huh, no shit?

Most of the reviewers of huh, no shit? were non-committal about visiting the site on a regular basis. Lots of kinda-sorta-maybe, almost-but-not-quite comments.

With that in mind, our third straight review where the blog managed a cumulative score in the low-70s isn't nearly as bad as some would seem.

CONTENT - 6.2
“I didn't feel strongly about this blog either way. I liked it, but in kind of the way I like peas. Peas are OK, but you wouldn't build the meal around them. They're just .. peas. Nice and mildly amusing peas, but still peas.”

“This is nothing more than posted pictures with an accompanying, half-assed, brief comment.”

“Somewhat regular posts, can't seem to quantify exactly how I feel about the content. Some of the pics I've seen elsewhere. The writing doesn't jump out at me, grabbing my attention and beating it into comedic submission. I think the URL is fitting though, because my overall first impression is somewhere between mediocre and ‘huh?’”

“I enjoy the random photos and short entries. Shoutbox Karaoke is always worth a look.”

“There's really not a lot of content. Most posts consist of a sentences and a funny picture they found on the internet. I wouldn't exactly categorize this as a humor blog, but I kind of dig its style.”

“There doesn't seem to be much effort here.”

“A little too much ‘aren't I funny because I'm writing silly nonsense instead of actually trying to be funny.’ The posts that actually aim to be funny are pretty funny though. Also, evolution, secular humanism and vegetarianism don't really hit my funny bone.”

“Every now and then it’s clever, fantastic, very funny. Other times ... meh. Overall, not so bad.”

DESIGN - 5.2
“It looked like a standard template, but I can't say much more for my own page.”

“Nothing special here. It's easy enough to read, which is all I really care about anyway.”

“Basic Blogger template. Blah.”

“It looks like they played with a Blogger template just enough to almost fuck it up. Spend $20 on a new template from one of the many talented, cheap designers out there.”

QUALITY OF WRITING/GRAMMAR - 5.3
“Blogs without much writing don’t deserve a lot of points here, but what they do write isn’t bad.”

“Honestly, there's not enough writing here for me to even give it a score on it's writing/grammar.”

“The writing is kept to a minimum but what there is of it is humorous and composed correctly.”

“I only came across like one grammar error, but you better not have many errors when your posts are all under three sentences.”

“The best part of this blog is the sprinkling of haikus he/she/they post.”

“The quality of writing is good when they do it, but they don’t do enough to rate it against a narrative blog.”

INTANGIBLES - 7.0
“Stupid name for a blog.”

“They have a link to Jorg3, the piece of shit who hijacked my blog. Other than that, nothing else pisses me off.”

“The only major pet peeve I saw was inside jokes. If you make those kinds of jokes, you have to make it funny even if you don't know the people involved.”

“Um? What the heck is the audio file on the profile supposed to be?”

“The sidebar gets a little clunky with all of the political links, but I’m on the same side of the fence on most of those so I don’t mind.”

FREQUENCY - 10.0
“Authors indygirl and Pablo post every day.”

WOULD YOU READ THIS BLOG REGULARLY - 29% Yes
“I liked it, but not enough to add it to my daily reads. It's ... pleasant.”

“I'd check up on it every so often.”

“Way back in 2004 I did stumble upon this blog and read it regularly until I was left with that feeling that one gets after eating Chinese food. I just needed more. And sadly, unlike Chinese food, this blog did not deliver. I was in the mood for moo-shoo and I ended up with the pu pu platter.”

“Already do!”

“No way, Jose.”

“It doesn't grab me enough to blogroll it, but it's not bad.”

“Almost, but not quite.”

OVERALL - 70.1

Say No To Crack

For the second straight week the blog we reviewed received mixed results and almost made it into our current Top-50 list.

Say No To Crack has several fans among our reviewers, but the detractors and the marginally amused kept this blog from scoring too high.

CONTENT – 5.9
"I think the content is great! It's always something interesting and it's never raunchy."

"Some of the material seems recycled or unoriginal. I've seen it done elsewhere."

"While I could see how it could be amusing to some I just don't find it funny."

"Always has something somewhat interesting to catch my eye."

"I am prejudiced against blogs that use photos, news stories and other links as their main content. I'll probably rate this one much lower than those who have no such bias."

"This blog is definitely above average. The blogger is doing a quality job running her site."

"I like this blog. At first, I wasn't sure about the concept. Having people to submit jokes and pictures seems like a little bit of a cop out. As I read more though, it grew on me."

"Very informative."

"This blog is primarily a dumping ground for content that was created elsewhere. Granted, some of this pilfered content is funny, but it's not at all original as it relates to Say No To Crack. There are very few actual ‘original’ pieces of content. I didn't find these original entries amusing enough to consider this blog a humor blog."

"It must be a lot of work to gather the funny links, pictures, videos etc. and post them on a regular basis. I found most of the content mildly funny. I did find some really good links through this site."

"I can see where some of these posts are cute but that’s about it. I like my funny a little more raunchy. I like it nasty. I like it to cross the line. None of this crosses the line. It’s G-rated fun for everyone. If that’s your bag, this is the place."

DESIGN – 6.8
"The design is better than a standard Blogger template but it’s nothing special."

"The design is very bland and boring, but it gets the job done. At least the sidebar isn't cluttered with ads."

"Very neat and professional. I liked it!"

"Minimalist, yet somewhat lacking oomph! However, it does not detract from the content."

"Just a basic template with weak graphics. Definitely nothing to celebrate."

"Clean and simple. My two of my three favorite qualities in a blog design."

QUALITY OF WRITING/GRAMMAR – 6.4
"Posting a picture someone sent you doesn’t compare to all the hundreds of people who slave over their blogs with quality, original works."

"A misplaced comma here and there."

"She knows her way around a sentence. I'd like to see more of what she thinks of the videos and items she slaps up on her blog."

"There isn't much of it, but it's good."

"Basing this on the original content, the grammar isn't great and the spelling errors I found suggest that those who maintain Say No To Crack have no proofreading policy in place."

"There's really not a whole lot of writing (it's mostly funny photos, etc.) but what I do see there is well written."

"There isn't enough writing to give me a definitive sample."

"This is kind of hard to fuck up, because the author writes so little anyway. This is more of a news/odd information blog."

"This little bit of writing doesn’t deserve a lot of points."

INTANGIBLES – 7.5
"Any blog with an about page gets big points from me. I’m neutral about the reader box and the sidebar doesn’t have anything else to be annoyed about. Lots of ways to subscribe to feeds and support the blog. Good job."

"I hate being asked to submit content (jokes, pics, links) to a content-less blog. Who's doing the work, the blogger or me? Maybe my review shouldn't be used since I'm predisposed to hating the entire concept of this blog."

"I really like this blog and I visit it often."

"I hate those ‘members viewing’ boxes. Why would I give a shit who else is reading your blog at the same moment as I am?"

"The blog author's name is Anita Bath. Get it? Anita Bath. That's pretty much all you need to know about the kind of humor here. Lame? Funny?"

"I intensely dislike humor blogs that are light on original content and can't even muster witty commentary on the pilfered content they present. I believe sites like Boing Boing have this genre of Web site covered well enough that Say No To Crack has little reason to exist in it's current form."

"No complaints, a very nice, non-obnoxious blog. I took a couple of points off because most of the content isn't all that funny, which kind of defeats the purpose of this blog. But the idea itself is great."

FREQUENCY – 10.0
"Anita posts every day."

WOULD YOU READ THIS BLOG REGULARLY – 44% Yes
"I'd read this blog a couple more times and then be bored. It's not the bloggers fault. About 99 percent of blogs make me sleepy. I just expect to be fed ice cream through the computer screen."

"If I had more time, I would check in regularly in the hopes of finding more good links. But I don't, so I won't."

"Probably not ... only because nothing stood out."

"Other than how clean the design was, and how short and to the point most of the posts were, I just like a little more excitement than there was to offer on this blog."

"I already do."

"Doubtful. It just didn't grab me by the small hairs and scream, ‘I will not be ignored!’"

"Maybe twice a week."

"No. I can't think of any reason that I should."

"No. I have my own blog to come up with content for."

OVERALL – 71.1

Does This Mean I'm A Grown-Up?

The scores for Does This Mean I'm a Grown-Up? were all over the place, but it still almost made our current Top-50 list.

The first comment from our reviewers probably says more about our mixed review than any other.

CONTENT - 6.5
"It's not a 'funny' blog, but it is well-written and honest. The content is very good but it probably wasn't the best blog to review for humor content."

"I didn't find this blog to be incredibly funny, but it's still a good personal blog. Some 'mommy blog' type of posts are sneaked in here and there, but it's not an everyday thing, thank God."

"Wow. There's just so much ... nothing. It was like reading about the stuff that I should be doing, like laundry or cleaning out the car."

"Normally not my cup of tea, but her prose is imaginative and compelling. Plus she's actually very very funny."

"While the content seems to be fairly well written, I have a hard time relating to mommy blogs."

"While I didn't find the content to be 'laugh-a-minute,' it was strong and interesting enough that I kept reading and was rewarded with a funny bit here and there. Her accounts of daily life are wry and stealthily witty."

"Not bad ... nothing really stood out for me, though."

"Amusing 'slice of life' meets 'mommy blogger.'"

"It was a struggle for me to read through all the posts on the first page. I dug into the archives to give her the benefit of the doubt and to try and find something funny. I wasn't successful."

"Genuinely funny and makes the mundane interesting."

"Nothing really groundbreaking here. Lots of so-so posts about kids, motherhood, and other boring crap. She tries to make it entertaining, but it falls flat with me."

"Everyday topics I can identify with."

"Even the 'popular posts' didn't catch my attention really. And I tried. I really, really tried."

"It's standard parent blogging fare. I didn't discover much original thought."

"I didn't dip into the archives, however what was on the front page was reasonably interesting. At least enough so that I read it all, top to bottom, and didn't start squirming. Even though I found the posts interesting enough, possibly as I'm a parent of a teen and a pre-teen as well, there were only a couple that made me smile and one that made me laugh. Again, if I went into the archives that might change."

DESIGN - 7.7
"The theme is fantastic. It's very attractive and well done. The red-stripe-fade in the middle of the page looks cool, but it also detracts my eyes when I'm trying to read. Everything else is perfect."

"Love the design. It's orgasmic."

"I like the design, although the big ol' picture at the top of the screen might be a bit much."

"The design doesn't match the content. I was expecting a sultrier, sexier read based on the graphics."

"When I first clicked in I thought, 'Oooo!' Quite nice. Dark, but not overwhelming, and really a well balanced design. I'm jealous."

"It's pretty, I'll give it that. Bonus points for no flashing things."

"Unique."

"All the roses aren't my thing, but I won't let that stop me from giving her a nice score. Even though roses don't do it for me, she did a damn good job."

"The layout is good and easy to navigate but I really don't like the theme. It reminds me of a
Nagel poster form the 80s."

"Not a bad looking blog. The header image is attractive but I disliked the dark background, it made reading the posts a bit of a chore."

"Dark color scheme but appealing -- not dark in a gothic, mysterious way."

"Very nice design, but the banner was a little large. I'm also not a big fan of light-colored text on dark backgrounds."

QUALITY OF WRITING/GRAMMAR - 7.2
"The writing is very good and I don't see any spelling or grammar errors."

"Well-written, nothing horribly wrong."

"Her writing style was easy to follow, almost a conversational feel. As for grammar, it all seemed well assembled, but I'm probably not the best judge."

"Not quite what your English teacher from high school might want, but certainly not bad. Her writing style is personal and engaging and the few mistakes I found weren't enough to turn me away."

"Vivid prose without getting sickly cute. She knows when to rein it in."

"Well-written 'life as she sees it,' yet nothing laugh-out-loud hysterical. Still, well-written, nonetheless."

"She has a working knowledge of grammar and punctuation."

"The quality of writing is impeccable but it is still difficult for me to get over the content. It's a well-written blog, just not my thing. Hopefully, she'll understand that without calling me a fatty."

INTANGIBLES - 7.2
"She needs to take off the use of the ALL CAPS and bold in the content. Too much of it detracts the reader from the message/story. I also thought the bold words contained links to old posts or Web sites."

"The only things I could find wrong were that the archive list shrank as you went back in time and there were a few weird characters in some of the posts."

"Sidebar is very clean and mostly ad-free. Posts are a good length. She doesn't post very often though."

"She seems so darn nice that I feel bad about not liking her writing more. I'm sure that says something about me."

"Nice organized sidebar. YAY for the lack of annoying ads!"

"The color scheme annoyed me."

"The bold words suck, and she gets a little long-winded sometimes, but there's not much else to bitch about."

"I just get a good feeling from this site. No ads is certainly a plus."

"Her posting frequency is quite low and, as I already mentioned, I found that the dark background made it hard for me to read the posts. Other than that, I enjoyed the posts that I read at her site."

FREQUENCY - 1.0
"No posts this month. Only six last month. None for the previous two months. Lives are busy but this category only counts for 5 percent of the score."

WOULD YOU READ THIS BLOG ON A REGULAR BASIS - 41% Yes
"There's nothing I don't like about it, but it doesn't really grab me either. Maybe because I'm not a 'mommy' myself. I'd read it in passing though."

"Yeah."

"No, there just wasn't anything there to grab my attention."

"Probably not."

"Yes. It's a good read, even though its not really a humor blog."

"No. She doesn't post often enough, and the writing doesn't compel me to keep checking in for the sporadic updates."

"Maybe two times a week."

"Probably not. While it was nice to visit, I'm not compelled to go back on a regular basis."

"Sure."

"Perhaps, although if she drops off again like she did in November and December I would likely drift away."

"I'm planning on adding it to my sidebar, yes."

"I wouldn't read this blog regularly. It just isn't my type of humor."

"No. However, to be honest, there are plenty of well-written books, autobiographies, and blogs out there that some folks latch onto and some do not. This particular blog did not inspire me to put it in my bookmarks despite it being a 'nice blog.'"

OVERALL - 71.2

raymitheminx

If you’re new to BlogLaughs, please don’t think all of our reviews are negative.

On the other hand, almost all of our reviewers took their claws out when it came to raymitheminx.

Canada’s best and most humourous blog managed one of our lowest scores.

CONTENT – 3.7
“She updates a lot and I love that her cat makes an appearance in a lot of her pictures.”

“What exactly is the content? Raymi is all over the place. She is more photoblog than humor blog. Her content is boring, insipid rantings and ravings from an extremely immature mind. Who wants to read her IM messages? She is not funny and the humor she attempts to provide now and then is forced. Plus, 499 pictures of Raymi is not exactly what I call content. Delving into her archives, she places a lot of topless pics on her blog. I suppose she needed to draw an audience. Her writing wasn't going to do it, that's for sure. Things such as "some crazy bitch is posing as me on myspace!!!!!!! go tell her off please." are so horribly immature.”

“Maybe I'm just old fashioned, but aside from pictures and web design, and how she looks young and hip and slightly edgy, I'm not sure if she has anything compelling to say.”

“I didn't find this blogger to be entertaining as much as I found her to remind me of my 23 year old, overly-entitled, whiney cousin. In my head, as I read this blogger's words, my cousin's voice was in my head reading it as a narrator.”

“Maybe I am just too old to appreciate this blog? I don't know. I have tried to understand the appeal, I really have. I just don't get it.”

“Anytime I come across one of these famous ‘award-winning’ blogs, I try to approach them with the assumption that, in some way, they're worthy of an award. Sometimes, I am rewarded for thinking such things. In the case of raymitheminx, though, all I can say is 'Holy Christ, WTF?' If this is Canada's Top Blogger, perhaps the US needs to annex and subsequently destroy the whole country. I dug through her archives, trying to find some hint as to why raymitheminx would be, in any way, a 'top humor blog' and ended up sorely disappointed. It seems to me that the site gets hits strictly because Raymi is willing to take her top off now and then, not because of her writing. Her posts are excruciatingly hard to read and 80 percent of the time they contain absolutely pointless drivel. Personally, I'm not willing to sift through mounds of worthless crap just to get to a shaky picture of some Canadian chick's flat chest.”

“There were a couple of funny gems in the writing, but my scoring is weighing heavily on the nice pictures.”

“Merely mentioning that you saw a movie does not a review make.”

“I don't think her blog is relatable for folks over 29. As it is, she's pushing that unenthusiastic, hostility point that most immature Emo kids pass at what? 19?”

DESIGN – 3.9
“I'm not a big fan of large images tiled as a background or wickedly long sidebars, but I realize she's trying to do her own thing here and I'm cool with that.”

“Hold on, I'm still waiting for my eyes to quit rolling back in their sockets in loathing.”

“Like her content, her Web page is all over the place. Going to her page was like a bad acid trip. Her sidebar is cluttered with so much garbage! Ads, thinks that blink. Ridiculous pics. More pics of herself. More ads. It's probably the worst Web site design I have ever seen. Her header, like the rest of her blog, smacks of her self-love trip. Oh, and lest we forget, the Pepto Bismol pink with the magenta writing shoved all the way over to the left in one long tedious column. Yeah. That's appealing.”

“I like the background, and the colors work well with this girl's personality. The only thing I hope she changes is how the text is aligned. Widen that shit up!”

“I hate everything about it. It makes my head hurt. I think my eyes are bleeding.”

“The sidebar is a mess. Since there are no labels for the sections of her blog, I thought the blogroll was some nutso inside joke or weird ass advertisement.”

"Despite the relatively attractive (assumedly original) artwork which adorns the background of the page (and the header), the page design as a whole is pretty basic and the page can be annoying to navigate. While I'm of the opinion that the sidebar exists more for the blog owner to get around to places than for the blog reader to do so, I still found myself annoyed by the jumble of absolute crap in the sidebar on raymitheminx.”

“I think she changes thing up quite a bit, but it’s God-awful ugly and not very functional.”

QUALITY OF WRITING/GRAMMAR – 2.6
“It's horribly written … if you can even call it writing.”

“One rarely sees such a callous disregard for punctuation and capitalization.”

“It's a bit rambling at times. However, I'm also a fan of blogs that carry a conversational tone, which contributed to my score.”

“This being my first Bloglaughs review, I didn't want to come across as 'too harsh' but this chick seriously comes off as an idiot. She uses absolutely no punctuation and misspells (intentionally, perhaps) way too many words for my liking. I also reiterate my comment on her content -- her writings are mostly pointless.”

“Her prose is nothing to write home about.”

“The lack of capitalization and punctuation makes for a slightly annoying read.”

“What does this chick have against commas? The random all caps words are more annoying than effective in keeping the reader interested. e.e. cummings called and wants his capital letters back.”

“Her writing is alright, but she makes little sense. Her grammar consists of a lot of made up words, abbreviations and a complete disregard for punctuation. It reads like a child or a very angst ridden teenager wrote it. A teenager that dropped out of junior high, I might add. Sample? ‘the highlight of the nite was giving the finger to this girl's throw-away camera behind her and her two poseur friends fil was all WHO ARE YOU FLIPPING OFF i said dude they won't know until they develop the film i'm a coward like that.’ Yes. Let's hear it for the run on sentences!”

“The only person I knew who could get away with the ‘no capitalization’ thing was e.e. cummings, and well, this blogger is no e.e. cummings.”

“This blog would be much better if she just posted pictures and didn’t write at all.”

INTANGIBLES – 1.2
“For some reason, I had a really tough time trying to access the archives.”

“She has millions of fans I'm sure, so my negative comments won't make a difference.”

“I found it amusing that this blogger would mention on their 'about me' blog her suspicions on how she won best diarist because Dooce didn't mention it on her blog. I feel I have somehow tainted Heather Armstrong by even referencing this blogger and Dooce in the same sentence.”

“I don't understand why people read this. This is the blog equivalent of projectile vomiting.”

“I liked the pictures, but it took some time for them all to load. I'd suggest narrowing the scope of the main page and using the archives feature to your advantage. All the GIF's in the sidebar didn't help things either.”

“Normally, I’m all for posting pictures of one’s crotch. This time, I don’t think so.”

“I've heard of her before … back when her loyal followers were stumping for votes for the ‘Best Diarist’ award she ended up winning. I didn't understand it than and I don't understand it now. Maybe it's all the pictures of her?”

“Everything about this page annoys me. She strikes me as the type of person I wouldn't save from a fire. Her face is even irritating. I like her cat cartoon at the bottom of the page. The one that vomits on her face.”

“This blog has won awards? How many people can this chick afford to blackmail?”

“There are hints in her writings that she may be playing a character and the whole ‘stupid girl’ act is just that: an act but I don't buy it. Even at her best (and these posts are very hard to come by), she still comes off as a self-absorbed drunk with no clear concept of punctuation and a shaky handle on reality. Seriously, if this is the kind of blogging that's required to achieve great numbers of readers, I'll gladly toil in obscurity.”

“The whole thing is one big pet peeve. I’m sure I’m not the only one giving her a zero here.”

FREQUENCY – 10.0
“Like it or not, raymitheminx posts everyday.”

WOULD YOU READ THIS BLOG REGULARLY – 9% Yes
“Probably not. It's good, but it's not exactly my thing. I'd probably hop over there every once in a while though.”

“Hell no.”

“No way in hell. I wish I hadn't read it for this review.”

“NE-VER!”

“Dear God, I'd rather shove a hot curling iron up my own ass, sans lube.”

“I won't be reading this blog regularly. It wasn't bad though, and I suggest others to have a look, because I can see it having some appeal for certain people -- just not me.”

OVERALL – 45.7