The Weblog Review

Mike Leung’s How Not To Fly seemlessly blends current events and political satire into a not-to-be-missed weblog suitable for culturally savvy readers.



How Not To Fly’s simple layout, which views equally well in MSIE 5.5 and NS 6.1, utilizes snippets of actual news stories as hooks (the author provides date links to the full articles) and for the basis of satirical commentary. Leung has a “dead pan” style of writing that accurately targets the subjects of the news articles. Stupidity is not excused, neither is ignorance. Leung pointedly focuses on the inane in today’s society and translates the news into highly indigestible, albeit intellectually tasty, bits. Simply put, Mike Leung puts into words what the rest of us are only thinking.



How Not To Fly earns a 4.5 for its’ all-around style, humor, and content; however, a background of the author would most likely be appreciated by new readers, of whom there should be many.How Not To Fly

Enjoy scathing sarcasm, dynamic wit, and literate tongue-in-cheek reviews of weblogs? If so, head over to Blog You! and read Tom and Ed’s various takes on weblogs ranging from superior to downright awful.



Blog You! features an easy to navigate layout with a theme that can only be described as … well, as Sutherland. A phenomenal weblog will earn four Donalds, whereas the ungodly may garner one Kiefer. The Sutherland father and son scheme seems to be a rating system which defies logic, but it works for the creators of Blog You! and is thoughtfully detailed for readers and those who have chosen to submit their weblogs for review. And, if being rated on a creepy actors scale isn’t enough for a blog author, there are Tom and Ed’s frequently caustic reviews. While Tom and Ed certainly do not mince words, they do provide constructive criticism for blog authors; and, their reviews are usually quite objective.



Humor figures prominently at Blog You! But, the humor featured here is to most readers what Dennis Miller is to Hee-Haw groupies. Tom and Ed can be scathing — they are hardly gentle; but, they are funny if one doesn’t mind humor with a bite. Weblog authors who are seeking non-critical assessment of their work should definitely reconsider submitting their sites to Blog You!, as Tom and Ed do not hold back on their opinions. Blog You! does call out to the most stalwart of blog authors to see if there might be three Donalds and a Kiefer in their future. But, be forewarned, those Sutherlands do not come easy.



Those unwilling to submit their sites to the scrutiny of Tom and Ed will take a kind of vicarious pleasure in reading commentary about other weblogs. Only the bravest will submit their own blogs to such sardonic, and downright amusing, criticism.Blog You!

Very nice site design with very easy to follow navigation to some really good personal weblog entries.

Josh’s photography section has very few photos, but all are excellent and worth a click to view. I hope he will post more as time passes.

With only a few months posts, archived weekly, Josh has really let us into himself. Very gritty insight into the days and nights of a 19 year old male living in a small town in Alaska and the thoughts, aspirations, and plans for his future.

An outstanding site which I have bookmarked to keep up with on my own.

cracks in the pavement

I loved the name of this weblog. It epitomises the whole weblog idea, in my opinion. “OddSocks” has a disclaimer stating “OddSocks” will be a total mess for awhile”, and it is.

The orange type on white background makes for an unusual reading experience.

Overlapping and having to scroll right to read the whole page is bothersome, but I thoroughly enjoyed the section titled “The Good, The Bad, The Reviewer”. Twelve second reviews are something enjoyable, even if having to scroll right to read.

Some of the entries in “List-o-Links” were so good that I bookmarked them for my own pleasure at a later date.

The “Archives” section contained good reading in a lot of areas, but the overlapping type and scroll right problem is still evident.

I’m looking forward to delving further into “OddSocks” when this site has finished it’s revision.

OddSocks

“I’ve Moved Yo!” nearly sent me straight to the next review in line, but I decided to forge on and see just what caused the move from a site titled “Disgruntled” to a site and domain called “Psychodelick dot com”.

After clicking, ( not being auto directed ) to “Psychodelick dot com”, I began my perusal of this effort.

After reading blog items posted irregularly and which appear to be “cut and paste” from somewhere and in their entirety (perhaps not plagiarism, but I’m not sure this was credited where credit was due, maybe a “byline” is in order here?) with a few side comments by the webmaster thrown in here and there. Other posts were nicely linked to more personal items dealing with the life of “Psycho”, as he has named himself. The post thanking his loving family and especially his understanding father were heartwarming.

The tiny font and blue on black of the links are hard on the eyes., and the “Fans” section seems to contain ….a fan. The “Webcam” link found no webcam at all, merely a broken link. Under the “Musik” link I did find two mp3s to download, but the “Essay” section was very hard to read with the tiny white font on black background.

Basically a good effort, needing some work on accessibility for those of us with bad eyesight, but a good insight into the mind of a teenaged male.





Disgruntled