Banterist

The Banterist slipped into our current No. 12 spot with generally favorable marks from all of our reviewers.

“This blog is pretty funny. Very witty with a mix of both lowbrow humor and intelligent irony. I love the bit about incorrect grammar being all around us. The only issue I had was the site layout. The body is squished all the way to the left. His writing and pics should take center stage. Great blog.”

CONTENT – 8.2
“I have fallen in love with Banterist. The content ranges from the intentionally silly to the political to the interesting. There is not a dull moment to be found. I had more laugh out loud moments with this blog than I have had with any other in a long time. I might have even snorted once or twice. The MTA Store for Germaphobes has to be my absolute favorite. If you ever lived in NYC you will totally relate. Content is a fat 10. If I could post an 11, I would.”

“The Grammar Cop posts are good for a laugh.”

“Amusing enough.”

“We lowlifes appreciate a sneak peek into a life of the celebrity crowd. Liked the Photoshop Awards post, too!”

“This blog has its moments, but is a bit uneven. I found myself cracking up on one entry, but then completely bored on the next. This would be forgivable if he posted with any regularity but, since he doesn't, he should be hitting more home runs than this.”

DESIGN – 6.1
“I didn't like the way the archives shortened up the posts. It's picky, but I'd rather the posts show the date they were posted. At least it didn't show the date on the front page.”

“Nothing tragic, but the overflowing sidebars and abundance of ads really work against a cohesive look.”

“Classy, neat lines. Great layout. Nice columns in colors that are conducive to spending a long time reading.”

“Unique.”

“The design would be very good if it weren’t for all the ads. A couple of them look too big for the side panels.”

QUALITY OF WRITING/GRAMMAR – 8.0
“Well written and easy to read. Nothing to get excited over, but great compared to most blogs.”

“The writing is articulate and the grammar is spot on. Brian has a way with words, that's for sure. It's not easy to post conversational type posts, but he manages with flair.”

“Someone with posts about grammar better score high in this category.”

“I didn't much care for the actual text entries. However this blogger knows good grammar and punctuation, which kept this score to a solid 7 in this category.”

“The man knows how to use his apostrophe's proper'ly. (sic) I've got to respect that.”

“He’s a pretty good writer. Not the funniest in the world, but he’s still a good writer.”

INTANGIBLES – 6.1
“His Google ads are out of control. There are so many of them. Gads.”

“Normally I don't dig blogs heavy laden with Youtube stuff and nothing original, however the selections were decent enough. His use of Gallagher kept this score to a 7.5 (who doesn't enjoy gratuitous melon bashing?)”

“Ads galore.”

“Doesn't show the date of his entries, and that's kind of lame. Of course, since he doesn't post very often, I guess that's one way to camouflage it.”

“The one side panel is great. The archives are organized by both category and month with totals for each. There’s a FAQ, most popular posts, all kinds of good stuff. Of course, right next to it is another side panel full of ads. That sucks!”

FREQUENCY – 4.0
“The Banterist has averaged about two posts a week the past year. However, the frequency is usually down during the summer months.”

WOULD YOU READ THIS BLOG REGULARLY – 57% Yes
“Maybe.”

“Absolutely. He is bookmarked and will be added to my page this weekend. Thank you BlogLaughs for this find!”

“Not likely.”

“Subscribed to it.”

“Sure, if he'd post regularly.”

OVERALL – 85.2

Jonathan Coulton

Looking at Jonathan Coulton’s work in the context of a "humor blog review" is not the easiest thing to do.

Some of our reviewers skimmed the surface and discarded it. Some dug deep and didn’t think it was all that great. Others thought it was nothing short of genius.

Either way, our reviewers had lots of opinions. Let’s get to it ...

"This one is difficult to judge at face value. At first glance, it’s not a ‘humor blog.’ But then again, if Jonathan Coulton’s songs were written without music, you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who would say these ‘posts’ were not clever, poignant, witty, sweet, or sometimes funny. Throw in the fact that he’s a brilliant musician and this blog has to be considered very good."

"I don’t know if I’d call this a humor blog, but the quality of the free content is better than you get from most blogs."

CONTENT – 7.9
"I just didn't find the blog funny. It seemed more music oriented or something."

"I’m not from New York, and I had never heard of Soterios Johnson before, but the whole idea of a straight-laced news guy who lives to dance is brilliant."

"His regular songs are OK, but I’m not into the whole funny song thing."

"Love his Tom Cruise Crazy tune. That alone sells it."

"The first song I heard was Rock and Roll Boy on the Delta Park Project. Jonathan found a little song some 6-year-old kid sang into a recorder and turned it into a real song with backup vocals, a guitar solo, and everything. After that, I was hooked. Good, good stuff."

"This isn't a humor blog."

"I have more Jonathan Coulton songs on my iPod than I have The Beatles, Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin combined. That’s so wrong, but I don’t care. I love JoCo’s music."

"The music is amusing enough, but where's the funny? Sure a few tunes I listened to brought a smile to my face because they were clever (Skullcrusher Mountain is an instant classic) but I don't find myself laughing at all. Maybe he's just too subtle for me, because I love musical comedy by the likes of Stephen Lynch and Evan Wecksell?"

"Drinking With You, Big Bad World One, Madelaine, and You Could Be Her are not nearly as funny or clever as Tom Cruise Crazy or Code Monkey, but they’re not supposed to be. Those songs are just damn good. Those songs should be on the radio."

"Brian Wilson would never write a song about a kid riding in a stroller. Cute song."

DESIGN – 6.0
"Same old WordPress template I've seen a hundred times. The good news is that this means it's easy to read, the bad news is that it also means the site is boring to look at."

"The top is a bit cluttered and confusing. I thought the upcoming shows list was some kind of annoying ad."

"Functional."

"Meh."

"I like blogs that have a FAQ and other features. This one even has its own forum. You can’t beat that."

QUALITY OF WRITING/GRAMMAR – 8.6
"His song writing is exceptional. The writing on the blog is only average, but I don’t care about that. His music is everything."

"The quality of his writing is nothing special, but the quality of his music is good so I'm giving him an 8 here."

"Perfect 10 for song writing only."

INTANGIBLES – 7.9
"For some reason, it bugs me when people toot their own horns with excerpts of their appearances in the press. Maybe it's because I haven't appeared in the press."

"He likes monkeys, and that's worth quite a few intangible points!"

"He sells stuff, but not nearly as much as he gives away."

FREQUENCY – 8.0
"Jonathan Coulton’s ‘Thing a Week’ is, of course, weekly. His other posts depend on his schedule, what people send him, and other happenings."

WOULD YOU READ THIS BLOG REGULARLY – 64% Yes
"Oh, yeah. Good music."

"No, but I might check back from time to time to see what new music he's posted."

"Yep. I even listen to the Popular Science Podcast (hosted by Jonathan Coulton) and I don’t normally care for that kind of thing. Coulton makes it interesting."

OVERALL – 87.0
"Thing a Week is supposedly ending soon and that makes me sad. I plan on buying some CDs and t-shirts because I want to help support him. Jonathan Coulton deserves to make music for a living."

The Plumbutt Chronicles

The Plumbutt Chronicles offers a satirical and sarcastic view on the entertainment, political and cultural fields.

Of course, when that is your goal, the comparisons are many.

CONTENT - 5.8
"A pale imitation of Perez Hilton and other more capable Hollywood gossip blogs, but never-the-less entertaining in spots. The sole saving grace for the content would be 'The Bikini Zone' which raises my score from a 4 to a 6."

"While I did find a couple of the videos to be mildly entertaining, for the most part I wouldn't classify this as a humor blog. I give it a ‘meh.’"

"Engaging."

"On the front page, it seemed like it was mostly just random pictures of celebrities, most of which were not flattering. I enjoy celebrity gossip, but this site just doesn't do it for me. It's OK, but I just don't think it's that funny."

"I'm not so much into the celebrity gossip stuff. Plus, I didn't think most of this stuff really counted as ‘humor.’"

DESIGN - 7.0
"Unique to this blogger."

"Middle-of-the-road fare. Nothing special, but not at all annoying either."

"I really liked the design. In fact, I like the design better than anything else."

"The layout was fairly clean and the theme seemed to be consistent. The only real problem was that the sidebar was a little chaotic and the listed recent rntries were all on the front page. Are people so lazy they can't scroll?"

"Something about it looks cluttered to me."

QUALITY OF WRITING/GRAMMAR - 5.9
"Good grammar; amusing."

"Quick hits of wit and humor that are fairly enjoyable to read, but not at all difficult to write."

"For not having much in the way of text, there were too many misspellings."

"The writing is just OK. Nothing special."

INTANGIBLES - 7.0
"Ads and click-throughs. I don't like it when blogs ask for submissions. It just seems lazy to me."

"Advertising is a bit annoying, but understandable. Sidebar badges are disorganized and distracting."

"Timely, engaging, non-trite celebutainment."

"I don’t care for ads, but this is tastefully done."

FREQUENCY - 10
"Plumbutt Chronicles features several posts each day."

WOULD YOU READ THIS BLOG REGULARLY - 27% Yes
"I don’t think so."

"Yep. Bookmarked it."

"No. If I want to read snarky commentary on Hollywood and politics, I'll read Perez Hilton or Just Jared."

"Occasionally."

OVERALL - 68.3

In Passing …

In Passing … is Overheard In New York’s older sister, through they are not really related.

“It’s really difficult not to compare this to Overheard In New York. Eve may have come up with the idea first, but Overheard just does it better. Sorry.”

CONTENT – 5.2
“Half the quotes are amusing or entertaining, half are not. This is one of those blog concepts that would be better with a team of contributors so that entries would be more frequent and content would be more even (like Overheard in New York). As it is, it's a bit much for one person to take on.”

“I enjoy the randomness. I had to take points off for lack of post frequency.”

“Random things that a person overhears people saying in public has great potential for funniness.”

“I didn’t see many funny posts.”

DESIGN – 3.9
“If you put aside the temporary problem they are having with PHP formatting errors, the blog is readable, but that's about it. Archive navigation is a nightmare, particularly when you consider there's one of those calendars, which is useless and only accentuates how rare new entries are posted. Instead you have to continuously scroll to the bottom of the page for a bunch of page numbers, which is quite poor. There's no eye candy whatsoever, so the layout itself is boring.”

“Pop-up city and ugly to boot.”

“The layout is a little too simple, but not too bad. Why would I want to register to comment?”

“The first few posts I saw had some weird slashes where line breaks or punctuation should be. At first I thought it was some attempt to be poetic, then I realized it was probably an HTML malfunction.”

“Rather boring.”

"Worse than a Blogger template."

QUALITY OF WRITING/GRAMMAR – 5.4
“Since these are quotes of things said by other people, eccentricities in grammar are to be expected, but is overall acceptable.”

The slashes all over the place are annoying but its an acknowledged problem that they're working on. Other than that, since these are direct quotes from people, you have to take into consideration people do not use 'perfect' writing and grammar in speaking in normal conversation between friends.”

INTANGIBLES – 4.6
“There's nothing really annoying except the navigation. Everything else is just bare minimum … nothing great, nothing bad. Posting is a bit infrequent, so I drop the score down to a 5.”

“On my end, the site fails to load.”

“The registration and the begging were the only real peeves.”

FREQUENCY – 1.0
“Posts are infrequent, but the site is still going.”

“I wish this blogger would post a little more often.”

WOULD YOU READ THIS BLOG REGULARLY – 18% Yes
“Nope.”

“Yes.”

“Hell, no.”

“I don't think so. While there is great potential for laughs, I didn't actually find a lot of funny here.”

“I’ll try it out on my feeds, but I can’t imagine anyone checking this site everyday when they rarely post.”

OVERALL – 55.7

Emerald Bile

Some people love a fine Guinness beer. Some people – even red-nosed alcoholics – are completely repulsed at the thought of it.

The same could be said for the popular European blog Emerald Bile.

"It cracks me up how angry these people are and how much they hate everything and how much they cuss. I think if I was in the right mood while reading this blog, I'd find it hilarious. However, in reviewing the blog, I only find it mildly funny here and there."

CONTENT - 5.8
"Original, biting humor."

"I am not a stranger to foul language, but this is absurd. Some of the entries might be good reads, but I'm not going to waste my time trying to find them."

"These fucking cunts are sodding hilarious!"

"I just don’t get it. I can read all the words, but they don’t mean anything to me."

"While I admire anger, too much is just not a good thing. Short, quick bursts of anger are fine and usually funny. Long drawn out rants are just annoying."

"My goodness these people are angry!"

"Good shit in small doses. I like all the bollocks, fucking, cunt stuff."

DESIGN - 5.0
"A site called Emerald Bile should be green, but it’s just not very attractive. It’s weird to say, but this design is worse than the Blogger templates."

"Straightforward, no question of whose blog it is."

"Bleeding Christ, this fucking blog is ugly."

"Functional but boring. Everything is a wash of the same colors and type sizes."

"It's simple and green, but the font is not easy on the eyes."

"Rather boring."

QUALITY OF WRITING/GRAMMAR - 5.1
"I found this site about a year ago. At first, I was drawn to the foul language like a shiny penny on the floor. What I could understand, I thought was funny. After a while I realized the writing just wasn’t good enough to read it regularly. Same shit, different day."

"I have the sense this blog could be entertaining because the writer(s) entries are actually quite talented in spots. But when every other word is ‘fuck’ or ‘cunt’ the writing becomes monotonous and boring. Dropping an occasional F-bomb for effect can have impact, but when you use it constantly the reader becomes numb to it. A better writer would have a better way of expressing their thoughts than resorting to this profanity-laced mess."

"Good use of grammar; and though I am by no means a prude, I just ‘don't get’ where folks from the UK/Ireland overuse the word cunt."

INTANGIBLES - 6.1
"I don’t care about Robbie Williams or most things from England, but no one talks shit about John Lennon. That’s blasphemy!"

"Other than the non-stop parade of ‘cunts’ running through the blog, there's nothing particularly annoying or praise-worthy."

"I sense a not so obscured hostility. As such, it wouldn't surprise me if these folks get in bar fights frequently."

"No ads, but some of the posts are too long."

FREQUENCY - 3.0
"Noreen, Ball Bag and Harry average about one or two posts a week."

WOULD YOU READ THIS BLOG REGULARLY - 27% Yes
"Not if you paid me."

"You’re a wanker if you don’t read this blog!"

"I'm not sure. I don't think so."

"Hell, no."

OVERALL - 62.9

The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns

The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns confirmed our theory that a lot of people are turned off by political humor.

“I started reading this blog a few months ago. I thought it was funny at first, but I lost interest when I realized almost every post was political. The first ones I read where not like that. It was like a red flag for me. I kept reading for another couple of weeks before I finally gave up.”

CONTENT – 3.9
“Hey! She’s ranting! And it’s craaaaaaaaaazy! Uh … not so much.”

“I just don't get conservative humor. I do have to give her points for posting on a regular basis and quite frequently.”

“Meh.”

“Gotta love a hot conservative chicks. Yowza!”

“Not funny.”

“I don’t get the PERV thing. I assume she’s trying to be ironic, but it’s mainly not funny.”

“I don’t like political blogs.”

DESIGN – 4.1
“I like the color scheme, but the side bars are chaotic and riddled with ads. It takes away from the content.”

“Again, meh.”

“Cluttered. Too many blogs on the blogroll. I'm all for supporting fellow bloggers, but gosh, organize it somehow. It’s too long.”

“The design itself is not too bad, but I wonder if there is any way she could squeeze any more ads in there.”

QUALITY OF WRITING/GRAMMAR – 5.1
“Her posts are short and not really very funny or interesting.”

“She’s a decent enough writer.”

“I don’t care for the content, but the writing is better than average.”

“She writes like a teenager in a chat room.”

INTANGIBLES – 2.6
“Wish lists, ads, begging, long posts that you have to click through to finish reading, surprising lack of a profile … need I go on? I think 5 is a generous number for this category. At least there are no pop ups.”

“I think this chick likes her name since it's referenced three times at the top of the blog (including the address), but that's just a wild guess.”

“None to speak of.”

“Jesus, what a fucking nightmare! I hope she makes enough money from all her ads to retire.”

FREQUENCY – 10
“Samantha Burns posts several times a day.”

WOULD YOU READ THIS BLOG REGULARLY – 8% Yes
“No way.”

“Sure”

“No.”

“Maybe”

“No.”

OVERALL – 49.0
The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns obviously has a pretty good following. However, most of our reviewers are not part of the fan club.

“I didn't find this blog funny or enjoyable. However, I can't put my finger on the ‘problem,’ so I should probably just shut up about it.”

jOrg3

Next week, we will have done enough reviews to make the list on our sidebar a Top-50 list.

That being said, jOrg3 will not be on the list very long.

“I’ve got to give this guy a break because he really is trying to be funny. He’s not, of course, but at least he’s not trying to pawn off sickening sweet pictures of cats as humor.”

CONTENT – 3.8
“I’ve got to admit, the sweaty headband post made me laugh out loud. However, the post with all the pictures of people in leather straps and so forth freaked me out a lot and made me want to hide under my desk. I'm not sure I'll be able to have sex with my husband tonight now because of the scary images lodged in my brain. Gah!”

“Quite difficult to get actually.”

“Hot Cheetos sounds like a good band name.”

“I don’t get it.”

“The photos are kind of funny, but nothing really goes together. This blog needs an enema.”

“I just don't get George.”

“He’s good at profanity.”

DESIGN – 4.4
“Simple Blogger blog that isn't very uniform.”

“It’s clean but too black.”

“It’s a Blogger template that’s been bastardized by someone who doesn’t know much about HTML. That’s always a great combination.”

“I kind of like the jOrg3 logo. I kind of like the black. The rest of it kind of sucks.”

QUALITY OF WRITING/GRAMMAR – 3.2
“Maybe its possible to understand what he's saying. I don't.”

“I think I'm out of the loop. Much of what this guy said made no sense to me!”

“I wonder if this blog has been translated from some other language. Other than that kind of explanation, the writing just isn’t very good.”

INTANGIBLES – 1.7
“Ads, games, crazy.”

“The guy would like to impeach Bush, so that’s not too bad.”

“There’s a lot useless stuff on the sidebars and the template has been screwed up a little.”

“I’ve been to this blog before, but it was by accident. Apparently, this guy swiped Used Hack’s URL after he deleted his blog and set up a redirect to jOrg3. I don’t know if other bloggers find that unethical or not, but it kind of gives me a skeevy image of the guy.”

FREQUENCY – 0.0
“jOrg3 hasn’t posted since June.”

WOULD YOU READ THIS BLOG REGULARLY – 4% Yes
“No way.”

“Maybe”

“Nope.”

“If he posted more often, sure.”

“I kinda doubt it.”

OVERALL – 41.7
jOrg3 set new lows in several categories.

-- 2005 Best of Blogs Recap --

Now that all of the finalists in the humor category from the 2005 Best of Blogs awards have been reviewed, let’s take one final look back at this competition.

Dead Guy. The Cartoon. won the contest back in January, followed by AnonymousCoworker and Blogography. Our reviewers flipped things around a little, rating Blogography, AnonymousCoworker, and replacement nominee karlababble ahead of Dead Guy. The Cartoon.

I think there are two major reasons for this disparity – dubious voting procedures and the number of judges for each category (two). We’re not going to waste time rehashing what went wrong with the 2005 Best of Blogs awards, but the organizers know they need some major changes for 2006.

Problems aside, the Best of Blogs do a superior job of promoting relatively unknown blogs. Let’s face it, that’s much more important than awarding a snazzy JPG image to the winning bloggers.

Our final scores went like this:

• Blogography (97.3)
• AnonymousCoworker (93.4)
• karlababble* (86.0)
• Dead Guy. The Cartoon. (82.5)
• The Peevery (78.8)
• BifSniff Funny Cartoons (71.9)
• The Hot Librarian (68.9)
• Rockchild (65.8)
• Fat Eye For The Skinny Guy (62.8)
• Bloggin’ Bizatch (60.1)
  

Blogography not only managed to score higher than all of these competitors, it is currently the highest-scoring blog we have reviewed. AnonymousCoworker and karlababble also managed to work their way into our current Top-10.

* karlababbble was not a finalist in the Best of Blog competition. However, we added this blog to the discussion because one of the other finalists stopped blogging earlier this year. The decision to exclude karlababble was a hot topic when the finalists were announced, so we thought it was an appropriate replacement.

karlababble

Karlababble was nominated for a Best of Blogs award last year but failed to make the finals. Our reviewers believe that was a definite mistake.

“The design is very good and the writing is even better. Karlababble is a great blog.”

CONTENT – 8.0
“I didn't know that I'd find her writing so amusing. I know I shouldn't, but I often associate female bloggers with 'babble' in their blog name to be mommy bloggers whining about how bad their week has been. Karla does write about her life, but in a funny and witty way.”

“I enjoyed the cock soup and aggressive plumbing posts.”

“This is a very good weekly blog.”

“Anyone who claims one of their interests is ‘poking children with sticks’ is OK in my book.”

“Funny.”

“She’s a better-than-average mommy blogger, but she’s still a mommy blogger.”

DESIGN – 8.6
“I love this layout. I might steal it. It's clean and neat. The colors don't make me go blind, but soothe me into the content.”

“Professional, neat, unique.”

“Obviously this was a professional template created specifically for her blog, so its laid out very well and the content areas are separated without hurting the eyes. The only negative I can give it is that the block theme doesn't really encourage your eyes to move down the page, but that's really just personal preference.”

“The colors do nothing for me, but it’s a very good design.”

“It's visually pleasing, nice and clean, but I found it a little difficult to navigate.”

“Nice design. She has a link to the guy who did it too. Yeah, baby!”

QUALITY OF WRITING/GRAMMAR – 8.4
“Good use of grammar, punctuation and spelling. Content of posts are almost always has ‘meat on the bones,’ and is satisfying to read.”

“The witty tangents she runs with are probably the funniest part of her posts.”

“She’s a good writer. Not every post is funny, but the writing is solid.”

INTANGIBLES – 8.3
“Long posts, but the writing is pretty good, so I don't mind much.”

“I think this is a good example of how a blog can be done well without having to resort to begging and ads.”

“She doesn't appear to post every day. As a reader, I'd much rather read when a blogger has something of substance to post rather than just posting for the sake of posting.”

“It probably helps that the picture she uses of herself on the side of the main page is attractive. Hot blogger chicks always excite me.”

“Some of the posts are too long. I hate long posts.”

FREQUENCY – 2.0
“Karla usually posts once a week.”

WOULD YOU READ THIS BLOG REGULARLY – 73% Yes
“Sure. It’s amusing.”

“Uhhhhhhhh, no.”

“Currently, I do. She's on my sidepanel.”

“Yes, I actually just put her in my feed reader for humor blogs.”

“Probably.”

OVERALL – 86.0
Karlababble managed very good ratings in every category except for frequency. But again, that’s only worth 5 percent of the final score. No perfect scores from any of our reviewers, but lots of 8s and 9s pushed karlababble toward the top of our ratings.

little.yellow.different.

In the six years Ernie Hsiung has been writing little.yellow.different., he’s been nominated for a fistful of Bloggie awards, including a lifetime achievement award. He didn’t win that one, but he’s won almost everything else. (Check out the 2003 awards. Damn!)

“This is a very good blog. It's professionally designed and an excellent read - a rare combination. Go Ernie!”

CONTENT - 6.8
“You’ve got to give it up for a guy who’s been blogging since 2000, but this blog just isn’t as good as it used to be.”

“Good, solid posts. Love his Reno versus Vegas perceptions. Dead on the money.”

“Tales of immigrant kids growing up are very near and dear to my heart.”

“Ernie has a good sense of humor, but this is not necessarily a humor blog. I don’t know if it’s even a humorous blog anymore.”

DESIGN - 8.0
“Professional. Nice color. Nice layout.”

“This site is very well organized. I liked the ‘about’ page.”

“Clean-looking design but really ugly color. Also, I had trouble figuring out how to navigate the site. Like where are the archives? I gave up.”

“I like the ability to change the skin to honor his crushing loss on The Weakest Link. Cool.”

“This is easily one of the best-looking blog designs I’ve ever seen. It doesn’t preform as well as it should, but that makes it a 9 in my book.”

QUALITY OF WRITING/GRAMMAR - 7.7
“Well-written.”

“Good grammar – punctuation needs a bit of neatening up – however it doesn't detract from this reader's enjoyment.”

“Very good.”

“I saw some typos.”

“Good writing, but not great.”

INTANGIBLES - 7.8
“The blog/mini-blog thing confused me.”

“Do they still make Nuprin?”

“Hey, where's the blogroll? Just because you're big and famous, doesn't mean you shouldn't give props to your fellow bloggers. This is a pet peeve for me, two points off.”

“No ads, but the archives and mini-blog posts are just not reader-friendly.”

FREQUENCY - 1.0
“Ernie still posts, just not on a regular basis.”

WOULD YOU READ THIS BLOG REGULARLY - 40% Yes
“I would read it regularly. I've read it before.”

“Maybe, if he posted a litte more often. I usually enjoy writers who talk about San Francsico since I used to live there.”

“Occasionally ... not regularly.”

“I used to, but I gave up on him.”

“Most definitely.”

“I might. I've not decided yet.”

“Let's wait and see. I added it to my faves.”

“I might put it on my list of blog feeds, but he just doesn’t post enough to visit regularly.”

OVERALL - 73.9
Good scores for design, writing, and intangibles led the way for little.yellow.different., but “humor content” is 70 percent of the score here at BlogLaughs.

“I liked everything about this blog, but I get the impression its running on fumes. Don’t get me wrong. It’s better than most blogs out there, but it’s a shell of its former glory.”

Emails From Jesus

Emails From Jesus managed one of the Top-10 scores we’ve seen to date, but some of our reviewers believe that “style” is outweighing “substance” at this point.

“The idea behind this blog is great. The design is great. The only thing – the most important thing – is that it’s not always funny.”

CONTENT – 7.5
“They’ve already crossed the line. They might as well go ahead and piss all over the floor. You know what I mean? They need to let loose with some real fire and brimstone, wrath-of-God-style, hilarious, irreverent comebacks. I’m just not seeing it. Jesus and Satan need to really lash out at these people.”

“Almost always satisfying.”

“Didn't really trip my trigger.”

“Funny!”

“Great idea for a blog!”

DESIGN – 9.0
“Custom, unique, unfussy.”

“Love the Jesus and Satan graphics!”

“Clean and fairly simple. I like the headings in the sidebars. Clever.”

“What a great design! It tells you right up front what the blog is about. Well done.”

“Collection plate? Soul searching? Man, that shit is awesome. Nice blog.”

QUALITY OF WRITING/GRAMMAR – 7.2
“The writing is decent, nothing omnipotent.”

“Good grammar; writing always is enjoyable and makes me laugh.”

“You’d think Jesus and Satan could wrangle a few lessons from some of their eternal roommates.”

“Good stuff.”

INTANGIBLES – 7.1
“Jesus shouldn't need ads on His blog.”

"The little things at this blog are really good."

“Lots of ads and junk in the sidebars.”

“I think if we are going by Dec. 25th, Jesus is actually a Capricorn, not a Sagittarius.”

“That's too many ads.”

“I don’t like the ads, but some of the links Google picks are hilarious. The juxtaposition is great.”
FREQUENCY – 10
“JC and Stan answer a couple of e-mails every day.”

WOULD YOU READ THIS BLOG REGULARLY – 54% Yes
“I do. It’s on my side panel!”

“It was somewhat entertaining, but I doubt if I'll go back to read it again.”

“Yes, and it's not just the Catholic guilt talking.”

“No. It’s just not funny enough.”

“I've read it before. Too funny and a great, fun idea for a blog. Too many ads, though.”

OVERALL – 84.6
Emails From Jesus managed good scores in every category, but “room for improvement” isn’t always a bad thing.

“I think this blog shows great promise. It’s not there yet, but it’s definitely one to watch.”

The Peevery

A pet peeve is a minor annoyance that can instill extreme frustration in an individual. Typically each person has several pet peeves that aggravate him or her more than the average person. Another person may not react as negatively or at all to the same circumstance.

That, my friends, is always the rub here at BlogLaughs.

The Peevery aggravated a few of our reviewers, but most of the scores were fairly positive.

CONTENT – 6.7
“I'm totally engaged by the assortment of posts, and have literally laughed out loud even. I may even have guffawed, too.”

“I love to bitch and complain, so it was right down my alley!”

“The content was only average.”

“With that many contributors, there better be more than one post per day. The short one-liners were always good for a chuckle.”

“While oftentimes blogs with completely random topics have annoyed me, I find this blog to be really funny.”

“Not funny.”

“I couldn't help myself, I clicked the poop etiquette link. Laughed out loud through the entire thing and forwarded the link to some friends. Crazy. I thought I was beyond the bathroom humor stage.”

“Is this supposed to be funny?”

DESIGN – 7.9
“The look of the design is a little too simple, but the functionality of the design is downright admirable. Every post is archived by category. The blogroll is done through del.icio.us. The design works.”

“Clean, straightforward, unique.”

“Nice and clean. I think I like the blogroll. I couldn't quite figure it out (didn't try real hard) but it looks like its categorized rather than just listing the names of a bazillion blogs. I like that idea.”

“It’s a simple, well-done design with a sweet color palate.”

QUALITY OF WRITING/GRAMMAR – 7.2
“Good solid writing from an assortment of contributors. Consistent.”

“I find the writing to be well-done in most cases, despite the fact that there are multiple posters, which I would think would leave the potential for poor quality writing wide open.”

“These people are average writers, which in the blog-world should be considered a compliment. I like the short posts.”

INTANGIBLES – 8.7
“No ads, no problems, nothing. I guess this gets a perfect score.”

“Most of their commenters are themselves, what's up with that?”

“I really like the short posts - it makes it easy to read a couple for a quick laugh and go back for more later, rather than having to get involved in reading a long story.”

“The del.icio.us links are so fucking awesome. I’m totally stealing this idea for my blog.”

“They take donations for public classroom projects, but its not like they’re whoring themselves for Google. It’s a 10 in my book.”

“Thankfully, no pet peeves at a blog about pet peeves. Man, that’s deep.”

FREQUENCY – 10
“The Peevery features at least one or two posts a day.”

WOULD YOU READ THIS BLOG REGULARLY – 50% Yes
“Not my kind of blog.”

“Added it to my faves.”

“I might check in with it sometimes, but many of the blogs on my blogroll are funnier than The Peevery.”

“Very likely.”

“Nah. I’ll pass.”

OVERALL – 78.8
High scores for frequency, intangibles and design lead some very good secondary numbers. The Peevery would have landed higher on the list with higher scores for content.

“It’s not the funniest blog out there, but it’s a very good blog nonetheless.”

He Looks Like …

Much like The Best Page In The Universe, He Looks Like … would have scored much better if there were more regular posts.

“There hasn't been a new post since April. Are you sure this blogger did not abandon their blog?”

“I'm wondering if the blog author is ever going to keep up with this blog regularly. It has a lot of potential, and with frequent posts and a nice template design I can really see this one taking off.”

CONTENT – 6.9
“Who doesn’t like making fun of people? This shit is funny. Fantastic idea for a blog.”

“The posts are great! The simple concept really works for a blog. All of the posts are short enough to stay funny, and long enough to throw in as many witty and fictitious back-story lines as the author can.”

“I enjoyed the crazy stories that captioned the photo. It's too bad the author hasn't posted something new in 3 months. She's probably too busy with her book deal.”

“I could see where others would find the content amusing. I might, if I had a few drinks in me. However, I didn't even chuckle. This format has been done to death. Besides, my own imagination is far more intriguing than any story concocted here.”

“What a great idea for a blog! Funny as hell!”

“This is a great idea, and one I've never seen before. I bow before the author for I am not worthy!”

DESIGN – 6.4
“Standard black blog format. Not a huge fan, but I like that she's kept it simple.”

“This is about the only sore spot for the whole blog. It's a crappy Blogger template, but it's still simple and easy to read (although white text on black background isn't my first choice). I originally gave this item a 3.5, but because the design didn't really detract from the rest of the blog, I changed it to an even 6.”

“Basic Blogger templates like this one don’t bother me too much. It’s mainly a photo blog with sarcastic cutlines. A header across the top could do wonders for the design.”

QUALITY OF WRITING/GRAMMAR – 8.5
“Well written, very few mistakes, and the posts read just like they would if they were captions or short entries in a serious magazine.”

“The writing and her grammar are pretty good. Anything questionable is usually done to enhance the writing. Like ‘I ate m'hat’ or 'that weird feller who wears 'em roadkill on his hat.’ On this blog, her writing is her strength.”

“I love the writing. Very good.”

INTANGIBLES – 5.8
“Google ads!!! And the ‘we’ stuff in the title? Who is this ‘we’ she speaks of? Does she have people author her work for her?”

I just love the idea. The author has a great time writing the posts, and it shows. I know we reviewers don't really cover this, but the only real detractor besides the template is that the frequency of the posts can be very erratic, and there hasn't been a new post since April 19, 2006.

“I hate the Google ads, but there’s not too much else to complain about.”

“The request for photos for a book is kind of lame. This is probably more of a design problem, but it really looks bad. This is a great idea for a blog, but I don’t know if it’s a great idea for a book.”

FREQUENCY – 0.0
“No posts since April 19, 2006 warrants no points in this category.”

WOULD YOU READ THIS BLOG REGULARLY – 57% Yes
“No. It looks like the author doesn't post on a regular basis, which is a shame.”

“I'll probably stop back by once a week or so.”

“Not even if this was the only blog left on the Internet. I might be forced to watch (ack!) television instead!”

“I would if they hadn't stopped writing.”

“Yup! Clever”

“Definitely, as long as the author actually posts again.”

“I’ll say yes, just hoping she comes back.”

OVERALL – 74.4
“I tried to laugh. Really I did. I just didn't find it funny. Her heart was in the right place. Her funnybone, however, seems to be on hiatus. Maybe it's just me. She seems to have loyal followers. I just won't be one of them.”

“This is a very good, quality blog. I'd like to make it my regular read. It's a pity that it hasn't been updated in a while.”

Margaret Cho’s Blog

Margaret Cho’s Blog is a long-time favorite of many bloggers, but new readers shouldn’t expect a rehash of her stand-up comedy routine.

“Margaret Cho is a comedienne, so you would think this blog would be funny. I agree with all of her political rants and everything, but this is really not a humorous blog. It’s more of an old-school Web log diary from someone who happens to be famous.”

CONTENT – 6.1
“Let me start by saying that I love Margaret Cho. She is a brilliant comedian and a wonderful advocate for the various causes she gets behind. Having said that … what the hell is up with her blog? This is a very different Margaret Cho than you see on Showtime or HBO. This is the MC that I tend to admire more than find amusement in. There is not too much in the way of funny going on in this blog. Most of her humor comes wrapped in a tortilla of political satire with a side order of equal rights instead of refried beans. But, because I love me some Margaret Cho, she can read the phonebook and I would be a fan.”

“I expected the blog to be funny, but it was more like the opposite. It was serious and kind of a downer.”

“She makes a living with her perceptions and her wit, what's not to like? I've been a fan of hers since her TV show.”

“Her posts are interesting, but not really funny in and of themselves.”

“Margaret Cho is funny, but this blog is not. The humor content is no better than a 3. It’s more of a fan site.”

“Vinegary, bawdy, earthy and real is how I'd qualify this.”

“This is a good, professional blog, just not something I'm interested in.”

DESIGN – 6.1
“Professional, pink, yet unquestionably Margaret Cho’s blog.”

“A bit messy, with a three-column layout that doesn't divide the page in an equitable fashion. Not bad though.”

“It's OK, and not too bad on the eyes, but it's too crowded in the sidebars. In fact the right sidebar is almost as big as the main content column in the middle.”

“I’m beginning to believe that three-column designs just look cluttered. This is a perfect example. The colors are kind of weird too.

QUALITY OF WRITING/GRAMMAR – 7.1
“If nothing else, Margaret Cho is a brilliant writer. She has the ability to write the way she speaks and convey her messages in the most graceful ways.”

“Wide range of topics, mainly covering correspondence from her fans and issues they want to hear her write about.”

“She’s a good writer, but this is not really entertaining writing. Some posts are much better than others.”

INTANGIBLES – 5.7
“Not very interesting to me. Humorous posts are few and far between, and I'm necessarily enthralled to read everything Ms. Cho has an opinion about.”

“Hawking her wares. I know a bitch has to make a living, but it is too ‘up in your face’ for my taste.”

“She’s involved in the gay and lesbian community, but I've always wondered if she, herself, is gay. It doesn't make that big of a difference to me, but has she ever addressed this?”

“I am puzzled as to why she had to put a link to each and every post into ‘archives.’”

FREQUENCY – 3.0
“The frequency probably depends on her schedule, but she has averaged about 1-2 posts a week lately.”

WOULD YOU READ THIS BLOG REGULARLY – 23% Yes
“Yes, I would, but not for the laughs.”

“Nah, not a fan.”

“Prior to this, I have read her on occasion.”

“Definitely not.”

“I'll stop back by on sometimes, but it won't be a daily read.”

“No, not my cup of tea, although I respect the author's intent.”

OVERALL – 66.0
At least 90 percent of our reviewers gave Margaret Cho’s Blog either a 6 or a 10 for content. However, none of those people who gave it a 10 clearly stated they would read this blog on a regular basis. Lots of respect, but not a whole lot of love for Ms. Cho.

“It’s a random diary she obviously writes for herself. That’s great for her and her hardcore fans, but it probably doesn’t mean that much to anyone else.”