Oh, and the Reader Sucks

Hey friends. You may have noticed that neither I nor Mr. 'Cog have been posting lately. That's because critiquing the Reader, however purging it may be, has the drawback of requiring you to read the Reader. We just got fed up with it.

The stuff they've trotted out for the last few months hasn't re-piqued my interest. I'd like to cite a couple of cover stories as examples of badly-done stories about incredibly petty topics, but I honestly can't remember what they've covered lately. Something about a DJ? Maybe a couple of environmental-watchdog things that will have no effect whatsoever? I know there was something about Jon Burge. (If the mechanic who cooked up that telephone electroshock torture device had known how many Reader stories he was spawning, I bet he would have stuck it in a steamer trunk, wrapped it in metal cables, sailed out to the middle of the lake and consigned it to the watery depths.)

Looking back over this site's recent comments, though, it seems that we're helping at least a few people to feel less self-doubt when they realize that a market-dominating, big-city weekly can suck as hard as the Reader does. Yes, you out there in the darkness, you're not alone. It really does suck that hard.

I also noticed a stray couple of sentences in the comments for the Belletwits post. "See now this is a well written entry , actually going beyond a strained, one note 'sucks!' to make a valid criticism with (*gasp*) actual suggestions on how it could be done better. My goodness, y'all are actually writing like your age."

First of all, I'll have you know sir that I am seven years old and would like a lightsaber for my birthday. Secondly, are you nuts? "Actual suggestions on how it could be done better" implies that fixing the Reader presents some kind of puzzle. That's ridiculous. You want to fix it, ditch the fossils on staff and impose some journalistic standards. Fixed.

Anyhoo, I have some beefs with recent election coverage, and I notice that J.R. Jones reviewed the new Nader documentary, so I've got food for another couple of posts soon. Assuming I can read the actual articles closely enough to explain exactly why they suck without going comatose, I'll be rappin atcha soon.

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Incidentally, coming back to this blog reminds me of exactly why Blogger sucks. I just spent 20 minutes deleting a bunch of comments about obscure pharmaceuticals and "anal enema photographs" from the Fertilizer post. (Apt.) You have to click through 3 pages each time you delete a comment. And then you're left with a comments page that's a long list of "Deleted by administrator" posts interspersed with the occasional actual comment. Oh, and there's a box on the "delete" page that you have to click if you want to delete the comment permanently. Which is one more click, albeit minus the load time. Well, fuck that. I guess I'll just let my invisible Blogger trash can fill up with links to webcam girls and car insurance scams. The sort of spam that's trashed *automatically* over at WordPress, BTW.