girl-about-town wine swillers writing about their experiences with sex and the city or the suburb. They're all pretty and eager and sassy and angst-ridden. And I, jaded 33-year-old (eyes rolling), want to pat them on their glossy heads and tell them to be original.

But eM actually is kind of original. Come to find out, she's a bit of a maverick. Because she's not writing about her "exploits" (god, how I loathe that word) in New York or Chicago or even Atlanta. She's writing from Delhi and Bombay, where there are strict obscenity laws and women can be punished for behavior like hers. And? She's kind of famous and pretty popular (or reviled).

To the basics: The template is ok. Three columns aren't necessary, but it's not hurting my eyes terribly. I like the banner, and I don't mind all the pink because I'm a girl. Roll up the archives and the categories (I'm like a broken record on this point) and move the stat stuff to the bottom of one of the sidebars. And add an "about" page.

Now, on to the writing. Infamous or not, eM is a professional entertainment journalist. Which honestly? Kind of surprises me. Ok, the writing is fine. At times pretty amusing. But for a professional writer there are an awful lot of grammatical snafus. Considering the trauma we all experienced with our spate of Indian emo bloggers who submitted for review, her leaving off periods and using some internet-speak and writing huge blocks of paragraphs is nothing. But come on. You do this for a living? And you're writing a book? Start acting like it on your blog. We say it again and again. EDIT. Boil it down to the necessary bits, excise extraneous words and ramblings. Have a point and stick to it. Or at the very least be concise.

eM has been keeping this blog for a good while, which is admirable. And as much as I'm probably not her target audience (though there are some relatable bits), she is, at the very least, honest. Her blog is exactly what it sets out to be: "twenty-something, single, female, writer, with large groups of friends and who goes out for drinks pretty regularly. That's my life and that's what I write about." This is the truth.

As a reader, I could use more meat, more substance, more depth, and more maturity. The writing is, for the most part, surface and superficial. But then she doesn't claim to be otherwise. Even though it's not for me, whatever she's doing is garnering her attention, accolades, and some arrows. And whatever I think of her writing abilities, I admire her for being brash and ballsy in a world that typically frowns on her behavior. It is obvious that she loves to write, but whether that love stems from confession or crafting remains to be seen. Right now I'm betting on confession.

I'm a bit torn on the rating for this one. I give it two stars because she blogs consistently and frequently, the template didn't make me want to stick needles in my eyes, the writing is fine, she amuses me, it made me all nostalgic, and she's kind of ballsy.






But I give it a flaming finger, too, because someone who writes professionally and is about to have a book published should care more about craft, should put more effort into the words she shares with the blogging community. Your blog got you recognized. Don't shit on that recognition and opportunity by shortchanging your blog with meandering posts with overlong paragraphs and lazy editing. You can do better, and you should. Pay attention to your words, be present in your writing, consider your audience, and give them something that you've polished up and are proud of. Even the most superficial twaddle can be worthwhile if the writer is an artisan.

Punk rockers do NOT wear flowers in their hair

Trust me on this one, Lemonade.

Nonetheless, I like you. I really like you. I like your layout/template. It's easy on the eyes, and easy to maneuver around. I like your clever voice. I like your Samosa cravings. They made me hungry too. Now, I'm annoyed that I'm going to eat sushi in 20 minutes, and not Tikka Masala.

I love it that you are only 18 years old, but you have the mature voice of someone far older. We have many, many bloggers twice your age who could learn from you. Your design blog is cute, and some folks who read here should visit it, hint hint. Particularly those of you who are stuck in pink hell.

I think you need to write more. I think you need to edit more. Think brevity. Maintain some focus in your posts, instead of mentally wandering everywhere (although that is occasionally okay, it can be annoying when done on a consistent basis, plus it will teach you to be more disciplined in your writing).

But, you have found your voice, and you've put it out there. I don't LOVE you but I really, really like you.

I give you

And, a tip. Go here and learn about punk rock girls. ;) There are no flowery sparkly princesses in punk rock. Only grrrls.

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.

I Suck Something Fierce!

What's worse than being a lawyer? Having to spend a week with a bunch of other lawyers while you do re-certification and learning bullshit. It. Is. Pure. Hell.

Once you take a look at this blog you'll understand why I just stayed as far away as possible from it while surrounded by such "good-mood" conducive conditions.

Once in a while you find a blog that is the bomb diggity, and Feeling Pink just ain't it. Why you ask? Well besides the template being the most horrendously cluttered mess I've seen in blogland thus far, I feel like I'm looking into the diary of some thirteen year old pre-pubescent little girl. In her defense, she's a Malaysian living in Egypt, but in my defense this blog is a train wreck and I'm not sure what tragic thing I did to make my karma warrant the shitty experience of reviewing her.

I give her a , and am now promptly moving on.

NEXT STORY!

Spandex and Hairspray. It sounds so promising doesn't it? I mean it's a blog about coming of age in the eighties, and who doesn't love anything having to do with the 80's? The problem is it's a memoir, and when you finally scroll down long enough to find the end of the first post, let me know will you? CHRIST! Is that post fucking long enough? It's the third installment in what should have been a fifty-two part series.

I digress. The template is decent. Could be a lot more outrageously 80's, but at least it's not the horror of the above reviewed blog, right? Sidebar is organized and neat, and I do have to give her props for actually tweaking a blogger standard edition craptastic template into something that isn't more horrendous than the original and/or screaming for help. Widgets blow. Mark my words. But, I realize most people are too pussy to convert to the old blogger template, so, kudos to you Pimpstress Teresa. Well implemented, well implemented indeed. A word of advice, though. If you insist on having insanely long posts, which you seem to, make your blog area wider. People are less daunted by width than by length, and let me tell you I scrolled down your blog as a preliminary run through and I rolled my eyes, groaned, and cursed my fellow verbose bitches for insisting on not learning the essence of paraphrasing.

Now, back to content. She has two blogs: one for her memories and one for reflections on her current life. That's a whole hell of a lot of musing. Moreover, that's a shit ton of living in your own head. I'm all over introspection, but Christ on a bicycle! Sometimes it goes from being thought provoking and warranting of a reader's own introspection to being whiny bitching that indicates you're just stuck in some kind of dimension that you can't get out of. Just go with me on this dimension thing, I assure you I've been there before and I assure you that you're stick in this alternate world you've created and you can't seem to get out of. Trust me.

Anyway...

I don't know this woman in real life, but based on these two blogs I think it's time to pack up the reflection, introspection, and re-living of memories, and start living in the now. No offense, of course, but it just seems you're holding onto things that are a bit inconsequential to the now. That should be fifty-two week series on Scott could have been a single longer but-not-so-long-it's-scary post if you left out all some of the details. Nostalgia is great, but it seems you're bordering on remorse. Once again, no offense.

I give it .

And just 'cause it cracks me up:

OMG Generation Y is starting to piss me off...

Lazy slackers all of them, and don't let them tell you otherwise. Apparently, the tweeners (balls and I) are the only ones who seem to give a shit about the commitment we've made to rid the blogosphere of crap whilst entertaining you along the way. Well, fine. WTFE.

I opened my browser this morning and was deluged by pepto bismal pink. Oh goodie, goodie gumdrops. For the record, I would never drink a fucking martini that looked like this. UGH. Martinis for Two, I don't love your template. Pink is totally not my color. Pink is NO ONE's COLOR unless they are 6 years old and headed to Disneyworld. Plus, something has gotten janky with your table widths, because your sidebar is showing up underneath all of your content on IE this morning. Just something to work on.

The sidebar is nice and clean, and minimalistic, and she explains a bit about herself, which helps clue me in to what is going on, but fix those tables. Generally speaking, this happens to me when I've put pictures in that are too wide. You might want to check that.

I kind of like her writing, she's beautiful, her groom is beautiful from what I can tell, and she sucked me in. Not a mommy blog, it's a happily ever after after after story, kind of encouraging for gals like me that have been run over and drug around the block a few times by love.

Diane, I'm going to pick your writing apart a little bit, and it may hurt, but my intentions are pure. I think you have "the stuff." I think that you and your story are sellable, not in the blogwhore way, but in the blogger-turned-published-writer way. But, in order for that to happen, you are going to have to polish your writing. You have a tendency to make sloppy mistakes. For instance...

“Well, congratulations and good morning to you too.” I thought. “I don’t even have the official marriage license yet LET alone a social security card.”

You need to strip it down, clean it up, avoid redundancies and the use of pat/trite phrases (let alone, etc.). You have an interesting past...you have a 3rd time around's a charm love story...you have an interesting future ahead of you. Do some thinking about your writing. Ask yourself, when you read a blog post:

1) Have I chosen the proper words for this context?
2) What words could I remove from each sentence while still keeping the flavor and charm?
3) Give yourself a goal...edit each post, and when you are finished writing, let it sit for an hour or so. Then, revisit it, with the goal of taking out first 10, then later, when you've been doing this style of editing longer, 20 words.
4) Determine how you are going to tell the story, what key aspects of the story stand out, and what could be eliminated. It is okay to write too much, you can always pare away and edit down.

Just...think about it. I'm not trying to rip you to shreds here, I am trying to push you to the next level.

I give you three stars, and a challenge: Find a better gawddamn template. ;)

.

Keep writing, kiddo. :)

Imagine my chagrin

So I pull up this blog to review it, and lo and behold, the blogger is approximately my age, perhaps a year or three older, and he lives in the town where I spent my sluttiest years.

Yikes. This is almost as bad as finding out that the love of my life, the guy I had to break up with senior year because he had a seemingly permanent case of the summer snow sniffles, has been browsing my classmates profile (he has).

Anyway, back to the hip suburban white guy (nice matrix imitation, btw).

I love this blog.

Well, I mean the template is SHYTE. Complete and utter shyte. It is my least favorite basic blogger template, HANDS DOWN, and that's even considering the pepto bismal pink and the pond scum green. And the way he has done his sidebar? THE WORST...EVER. Please, dude...I cannot have slept with a guy whose template is this hideous. Go to freshblog, IMMEDIATELY, and learn to do drop down sidebars. Clean up your header (put all that text aside from your title into your profile, for starters). And while you're at it, get a hip suburban template. Your content deserves it. As it is now, your ugly template makes you look like everyone else out there. And you're way too cool for that, yer dudeness. What I would recommend is a template that actually has easy buttons on the top or side, so you can put your disclaimer, manifesto, etc. behind a button. It would be much cleaner, and I (or probably any of the other ask folks) would be happy to help you do that.

Speaking of content, the content rocks. It totally, totally rocks. I almost hope I might have slept with him because, although he is missing all his hair and sports some wrinkles in places I don't have them yet, he is smart, funny, profane, and never takes himself too seriously. Exactly the kind of guy I prefer.

Go read him. You won't regret it. And if the template and sidebar were brought up to speed, this blog would be totally fuckable. In the purely verbal sense, of course. ;)

I give the content

And the template? I had to come up with something new that was bad enough to fit a template this crappy juxtaposed behind content this good, and I think I found it:

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