Don't mess with the bull, young man. You'll get the horns.

Most of you know I'm a commie pinko liberal chardonnay swilling arugula chomping egghead elitist feminist. That said, I don't agree with all the molly coddling going on these days where points don't matter and we're all winners and everyone gets a trophy for being mediocre and attendance counts for 90% of your grade. Just showing up doesn't cut it.

In the high school of the blog world, Jess is one of the kids sitting in the back row, nodding off during lectures and drawing pictures of boobs. He shows up for class, but makes no effort. He doesn't do homework and scribbles verbal diarrhea on his pop quizzes. And he's not even providing a useful cultural service, like fuck up or class clown or skank or frighteningly scary dude with dead eyes and a collection of serial killer memorabilia.

The template is completely devoid of personality, with baby poop green and short bus yellow accents. The little overeater fat guy in the banner is cute and appropriate, but the rest of the design is bland with text that is entirely too small. I will say that at the very least it's not cluttered. Yet. But the blog is only a couple of months old, so give it time. And as for the name of the blog, Jess, does your problem have a life? Or is life your problem? The apostrophe usage is utterly confusing.

Speaking of syntax errors, this blog is an editor's nightmare, thus it is my nightmare. It's full of random capitalizations, run on sentences (and not the cute kind, like mine), spelling atrocities, and a complete disregard for the differences between your and you're. I am itching to take a red pen to your blog and mark that shit up.

Look, Jess is a nice guy. Seriously. He's a loving son and fiance. His family and friends mean a lot to him. And I gotta give it up to him for losing over 100 lbs. He seems like a genuinely good person. But there's nothing here. He posts frequently enough, but there's no personality, no connection, no insight, and ultimately, I'm sorry to say, no talent for writing. You don't have to be a great writer, or even a good writer, to blog. But if you're not, you better have something to say, even if you can't say it well. You better have a story to tell or a life full of train wrecks or a unique voice or a personality that transcends grammatical snafus or a big dick to take pictures of, because otherwise you're just there, taking up space and wasting time.

Apparently, Jess has gone this route before with us and come out with a shiny new "I fucking love you." I don't know what he did then to garner such an award, but now he's walking away with a bag full of flaming fingers.






Jess, you've got some work to do. Tighten up your writing, refrain from posting about how you're not posting, stop with the asinine jokes reminiscent of Dane Cook on his worst day, and for shit's sake give us a little personality! Right now you're just showing up and expecting credit. Do the work, get involved, lay it out there, tell a story, tell us who you are and why we should care and make it worth our while to read. Otherwise you might as well be posting updates on your MySpace page.

John Bender: [after Claire flips him off] Oh, obscene finger gestures from such a pristine girl.

Florida girls stick together. Maybe it's the suntan lotion.

I'm going to go on record here that I like myself. Oh, there are times when I hate myself -- last night, staring down the empty carton of frozen yogurt comes to mind. But, generally speaking, I think I'm pretty awesome. You do, too.

It follows, then, that I like people like me. And I also like people who like me. It's this whole mutual appreciation thing that I'm sure you adhere to, too, when you're not being misanthropic and supercilious. Or maybe you just are misanthropic and supercilious, in which case you like misanthropes who sneer a lot. But whatever. My point is, common ground goes a long way. All the way to Australia, it seems.

I am a Florida girl who's lived abroad with ties to Texas who is liberal, dislikes exercise, loves Publix, and finds solace in blog connections, and so is Florida Girl in Sydney.

The design is clean and uncluttered, though a bit bland. I like the white background and the pink accents (yes, I'm a girl). I'm undecided about the "about me" stuff in the sidebar. It's brief, so I don't really mind, but it might do to have a separate page, much like the blogroll (points for you). The tags could be solidified more: I'm not sure I know the difference between "American in Sydney" and "Expat Drama." As usual, I think the design could benefit from tabs.

This is the blog of a woman living abroad, trying to make the best of it, and logging her experiences. There are some interesting Australianisms. I like the whole "holy shit we're in Australia and I'm trying to like it but it's not all dolphins and cheery accents" vibe. Her introspection and ambivalence and honesty are humanizing and touching.

There are parts that seem like handy helpful tips to other Americans living in Australia, which, though slightly interesting, aren't really for your everyday stateside reader. But I recognize, too, that this is a good way for the Florida Girl to document her Aussie life, whether or not it's particularly riveting. And, as much as I like her, there are some parts that I, as a nonfamily member without kids who prefers pictures of puppies, skip. Though she started the blog last year, it's only been in the last few months that she's seemed to really take ownership of the blog, investing more of herself.

But aside from these few blips, where Laura tends to go on about things that most of us probably don't care about, she's funny and charming and interesting. It's a mommy blog, for sure, but that's not all it is, and it's not of the Stepford Mom variety that we all know and loathe. Laura is lazy, irresponsible, and morally bankrupt, and I like that in a person. And homie don't fuck around with the Disney cutlery, and I got her back on that one. I wish I still had mine.

Ultimately, I really like Laura. I admit to a certain bias: I've been reading her blog for a little while now, and she reads mine. Laura has improved her blogging lately and seems to be hitting her stride. She's getting a bit more personal, a bit more real. We're getting a little more of her personality in that last couple of months, and she's tightened up and told her story with her own voice, a voice I like to listen to.

In my world, there are three types of blogs I like: those that are written by true writers, who capture my imagination and thrill me with their word play; those that are written by people I connect with, who have a personality and humor that meshes with my own; and those that are written by who cares who, as long as they have lots of nudity. Laura's is the second kind, the kind where you stumble upon a friend.

In the interest of dissuading claims of cronyism, and because I think Laura has a bit more work to do to make it to "I fucking love you" land (though I do), I'm giving you:





Keep writing, keep in the direction you're going, build up your repertoire of good stuff, tighten up your writing like you have been, and get a little more seasoned and you'd earn that coveted "I fucking love you" seal of approval.

Side note: Christ on a crutch, I'm going to need therapy. These spiders are from hell. And I live in a damn swamp.

A Broad Abroad

In college I was lucky enough to do a couple of semesters of study abroad. The first was a summer semester traveling in Europe, and the second was a fall semester in Florence, Italy. Those six months and the surrounding two years or so were the best years of my life. I met my best friends, had the most fun, and became the most genuine version of myself I've met yet. I miss living abroad at least once a week, if not more. I miss speaking a foreign language, walking everywhere, the pizza margherita from Yellow Bar, sandwiches from Noe, and endless pints from Kikuya. I even miss the dog shit on the sidewalks and the men in suits pissing on the streets.

It's no wonder, then, that I enjoyed Blue Streak, an expat living in Spain with a foul-mouthed sense of humor and tendency toward snark.

In terms of design, the blue is ok, but the design is bland and generic. There's absolutely no personality, but it's nicely organized. There are a shit ton of posts on each page, though, so get ready to scroll (well, for the months where there are more than three posts). Is there something wrong with her apostrophes, or is it just me? She's got an about page, and it's great and funny and real, but I could use some more vital details like: what you do (generally speaking), why you're in Spain, who your hubs is, why Blue Streak?, etc.

Blue Streak is introspective and rambly and touching and bitchy and angsty bordering on whiny, but I don't mind because I whine about the same things. I have similar feelings about friends who have done well and my own chances of success. I guess we're just overeducated, maladjusted, childless thirty-something women with international tendencies, the grass is always greener mentalities, and a penchant for the word "fuck" who are searching for home.

There's some great stuff here: "In other words, I had the optimism of a village idiot eye-balling the haystack he just tossed his fucking needle in." And there are funny stories and tales of living abroad, which I found interesting and evocative and charming. But the only sex so far includes elderly flashers, which ew.

I can relate, and I don't live abroad anymore:

"Is this normal? Is it part and parcel to being "foreign"? A constant state of re-examination of what-ifs? Or is this what any mildy neurotic thirty something feels that has not had children yet to take away that curse of looking at ones wrinkles in the mirror too much or the sickness of dwelling on paths not taken, (wrong?) turns, U-turns..."

Blue Streak got off to a sputtering start, with just a few posts per month, but she's ramped it up recently and I'm hoping that's a taste of things to come. Her writing is personal and insightful and funny, and the only thing I can really hate on is the fact that there's not more of it. So, keep at it, give us more. And get a new template, one with some tabs and maybe some Spanish flavor and more functionality.

Today you get






because there's just not an awful lot here yet and the design is a bit meh. Otherwise, I really do fucking love you and I'm adding you to my reader.

P.S. Sorry about the hair. My suggestion? Move to Italy. Best haircuts of my life.

Dirty Tricks

There are blogs I read whose authors inspire me, whose words throb with meaning, whose nuanced and elegant writings resonate with me on a cerebral-emotional level so that I'm rendered thoughtful, introspective, moved.

This is not one of those blogs. It's scattered, rambling, clumsy, rude, vulgar, and visceral.

And I love it.

The design leaves a lot to be desired. There's no functionality besides the archives, and when you go to read them you're given each month's posts on one page, which gets super long. The font jumps from light blue to dark blue to red (Christ, my eyes) to pink to holy fuck it's purple, which I can't even read. Give us a break, please: dark text on a light background, or my eyes will fall out of my freaking head. Or, if you must stay with a dark background, use a more reader-friendly text color in a larger font.

I love the header image, but it's ginormous and requires extensive scrolling. The reading space is way too narrow -- too narrow is better than too wide (mostly, except in terms of penises and TV screens), but this makes for awkward reading. Set up an about page; I hate diving right in and trying to figure someone out from the backlog of archives. Give us a cast of characters, a few sentences about you, something to go on.

Now, to the writing. There are some rambly, boring, and pointless posts. There's a lot of weekend wrap-up, I did this then this. But you know what? I don't really give a good god damn because Lauren is raucous and inappropriate and unfailingly, brutally honest. I mean, naked in a wheel barrow? How can I not love that? She drinks a lot and posts pictures of her butt and has a funny kid. She tells interesting and naughty stories, if not particularly well written. She's fucked 80s rock stars, and I'm really ashamed by how impressed I am.

Lauren is really good with a one (or two) liner: "So I let down God and a bunch of babies so that I could have a one night stand. Nice work." And she says things like, "Ryan Reynolds... I would kill him, stuff him and hang him on my wall just to be able to fuck him for the rest of my life" which I can totally relate to. She's kind of fascinating, really, and there is no shortage of twisted little walks down memory lane. Her writing is unapologetic, balls to the wall, this is me, this is real, and I don't really give a damn what you think about it. It's refreshing and dirty at the same time.

What I really love about this blog is that there's no agenda, there's no front, there's no tidy little cubby hole you can shove her in -- it's just, flat out, the Dirty Pirate Hooker, with all her mishaps and narcissism (which is oddly endearing) and boozing and mothering her little punk and forgetting her underwear and making the best of things. There's a real life happening here, and it's not spiffed up and polished and twisted into a crowd-pleasing family friendly bit of entertainment. Lauren is completely original and an intriguing individual, and I'm adding her to my reader right now.

My own worst nightmare

It's the luck of the draw around here. The often imitated but never duplicated Love Bites reaches into her bag of tricks, shoves aside the tubes of lube, lipstick, and Lifesavers, and pulls out the blogs for us to review. It's completely random.

But this time, I think the Flying Spaghetti Monster had something to do with it. Because my hapless little reviewee got me -- a pro-choice agnostic with pagan tendencies who is a queer friendly, pro-gay marriage, anti-religious establishment, foul-mouthed sex fiend feminist liberal elitist.

Angi from Sleep for Dreaming, on the other hand, is not. Way not.

Let me just get the design critique out of the way, as it's about the only part of this site that didn't make me want to spit nails. It's actually very easy on the eyes. I can dig the gray and red. It's uncluttered and well-organized. There is, however, a section for Who's Who with nothing in it and you could stand to beef up your About page with more details.

Now, for the rest of the blog: I have absolutely nothing in common with this person. Nada. She is the antithesis of me, and it was often physically painful for me to read her blog. She's religious in the "first and foremost" sense. There's a lot of God talk, which I get enough of from my mother the priest, thank you very much. She's a conservative cat person; I'm a liberal dog person. And fuck me sideways she links to Ann Coulter.

There are a glut of posts of the pointless, interesting to no one variety, like this. And this. And, holy lord, this. Otherwise, she's got issues. There are acres and acres of angsty, self-discovery posts that really should be relegated to her bedside devotional journal. She thinks that lesbians are icky, women over 5o should pack it in, and red lipstick is from the devil (ok, I made that last part up). Oh, and side note? Scaramouche is a character, not a thing. Angie doesn't like swearing, which makes me wonder (for the zillionth time since beginning this review) why she decided to submit her site to a bunch of foul-mouthed little bastards like us.

The writing is often naive, unfocused, bland, and frankly boring but at least well-punctuated and generally grammatically correct. For me, it lacked humor, style, an engaging voice, and, of course, an author I could relate to. This post about sums it up for me: "I’ve dabbled and chicken-scratched a bit since then, but haven’t really written anything of any significance." Nothing in this blog resonated with me. But that's probably my liberal elitism showing. I always forget to tuck that in like a nice girl.

Look, I try to be objective. I try to find common ground, and I look for the magic mushrooms in the piles of dung. I tried not to let my politics -- nor the influx of my family's right wing propaganda in my inbox -- cloud my reviewing sensibilities. I am, after all, the "nice one." But this blog? Sigh. She's probably a nice person. I bet she helps little old ladies down the street and lets people cut in front of her in line if they have just one thing to buy. It's just, nothing on her blog makes me want to sit next to her on a long road trip while we hash out our differences or engage in philosophical debate. I pretty much just want to close the window and walk away. And that's probably ok with Angi, because I'm decidedly not her audience.

Finally, because I try to give constructive criticism even when my dander is up and I'm all kinds of huffy, some tips:

1. Angi, you imply some knowledge of hard times and difficulties and challenges surmounted but you never share that information. If it's too personal, I understand, but that was where you got me a little interested in your story. It might help readers get to know you (and not knee-jerk react to your politics, like me) if you give us more insight into who you are. Other than your politics and religious views and your love for song lyrics and photography, I feel like I don't know that much about you. Even though I cringed at your reasons, the Why I Could Never Be Friends With... posts revealed more about you than many others.

2. Lay off the "I did this, then I did this" weekend roundups. Unless something interesting happened, leave it out.

3. Generate discussion in your comments. Ask questions. Generate feedback and conversation.

4. There are no revelations about relationships with anyone, romantic or otherwise. Who are the people in your life? Write about them.

And I'm spent.

My first inclination is to give you about eleventy-nine million of these.






But, in retrospect, that might be letting the terrorists win.

Instead you get this, because I suspect I might be a little biased:

Alright, you little freshman bitches, air raid!*

This is going to sound all kinds of hypocritical, considering I post sometimes scathing reviews on a site with a URL of "Iwillfuckingtearyouapart," but I'm not really a fan of the whole "I'm a bitch, ask me how" genre of blogs. I know. Pot, meet kettle.

The trend for a lot of women bloggers these days seems to be marketing themselves as foul-mouthed, stiletto-wearing bitches with bad attitudes, alcoholic tendencies, and fierce clothing choices. Either that or tawdry sex kittens who are reclaiming the words "whore" or "slut." And frankly, it almost never rings true. They put on the persona, trot out their quickly and carelessly written diatribes against whoever is pissing them off that day, and wrap it up in an "I'm just bitchy that way, bite me" bow. But it's vacant, self-aggrandizing, escapist, and ultimately untrue.

I get it. The internet allows a delicious anonymity, a seductive arena for self-expression that allows us to be whoever the hell we want. It allows me to masquerade as someone who knows what the hell she's talking about, and I get to do the very things I dis in the preceding paragraph. My hypocrisy knows no bounds, but it's my review and I'll be judgmental if I want to. Bite me? Shit, I did it again.

This little exercise in futility was fueled by The Shoewhore Who Cooks: Bow Down Bitches, which is not to say that the Shoewhore is either a whore or a bitch, thus proving my point. There's very little cooking and not a lot of shoes, either, so the title is a bit of a misnomer. I expected something along the lines of this. What I got was a rather nice, sexy-seeming, moderately funny woman from the Midwest who likes to cook.

I like the design. It's uncluttered and easy to read. There's no about page, though, so I don't have any back story. I need back story, people. The blog has been around just since May, but she moved from elsewhere, so there's not a lot here.

I read the entire blog, and I didn't want to gouge my eyes out with the heel of one of her stilettos. There are some marginally funny pictures from other places, some memes, and lots of ellipses. Shoewhore makes some grammatical snafus of the apostrophe variety, along with neglecting to capitalize consistently. She does post about shoes (just twice -- not much whorage there, eh?), but I don't like any of them. She went 38 years without a driver's license and doesn't go anywhere alone, which kind of boggles my mind. But she likes Eric Balfour, who is in one of the sexiest movies ever and I'd lick him from head to toe, steamy little devil that he is, so I can't hate on her too much.

She writes some amusing (and disgusting) stories. Some could be downright hilarious if polished up a little bit. But for me the writing just kind of sat there on the screen, lolling about sloppily as I am wont to do on weekends. Or always. It didn't grab me, I didn't laugh out loud, and there wasn't any finesse or flair. I like the Shoewhore -- she seems like a fun lady with a sexy relationship and a healthy sense of humor. But some of the writing, for me, was a bit of a snooze.

I don't know your background, Shoewhore, so I don't know why you blog. It doesn't seem like you're serious about writing, but if you are, tighten up, edit, reread, and polish. Dig deeper, give us more heart and soul and sex. These posts seem flung up on the screen without much care.

If this is just an exercise in community, in relationship building, in saying whatever is on your mind, that's fine, too. But take a little more care with your craft, and don't be afraid to go deeper. You don't have to be funny all the time, and honestly sometimes the funny just didn't work for me. There's more to you than bitchy avarice -- a lot more, in fact, because I saw very little meanness or greed on your blog. Consider a rename of your blog, or live up to the title more, if that's who you want to be. But I hope you don't -- I hope you toss out the surface veneer and show us who you really are.

Today I give you





because I like you and you seem like a fun lady and I feel like you have potential. Keep blogging, edit your writing but not yourself. Let us see more of who you are, what matters to you. You read some excellent bloggers: let them influence you.



*Darla (Parker Posey), from Dazed and Confused

Geek Love

What I remember most about math in high school is my pre-algebra class, which was held in one of those trailers way out the back of beyond where the maladjusted black leather-clad types hung out (in Florida, with 147% humidity). I remember it because I failed miserably and had to repeat it, but also because a friend and I kept a notebook with our desperate, loopy-scrawled, heart-strewn scribblings that we passed to each other between classes. Except this one time, where I forgot the fucking thing under my desk and someone in the next class found it and tacked up the extremely embarrassing contents of my 13-year-old heart, which focused around a Luke Perry-esque upperclassman with penetrating eyes and this great spiky blond hair who was my first kiss. It was this whole big thing.

So, reading the blog of a high school algebra teacher brought that all rushing back in excruciating detail (including the conversation I had with said dreamy older boy, which ended in no more kisses for me but a friend for life, so there's a trade off). I expected to hate this blog with as much searing fury as I hate math, with its stupid numbers and never adding up right and I still don't know how to leave a tip, but apparently I can like the teacher and hate the subject.

And anyway, there's not a whole lot of math going on, except for the inexplicable math-related craft projects, so I can put away my calculator.

The template is nice. I like the dark background and the purple and it has readable black text on a white background. The banner is from the Sookie Stackhouse books, which seems odd, but I love those books, so whatever. There is way too much going on in the sidebar, of course. Move the bling and the awards to another page and roll up the archives. I don't know what the point is of the whole humor blogs pimpage. Do you get a free toaster?

Alice has been a little sporadic with her posting recently. She peaked in March with 41 posts but it's steadily gone downhill in the post frequency department. But Alice interests me (that whole math thing aside). She taught in Kenya with the Peace Corps. More of that, please. She plays poker, and chicks who play poker get instant cool points from me because my card-playing aptitude includes Go Fish, Solitaire (if I cheat), and Asshole.

There are some funnies, too. Mostly of the wry kind, which I enjoy. And she has amusing kids. (Do all parents have pics of their kids on the john? Mine do, evil bastards that they are.) It seems she had a similar upbringing, although how she managed to pee near a pool without worrying about the dreaded purple stain they warn you about following her around and branding her a pool-pisser I'll never know. I can relate to her because I, too, am a hypocritical judger. And I love cheesy vampire fic, and we have similar taste in movies and TV characters. And I in fact do have Mediaeval Baebes on my iPod.

There's lots of Pokemon, to which I jeer superiorly. But she mentions Slap Shot, so I like her again (but then I jeer again because of that whole Mmm Bop thing).

For a math chick, the writing is really pretty good, and I enjoy her humor. I'd like a little more back story, but then I always do. And more sex, but her mom reads the blog so that's not likely to happen. She does tend to go on a bit with the rambling, but it didn't bother me. I like her voice kind of a lot and that makes up for any long-windedness in my view. I'd want to hang out with her, and I wish we'd both been blogging when I lived in Maryland.

Also, the yearbook commentary made this review a delight, as did the Vanilla Ice re-enactments.

I'm gonna go out on a limb on this one, knowing I might encounter a fair bit of disagreement, but I fucking loved this one. I'm adding her to my reader, in fact. It could be that I'm biased in favor of geeky chicks with self-deprecating senses of humor and a penchant for vampires and science fiction movies, but it's my damn review.