From The Editor: Hiatus Announcement

We've been on unofficial hiatus for a touch over a year now, actually! To those of you who may have sent in reviews over that time, my sincere apologies. Your reviews have been eaten; I trust they were delicious.

There was a slight lag in submissions, you see, and apparently if you stop checking your free hotmail account at least once every x number of days or so (30 days? 60 days?) it gets hungry, and well, the entire contents of your account will be consumed. Inbox, outbox, litterbox - everything! Perhaps a reputable email pet-sitting service could prevent such mishaps.

But not to worry! E-mail address reclaimed. All's well on that front!

We now announce our official hiatus.

- The Editor.

When You're On The Internet, and Your Brain Is Suddenly Wet...

url: http://thebraintrots.blogspot.com/

The creators of “A Bad Case of the Brain Trots” claim that their blog is “a creative outlet for whatever half-baked daydream any of us has concocted to pass the day” and that “there are no promises on what you'll find as you blindly grope through our blog.” These statements could not be truer. Full of random stories, jokes, plays, and rants, you are never sure what you will find posted each week. Not every post will be for everyone, but giving it a chance is worth the click.

Sadly, however, the creators of this blog appear to not have computer skills when it comes to creating a more vibrant and interesting look to their blog. Everything is pretty straightforward looking, and black. Lots of black. Also they tend to only blog once a week, which is weak. Also, as that last sentence portrays, they like puns.

I say give it a chance, especially if you have nothing else to do.

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contributing reviewer/ee
Lewis from http://thebraintrots.blogspot.com/

Brief Note From The Editor on Blog Design

A note to prospective reviewer/ees:

I've noticed many of you in your reviews take potshots at your blog designs and layouts for being unimaginative, boring, or just plain ugly. Yet in each case, the blog in question looks considerably better than this blog, here.

Just what is it you're trying to say?

- The Editor

p.s. new review up tomorrow.

Acronyms Can Really Only Narcotise Your Mindset!

url: http://see-you-next-thursday.blogspot.com

"Just because they're never done doesn't mean you can't be disappointed by them."

The astounding lack of content accompanied by the let-down of knowing you can't even get into a (rare) good story without it ending abruptly, sometimes mid-sentence, is the hallmark of the importance the author places upon remaining true to the theme of his blog. Crappy Unfinished Novel Time is a place where even dullards and half-wits can feel accomplished, having completed more in their day than the author ever will in a lifetime. Even 'author' is far too serious a term for one whose previously incomplete fiction has graced the pages of - well - nothing, since no reputable publisher will put unfinished work into print. Perhaps 'hack' is more suitable.

One might think that the broadcast of this perpetual failure across something as worldwide as the web might act as a catalyst to complete a project for a change. HA! Think again. Said hack has spent an undisclosed but amazingly large percentage of his life being a disappointment to his readers (and probably his parents), you think that's going to change now? Honestly, the most you can hope for are the occasional references to explosions, dwarves, carnies and stolen glances at breasts. And even that might be expecting too much.

That said, you probably shouldn't visit. It'll only serve to undermine any hope you have of enjoying your day.

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contributing reviewer/ee
Elliott from Crappy Unfinished Novel Time

We Have Ways of Making You Review Your Own Blog

url: http://caffeinated-rory.blogspot.com/

Well, It's kind of hard to be asked to review my own blog. To cut a long story short, it's just a place where I go to talk about what happened during the day, have fights with coffee, my complicated relationship idol and just a place to be random really. So much goes on in one's life and sometimes it's inhumane to vent it out on another human being because everyone has enough to deal with in the first place, hence it's woven into a sarcastic, slightly masochistic post of anti-karma complaints and just, well, human stuff. I don't like this, I'd rather you just go there, read on and decide for yourself. I'm not up for marketing my vent-outs. I'm a fellow human, with a head made of coffee beans and held together by maths equations. I'm allergic to UFO, an Unknown Food Object. Clocks hate me and Pillows don't like me that much.. I'm just another 17-year-old living on the other side of the universe who thinks rap is soothing, trees are aliens and is in love with Erik Satie's work. If Danny Elfman did not exist, I can honestly say I would have dismissed this blue ball for a world and moved on to another parallel dimension. You know what? whatever. I will not review my own blog. You have a head, work it.


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contributing reviewer/ee
Mirette Osama from Caffeinated Rory

In Randomness, a Surprising Design

url: http://continuallysurprised.blogspot.com

Interested in obscure books published at least 10 years ago? Cooking experiences that closely resemble Dan Aykroyd's parody of Julia Child? Adventures in multimedia wiring and other odd and occasionally off-putting topics? If not, this is definitely not the blog for you; otherwise, check out Continually Surprised! on blogspot.com.

The author of this blog is a web and graphic designer, so the blog is littered with her doodles. The blog's tagline is "venting random thoughts before they injure my brain;" she claims to be letting off steam by posting material her humor-challenged Significant Other wouldn't consider funny. Some of her posts are genuinely witty; others are apparently just attempts to keep to a daily schedule. So far the most traffic has been generated by an article about buying a giant box of Japanese soup stock ("250 Servings of Soup"), but the OAQ ("Occasionally Asked Questions") postings have also been popular.

Here's an example of her writing from OAQ #2:

How did you decide on the design for the header?
I was originally going to post a photo of myself, but I decided I would rather use a cartoon, because even though it looks like Betty Boop's less-sexy older sister, some deluded reader may still have a mental image of me as tall, svelte, and mysteriously attractive. A photo would remove the mystery by revealing that I actually do look like Betty Boop's less-sexy older sister.

Check it out if you're desperate for new reading material.


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contributing reviewer/ee
Designing In Surprise from Continually Surprised!

Blog Like An Egyptian

url: http://whatafekra.blogspot.com/ by Laura R.

As soon as you arrive, you will notice that the blogger has got a very girly theme with lots of purple. Do not fret, though, for her posts are not gossip-y or fashion-y... she just likes purple, that's all.

The title might confuse you (actually, it most probably will), and so allow me to explain that "fekra" is the Arabic word for "idea". The author claims to be Egyptian and indeed has posted and probably will post some pieces about Egypt, but it's hard to be sure whether she is telling the truth.

Other than the "Egyptian" tint to the blog, there is also a slightly childish tint, you will find, for the author is not yet 16 and has a lot to learn. However, many who have met the author in person claim she is more mature than her age would suggest, so don't worry, while the blogger will panic a bit about going back to school, nothing else about the blog will suggest that the author is a child. There are no boy-crazy posts, no sightings of the words "Duh", "OMG", and such, and no immature whinings.

Upon further investigation, you will find that the author has pledged to never use the backspace key. She warns you that she will not refrain from saying everything on her mind and will not edit her thoughts, however they may turn out to be. This warning, however, proves needless, as it is obvious from the character of the author that she would have said everything on her mind (even with controversial topics of whether Twilight is a bad book or a horrible book!) even if she had not made this promise.

Besides the theme of Egypt, another recurring theme in the blog is the writing exercises. It is very clear that the author of this particular blog has always wanted to become a writer, which she has achieved by joining a teen's magazine in her home country, and has now extended her goals to becoming an actual published author.

One drawback you will find, however, is that the author posts a little bit too much. This is due to her excitement of having a blog (she tends to get carried away when excited) and will either wear off within a few weeks, or once the author goes back to school.

Regardless of the hitches, this blog will prove to be an intriguing, if not enjoyable, read. The author has been told that her perspective is different, so you might want to check it out.

Yarn: It's Not Just For Cute Kitten Pictures

url: http://5elementknitr.blogspot.com/

5elementknitr is a blog about knitting. But not really. It’s a blog of tales of my current life and memories of my life thus far.

It’s written by a 40 year old woman obsessed with knitting, so you think there’d be more actual knitting content. She’s also an Atheist and likes to have conversations with the door-to-door religious salesmen who come aknockin’. And she likes to make up words like “aknockin’”. She has had a very strange and amazing life which makes for some interesting stories. She recounts them in great detail which can result in some long posts but she always warns you by telling you to get a snack and have a seat. When you see those words, be sure you’re in for a bit of a ride. She tries to keep these long posts to a minimum.

One of the blog’s more popular features are her Military Mondays (which happen only occasionally but always on a Monday) where she recounts her meager 5 years in the Army. She was only in Basic Training for 8 weeks and is still recounting them after having started Military Mondays two years ago. The problem there is that she’s pretty sporadic with them.

Another popular subject is her Alphabet Soup – she starts sometime in January with A is for… then after some time ends with Z is for…, you get the idea. She’s in her third year of this nonsense. It started accidentally three years ago, seemed pretty popular and so she did it again last year and yet again this year. She seems to drag it out longer each year (finishing in March the first year, April the second, and as of the current date (May) hasn’t finished this year); by the year 2012, she expects it to take up her whole year and then the world will end. You’re welcome.

She likes to make sweeping statements that she later recants and has a strange love affair with the fragmented sentence. She writes like she talks so it can get a bit mumbly and incoherent at times. She blames lack of sleep quite a lot but I suspect she’s just full of shit. Like this review – she’s not sure why she started out in first person then switched to third person but it seemed to give it more credibility as an impartial review so she’s giving it a shot.

She can be found at 5elementknitr.blogspot.com and her (my) name is Ruth!

Concise Submission Guidelines

This is a link to the original and rather more detailed than necessary Submission Guidelines:

~ Original and Rather More Detailed Than Necessary Submission Guidelines ~

You don't need to read that whole huge thing. In a nutshell: reviews should be well-written, and should strike a note of balance and impartiality. A review that is simply a rah-rah publicity piece about how great the blog is is not likely to be approved no matter how well-written it is. But on the flipside - a review riddled with unreadable sentence constructions and atrocious spelling is not likely to be approved no matter how fair and impartial the review is. What we're looking for is a quality piece of criticism.

If that sounds like a fun piece to write, by all means, submit your piece to Review Your Own Blog, via the dedicated e-mail address ReviewYourOwnBlog[at]hotmail.com (as a text e-mail, not an attachment - no other submission methods will be accepted).

There are other good tips and background information in the original, huge whole guideline if you are interested. But it probably should not be necessary.

If You Don't Have a Great Title, You're Not Alone

url: http://www.thisblogbelongstojanuary.blogspot.com/

I was simply looking through blogs via Blogger, when I happened upon a blog titled "Insert Title Here." My first thought was, "What kind of title is that?" But then, I noticed the blog description included the words "awesome" and "robots," and I was lured in.

Whilst reading, I did find a bit of humor, among other things, but it just seemed like the author was very inexperienced, awkward, and overly-excited about things that most people probably don't get excited about. She, I believe, comes off as nearly crazy and, like I said, very inexperienced. She can be funny, but otherwise, it just seems like she starts out okay, gets good, then either gets really good or really horrible. It can be almost painful.

The pages that are below the header can be humorous, as well as the blog. For example, the author takes things that she was going to say, or write, I should say, and crosses them out - with the line break thing - and then writes what she seems would be a more proper answer.

The author appears to be slowly, but surely, incorporating elements such as photos and quotes into the posts to highlight them, which they do, indeed, do. There isn't much material yet, but I'm sure that this young author will gain practice and experience with blogging. The newer posts can get better or worse or both, but in time we will see. I've got my eye on this author and I will surely keep up with her progress. I wish her the best of luck, for she seems to have some potential, whether it be in comedy or horror. Or both.

Side note: The author has some sort of abnormal fear of zombies and an almost-obsession with random things like Conan O'Brien, bacon, and comparing things that never go together, like horses and drunken-ness.

Cupboard Bare? Try the Fridge Cupboard

url: http://fridgecupboard.blogspot.com

Fridge Cupboard is a brand new blog which although doesn't have very many posts as yet is still a place you should visit and give a chance. It has an awesome header which although quite plain has a pretty good characture of la (actually done by the author of comics in the Observer Newspaper Australia). Looking at the page layout you would not believe that the owner actually had an IT degree and has worked with HTML before. Despite obviously having forgot everything that I crammed in just for the exams I haven’t forgotten many lifelong stories and other ponders It is a blog about the life of a girl working a boring job and posting random thoughts, fact and events that happen throughout my 20 years on this planet.

The humor can be straight out funny but is mainly a comical outlook on the world, people and events. More of a pessimist than not the blog can be highlighting things that are wrong with the world, but in an amusing way not an “I hate my life and I’m going to kill myself” way.

I must admit that as I’ve gotten older my life has settled down but in high school the girls used to gossip about the OC and then turn to me and ask about my life (which is apparently on par to teenagers who are straight, then gay, then kill themselves). So come read about some funny stories from how I grew up that I’m sure you can relate to.

OK! We Are Again Taking Submissions!

Actually, we never stopped. It just occurred to me as I was stopping by that the previous headline, "All For Now!" might have had rather a "That's All, Folks!" sort of ring to it. Nothing could be further from the truth! I still check the dedicated e-mail address at least once or twice a month. Whatever's in there definitely gets looked at. Even if it's just lists of doctors.

So anyway, if you've got the critical acumen to take a step back, sharpen your pencil and Review Your Own Blog, then by all means - please see the sidebar, a little down and to the right, for


HOW TO BE A REVIEWER/EE!

All For Now!

All acceptable submissions have been posted. Thank you to all who submitted! If your submission was not posted, it was for one of the following reasons:

The News Behind the Story Between the Lines of the Meta-Narrative Surrounding the Nonevent

url: http://seanibus.blogspot.com/

In his inaugural post in 2005, blogger and sometimes journalist Sean Scully set the tone for much that was to follow, when he explained "I have realized that it doesn't matter if I have nothing terribly compelling to say. It hasn't stopped anyone else."

Sadly, it did not stop Mr. Scully either, for he has continued to post on and off through the last four years, occasionally tantalizing us with a flash of insight or a brush with actual content, but mostly contenting himself with a meandering series of non sequiturs.

Structurally the blog is quite simple, in both layout and tone, with a non-threatening blue color scheme and modular layout, bracketing Mr. Scully's generally stripped down writing style.

But it the entire effort is hobbled by his seeming inability to decide what his blog is about. Is it a beer blog? He experimented with the format briefly in 2007, but the effort petered out, apparently after he received some adverse comments about some arcane historical points in a review of a beer with an aircraft from the famous Flying Tigers on the label. Is it a music blog? He has several posts related to various bands, including early notices of the Watson Twins and The Avett Brothers, but he seemed disinclined to follow this promising thread. Or is it a blog of political journalism? He seems to rouse himself several times a year to opine on matters political, but he never sustains the efforts for more than a day or two.

At its best, Seanibus is mildly entertaining and occasionally informative. At its worst, it is just a forum for reposting humorous asides that ultimately amount to nothing.

Unless Mr. Scully can find a unifying principle behind his effort, I am afraid this blog is doomed to forever be about nothing.

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contributing reviewer/ee
Sean from Seanibus

How Can You Tell Between A Frog And A Toad? It's In His Kiss

url: http://kissing--frogs.blogspot.com/

The first thing you'll notice while reading kissing frogs is that the blogger has a love, nay, an obsession with cat macros. The second is that she is also unabashedly obsessed with posting the results from image searches.

In regards to the aesthetics - the layout may or may not have been created by one of the blogger's Twitter friends, because she's completely incapable of manipulating code to do anything other than bold or underline.

The basis of the blog was originally to illustrate the author's awful and downright craptastic online dating experiences. However, it's evolved a lot since its birth in February 2009, mostly because even the most unlucky of individuals will eventually run out of material. I would say that the general theme would be embarrassment. Any and all forms of embarrassment. This is usually conveyed through stories about her traumatizing mother, crazy strangers or her incredibly tiny and temperamental bladder.

There's also a lot of irrational anger. But if you get tired of the nonsensical rants about completely useless topics like Christmas music in stores before Thanksgiving, or how she almost lit a FedexKinkos on fire at 3am due to completely incompetent employees, you can read the hilarious guest blogs that are posted (almost) every Tuesday. Thankfully the writer doesn't seem to be lacking friends with their own hilarious stories to tell. And hey, if none of those things seem enjoyable to you - there's always LOLcat Friday, which can make even the most heartless of creatures erupt in a fit of giggles.

The best part of this blog is that the writer has no qualms about embarrassing herself. There's a serious lack of self-respect that generally works to the favor of the reader.

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contributing reviewer/ee
j. from kissing frogs

Generalizations Are Only Made Where They're Funny And Don't Hurt Anyone

url: http://microcows.blogspot.com

With reader-input trivia features such as 'Movie Mania Monday' and the quizzes of 'Random Acts of Thursday', as well as pointed humor pieces such as 'Ask The Nerdy Fat Guy' and 'Fun Fact Friday' (which some lesser critics may cite as being neither fun nor completely factual) intermixed with random rants and observations, all with a heavy dose of sarcasm and ill-gotten images, Cheesehead Displacement Syndrome (http://microcows.blogspot.com) is far more than just a simple Wisconsin Native pining for his days in the great white north. No, this is an ongoing and entertaining web of self-depricating humor and observations on the state of life in this modern age.

Well-read and chock full of trivial knowledge (and riboflavin), Elliott runs the gamut of subjects without the need to pass blind prejudice on to his readers, instead the judgements are well-thought and satirical. Generalizations are only made where they're funny and don't hurt anyone.

'Nerdy' almost feels too simple a description for this blogospheric tome, though the author himself would dismiss it as such. But he's YOUR kind of nerd, a multi-nerder extraordinaire. Classic film, music, food, alcohol, travel and home maintenance are only a few of the many recurring themes throughout this cyber-literary journey.

And he can spell.
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contributing reviewer/ee
Elliott from Cheesehead Displacement Syndrome

Or At The Very Least, Outstandingly Average

url: http://myextraordinarilyordinarylife.blogspot.com/

Extraordinarily Ordinary is a relatively new blog started mid-October of 2009. The author, Amy, strives to make everyday life interesting, by adding a dash of humor while telling it like it is. Not all of the author's posts are humorous, but this is understandable as life is not always amusing.

The author's writing style seems a bit all over the place and at times her attempts at humor fall quite short. One can only hope that as the blog develops, so will it's author. She has a strange obsession with Wawa, which she mentions often, perhaps to her own detriment as only .15% of the world know what Wawa is. Perhaps she should stick more with funny antidotes about her pets.

As it stands, the blog is a pleasant read but isn't quite hitting the mark yet as to what makes a good blog good. However, we are looking forward to seeing more from Amy in the future to see how she grows as a writer to be more generally appealing and not so mind numbingly dull.

Her tag line is "It's a fine line between mundane and exciting." For right now she's on the wrong side of the line. I'm giving this blog a C-/D+ but definitely see some potential. Keep your eye on this blogger, she may just have what it takes to make it if she does something to make her life more interesting. Like becoming a stripper... or a matador.

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contributing reviewer/ee
Amy from Extraordinarily Ordinary

Not To Be Confused With The Rambling Hussars

url: http://www.ramblinghussies.com/

Upon first glance you will notice three things about the Rambling Hussies blog.

1. It's in DESPERATE need of a redesign. Or actually ANY design would be a good start.
2. There's a picture of a dude with vermin on his shoulder in the side bar.
3. These crazy chicks will use just about anything for a label.

The Rambling Hussies are actually a group of friends who all post on the same blog. You're going to have to scratch that first thought you had that perhaps this site is written by someone with a fairly serious personality disorder. These are actually four very different people. With a flair for the smart-a$$ed and a general lack of punctuation skills these ladies write sporadically about whatever pops into their pretty little heads. And more often than not they actually do manage to find the funny and beat it to death right in front of their 10's of followers.

Lord knows where these girls came up with their names but allow me to introduce you to each of the authors.

Ginger is fond of Wordless Wednesday posts with random pictures and nary a caption among them. She also writes a pretty good music review. A character called Burn Notice continues to appear in her tales as well as Thing One and Thing Two, one can only assume that this is her family.

Mad Dog rarely posts but when she does, it's a doosey. She spins yarn after fascinating yarn with her self-depreciating wit and fondness for the onomatopoeia. Some of her finest stories revolve around her family and someone named Boilermaker who showed up a month or so back in the side bar with a birthday announcement wearing a silly grin and a ridiculous hat.

Chl (seriously, how do you pronounce that? Shell? Chell? Who knows...) has a tendency to use the blog as a forum to rant. Her ravings cover every subject from her family to digitally-enhanced emaciated supermodels. There are also a mattering of posts from her on FarmVille (the vile FaceBook phenomena) and her life as a suddenly single parent of The Kid while Trophy Husband is out of the country on extended military leave.

Last but not least there is the most prolific, Tofurkey who's general observations of the world around swing from the bizarre to the just plain scary. Married to Hot Carl (knowing what that is, the reader is not sure if that is an unfortunate nickname or a peek into their private life) she apparently whiles away her day playing games on FaceBook and driving around looking for the next big Roadside Revelation.

All in all The Rambling Hussies are an interesting read, if only they would post more often. You'd think with four of them going at it they could at least get something fresh up there on a daily basis. I guess their little gems are just too precious to dole out so generously. As the side bar says, you just can't make this stuff up.

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contributing reviewer/ee
Chl from Rambling Hussies

I Keep Clicking and Clicking and I Can't Stop

url: http://angelaandluke.blogspot.com/

So Now You Know is a quirky little blog written by a well intentioned yet mentally unstable individual. Actually the correct terminology would be “mentally ill” with a healthy dose of self pro-claimed irreverence which makes for capricious and ridiculously unpredictable blog topics.

The layout of the blog itself is bathed in dark purples, blacks and grays and inexplicably displays two prominently featured flowers on either side of the 2 column layout. It feels as though these flowers are actually somewhat menacing and are possibly placed in an attempt to hypnotize the reader into never navigating away from the page. Or perhaps to those of us with minds more prone to the “gutter” if you will, they are intended to be pictorial euphemisms for the writer’s robust and undeniable sexuality and animal magnetism.

The subject of this blog is obsessive-compulsive disorder and how to live life as a crazy person. There are amusing anecdotes, medical information from a completely self-taught physician, and inane musings on topics such as the value of spiders, why short people are irritating and the author’s hard-core belief that birds are “creepy” because they “used to be dinosaurs”. Rampant paranoia and self-righteous use of multi-syllabic words underscore the greater intent of this blog which seems to be laughing at mentally ill people under the guise of learning about the disorder. Of course, as the author states, you are “laughing with me, not at me”, but the reader knows that, in fact, the laughter is not always mutual which is always funnier.

The content, albeit occasionally absurd, is all true and indeed humorous. The whimsical, gutsy, and unapologetic tone of the author is only enhanced by her ability to weave together magically descriptive phrases such as “Awesome” “Freaking Awesome” “Seriously, the awesomest crap I have ever seen.” And “Holy Crap the Awesomeness has eaten away my face”

Overall, I strongly recommend this blog even if only to find an answer to the question of whether or not all persons with OCD wash their hands multiple times per day. This blog makes you laugh, cry, occasionally throw up (either from the shameless self promotion or overly detailed personal descriptions) and as fairly warned in the title box “may cause seizures or peeing of your pants.”

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contributing reviewer/ee
Angela from So Now You Know

Where The Song Comes First, but the Craze Forever Threatens...

url: http://thissongstartsacraze.blogspot.com/

If the Internet is decent at one thing, it’s in giving everyone the ability to seem like an “authority figure” on a specific subject. This is the sole nature of the blogosphere, the idea behind citizen journalism, and the reason anyone follows anybody Twitter. Put simply: People like being talked to by “authority figures,” about…well, anything. As such, there are always people more than willing to talk as “authority figures,” about…well, anything.

It is with this trend that we being an analysis for the little known blog This Song Starts A Craze… (TSSC…). Authored by a recent college graduate (Who fancies himself as the “Unemployed man’s Chuck Klosterman”) TSSC… is the product of an individual with far too much to say about the topic of contemporary music. More specifically Mike (As his online handle would suggest to call him) offers his readers album reviews, concert reviews, more album reviews, his thoughts on albums that have come out recently, dissections of CDs he’s currently listening to, mixes he’s recently made, and his thoughts on new music.

Music seems to be the common thread here.

Never truly choosing a side between popular taste and hipster manifesto, Mike’s musical ramblings are decidedly middle of the road, and don’t polarize readers in the slightest. Rather, he ignores the first rule of critique, which is to hold one’s taste as superior and above all others. On TSSC… he opts for truthful and objective arguments as well as the air of mystery (See: The black and white profile photo, the ellipses in the title, and the intangible presence of “The Craze” that “This Song” is supposed to start) to bring readers into his house of indulgence.

What results is a bizarre experience, one that begs the question if Mike should really be an authority on anything.

Content:
The blog is driven by Mike’s need to flaunt the amount music he listens to, and to put forth his “Analysis of sound for the masses at large…”mission statement. He hides this under the guise that he offers a unique perspective that one won’t find in Rollingstone or on Pitchfork Media. I’m sorry, but how many Grammys has he won? How many gold records has he made? Has he taken Peyote with Rick Rubin in the middle of the Swiss Alps? What are qualifies this man as having a musical perspective at all? Can we take him seriously with no such credentials? When he shows me his degree in Musical Theory from Juilliard and his stint filling in for Metallica’s Lars Ulrich, all in addition to composing no less that 56 scores for Michael Bay’s next 56 films, THEN and ONLY THEN, will this reviewer take him seriously. (D+)

Layout:
When it comes to the visual aesthetic of his personal space on the net, Mike opts for the “If it ain’t broke, don’t give a damn about it” attitude. He uses a default Blogger template that’s been partitioned into 3 columns, all to appear more Web 2.0 friendly. However, the layout is extremely stock, offering options such as his RSS feed, a rating guide (As if we needed to know 1 star was “bad”), and LastFM widgets out the ears. Somewhere, the Internet’s equivalent of Christopher Lloyd is crying over this painfully dull digital landscape. (C-)

Enthusiasm:
Mike has two audiences: The musically perverse and himself. He will never tire writing to either of them. (B)

Overall:
TSSC… is an affront to the First Amendment and the freedom of speech itself. It’s as if the man is permanently plastered to a soapbox, distilling his idea of a “master taste” for the entire Internet to submit to. He’s hardly an expert, and his grasp of the English language drips with the smug pretentiousness of an over privileged San Franciscan. In a perfect world, the government would seize his blog and imprison him for cruel and unusual punishment. Bloggers like him make me sick. (F+)

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contributing reviewer/ee
Mike from This Song Starts A Craze...