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.

___________________________

contributing reviewer/ee
Sean from Seanibus