BNQT's resident Internet critic Pepe McGraw is back from the Jungles of Peru from what he described as a "quasi-grave robbing expedition" to offer one of his legendary and reasoned critiques on the website of a popular action sports star.  Up for this week is www.torahbright.com


Good lord, where am I?  Who are you? "I'm Torah Bright and welcome to my website."  


Great, wonderful.  I've never had a conversation with a website before. What can we do here? "...it’s through this website that you will be able to see and enjoy the lifestyle of snowboarding."  Fabulous, sounds good.  I never thought I would be able to enjoy the lifestyle of snowboarding in June from a coffee shop in Venice, California.


What are Torah's credentials to help me enjoy the lifestyle that is snowboarding?  "Her innovative half pipe runs and her ability to master any terrain have made Torah one of the most popular international athletes.  She was even a character in the Microsoft X-Box Game Amped 2."  One of the most popular international athletes?  That is quite a statement, some might say tinged with hubris, even.


Are there any other cool facts you can tell me, torahbright.com?  "While in the north, Torah hangs at her historic, renovated house in Salt Lake City, UT."  Historic AND renovated?  


Ok Torahbright.com: You and I are in an elevator together.  I am reading the newspaper distractedly and you are trying to fix me up with your friend Torah in the remaining ten seconds we have together before I get off on my floor.  What do you say?  "Torah leaves a lasting impression on everyone who meets her. With a smile on her face and quick to laugh, she is always gracious and charming. She expects big things from herself and will have no trouble accomplishing them."  That's all well and good.  I think just showing me a picture would work better, but whatever. 





Torah's media section is about average for the genre, with fair number of Youtube videos, all of which come from 2007 or before, which is fitting, because just about everything else on the site is of that vintage as well.  After a year or two of reviewing these action sports stars' websites, I still fail to understand why you would start a website with your own name on it and then let it languish and rot to the point of being absurdly outdated.  Especially when you make claims on your own page about wanting to keep the fans informed and about how "...through this website that you will be able to see and enjoy the lifestyle of snowboarding."  And I am not just picking on Torah here, everyone does it with a few notable exceptions.  It's probably the agents and hangers-on that come up with the idea for a personal website anyway. I would hate to leave you with the impression that I think any of this is important to me in any real way, but I am just thinking of the young Torah Bright fan out there logging on the Internet repeatedly each day to get word from his hero and finding nothing, day after day.  Heart-rending.


Anyway, if you want to see what the refrigerator of Torah Bright's historic and renovated house in Salt Lake City looks like, knock yourself out:





GRADE: C.  It pains me to give a poor grade to someone as nice and talented as Torah Bright, but fuck it, not really.  


All photos taken from Torahbright.com without permission.