The Blog Review

A Critical Fly

2004-06-11T10:53:00.000-07:00

The Critical 'I' mistakes criticism for dull observation. Costa Tsiokos posts an article about outsourcing telemarketing jobs to India, then forecasts India's future. If only they knew where to turn for the future of their country: a short prescriptive post on this blog. Beside this crucial issue of cheap labor, Costa pontificates about the opening of Garfield The Movie, "Anytime a film comes out has "The Movie" appended to title, it's a pretty good bet that the product reeks." Sounds critical, Costa, maybe you should try this: Anytime a film that comes out...For a real waste of blogging, consider "Trib's Lightning Flub, Explained", wherein Costa finds it revealing that Newspapers prepare more articles than they use in their final publication. Costa includes what is thought to be verse (obviously a word Costa stretches to cover scribbling without meter, just because you hit the return bar more often doesn't make it a poem) concerning Reagan's death, "For years I could not/eat jelly belly/jelly beans". Costa found this compelling. It is frightening to see how long Costa has been blogging on The Critical 'I' (since 8/18/2002), it numbs the hand to click on anymore posts.

The Coyote's Yelp

2004-06-10T09:31:00.000-07:00

The Coyote's Bark.... tediously posts aggravations about the Bush Administration (join the million other blogs). If you like to giggle about "asscroft"; or snivel at the failure to find a WMD, then just read the news rather than go to this vacuous blog. The posts are short and merely reveal this bloggers political beliefs. In fact, it doesn't bother to challenge itself or produce anything that cannot be found on a slew of other blogs. These fruitless political rants bury themselves with a central assumption: that they are the sole possessor of the truth. How many times can one read "regime change in 2004"? This rhetoric doesn't seem to be any more appealing than the Bush administration's "war on terror". Terry posts big pictures on the blog, because something other than thought needs to fill the page. From a soldier at Tiananmen Square with the vacantly dum tag, "15 years later the landscape has indeed changed for the better in china..." (capitalize China, Terry) to a photo of a woman with "yankees" printed across her ass; The Coyote's Bark is just that, bark and no bite.

Neo The Sadist

2004-06-07T17:09:00.000-07:00

Sex Blogger is a blog by some pathetic photographer that has seen the Matrix one too many times and dubs himself Neo. Here are his clear thoughts while pleaing for some "girls" to shoot: "If you're female, OVER 18 YEARS OF AGE, in the LA area, very cute and/or good looking and/or HOT." What faculties of discernment Neo must have with these ridiculous distinctions. If you are cute but not good looking or hot, Neo will take your picture. If you are good looking but neither cute nor hot, Neo will do the shoot. If you are hot but not good looking or cute, Neo will snap a few shots. On one post, he writes about a gruelling photo session for a woman named Lisa Marie. He is amazed at her resolve in putting up with a slimeball like him. Then he is suprised that when they meet accidentally sometime after the shoot, she is evasive. It's because you are a creep. Neo thinks these woman like their work. He thinks they might even like him. Isn't Neo a perfect example of a hack photographer? They take a picture of content they have nothing to do with and try to take all the credit. Oh, it's all about the artist's eye and the process of selection, they vacantly claim. If we lived in a just world, Neo would be someone's slave bitch, who people would boss around and demand that he like it. He'd learn the painfull reality of feeling forced into being a victim while the perpetrator's laugh about it and even delude themselves to think that the victim likes it and wants more. Way to go Neo, keep perpetuating misery because you get off on it. Maybe you should look into prison work, I hear they need a new photographer at Abu Graihb.

Hot Sweatshop, Guilt Free Blonde!!!!!!

2004-06-05T14:18:00.000-07:00

Hot Abercrombie Chick! characterizes the worst type of ignorant American. "As if citizenship was some actual, tangible thing rather than an on-paper status that a certain group of people decide to classify others by." Is there no such thing as social conditioning? How about money and a passport? Have you tried to travel without them? Go to another country for a year, and perhaps you'll get an idea of how American you are. Your citizenship reeks from the title of your blog, facetious or not. Not many people in the Congo are shopping at their local Abercrombie, nor ranting about how it is shamelessly commercial. Another privileged white "chick", who claims there is no such real thing as citizenship: try telling that to the mexican workers slaving away so that you can eat your fast food, and watch TV while they clean your parents yard, wash your car…exchange your citizenship with them for a day, and notice the difference. Perhaps you've been reading too much Baudrillard, and are in a hyper-reality crisis. "But how is it that a person can simply be "born into" a responsibility without their having made a choice to freely accept that responsibility or actually do something to come into it?" Switch from a philosophy major to history, you need it. Your freedom rhetoric and western notions of selfhood, again, portray your citizenship. Your argument suggests that people only enter choices freely and are otherwise not responsible for their actions or their blogs. "So when children starve in third-world countries, unless a person has somehow caused the food shortage, it is ridiculous to say that he or she is responsible for their deaths." Again, switch your major dudette. You should receive a deficient empathy prize for your careless rationalizations and ignorance of globalization's interconnected effects. I would recommend reading Stiglitz for a start, though it seems like you're too busy espousing your ignorant, American views, rather than waiting another ten years before expecting anyone to read your unbelievably shallow blog. You've mistaken your ability to ramble on for intelligent debate. You're still watching the shadows on the wall, and you're a "philosophy major"? The funniest part is that your blog perfectly represents what people around the world assume about Americans: to largely ignore class and citizenship issues. However, this is common amongst the privileged who care not to acknowledge what is done in their name, and rationalize away why they shouldn't care or feel partially responsible. The biggest joke is that you are writing this blog now, during the Iraq war. And you talk of not 'feeling' your citizenship. Tell that to the Iraqi families who've lost their loved ones. I'm sure they'll understand you saying you had nothing to do with it, you, Hot Ambercrombie Chick.

Wankette

2004-06-04T17:17:00.000-07:00

Scraping news out of such respectable sources as the New York Post, Wonkette claims to have the "inside tip". The only 'inside' part of it, is where she hides to work on her blog, skimming websites for her 'sensitive information'. Every post is spare and reads like a grocery list of links with the tiniest blurb here and there ripped from "the source". The sources? New York Times, Washington Post and the Washington Times are her main troughs from which she laps up a sentence or two for her gossip column. In case if you don't buy Wonkette's transparent effort, a side bar reels with qoutes to hype it up so that you might be influenced. Well, if The Nation or Richard Leiby said so, then it must be true. Amidst solipsistic plugging for its publisher's blog, Wonkette plods along with her one-liner attention span. Hope the pay is good enough for the phony posturing and tiresome partisan bashing (especially considering the weak sources). Read about her superficial platform and discredit in the New York Times (I suppose she's happy she just made it in the news), where her boss, Mr. Denton, passes on these words of wisdom: ""Besides, immediacy is more important than accuracy, and humor is more important than accuracy."

Pontificating About Content And Form (at five bucks a pop?)

2004-06-04T15:19:00.000-07:00

There is a weak ploy at The Weblog Review to hold a 'contest' for people to do their work for them: design their blog. The carrot? A fifty-dollar Amazon gift certificate and a link to your blog from The Weblog Review. Oh boy. They charge five dollars for your blog to be reviewed. For five dollars you get a few reviews, most of which are long winded and hard to concieve what anyone gets out of them. Here is a great example: "Finding the Joy is a lovely blog. The whole concept of the blog is lovely. Lovely, lovely, lovely. Beautiful too. Very beautiful." Or how about this useless excerpt, " I generally don't associate porn with 'writing' - especially good writing." Who does? The Weblog Review reviewers encourage a little "pizazz" in blogs to "show off" their posts, instead of using what they deem dreadfully boring blogspot templates (like this one). Speaking of boring design, I suppose that is why they need a contest to come up with someone else's fresh idea. Oh, that's right, the blogger dismisses his own sense of style, " I am unfortunately very busy with all kinds of other projects and am unable to learn the new coding standards." Excuses, excuses. Shouldn't your standards be a little higher for yourself if you're charging other people money for useless advice? Does this excerpt not explain their own blog quite well, ""Over-posting when there is very little of interest to say is a far worse crime in my opinion, and no one could accuse this blogger of such a crime"? The real crime is charging people or setting up bogus contests. If you can endure cute humor, like bracketing a 'rant' in tags (START RANT) and (/END RANT), or you like to be insulted for the favor of reading their blog (as practiced throughout the reviews with their novice treatments of 'content' and 'form'), then perhaps you would like to waste five dollars on getting your blog reviewed. It's very official, by the way, with each review getting a score from one to five; giving each reviewed blog an average. If you're still putting stars up on the board to earn your weekly allowance, then this 'review' might tickle your tummy.

Boing Boing, Bunk

2004-06-03T12:00:00.000-07:00

Boing Boing: A Directory of Wonderful Things is properly following todays trends. Off-beat, kitsch that costs a pretty penny, like $5,500 "superhero costumes as a form of fabric art" (oh, that's what they call costume design? fabric art? Then painting must be a new form of canvas art?) Lithographs of an "Indian Princess" demonstrate how the author buys into a phony multicultralism, while praising the work of "Disney", notice any contradiction? There is also the obligatory Iraq link, for those who have a newfound interest in the country. Unfortunately, it takes the bombing of a country to get Americans interested in its people and history. The site prides itself on an 'eclectic' taste (ie fancy euphemism for a collection of shallow distractions, which bears on the wonderfully comatose title for this blog: boing boing), ranging from porn art to computer museums to occult books. Most posts are short and do not much more than point in this direction or that. One post by Xeni Jardin reveals his suprise that the U.S. Army censors the information their soldiers can obtain via internet, etc.. Obviously, Xeni doesn't know that they have their own television stations as well as newspapers. The army doesn't want soldiers who think critically. They are supposed to take orders. Consider the recent Abu Ghraib "scandal". However, this blog takes its orders too from what current trends deem 'cool': a bogus multicultralism, focusing on product, especially in the arena of kitsch and anything but 'fine art'. Its a new religion for areas popping up in major cities like the Williamsburg of New York, the Prenzlauer Berg of Berlin, the Silver Lake of Los Angeles, the barrios of Barcelona...where caring hipsters gentrify a neighborhood and evacuate the old residents for the sake of a new breed of people in denial about their priveledged class; as demonstrated by the blog, Boing Boing.

live with kinky carinne

2004-06-02T08:37:00.000-07:00

live with kinky carinne offends the eye from the start with a black and pink color scheme. This sadistic blogger expects you to "read up on my rants" by reading blue text on a black background. The 6/1/2004 entry begins: "Okay. So I log on to my computer this morning and I click on the internet explorer. It opens up." Did I need to read this? Isn't it obvious? Carinne proceeds to whine about pop-up ads. Deal with it. Everyone else has too. The entry continues in a cute manner, as with the rest of her posts. The blog's mantra is: "You live only once, but if you live it right, once is enough." Ah shucks, I thought we live twice, and if only I could find the "right" way to live. Carinne ruminates (5/29/2004): "Have you ever had that feeling where you're not so tired that you'll sleep well, but being awake is pointless because you're totally useless?" Yes, when I'm reading your blog. Perhaps Carinne's attention would be better directed at something besides her hair gel bottles and pop up ads.

Trivial Honesty

2004-05-31T18:43:00.000-07:00

What I Did Not Buy Todayis the best read yet. A newcomer with plenty of promise, who will kill you with laughter. It's superficial, quick, short, and desperate - everything most blogs are but try not to appear as such. Click on her site just for the "about me" picture. Bunny Gull (what a name!) looks like she's in a Stolichnaya ad somewhere in St. Petersburg, not SF. All the entries revolve around how much she spent on a particular day, which nobody cares about, and somehow, for that reason alone, it'll get you laughing. One can hear her voice in their head, obsessing over two dollars. Here's my favorite snip, "I had my legs and eyebrows waxed today. That was about $70, but I've planned that since I made the reservations for Hawaii. OMG, Janice punched the crap out of some soccer mom. Hilarious." How can you not see the glory in such trivial honesty?

(Short) College Life

2004-05-30T13:01:00.000-07:00

College Life will be short. Proper and beaurocratic, students will cringe at its mission statement: "issues of interest to college students and those in their 20's". Make up your mind. You can't have two large groups; only one. College students or those in their twenties? The phrase "editorial focus is politically what is best for you" doesn't only hurt my ears, but is a surefire offense to any students. Students don't want to hear "what is best for you"; that's exactly why they've left to college. Noticing all the comments that have been removed by a blog administrator, the blog is off base with its visitors. Of course, these removals occurred at a posting about fraternities. Not an "issue of interest". The posting about ISSUES VITAL TO YOU OVER NEXT 2/20 YEARS seems ill placed. Again, make up your mind, 2 or 20. Which is it? Is it between 2 to 20 years? How did you figure this one out? In POLITICAL: VOTE DIVIDED GOVERNMENT, College Life (the curious name of the author, what are you afraid of? You won't give us your name and you want us to read your article?) rambles on about pork barrel politics. Rather than "issues of interest", shouldn't College Life be about college life?
A message to all sincere bloggers too earnest for their own good: stop using the royal we. Stop pretending. WE know its just you contributing to your blog.

LOW:TECH AT AD:TECH

2004-05-30T12:04:00.000-07:00

What's wrong with Blogs? Anyone can make one. The team of MarketingVOX was even paid to make one for some conference in San Francisco! AD:TECHblog defeats the message it's trying to sell. Russ Eisemann, SVP Marketing, Tower Records gives a downright laughable quote when you look at their blog (or website, for that matter, which this blurb appears on): "There's nothing like leaving a conference with a new motivation and inspiration to improve your business model. AD:TECH provides all of us with new techniques and best practices to deliver direct sales to your bottom-line." The bottom line at Tower must be generic product. Thank dog for music downloads. In fact, the blog is so spurious, it makes one suspicious that this conference ever took place. The posts occur on a thin strip that requires more unnecessary scrolling than at a library of parchment in Pergamon. Beside the posts is a grey field. Cutting edge marketing here folks! Step right up and stare at the grey field. A note is given on AD:TECH's website regarding who should attend: If you are a CEO, CMO, marketing executive, advertising executive, brand manager, product manager, media director, media buyer, media planner, interactive solutions provider, creative director, or web publisher, AD:TECH is a must-attend event!" Is this a joke? If they can't put together a decent blog, that has more content than grey field, can we take them seriously? At one of their meetings this is the conclusion they came to, as posted by Chris Eaves: "Kevin Lee's comments reflected the general consensus - it depends." Remarkably insightful wouldn't you say? Chris's post begins by mentioning a party the night before, for which he's surprised it’s the same people who were so loud the night before and so quiet today. Now we know what kind of industry professionals attend these conferences. Dedicated to grey fields across the entire web!

A Medieval Scandanavian From San Francisco?

2004-05-29T14:24:00.000-07:00

Complete with a 'political compass', it seems Kriselda has a handle on her life as dully reflected in the mediocre, relativist title for her blog: Different Strings. She is a Norse Witch from San Francisco, who probably shops at IKEA for her lingberries. Chalk full with bloated passages, the entries wind back unto themselves enough times to make it more labor than fun. "I spent a summer as a missionary in Nome, AK. (If you're scratching your head because you thought you remembered reading that I'm a Norse Witch, don't worry, you did. At that time, however, I wasn't.)".
I thought Thor was more concise with those lightening bolts? My guess is that Kriselda has a lot of bumper stickers on her car. This blog wears its politics on its sleeve, offering little insight or honest responses to world events. Self involved blogging that tires the eye; not to mention an absurdly long sidebar. When one tries to share too many links, none of them stick. Some selection and restraint can go a long way. If you link a hundred interests, after five to ten, who cares? However, the best parts of this blog are other people's material. Nobody said it would be easy. The quasi-mythic, pop politic sentiments make one want to run as far as possible from this Renaissance Fair. Don't bother commenting either, the blog uses a seriously flawed and time consuming "questionable content" check.

Cellar Door Review: More Like A Basement Hatch

2004-05-28T19:17:00.000-07:00

Cellar Door begins with a pathetic quote from Donnie Darko, not much needs to be said, except I can't wait until that actor and his sister get their nose jobs done into a pinched look. Apparently, Harold counts 'anniversaries' from the last time he took a trip. How zany and eclectic! LA television writer who does yoga, goes to a Zen center, and is a Buffy fan. Notice any cliches? If he's not telling the truth, then his blog reeks of flatulent ignorance. Just consider 22 May 2004 entry, "Hoot'n Holler for CWA", where he rambles from light empathy for people striking with their union and then dismisses it as futile before moving on to a new Disney production. Apparently, SBC employees need only consult this blog so they won't waste anymore time.For a superior lesson in triviality, please visit Howard for banal blogging at this Basement Hatch.