2006 | AprilThirtieth
First, being going off into everything, I should mention that my eyes are crap today (again). I had horrible eyesight to start with, but what with the correction lenses that I wear at night, my eyesight now ranged from 20/20 to a blurred 40/40 (and a whopping 500 degrees that one time I stabbed myself in the eye at the doctors office and couldn’t see straight for…quite a while. Yet what does this have to do with links? Um, I should not that I’m commenting on a few designs below, and what with my sorta-blurred vision, pastel colors hurt me my eyes more than usual, so bear with me if I start to complain. Now, without further ado…
Wait - one more note. I haven’t reviewed anything in a while, so my reviewer tendencies may surface while I wade through all these sites. So if I sound like miss-know-it-all, well, you all know better than that, no? Oh, and it should be noted that I tend to go off topic [a lot] at times Now moving one for real now.
Edit// Wow - so many people blogging about AB. Oh well, here’s to add on to the bandwagon.
I was browsing through my bookmarks this morning, taking a break from my WordPress theme de-bugging for DFire and stumbled upon an interesting entry over at Akutenshi-Designs, where Kyuu wrote on her most recent update,
On another note, I highly suggest you read my blog entry regarding the situation with Sakuya Kira and AB. This is really a public-service announcement made on behalf of your health and sanity, so spread it all around. Because I’m extremely pissed about the situation, and even the AB girls have noticed the problem. I will -not- just sit back and do nothing.
Because I’m the kind of person who is easily intrigued, I took the suggestion and clicked. This naturally brought up a new tab (gotta love the Tabbrowser Preferences extension for Firefox) with a pretty pastel-blended banner. The general shape of the content area is very smooth (I’m a sucker for rounded corners) and the butterfly in the upper right is a nice touch, but I’m thinking that its a bit too monochrome. True, there’s pink as well as purple, but purple and pink are practically sisters. In a case like that, it’ll probably be wiser to add a third shade (even if it is another neighbor), like the red on that girl’s shirt, since we’re doing the banner color-scheme thing.
Read more on critique for Kyuu’s blogsite, Miracle Gone Wrong
Still going on about the sidebar, the images for desktop and project need some breathing space and a line proclaiming their bubble. Add 3px of margin and a matching border and you’ll make them forever grateful. Images are kinda like my friend Sadhna, you see.
Linkage section at bottom with the text links are overcrowded. To on a line will take away their claustrophobia. Should, anyway - I’m not promising a miracle here. I’d need to go through med school for that, and heaven forbid I get grossed out by a clip of computer-generated nerves severing again…
Anyway, I read the entry, which pretty much talked about Acerbic Bitches (no, I’m not saying they are bitches - its their site title. Okay, maybe you knew that already, but when I first read it, I though Kyuu was calling them bitches. How stupid of me.) and all the community drama - in the case, of the anime layout-design making kind - circling around them. I clicked the link to them because I was again, intrigued.
I must say, Acerbic Bitches has a very nice layout. It certainly not original-original, but there is little that is these days. The quote style is reminiscent of Rikeye’s WP themes and nostalgic of Veve. Keep in mind that the two adjectives have positive connotation. I like it (referencing design at moment - will move on to content later.
Read more about my critique on Acerbic Bitches’ design
Lists need indentation! Need I say more? (See the archives page)
The archives page brings me to that dastardly-looking heading (some kind of teal shade which doesn’t match with again, the scheme.) Try for the coral-pink color, get rid of the underline, and knock up the font size a notch. Oh, and give it some breathing space, be it margin or padding.
I’m also curious to know why all pages except the full-view of the post ends with a curved footer and some space. Okay, bad phrasing. Try: there’s something wrong with the full-view of the posts page thing. Fix?
Now enough about the design, I should start on the controversial content that has everyone in this particular clique talking and starting food fights over.
The first thing I did when I arrived at the site (well, after admiring the design and scanning through the top post), was go to the about page. I was disappointed to find a paragraph and some hosting information. Okay, so the paragraph serves well enough to explain your purpose, but who are these people blogging?
This site is co-owned by Lucy, Kimmy, Felixa, and LaFawnduh.
Okay, I got that. And? I know I’ve previously been in the community, but that was a couple years back, before I discovered the joys of WordPress and jumped on that bandwagon and la-de-dah. But am I right to say that an impersonal blog deserves at least a sentence or two about each of its authors? Especially of this kind, where a visitor would like to the who’s blogging and any qualifications. (Even links to your non-blogging sites would suffice). I mean, take the name Lucy. In this circling I know at least two Lucy’s. Is it one of them or is it a different Lucy all together? Besides, the line between narcissistic and lack of any is oddly thin. Modestly doesn’t enter into either picture, by the way.
Okay, now my opinion on the actual posts. Some of them I don’t get. I guess its one of those most-be-a-frequenter-in-the-community thing. Pity. That throws my know-it-all farce right down the drain.
Flipping/jumping/clicking through more entries, I came to the conclusion that yes, the wording is biting and a lot of it hits pretty deep on an almost personal basis. However, I keep looking up at the title of the site: Acerbic Bitches. It made me read things with a slightly altered perspective. This is a site that aims to hurt, and does a good job about that. Take the tabloids for example.
The problematic thing I did find about the blog is that references are lacking. Sure, there’s often a link to articles, but usually that’s offsite and the person who wrote it deletes it after finding out Acerbic Bitches caught wind of their rant or whatever. Which the lack of foundation to build on, and a key element taken away from any decision/opinion-making the visitor then makes, the comments get snappy. Fast.
Or like the Honor post, reference is only given to the topic-ee (yeah, yeah. I know…) Why not go all out on the bluntness and just give all the facts of what and who and etc.? I for one am curious to learn the entirety of what a bitching is about. Doing things in halves [as I do and learn from], is never a good thing. I think an archive of references would be neat…
Or at least it would get me on track of understanding things better.
I think this site is an embodiment of that one say: “It’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt.” Only it this case, its all fun and games until the person insulted is “you”, whereas the “you” will retaliate with equal sarcasm, pick up a lackey, then get jumped by 5 others from the other side.
Well, its that or a links blog in masquerade. Which actually defines it quite well…though in less words.
Like any set of opinions, there are things I agree on and things I don’t. Acerbic bitches lack tact, but that’s what the site is going for. Attention is something the human nature craves, and we go about getting it in various ways - they are as numerous as the personalities people have. Just having a website on the net is a plea for attention. Why should anyone begrudge someone that? It wouldn’t be right of course, but if the Bible’s correct, we wouldn’t know right from wrong if it was for that big controversial apple-eating incidence.
Okay, so I no longer make since. Forgive me - its after one on Sunday and I have a load of homework hanging over my head still. Basically, what I’m saying is: to each their own. Drama and controversy aren’t the happiest of issues (well, issues in general aren’t) but what a boring world it would be without them. Negativity hurts, I got that - I was a feature in Veve’s Pet Peeves once. Okay, it hurt a bit when I first read it, and she didn’t even mention names. I sort of vented my feelings talking to my best friend, but I calmed down after that and felt much more sane. And alls well that ends well, right? I commented and basically worked out the whole thing nicely and discussed a few things pertaining to it with both Veve and another commenter.
The point is, unless there’s some sort of big explosion, people don’t pay too much attention. Acerbic Bitches has great potential (no, don’t scoff) - its a hub of concentrated energy. It can go off (and has), sure, but just think about it. Or am I nonsensical again?
Hey, all’s fair in love and war, right? Putting that out of context won’t change the truth of it. 
That reminds me - I really need to read the entirety of Freud. I want to be able quote some snazzy philosophies of his.
Below is a “cut” of my opionion’s/responses to a few topics Acerbic Bitches touched on. I’m not commenting on their site because I’m too lazy, but that’s the only reason. I think.
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