Other Blogs: A Descent Into Madness

Before we begin today's review, we're going to try a little experiment. What I want you to do is click that little link at the top of the page which says 'Next Blog' and see where it takes you. Make sure you come back here afterwards and we'll discuss your findings. Go on, I'll wait here, you go and have a little explore, I dare you. You back? Okay, well I'm Sorry. I really didn't want to have to do that, but sometimes we hurt the ones we love in order to teach them valuable life lessons. Think of it as an immunisation, now you've had a little  taste of what lies out there, you'll never be tempted to try it again. So what did you get? Poems about dead cats? Tips and tricks for keeping your 'shakra' in line with your convertible? Recipe's for colour-blind lepers? Most likely you stumbled upon the most common of all, the smug middle class family from America documenting every single day of their lives on-line because their friends, families and local Samaritans have all threatened them with restraining orders.

This is what happens when you use the internet as a
dumping ground for your wasted thoughts

This review takes a close look at one of those in  particular, entitled 'Moose Antics'. Click Here to have a look for yourselves if you want, but you really don't need to because I have intrepidly braved that particular frontier for you, bringing back the choicest samples for your visual delectation. 'Moose Antics' is a blog written by this lady on the right, who calls herself 'The Moose'. I don't know why, she doesn't seem particularly large or ugly, it probably all stems from some traumatic childhood encounter in the Canadian Rockies that the rest of the family try to ignore. She lists her interests as "My family, learning the Bible, SINGING(sic), gardening and dancing like a pathetic white girl." In her 'About Me' she just writes moose noises and them makes a lame joke about chickens crossing roads. Buckle up tight 'cos this is going to be one bumpy ride into a very dark psyche. Let's roll.

Before I begin; this is NOT a personal attack on 'The Moose'. I have never met 'The Moose' and therefore have no opinions based on her or her family. This is a review of her blog, which she has laid bare for criticism on an open source website. She knew what she was doing, so stop feeling sorry for her. She lives somewhere in North America with her husband Jon who is rarely mentioned, and her son William, who is mentioned so many times you start to wonder whether he really exists at all and she isn't just making him up because her husband's impotent and allergic to dogs. Here's one of the more recent posts she has written about her adorable little kin "William and I made 9 huge snowflakes last week and then wrote bible passages on the backsides of each one of them. We hung them up over our kitchen table and at night it warms my heart to see William standing on a chair to look at the backs of them to pick out the passage that he wants to read from his bible before bedtime."

William being forced to work in 'The Mooses'
underground salt mines

Hey Moose, if you're reading this and that scene is true I think you may have misjudged the situation a little there. Here's what I think was really happening that night. What you thought of as being a tender moment between you and your child, William actually saw as his opportunity to escape. See, those weren't just Bible passages written on the back of those snowflakes, they were cleverly coded messages to your husband with whom he is clearly in cahoots. When you walked in on him, he was checking to see what your husband had updated them to, leaving plans for how to reach the escape tunnel he has been burrowing out of your basement. I think they're both getting a little sick and tired of your constant documentation of every facet of their lives via your personal blog.

That isn't a one off case either, once I noticed it the first time, examples started popping up everywhere, like this one written a few months before the first quote, "Almost every day that Jon isn't home with us, William has been known to come flying down the stairs and say, "Where's daddy?" He doesn't like for Jon to be out of his sight for more than 5 minutes at a time." Lady, one day you're going to have to wake up and smell the roses. Have you ever noticed how your families eye's twitch when you ask them to tell you what they want for dinner via the comments section in that day's blog post? Your child does not want to be alone with you and your husband spends as much time away from you as possible. No wonder you spend so much time with your pretend on-line family, at least they don't stop talking when you walk into a room or occasionally break down crying when you gleefully tell them you've spent the life savings hiring a professional photographer to follow you all around every day, so not one precious moment is missed or forgotten.

OK, you're in a wood, I still don't get why it's Moose

Sometimes the posts are open letters to one of the family. Hey Moose, you know every time someone posts a passive-aggressive open letter to someone who has slighted them that day a puppy dies right? You've single handedly killed enough  young dogs to end rabies. Here's one for you; and I personally know the puppy this one will be  killing. Believe me, it's an act of mercy.

Dear Moose,

No one gives a shit about you or your problems.

Sincerely,

Fuck Off

Aesthetically I must say the blog is presented fairly tastefully. The colour scheme is a warm dusky orange hue for the background and I quite like the picture at the top for it's the rustic charm, a hastily scrapped together montage of bow-ties and picture of a moose with random font types. It's such a shame about every single other aspect of the blog. The little 'Moose'-isms everywhere, the picture of William titled "My Smoochie", the consistent use of the word 'Bloggity' and the general God-awful smugness of the posts only possible from a rich, American middle aged housewife with more time on her hands than sense. I hope one day when William is much older and 'The Moose' develops some form of mental retardation brought on by the inevitability of old age, he starts his own blog about her 'wacky' exploits. 

Let's face it, to be constantly amazed that your child doesn't quite see the World from the same mature perspective that you do is a bit like getting angry at someone who suffers from Alzheimer's disease for forgetting where they put your keys, both pointless and quite uncomfortable for anyone else involved. For these reasons 'Moose Antics' earns itself 2 out of 10, and that 2 is for the colour scheme, because I really do like that orange.