I get a few unsolicited requests for reviews, and I really try to oblige, but sometimes, I can't go through with it. Occasionally words escape me, I can't see an amusing angle, or I just don't feel comfortable tainting the blog in question with a stroke of pisstaking. Either way I pass. In retrospect though, there is no harm at least mentioning the ones that fell through the crack. Just because they aren't my cup of tea, doesn't mean they can't be yours.

Whitterer on autism is a blog I wouldn't wish to knock in any way. Just isn't a subject I can identify with.

Every Rider is about horses. I am into horses but couldn't think of a word to say in a review about a very tidy and informative blog. I was, however, inspired by Kelly's post on homeopathy and needles, and I wrote a mildly sarcastic article of my own.

And finally, I simply cannot review the blog entitled The Anti Christ - a satirical end of days - until he does something about the type face and colors. When I can read the first 3 chapters without going blind, I will gladly tell you all about a story that had me grinning from ear to ear - before my eyes gave out.


We've linked to several web search engines offering random payments & prizes! Click the icon & search a keyphrase MyBlogLog Sunday. It is a win-win, perhaps!

When Polli won the prize for most traffic sent to The Pisstakers following her mini review on MyBlogLog Sunday, she was entitled to a pound of gummi bears and a review. Without a blink, she snapped up the gummi bears and wrote a typically fun and motivating post to reveal she was a winner. But far from falling headlong into yet more fame with an Ed review, she asked for the review to be put on hold. Ever open to ways of getting out of work, I didn't disagree.

3 weeks on, however, I feel it is time to shed a little light on Polliwog's Pond, because now I think I have enough info to allow me to work out how on earth a new blog could attract so many meaningful comments from day one. (And literally within 48 hours of her launch, dozens of people loved her, admired her and idolised her. That really isn't normal!) Today, Polli let slip a few hints that clarified why she has so many fans.

Polli has a past!

Polliwog was here, is a telling banner headline to be seen over at LiveJournal. Tracking back, (because she is indeed, no longer there) I saw her contribution to a 43-sentence collaborative story undertaken by a writer's group. She unleashed a tale of Burger King Guy, a feat she is evidently proud of. However, I get the impression she is a little puzzled by its popularity? Burgers, cheesy king, more burgers - makes perfect sense to me.

Anyway, that LiveJournal link provides the key to the Polliwog popularity puzzle, I think.

I suspect that many of the commenters and omnipresent fans on Polliwog's Pond are members of that big big group from Polli's past? Her network helped the new blog hit the ground running? If so, brilliant networking. If not, brilliant witch craft to conjure so much traffic from nowhere.

Polli has a future as a blog guru?

Although Polli is pretty clever at web design, she doesn't profess to be a blog guru-ette. However, it sounds to me that if she told her story in some detail, wannabe bloggers everywhere would benefit from her tactical awareness before during and since the launch of a blog. I know the Pisstakers traffic has been on the up and up ever since we crossed paths, I have learnt how to be a lot more inclusive and blogger-like too and I sort of get the hang of Stumble Upon. Spread the word, Polli!!!

What's next?

In a wee while, when Polli has a few more posts, I'll be back with a review of life in her pond - life that has developed rapidly past amoeba status, for reasons that should be a little more clear now.

We've linked to several web search engines offering random payments & prizes! Click the icon & search a keyphrase MyBlogLog Sunday. It is a win-win, perhaps!

I am embarrassed to say that I misspelt Harry's name. I had this idea in my head that his name was Larry Hnetka, but when it came to writing it down, my sub conscious insisted on abusing him every time, with the wrong name. Hmmmmmmmm. In finding out the mistake, (the worst possible most disrespectful mistake anyone can make), I learned that Larry has a great great grandfather called Larry, or was it Harry? The truth be told, I am a Pisstaker not a genealogist, plus I can't be bothered to research his email (or was it a comment?) to verify the Barry Hnetka family tree.

Who is Larry Hnetka?

For the record, Larry Hnetka is a witty subversive regular guy with a 'tache and a garden He is from Canada too, which explains why he hasn't unloaded his gun into me yet for getting his name wrong? I rate him for his wicked blog where he waxes satirically and poignantly about his life and observations on what comes into his life. He also runs several photo features on his blog, a blog which, according to my research, is worth an astonishing $174 million! That is patriotic US dollars btw.

What is on Harry Lnetka?

There are several killer posts that made me laugh out loud, (and one morbid one about epitaphs made me sad enough to write my own epitaph!)



He has loads of clever articles that made me smile, a link popularity tool that made me smirk, and this old photo that made me cringe with embarrassment - for him. Why do parents insist on keeping the worst photos for posterity?

Joking aside, Larry is a great sport and sharp, and worth a place in anyone's RSS reader. Go ahead and bookmark him, and hold on tight, you never know what he will get you with in his next post. And vote for him too, he needs all the links he can get, only having $174m worth so far.

We've linked to several web search engines offering random payments & prizes! Click the icon & search a keyphrase MyBlogLog Sunday. It is a win-win, perhaps!

The Details are at it again with a contest to make you rich and famous. Find a funny videoclip at Google, link to it in the comment section of The Details and write a post like this to promote the contest. Don't forget to use the anchor text Youtube Video Contest to make an impact. Best clip, in his opinion, wins.

Contests abound all over the internet. Gummi bears are a hit on MyBlogLog Sunday, a Wii was given away recently on John Chow, and years ago in the UK, Hoover went close to bankrupcy giving away free transatlantic flights in exchange for a washing machine purchase. They sold a shed load of appliances, but the whitest thing in the company product line was the face of executives counting the cost of the promo.

Nick at the details has committed to $10 first prize and some link love, which hopefully that won't break his reserves!


We've linked to several web search engines offering random payments & prizes! Click the icon & search a keyphrase MyBlogLog Sunday. It is a win-win, perhaps!

This review will be of interest to bloggers, I am sure. The blog is about Wavumi!

Wavumi is a sort of MyBlogLog entity / clone developed by Patrice from France. Basically, you join Wavumi, visit a Wavumi member's site and your name appears in the sidebar widget. Others see the widget, click on your site link, visit, love it and Stumble Upon you /Digg you, kill your servers. Get it? Good.

Patrice's blog reveals all

He is quite the philosophising developer.

All we can know is that we know nothing. And that is the sum total of human wisdom. >> from War and Peace By Leo Tolstoy.

His blog is simple, and lets you in on the sum total of info on Wavumi. In easy to read language, Patrice highlights the trials and tribulations of developing some Web 2.0 software. If I may paraphrase a couple of posts:

April 5th it is created?

On April 12th it goes live and It works!

There is a list of testers, all 6 of them. Sadly only one installed the widget, and then removed it. Apart from that and a few posts on cookies and web design, all Wavumi related, that's the blog!

Why use Wavumi?

Attracting other bloggers to read your blog is a great step in spreading the word and generating traffic. Wavumi may help you find more good blogs. Well, at least Patrice's and mine and a couple of others'!

Sign up as a Wavumi tester

For anyone out there interested in being part of a Beta program and pushing the program to its limit, go get the Wavumi widget code With a simple copy and paste, you can start to trigger the process that informs other Wavumi members that you have visited their site.

Wavumi Wednesday?

If anyone wants to modify the original idea of MyBlogLog Sunday and start Wavumi Wednesday, carry on! Not sure how you will capture the avatar of the most recent viewers, because there isn't one!

Who knows if it will take off, but it is interesting to see the first Wavumi steps in action on Patrice's blog. And if he can let us know what the hell Wavumi means, that would be great feedback. And this is IT in action!

We've linked to several web search engines offering random payments & prizes! Click the icon & search a keyphrase MyBlogLog Sunday. It is a win-win, perhaps!

Ladies and gentlemen, I present you, Mr Tyler Cruz, an internet entrepreneur on a journey, dot com mogul in the making, friend of the stars, and very honest blogger.

Honesty is the best policy

When the email arrived asking for a review, I thought, OK, I'll do it, but I wasn't too excited. It was one of those deals where you do a free review in exchange for a backlink to a site. In this case, the site in question is a PR5 site frequented by John Chow and other statesmen of the online money-making community. Woooo.

Why the reticence then? Well, it was nothing to do with free you understand, after all, the Pisstakers business plan has little to do with cash flow right now! No, there were a couple of other niggles.

First off, Tyler deals with making money online. These guys tend to be serious when they write, and they do loads of research so that what they publish carries some authority. I am a satirist with little or no clue about much - plus, how much fun could someone like me have, reviewing a site that eulogizes about affiliates and links!

And second, I'd already had a big disappointment with the backlink link love lure when I did a review of Mr Technorati trickster's site. The moment of glory for the review was just that, a moment. The link to a top 100 Technorati website fell off the radar the next day almost. That particularly valuable link love now resides on a minor page at JC dot com on about page 10 by authority in the Pisstakers Technorati ranking.

Tyler Cruz comes clean

Tyler is the man. He came clean about my doubts on backlink rewards and admitted that the link love from a page hidden in a PR5 site would be OK but not brilliant. Fair enough and how refreshing to hear. So I am content to be buried somewhere in a one-time link on his site.

And then he solved the issue of how to jazz up a review of a serious tome like Tyler Cruz.com! In amongst the information-rich blog posts on Agloco and 40 hour work weeks, and tactics for aspiring billionaires to optimise their advertising strategy, he assured me that there lies some funny stuff related to tacos. Yeehah.

From the top down

With a spring in my step, here goes. First impressions when the Tyler Cruz site pops onto your screen? At the top, there is a busy banner with ads underneath. I needed to do a double take to absorb exactly what the blog was about.
. I was confused by Rocky? and a lumberjack, and the back view of a shiny-faced guru in a business-like suit. Does Tyler have a face like Ed's, made for radio! Is he an all action blogger? More questions than answers, until I read the tag lines espousing internet, journey and wealth. All clear now.

And when you slip easily down the conventional theme with sidebars left and right, the aim and message of the blog should become ever more clear. It's a business-like and clean journal on a journey to wealth.

Content is king for Tyler Cruz.

The bulk of Tyler's posts are his, plus some guest post appearances to alleviate his pain. Articles explain and motivate others on how to go about making money online from a blog or website. Credible and clear examples abound of how to tap or tap into affiliates, advertisers, publishers with cash on offer, referrers... I can imagine that the advice gets Tyler's readers drooling, and I too am making notes. However, he won't sway me from my determination to keep the number of commercialised pixels on The Pisstakers to a minimum for quite a while yet.

Oh no Agloco!

The Agloco stuff is not quite my cup of tea. To be honest, it saddens me to see so many clever folk stumbling along wasting their time on a view bar that will probably never be!

Tyler Cruz makes money-making look as easy as falling off a log.

My ears pricked up at a couple of mentions of laziness on the blog. Apparently, Tyler can't string together a 40 hour week to save his life. If it isn't his girlfriend taking him shopping, it is his programmer goofing off early.

Relax, Tyler, blogging is fun and an ideal part-time pastime to riches. At least that is what it looks like from here, when I readi that you earn over $200 a day despite slacking.

The funny stuff?

As I mentioned earlier, Tyler assured me that there is funny material to view on the site. I couldn't find the taco deal Tyler tipped me off about, so all I can say about that is, how can you possibly have too many tacos? That's like too much chocolate. Amigo, éso es imposible.

I did enjoy the Whistley Man story, though. Every neighborhood has at least one. My advice is: just make him smile or laugh, that stops 'em whistling!

As a break from reading, I liked the Movie vault video, with all the stats and excuses why it is doing so well. A few hundred bucks a day. Was that before tax or without declaring tax? And nice car, all bought and paid for off online earnings. Best to keep that out the banner images, though, until it is traded up, else your buddy will be poking fun at you from his Maserati or whatever make those blue cars are.

In conclusion

Joking aside, there isn't much wrong with Tyler's site or approach or results so far. And aged 23? At his time of life I was a bum traveling the world. No regrets, but then again, had I known how to design, modify or flip websites, maybe I would have knuckled down to traveling with a laptop.

And as a closing note, I was drooling when I learnt that Tyler flips websites and domain names for a living. I will be having a word with him in 2 years' time as I would willingly pay him $23k to make something out of nothing by monetizing The Pisstakers efforts!


Subscribe to his RSS feed and learn something everyday from Tyler Cruz

We've linked to several web search engines offering random payments & prizes! Click the icon & search a keyphrase MyBlogLog Sunday. It is a win-win, perhaps!

As a follow-up to the blog post I did about the Oscars of the blogging world, The Pisstakers was nominated for the Best Blog Design Award. Ooooh. Yes, ignore every word I ever typed, just look at the pictures.

This event seems to have captured the imagination at Blog About Your Blog and plenty of voting (mutual back slapping) is going on. The internal support offered at the BAYB family is deserved, because the gang of authors in the running are pretty good bloggers by any standards. Mike has seen the light and is forging alliances left and right too.

A bit of fun, but I heard a few daggers are being polished and sharpened, just in case the results don't turn out as expected.


We've linked to several web search engines offering random payments & prizes! Click the icon & search our keyphrase funny stuff . It is a win-win, perhaps!

So, Bob is the MyBlogLog Sunday Part 4 winner of a Pisstakers review (and 1 lb of gummi bears). The aim of this review is to find the funny and light hearted aspects of the Bobbarama humor blog, not humiliate the author. So here goes.

Bobbarama - what's in a name?

In English, I would assume that the blog is a panorama on life according to Bob. From the name you can't really tell that he is a naturally funny guy, until you land on bobbarama.com and it all becomes clear that this is not a staid web site.

As an idea to increase the readership appeal to an extra few hundred million, maybe he could slightly alter the name to Boborama! In Spanish, at least in the version spoken in Spain, Bobo is what you call a daft bloke!

Bobbarama design theme

Moving on, if you want to make a good first impression, the first visual impression has to be good. 10/10 then, because Bobo Bob's banner is great.

He also has a memorable smiley logo to hang his humor hat on.


I am a great believer in black on white, the clever use of images and plenty of white space. Therefore I am a fan of the Bobbarama look, because from the top of the blog right on down through, you get a clear display of easy-to-read, neatly formatted text, cameos... Most excellent.

(Aah, (bobo) daft and (rama) branch - humor and sth to hang your hat on - your name might make sense, afterall, in the old español!)

Bob's sidebar is a work of art

This is the way I see it anyway. From a design point of view, I understand that there is only so much room for content, features and links and blog rolls and calendars and... so side bars tend to get full up with prettiness. But the worst aspect of this practice is the affect on load times. Can we say "slow as molasses" in many cases. Too much "interesting stuff" can spoil the experience, not improve it for us users. There is only so much fun to be had watching scripts and code zooming in from all over the internet.

But there is no sense of clutter here. Everything in moderation, and clean. So the pages don't hang for me, so that's alright. YMMV!

Moving on (although I will be moving back to his side bar in a bit.)

Bobbarama written content

Apart from a welcoming appearance, why else should we we want to go see this one in 71 million blog? Afterall, hospitals look quite inviting these days but who wants to go back time after time? His consistently good content is the lure.

Content is king, and Bob does pretty well to concentrate on humorous content when he blogs twice a week. (Keep 'em hungry!) Personally, I like his conversation pieces where he goes right off the wall and into funny land. It is hard to write flat out humor, but he can do it.

Stallker in bathroom: Hey, how’s it going?
Me, turning toward the Stallker to answer his question: It’s going alri … Oh, wow! Sorry, dude! Totally my bad!

Check out his archives for more examples.

Hola sidebar, again.

And then we come gracefully back to the sidebar. In Bob's own words

In addition to the humor posts I write twice a week, I use the sidebar to collect some of my regular features for easy access for readers.

Sidebar barside, barside sidebar, whichever way you spin it, Bob's sidebar holds the key to returning over and over to his site. Never has so much been hidden from so many for so long.

Dictiowary - a string of clever definitions

Abnominal muscles: The flabby, untoned midsection of someone who does not work out regularly
Valedicktorian: The top asshole in his graduating class
Egypt is the best of his latest for all you online auction junkies: Getting stiffed in an EBay auction. As in, “I sent the guy the money but he never sent me the merchandise. Egypt me!’ (n) Egyptian: The stiffer

Yakety-Yaks

This is almost like a second blog in the blog, based on original rather than bland comments and captions. My preferred caption: The notorious Gangsta Duck Gang kittynaps another victim in broad daylight. That should go into the The Details Kitty caption contest?

Time-Sucks

This sidebar item is the reflection of a misspent adulthood at work on a PC. But there are some great links. And as I have a blog and free rein, this is one of his links, right here. (Is this software apologist Bob in a shirt and tie?)

Take Two

He posts the views of two bloggers (him and another) with separate humorous stances on the same topic. These are long and pretty good essays, and could currently be called He said, she said!

Observations: to improve?

It isn't Bob's fault that all you RSS feed reader junkies think you get everything you need from a feed reader. I started reviewing this from Google Reader, myself, because that is where I was when I thought, shit, it's nearly Wednesday and no review done. But seriously, the main features of Bobbarama are in the side bar, so you have to go to his site for real. And Bob needs to get the feed readers to go.

So, maybe he should run up a neat widget that he places at the end of each post linking feed reader folk to his side bar features, They would stay even longer than they do now. I know I will now I know.

And move the RSS widgets to the top of the page. That is the advice of folks far smarter than me.

Good conclusions!

At the end of the trip through his site, I can draw a few conclusions. First, Bob is a funny bloke. Second, he can write well. Third he combines his humor with his writing skills to produce consistently fun material. And fourth, I did smile and often experienced that warm glowy I know what he means feeling.

Bobbarama, funny as hell. and subscribe to his feed here!

I just visited the site over at Iguana Fashions, global home to independent fashion design, designers and products. As much as it grieves me, I have to admit that I, this worst dressed of men, and mother of all fashion disasters, was intrigued.

Look, I know the place is jam pack full of scantily clad women, and I can't afford a thing in there, but in all seriousness, Iguana sucks you in with consummate ease. It is such a well designed site, with compulsive viewing AND reading. I was there for ages.

Content

The blog is full of fashion items modeled by the rich and famous: clothes, shoes, handbags and any accessory imaginable, all costing how much? Sharp images and some dab handed Photoshopping by the looks of it, give Iguana fashions the feel of an upmarket "real" magazine.

Iguana is also well written, in keeping with the snappy subject matter. There is plenty of text and some witty lines too about the protagonists and their garb. Like the article on the undergarments of preference of Halle Berry and co. Sadly, they say they only have head shots of belabumbum wearers. Spoil sports.

Web 2.0 and search feature

Guys out there, if it makes things easier at home, I suggest you go and observe Iguana fashions from a technical view point. The About Page explains that under the hood it is a brilliant website with some really cool Web 2.0 features. Take the side bar! It is so inviting and full of tag words you are dying to click on. And when you do, it returns properly targeted results right there on the same page, plus a cutesy message. Check it out.

In conclusion, a big thumbs up

Excellent site, even though the subject matter isn't really my preferred reading and from a financial point of view, it makes me cringe. I am sure my wife, however, will enjoy the thrill of falling head over heels with every cute little outfit and scaring me to death with the numbers.