Geese Aplenty

Greg Howard’s Geese Aplenty managed better-than-average scores in every category, led by a high score for quality of writing.

“It is a decent blog with occasional very good posts. On the whole, I enjoy it.”

“Geese Aplenty is different from post to post. Some posts are random comedy pieces while others are more ‘clever, daddy-blogger-like.’ That’s not a bad thing, but you have to read on a regular basis to catch the vibe.”

CONTENT – 6.7
“Greg can be cute at times. He talks about everyday things and sometimes misses the mark with them. But, when he gets on a roll, he's hysterical. Post example? The reunion of the Breakfast Club post. I literally cried with laughter. I give him a ripe 7 for the hits. I'll ignore the misses.”

“Wide range of subjects, more or less relevant to the reader.”

“Cute, short posts about topics we can all relate to. I found myself reading several posts and chuckling out loud, while shaking my head in agreement.”

“Funny. Brief. Clever.”

DESIGN – 6.1
“Somehow I am developing an allergy to the great white space.”

“I'm not crazy about the template. Everything is shoved to the right and I am a left side sort of girl.”

“Clean design.”

“I would imagine some people are going to rip this design, but I don’t mind it. It’s simple. It’s tough to gripe about simple.”

QUALITY OF WRITING/GRAMMAR – 8.4
“The quality of writing is fine, though sometimes, it is hard to keep track of Greg when he is talking in the third person. His narration is good. His spelling is fine. His punctuation? Not so much.”

“Funny stuff - especially the recent entry about blogs posting on Craigslist.”

“For some reason, Geese Aplenty reminds me of Defective Yeti. Both are good writers who seem to write for themselves more than to appease the fans. I like that.”

INTANGIBLES – 7.2
“I'd like to see more info on the front page - links, images, anything that would help me understand what makes the author tick, and possibly bond with him.”

“Lord, if I give Greg 10 cents a day for the rest of my life, will you somehow convince him to get rid of his Google ads that are at the immediate left of the beginning of his page? Please Lord. Answer my prayers.”

“No issues.”

“The Google ads don’t bother me that much. They’re much more tasteful than most blogs with ads.”

FREQUENCY - 5.0
“Greg posts two or three times a week.”

WOULD YOU READ THIS BLOG REGULARLY – 63% Yes
“I would come back to visit this blog.”

“Probably not.”

“I am already more or less doing that.”

“Nah. It’s OK, but not that great. Maybe some other time.”

“Sure.”

OVERALL – 76.6
“Overall, this site is pretty funny with excellent writing. The Breakfast Club post had me laughing out loud. The site design is very bland, however.”

Waiter Rant

Waiter Rant managed one of our highest reviews to date, with an average score of 92.6.

"Waiter Rant is the Godfather of all anonymous bloggers. His blog is big-time, but the content just keeps getting better. I hope his growing popularity never forces him to change the content. His stories are priceless."

"If every blogger out there miraculously got book deals, there are only two bloggers’ books I would actually read. And one of them is Waiter Rant."

CONTENT - 8.6
"Regular, timely, engaging posts."

"Engaging. Being a foodie and dining out frequently, it's interesting to see the flip side of things."

"I started reading Waiter Rant a long time ago. Every once in awhile I return to it. It's sort of like an old familiar friend. See them once in awhile, you enjoy the time together. See them daily, you get sick of them fairly quickly. I like when Waiter Rant is relaying funny stories as opposed to sappy, sweet stories or the stories that teach us we should all gather around a campfire singing Kumbaya."

"This blog is blowing up. I heard a news story about it on XM, and friends keep emailing me the link. People just seem to love reading about life in the service industry."

"Waiter Rant isn’t always funny, but his stories about restaurant life are always entertaining."

DESIGN - 7.2
"I like his new design better than the old one, but it’s still not all that great. Kind of boring."

"Reads like a good menu. Nice and clean."

"The page loaded really slowly for me and the background looks a little shoddy (especially on the footer). I'm viewing this in Firefox, so I can't speak to its appearance in IE."

QUALITY OF WRITING/GRAMMAR - 9.4
"Waiter is probably the finest writer of any writer on the Internet. Period."

"I have no qualms whatsoever with the quality of writing or grammar at Waiter Rant. It's actually a very well written blog as far as those qualities go."

"Very well written."

"The entries are unique and interesting."

INTANGIBLES - 7.1
"Seeing ads on the sides of stories is like seeing a fly in your soup or watching a waiter blow his nose and wipe it on the back of his hand. It makes me want to vomit. Here's a tip, Waiter. Lose the ads, the broken links, and the PayPal logo!"

"Took away points for design."

"The posts tend to be on the long side, but in this case I actually don't mind. The guy really tells a story well."

"The ads are a little annoying, but the tip jar is a nice touch. I might get one of his t-shirts one of these days."

FREQUENCY - 6.0
"Waiter averages about three posts a week."

WOULD YOU READ THIS BLOG REGULARLY - 75% Yes
"I already do."

"I probably won't come back to read this blog. I had high expectations of this blog, but was a little let down. It's somewhat interesting, and there's some nice insight. But it's not really very entertaining or funny."

"Yes! My kinda blog."

"Nah. I prefer to dine alone."

"I stopped reading Waiter Rant once, but the more I read, the more I love it. I can’t imagine not reading every post these days."

OVERALL - 92.6
Waiter Rant managed to tie Blogography for the highest score for content (8.6), while shattering our old record for quality of writing/grammar (9.4). All of the other categories were better than average, but not high enough to overtake our Top-3 blogs.

"No matter whether you plan to read this blog often, at least take a minute to check out the advice on tipping. It's truly eye-opening."

Blogography

It looks like we have a new sheriff in town ... and his name isn’t Reggie Hammond.

No. His name is David Simmer II.

Blogography set a new high mark with an average, cumulative score of 97.3.

Of course, in typical Bloglaughs fashion, while some of our reviewers loved Blogography ...

"Remember on Seinfeld when George had a ‘man crush’ on that guy from MTV Sports? That’s how I am with Dave. I want to turn my hat around backwards and be just like him. He’s such a cool guy. ... I realize I’ll always be more like George Costanza, but a guy can dream, can’t he?"

Others? Not so much ...

"This blog is probably great for people who like Family Circus or Garfield."

CONTENT - 8.6
"Dave doesn’t try to be funny. He doesn’t even consider his blog a humor blog. Of course, he wrote about that the other day and the post was fucking hilarious."

"I love Dave. I have loved him since the moment I discovered him from the bitches over at I Talk Too Much. He did their graphics and I fell in love from that point on. He is funny in a very humble and understated 'please love me' sort of way. Kind of reminds me of a little hound dog puppy that just wants to be cuddled ... just before he pees on you for shits and giggles."

"The posts are pretty tame. Reading this reminds me of listening to pop music. I don't find it interesting, but soccer moms might be entertained."

"Doesn’t everyone read Dave already? Dave is the best."

"Dave’s humor is subtle, understated, and perfect."

DESIGN - 8.7
"I swear, if this design isn’t a 10 I don’t know what is. Dave is the best page designer out there."

"He is an artist and so, his layout is impeccable. The color combo of black white and shades of purple are very complimentary. I love his use of text blocks for conversations. His graphics are bright and colorful without being overwhelming or overshadowing the content of his posts. I also adore the use of tabs at the top of his page to find content."

"Clean, reader-friendly, nothing to complain about."

"I don’t love this blog, but the design is great."

"Dave’s original graphics are nothing short of genius. There is no one who can compare."

QUALITY OF WRITING/GRAMMAR - 8.9
"Dave’s artwork is the star, but his writing is very good."

"Impeccable."

"No issues."

"Dave says he only takes 10 minutes to write a blog entry with no graphics. When he draws a graphic to go with it, he says it only takes him 20-25 minutes. I hate him. I have stared at a computer screen for hours, only to come up with a whole lot of nothing. This 10-minute thing pisses me off!"

"Dave wrote an entry recently about putting quotation marks in the wrong place on purpose. I love Dave, but that post still bothers me."

INTANGIBLES - 8.9
"Oy, the ads. Ads everywhere. Fortunately, most of them are for his own product hocking. Since he's an artist, I am okay with that. He is a Mac head. For that, I am deducting a point simply because I can. Mac heads tend to be snobs. But, Dave's a cool snob. I will give him back that point because of his use of his own photographs as personalized emoticons. I like that. But I am taking back that same point, for his sidebar being longer than Ron Jeremy's schlong."

"No problems."

"I think I have four Blogography shirts right now, and I can’t wait until he comes out with some new ones. I don’t even mind when people ask me what ‘Bad Monkey’ means. It’s the price I pay to wear such a cool shirt."

"Perfect score. Nothing here pisses me off."

"He sells t-shirts, but that’s not so bad. It’s not like he’s whoring himself out for Google."

FREQUENCY - 10
"Dave posts everyday, sometimes more when he can’t sleep."

WOULD YOU READ THIS BLOG REGULARLY - 88% Yes
"Already do!"

"I would definitely read this blog again. I think the writing is witty, funny, and very entertaining. I've come across the blog once before, and I thought it was great."

"Very Doubtful."

"I’ve been reading Blogography since the BoB awards. It’s the best all-around blog on the Internet."

OVERALL - 97.3
Aside from being our top-rated blog to date, Blogography set new high marks for content, intangibles, and read regularly. Blogography managed several perfect scores.

"I give Blogography perfect 10's all across. It's a flawless blog that never ceases to amuse me. Beautifully designed and written, I wish the entire world was as pleasant a place to visit!"

AnonymousCoworker

I knew we were going to get some high scores for the next three reviews, but AnonymousCoworker moves into the No. 2 spot overall with an average score of 93.4.

“I love this blog. ACW is a real guy who writes funny stories about shit that happens to all of us. Well, some of us.”

CONTENT – 8.4
“Frequent, varied posts. I almost always laugh when I read his blog.”

“The Target story was classic! I enjoyed the sarcasm of a couple of the other posts.”

“I especially liked his post about the customer service desk at Target.”

“Funny and entertaining most of the time.”

“I love ACW. I crack up at the marvelous way he presents life. He has a great outlook. Even the most depressing antics are somehow humorous in his world.”

DESIGN – 7.6
“I love the layout. It's clean green and mean. Just the way it should be. He has a classic and clean look.”

“Get a different template!”

“The green and black things on both sides of the screen are annoying as heck. Was unable to leave a comment on a three-week-old post for some reason.”

“Straightforward, nothing crazy, but also allows the reader to get to the meat and potatoes of his posts.”

“Simple, clean, and no crap. I’m not crazy about the green, but he probably wouldn’t like my collection of sock monkeys. Viva la difference!”

“Very clean and easy to read.”

“Blog column is rather narrow but I love the color green, so an extra point for that.”

QUALITY OF WRITING/GRAMMAR – 8.6
“His writing is always impeccable and his grammar is extraordinary. He even corrected street graffiti for lords sake! He hangs out with teacher types.”

“Well-written, entertaining stories virtually every day. He’s a pretty good writer.”

INTANGIBLES – 8.6
“Nice and clean, I have nothing to complain about.”

“I had to take a point off because of some weird bar across the top of the screen that seems to be an ad for Firefox.”

“Even though I know he’s right, the little pop-up about getting Firefox kind of pisses me off. Internet Explorer sucks ass, but I’m too lazy to switch. That’s my problem, not his. ACW loses one point in this category. He gets a 9.”

“Nothing distracting. Good.”

FREQUENCY – 9.0
“ACW posts most weekdays, but he has to skip a few days here and there.”

WOULD YOU READ THIS BLOG REGULARLY – 77% Yes
“Already do.”

“Yes. I’ve been reading it since the Best of Blog nomination process. Good stuff.”

“Not only do I read him regularly, but he's on my blog’s side panel.”

“Eh. No.”

“Definitely something I would read at least three times a week.”

“Bookmarked it.”

OVERALL – 93.4
“The other day he was writing about sitting through a dreadful meeting and I would swear we were in the same meeting. If it weren’t for the several states between us, it would have freaked me out.”

Dead Guy. The Cartoon.

Mixed reviews kept Dead Guy. The Cartoon from getting too high on our list, but it still made it into our Top-10.

“If you are not into satirical humor, there is no way in hell you will enjoy Dead Guy. Me personally? I think he is the funniest bitch alive. Seriously. Bar none. He is mindless humor that makes me giddy and on occasion, hurts my widdle head.”

“Kinda, sorta funny sometimes. It’s a good blog, but it definitely shouldn’t have won the Best of Blog competition.”

CONTENT – 7.6
“Quality humor there!”

“He covers a wide range of topics that are all of interest to me.”

“While I enjoy the occasional cartoon, this one didn't do much for me. It wasn't awful, but not my taste in humor.”

“Hey this stuff is funny!”

“Witty and hilarious Web comics.”

DESIGN – 7.8
“Gorgeous black and red death schematic happenin' here. Perfect for the death motif.”

“I don't like the black background.”

“Straightforward, too black. I almost thought it could have been a goth blog if I didn't read the content.”

“Easy on the eyes and easy to navigate.”

“I'm not crazy about the black, but I get it.”

“Could use a little nicer template, but still simple and easy to read.”

QUALITY OF WRITING/GRAMMAR – 7.8
“If a picture is worth a thousand words, then Dead Guy has a lock on the blog world. The writing, what little there is, is always interesting and grammar is never an issue for dead things.”

“Amusing.”

“Not too bad, but you can’t compare this to someone who actually writes a blog everyday.”

“Always funny and clever. I actually don't see him making many mistakes if at all.”

INTANGIBLES – 8.7
“It’s a quick read without a lot of ads or blinky shit. That’s good.”

“They tried to hide, but I saw those ads!”

“Great Web comic, but apparently he's going on hiatus for a bit.”

“I hate the Google ads on top. The sidebar is enormous but he had the good sense to stick it under all of his cartoon goodness. I only remove half a point for that faux pas.

FREQUENCY – 2.0
“Dead Guy posted a new cartoon once a week prior to going on a recent hiatus.”

“If anyone gives him a low grade for frequency just because Dead Guy is a weekly cartoon, then I'm afraid I'll have to take it as a personal offense. Getting back into the office on Monday mornings, seeing the coworkers' faces and facing the same old workload is never easy. I used to hate Mondays with a passion. Thanks to Dead Guy, I now have something to look forward to on those days.”

[The score for frequency is a simple matter of mathematics. A weekly post should not get the same amount of points as someone who posts everyday. If it’s any solace, this category is only worth 5% of the final score. It must come into play, but shouldn’t be an overwhelming factor.]

WOULD YOU READ THIS BLOG REGULARLY – 61% Yes
“I'm bookmarking it ASAP.”

“There's no way that I can quit reading this blog regularly.”

“I'd check in sometimes, but wouldn't read it everyday.”

“He has a decent feed, so I’ll check it out for a while.”

“Hell, no!”

“Been there, done that, slept with the dead guy.”

OVERALL – 82.5
“I hope he definitely makes a return. He hasn't been gone long (since June 11, 2006), but if I go a couple weeks without reading one of his strips, I'll be upset.”

-- Best of Blogs Awards --

The Best of Blogs Awards are difficult to write about.

On one hand, the "competition" became a contentious mess with dubious voting procedures and lots of middle school arguing.

On the other hand, no competition gave readers a greater opportunity to discover as many relatively unknown, but fantastic blogs.

The "Most Humorous Blog" category was won by Dead Guy. The Cartoon. AnonymousCoworker finished in second place with Blogography in third. Fat Eye For The Skinny Guy was initially awarded second place but a legitimate scoring error was discovered after the fact.

(Everyone makes mistakes and it was perhaps the most honorable thing the organizers did.)

Other finalists included: The Hot Librarian, Bifsniff Cartoons, Used Hack, Rockchild, Bloggin' Bizatch, and The Peevery.

When the finalists were announced, several commenters were upset that Karlababble was not included. Since Used Hack stopped blogging earlier this year, we have decided to add Karlababble to this discussion.

Unlike the 22 Bloggies semifinalists, we have decided to space out these reviews over the next few weeks instead of dumping all of them on you at once.

We'll review the first three blogs Thursday, Friday, and Monday, then settle into a once-a-week BoB review (every Monday) until all 10 blogs have been reviewed. It will take several weeks to have a BoB recap similar to the one below, but I think its important to highlight several types of blogs without getting bogged down with contests.

In the meantime, we will also take a look at some highly-rated blogs from Technorati, Yahoo, Top Blogs, past Bloggies nominees, and suggestions from our readers and reviewers.

(I had planned on also featuring some more blogs from the 2005 Weblog Awards humor/comics category, but the first and second place finishers -- also Bloggies nominees -- didn't fare so well with our reviewers. Most of the finalists are political blogs ... enough said.)

If you know of a blog you'd like to see reviewed, now is the time to send it in and get it on the list. It may take some time, but we'll consider any suggestions.

Gawker

Gawker may be one of the most popular entertainment blogs in the world, but some of our reviewers felt it suffered from it’s regional appeal.

Of course, with about 300,000 visitors every day, some of our reviewers gave it the highest scores of any blog they’ve reviewed.

"Who hasn't read Gawker yet? It's right up there with Dooce."

"I've heard of this blog, but never bothered to read it. Now I know why ... it's a freaking mess."

CONTENT - 6.0
"Even for a person completely uninterested in celebrity gossip, such as myself, this blog proved to be a good read. It does not limit itself to purely gossip either. Some of the topics covered were of interest to me."

"Really boring."

"Not my kind of blog."

"For the most part you have to be from Manhattan to understand most of the posts."

"I have little to no interest in Manhattan or its gossip."

"They do as much linking to other gossip sites as they do writing something original. I really, really don’t care about anything happening in Manhattan either."

"I guess it might be mildly entertaining for residents of New York."

"This is, by far, the least humorous of all the gossip sites. No fun here, just news about things I can't stand."

DESIGN - 5.1
"The actual ‘blog’ part only takes up what, 1/3 of the screen? Maybe I have a setting wrong?"

"Professional."

"All those freaking links and smushed together sentences made my eyes burn. Not to mention it seemed that half the page was taken up by ads!"

"Good quality, easy to read and navigate."

"Horrible – difficult to read, tons of ads, arggghh!"

"It's OK, but a little busy when you first load it up. Too many large ads right at the top."

"Big shot blog design with no soul. Of course, you can probably buy one by clicking on one of the many ads."

QUALITY OF WRITING/GRAMMAR - 7.5
"Professional writers, writing about things I don’t care about."

"Frequent posts, good use of grammar, timely."

"From the few sentences I could bring into focus, there didn't seem to be many errors."

"Had a hard time making myself read any of it because the overall look so did not appeal to me, but I didn’t notice anything wrong with the parts I read."

INTANGIBLES - 4.3
"Sidebar crap takes up too much room."

"I hate having to register to comment. The ads caused the main content to be smushed over to the left making it mostly intelligible. Please make better use of the white space!"

"Ads, extra clicks, ads, New York arrogance, ads, and some kind of bullshit that crashed my computer twice!!! Oh, did I mention the ads?"

FREQUENCY - 10
"Several posts every day."

WOULD YOU READ THIS BLOG REGULARLY - 24% Yes
"Sure."

"Yes. Good quality, easy to read and navigate."

"Not really. Too cookie-cutterish. Too many folks are just regurgitating the latest and greatest celebutainment rather than coming up with something innovative, inventive, original and amusing."

"No. Too much trouble trying to determine what is a post and what is an ad."

"I can guarantee you I’ll never visit this site again on my own free will. Life is too short."

OVERALL - 67.9
Mixed reviews kept Gawker from scoring too high or too low. Quality writing and frequent posts couldn’t make up for mediocre content and below average scores for design and intangibles.

"All those readers cannot be wrong. Good blog."

"Hated it. They do have some cool t-shirts you can order. Just click on the ad."

JonnyB’s Private Secret Diary

JonnyB’s Private Secret Diary gives us glimpse at life inside a cottage in rural Norfolk, England. This became of particular interest to a few of our reviewers.

“I gave this blog a bit of a break on the scoring because I think I’m missing something in the translation. As an American, I’m sure I’m not picking up on some of the humor. Of course, that being said, maybe it’s just not all that funny.”

“When I first dove in, I thought, ‘Oh my God, this is boring. I don’t know if I can even read enough of it to give this blog a fair review.’ It took me a minute to figure out that apparently this guy is from England or something. (Yeah, I'm a little slow like that.) Once I got that in my head and got used to the British lingo and so forth, well hell, then things were great! It’s actually funny!”

CONTENT – 6.1
“I found this blog to be incredibly boring. Excellent for my chronic insomnia, though. Am I missing the humor here?”

“Amusing personal anecdotes. Original, and mostly-engaging material.”

“Very good writing. My only complaint it, it is hard to pay attention when each post is essentially about the same couple and their house. Very entertaining nonetheless.”

“It wasn't bad, but no laugh out loud moments. It was like I was reading tidbits of a longer story.”

“I like the blogs about normal every day stupid things that everyone does but never actually discusses.”

DESIGN – 5.4
“Plain, uninspired and clean. I like that.”

“A little boring for my taste.”

“Not much of a design at all.”

“Uncluttered, straightforward, nothing fancy.”

“Boring! Apparently ‘plain white blogs’ is this week’s theme.”

QUALITY OF WRITING/GRAMMAR – 7.3
“The writing is fine though someone needs to make better use of the spell check feature on his computer.”

“Good use of grammar, engages the reader.”

“Once I got past the Britishness, the writing and grammar were fine.”

INTANGIBLES – 7.5
“I have no issue with this blog at all, except for the fact that it is exceedingly dull. Ergo, I give it an 8.”

“No ads, but the design is so boring and the posts are kind of long.”

“I like it when the author takes time to introduce himself.”

“I'd like the entries to be titled.”

FREQUENCY – 6.0
“Pretty steady three times a week.”

WOULD YOU READ THIS BLOG REGULARLY – 40% Yes
“I’ve tried to read this blog regularly a couple of times, but I always give up. It’s just not for me. Sorry.”

“Perhaps once a week.”

“Very likely.”

“Hell, no!”

“I enjoyed this blog. Of course, 360,000 readers can't be wrong. Will definitely bookmark it.”

OVERALL – 69.8
Mixed reviews kept JonnyB’s Secret Private Diary from getting too far up the charts.

“This is supposed to be a pretty popular blog, but I just don’t get it.”

Defective Yeti

Defective Yeti had a couple of big fans among our reviewers, and a couple of people who didn’t care for this blog at all. However, for the most part, our reviewers gave it favorable reviews across the board.

“Not every post is laugh-out-loud funny, but Matthew Baldwin writes a nice, clever blog. Very witty, clever stuff. He’s a professional writer and it comes across in his work here at Defective Yeti.”

CONTENT – 7.3
“Some interesting stories. I got a few chuckles here and there. Far from uproariously funny, but the content was thoughtful, bordering on insightful and amusing.”

“Clever, witty posts.”

“Dry.”

“Matt covers a wide range of subjects that are of interest to me. Hey, I'm a geek. Give me sci-fi and board games any day.”

“I got a big kick out of the post and an even bigger kick out of the comments. Some guy named Drax left a response in ‘Buckwheat speak’ that cracked my shit up.”

“Not particularly thrilling topics in and of themselves, but really funny.”

DESIGN – 6.5
“Simple and clean, the way I like it.”

“Huge masthead for ‘the little blog that couldn't.’”

“Nice and uncluttered. Easy to read.”

“Pretty boring. Very white.”

“The design isn’t all that great, but it’s far from the worst I’ve seen.”

QUALITY OF WRITING/GRAMMAR – 8.7
“The writing is very good. Clear, concise and consistent. I like it.”

“Good use of grammar. Dry, unengaging posts.”

“I give it a 9 only because I'm afraid to give anyone a 10 for fear that I might have missed something really huge and will feel like an idiot when I read what everyone else said about it. It seems to me that this writer does well grammatically and writes in a fashion that is very readable. And funny.”

“Matthew is a writer’s writer. I wish he posted more often, but I understand most of us have to work for a living. Quality, quality stuff.”

INTANGIBLES – 6.9
“I hate Flickr ads in the sidebars of any blog. I also hate the ‘current’ thing.”

“Too stark. Long, rambling dry posts.”

FREQUENCY – 6.0
“He posts about three times a week.”

WOULD YOU READ THIS BLOG REGULARLY – 59% Yes
“Already do.”

“Nope!”

“Probably not. Too many long posts for my taste.”

“I’ve been reading this blog for about a year and a half.”

OVERALL – 81.1
High numbers for content and writing led the way to a pretty good average score for Defective Yeti.

“One of my favorite blogs. Smart, funny, thought provoking and highly recommended.”

TVgasm

Some of our reviewers admitted not watching much television. However, those who watch some of the shows highlighted at TVgasm liked the site very much.

"Hilarious re-caps, better than the shows most of the time."

CONTENT - 7.4
"Shows like Laguna Beach and The Hills are perfect for this blog. In fact, the only reason I occasionally watch those shows is so I get the jokes when I read recaps like these."

"Sheer boredom. I am not a fan of television blogs. I have maybe four or five shows that I watch consistently. I don't like reading about television shows. It reminds me that I am wasting my life watching the four or five that I actually do care to see."

"Making fun of trash TV is too easy sometimes."

"Boring for me because I dont watch enough TV to know what this blog is talking about half the time. But to someone who is very "into" TV, I suspect it might be slightly interesting."

DESIGN - 5.9
"As my grandmother Mildred used to say..."Oy vey, vatta schtupin mess!" I have been on this site for less than 10 seconds and already, my eyes hurt."

"The design bothers me a little. I don’t know how to describe it, but I’m giving it a 6."

"Professional, direct, yet a bit too much stuff in side panels."

"Nothing exciting. I'm getting good at ignoring the stuff in the sidebars. Other than all that crap, the site is clean-looking enough, but kind of boring. White?"

QUALITY OF WRITING/GRAMMAR - 8.5
"Fine and fine. Here, have an 8."

"Pretty good quality, sarcastic writing."

"Good use of grammar and engaging content."

"The writing itself is done fairly well even if it didn't say anything interesting."

INTANGIBLES - 4.1
"The site made me run some Active X control and crashed my Internet Explorer when I tried to bypass it. Major points off for crashing anything on my computer. Fuck you, Active X."

"One of my biggest peeves are films embedded into blogs. I also cannot stand the clutter, the ads that run all over the place and I don't like any blog that advertises MySpace. Feh."

"Lots of crap in the sidebars. I really don't like having to ‘jump’ to read the whole post."

"Ads, Active X bullshit, videos, extra clicks to read some entries, just too much senseless crap. This kind of stuff really hurt my overall opinion of this blog."

FREQUENCY - 10
"Two or three posts a day."

WOULD YOU READ THIS BLOG REGULARLY - 54% Yes
"Sure. They have a new reader from now on."

"Only if my life depended on it."

"Already do."

"Probably not."

OVERALL - 81.6
"I don’t read everything because I don’t care about some of those shows, but the rest of it is great."

"I'm still pissed off at that Active X thing."

Go Fug Yourself

The process at Go Fug Yourself is pretty simple:

1. Celebrities are pictured wearing ridiculous clothes.
2. Heather and Jessica make fun of them.

“It's cruelly minimalist, pictures of celebrities at their worst followed by brutal commentary. Fantastic!”

“I don’t give two shits about fashion, but this site is genuinely funny. The more you explore this site, the more you’ll love it.”

CONTENT - 8.0
“Clever, witty, vicious, bitchy, catty, and just plain wonderful.”

“Love the photos.”

“Great idea for a blog.”

DESIGN - 7.2
“I don’t mind the ads too much, but the design is a little too pedestrian for me.”

“Except for the annoying ad sidebar, it's a pretty clean design.”

“Straightforward, nothing fancy, yet nothing interfering with the fug.”

QUALITY OF WRITING/GRAMMAR - 8.5
“Great comedic writing.”

“Engaging and regular posts.”

INTANGIBLES - 6.8
"Ads and no comments, both negatives and deserving of demerits.”

"The ads kind of annoy me more than some of the other gossip blogs just because the design is so simple. ... That didn't necessarily make sense, but I'm still giving it a 7."

FREQUENCY - 10
“At least one post every weekday, sometimes two.”

“They seem to update regularly, which is always a plus.”

WOULD YOU READ THIS BLOG REGULARLY - 75% Yes
“Doesn't everybody read it regularly already?”

“I already do. Very guilty pleasure.”

“Surprisingly, yes. I just knew I’d hate this blog, but I was wrong. Thanks for reviewing this one.”

OVERALL - 89.8
“I love this blog! The frightening photos of celebrities' styles gone wild, the catty/sarcastic comments most of which mirror my own thoughts, and mostly short posts. What's not to love? Well, the ads, of course.”

Defamer

Defamer isn’t necessarily our reviewers’ favorite celebrity gossip blog, but it still managed to get pretty good reviews.

CONTENT - 7.5
“I'm sure it helps that I secretly like reading celebrity gossip. But it also helps that the writing on Defamer is so fucking funny.”

“Defamer might be the best gossip site out there, but I don’t think the content is nearly as funny as The Superficial.”

“I read several gossip blogs and this isn't one of my favorites.”

“Hard for me to judge, as celebrity gossip is not my thing at all.”

DESIGN - 8.3
“Professional, eye catching.”

“It's fairly clean, but there's something about it I don't like. I can't put my finger on it though.”

“The ads in the sidebar overlap the main post area and the header ad overlaps the sidebar. It's probably due to my combination of Firefox and low screen resolution but it looks sloppy.”

“Nice palette, tasteful design. This is a well-designed blog. I could not find anything wrong with it.”

QUALITY OF WRITING/GRAMMAR - 7.9
“They have a professional staff of writers.”

“I noticed a few sparse grammar errors.”

INTANGIBLES - 7.1
“The ads don’t bother me all that much. It kind of goes with these sites.”

“I don't understand the need to register with the site in order to comment.”

FREQUENCY - 10
“Defamer features several posts each day.”

“They almost post too much. I never keep up.”

WOULD YOU READ THIS BLOG REGULARLY - 49% Yes
“Definitely.”

“Once a week.”

“I used to read it all the time.”

OVERALL - 84.2
“It’s a decent enough blog, but I’m just not all that excited about celebrity gossip. Other sites do a better job of making celebrity gossip funny.”

DUmmie FUnnies

DUmmie FUnnies is supposedly a humorous retort to the daily news and discussions at Democratic Underground.

Most of our reviewers felt like they were "reading someone’s lame, unfunny, inside jokes."

CONTENT - 4.5
"I don't support the author's views, as far as I could understand them. It's all downhill from there."

"Face it. Republicans just aren’t funny."

"Dumb, yes. Funnie, no."

"Not a big fan of political blogs."

DESIGN - 4.8
"Poor choice of a Blogger template, in my opinion. I don't like the way the posts kind of float in mid-air in the middle of a vast white space."

"Boring. Yuck."

"I don’t like the bold font. It hurts my eyes."

QUALITY OF WRITING/GRAMMAR - 4.8
"The writing isn’t necessarily horrible, but the random capitalization is just weird. I assume the mistakes are supposed to be the funny parts because I have yet to laugh at the actual content."

"Too verbose, posts take too long to get to the point."

"Hard to tell, although I did find a pesky grammatical error."

INTANGIBLES - 4.2
"Long posts, different colored type, odd spacing for an effect that doesn’t word, advertisements, and right-wing politics? A zero simply does not carry the emotion for how many pet peeves this blog hits for me."

"That font got really annoying and the long posts didn't help. I felt like I was reading about some inside joke that wouldn't be funny even in I bothered to figure out what was going on."

"What's with the freakishly long posts?"

FREQUENCY - 10
"PJ-Comix posts virtually every day."

WOULD YOU READ THIS BLOG REGULARLY - 10% Yes
"You’d have to actually pay me to visit this blog again."

"Not just no. Hell no!"

"If I were struggling with insomnia for a week and needed sleep? Yes."

"Dear God, I never thought I’d live to see the day where I actually wished I was forced to review another one of those fucking cute animal picture sites. I simply couldn’t imagine hating another blog as much as those. Thanks for lowering the bar."

OVERALL - 54.4
"You absolutely must enjoy reading political opinion to enjoy this blog. Even further, it seems you must be familiar with the latest opinions from the left so you can ‘get’ this blogger's retorts. Based on the name of the blog, I expected some humor, but it appears that this site is a pretty straightforward political blog written from a right-leaning perspective. Not funny and unoriginal."