The Weblog Review

Dutch Bennet Novel Series – Space Law made me wonder if this was going to be one of those blogs that is really just a break down of a novel. Especially since the author decided that his blog should be in the entertainment category. I couldn’t get this thought out of my head, so with that I went to read the blog.

The first thing I noticed was that I was looking at a blogger template. Your standard black background, white text, two-column, profile on the right, massive intro header atop the page template. While this template is a nice one (in all 31 flavors), it is clear to me how over used it is now. The profile section quickly drew my attention and I was told that this is the blog of Aaron Theil, author of The Dutch Bennet Novel Series. Again my fear of this blog actually being a novel came back, but I decided to finish reading the blog.

It turns out this is not a novel masquerading as a blog. It really is a blog. The author posts things just like a blog. Recently it is has been about promoting his book and where he will be for book signings, but the gems lie in his space posts. These posts brought me back to my childhood memories of wanting to be an astronaut.

The blog itself to me seems a bit scattered. Sure most everyday blogs do, but I would think that Aaron would have set out for a purpose with his blog. The goal of his blog is not clear at all. His topics of postings range from stuff about his books, to space information, to reviews of other books. Sure it is all intertwined into his passion of writing, but the blog doesn’t seem to be going in any particular direction and is instead just spinning the tires in hopes of catching some traction.

Personally the posts about space travel are interesting enough for me to come back and visit for. The rest of the blog I personally don’t find all that interesting. A blog of this nature needs to go some where. It needs to take me on a journey of sorts, but this one didn’t do that. I know that once Aaron figures out what exactly he wants to do with his blog, it will become quiet good. I hope that in six to nine months Aaron will come back and have us re-review his site to see the progress he has made.
NULL

The first thing that caught me with this site was the name: The Church of Dysfunction. I expected this site to be a bit funny and a bit out there. I got that and a lot more.

When the site first loads I get a picture of Cartman holding a bible and a man in a standard uniform one would expect of a priest or man of the church to wear. It also says “Babblings of a Clerical Collar Wearin’, Pentecostal Helpdesk Technician.” which gives me a little bit more into the mind of the author.

After reading the site I almost wanted to classify this blog as a political blog. More like a politically incorrect blog. The author takes a situation that is going on in the world and puts a big “offensive” spin on it. While this was somewhat funny at first, it got old very quick. Each post read the same to me even though the topic changed. This was not good.

One thing I wish I saw more of was what I expected. Funny posts about the church and helpdesk stuff. Instead I was forced to read overly exaggerated humor on serious situations.

I gave this site just under an average rating because the site is well done. I couldn’t find anything wrong with it per se, but it just wasn’t my cup of tea. Maybe adding an about page to explain the goal of the site since the tagline clearly does not do it justice. So while this site wasn’t for me, try it out and see if it is for you.
The Church of Dysfunction

A nice, clean layout greeted me as I entered this blog for the first time. This is a very interesting person with an interesting blog and I think John really thinks about what it is he wants to convey through his blog before posting the entries.

Although, the audio .wav message just below his photo leaves a lot to be desired. John, think of something a little more humorous and try it again. From the looks of your blog, I’d say you can think of something much funnier.

I do like the colors and design however, I think it could be spruced up, possibly with a logo graphic. It appears as though very little thought went into the layout, which is fine but, I think the blog would be much more appealing and have greater reader value with a few tweaks of the layout.

Overall, I would probably recommend this blog to others but, it wouldn’t be #1 on the list.

The Church of Dysfunction

An unfortunately stereotype I’ve started to make while reviewing weblogs is that a good number of blogs hosted by Blog*spot aren’t really ones that can stand out from a crowd or draw in more new visitors on a daily basis. I was so glad Gizmo’s (Non)sense didn’t wind up in that category. Without so many stories involving his pants somehow getting torn or mysteriously removed, I was entertained the entire time I read.

As I always do with a site using Blogger, I clicked on the author’s profile. Pete, who refers to himself as _gizmo, is a 27 year old IT professional living and working in Dublin, Ireland. Reading a blog by someone my age halfway around the world sounded like it was right up my alley.

Oh, Pete’s a geek. I mean that in the sincerest way possible, but it was just blatantly obvious from the start. Being a closet-geek, I was able to easily proceed from one of his entries to the next. He writes about new technology and their pros and cons, links to specific programs Pete finds useful, and even his experience attending the launch of new software.

To off-balance his geekiness, Pete recounts numerous stories of how he’s so prone to absolute embarrassing disasters. As I read these posts, I could empathize with the level of embarrassment he would have had to felt as he’s running out of an office building with nothing put a t-shirt wrapped around his waste to hide the fact that his pants have completely been ripped off. On the other hand, I could also do nothing but laugh hysterically at the thought of Pete and his boss half racing and half hobbling out of a server room with blood dripping from both of their backsides.

I hate ending a review on an uncouth note, but that’s what happens when Blogger templates are used. For some reason that I couldn’t figure out, the content of the sidebar doesn’t actually start showing up on the sidebar until the posts that fill the main portion of the site are complete. For readers, it makes it hard to locate things like the archive links or the author’s Blogger profile. It only distracts from the site when readers need to access the archives. Other than that, the colors are fine and don’t wreak havoc on my eyes like some of the templates I’ve seen.

While I hope Pete won’t run into a problem of locking lips with an Irish Army General again, I would certainly visit this site again to indulge in some of this author’s self-depreciating humor. After all, if you can’t laugh at yourself, who can you laugh at? Well… in this case, you can always laugh at Pete.

NULL

I first get to this site and I realize it’s not a regular written blog, it’s a photoblog. Usually I don’t mind photoblogs but I just can’t seem to wrap my head around this one. Perhaps this is because it’s aimed for adult men and I’m a teenage girl… but I’ll do my best to judge fairly.

There are a TON of ads on this site. There are ads above the header, between posts, in the sidebar, and a huge chunk below all the posts. There’s also a Google search bar. Other than that, there isn’t much for the template. It’s simple, white and grey. What else can I say?

The entries are all pictures of Indian women… that’s all there is. The site says “adult” but all of the women are clothed, so it doesn’t matter. If you don’t have a fetish with Indian women, you can at least look at their beauty I suppose, since many of the women are quite pretty. There are over 500 posts of pictures… usually one picture per post… over and over again.

There isn’t anything wrong with this site, but there’s not much of a reason for it. The ads really distract from the posts, not that there’s too much to distract from. I won’t even suggest subscribing to the feed, since most feed readers don’t show images and that’s all you’re going to get. You’d be better off doing a Google image search for any pictures that you want to get… most likely that’s how this blog acquired them, anyway.NULL