The Weblog Review

White text on a black background. Strike one. Not only because it’s hard on the eyes, but because it’s just plain boring. Still, I ventured on, but much to my dismay, the content of the site wasn’t much better. When you look up “trite, whiny teenage girl’s weblog” in the dictionary, this is what you find. It isn’t bad, but if i jumped blindly into any Diaryland or Geocities teenage webring, i’m sure I could find 20 websites strikingly similar to it. I’m sure this girl’s friends enjoy reading this, but I’ll have to pass. Besides the fact that it isn’t particularly creative, it isn’t innovative, nor is it even engaging. The design is ultraminimal. Actually, scratch that. It’s incredibly plain. Here’s one of the more interesting excerpts:



“i got this *gasp* $180 skirt.

i don’t know what possessed me, but i had to get it. mommy helped me, but it was so worth it.”



I guess if you’re really into other people’s shopping finds and school days, this could be your cup of tea. For everyone else, it isn’t worth the effort it takes to read the text and smiley faces every other sentence.Persnickety

I’m not too fond of the of the gray font over the light bluish background. I find it a bit hard to read so I had to tilt my laptop screen to read the site a better. The author, Atika really likes anime since she has a pic of a character posted on her site, and talks

about it in some of her posts.



The impression I got after reading her site is she has a lot of energy. Seems like she’s been traveling a lot lately and spoke a bit about one trip she recently took to London where she went to stage school and talked about her singing teacher:



I’m in such a good mood now coz the signing teacher Kate Young who has taught Robbie Williams and Emma

Bunton (baby spice) to name only a couple, is interested in me!!! Wow! I probably sound all egotistical now but it’s actually true (I didn’t beleive [sic] it at first either) She say’s she’s going to help me get an agent!

Yes, I am deffinatly [sic] in a good mood ^_^



I wasn’t totally into her site because it was a bit too teenager for me. But if you like anime and a teen, then you’ll might like this site.

the crumbling

Thou Art God gives you very little to

go by: no information about the

author, very little (if anything) to say

about the links in each log entry, and

no entry longer than 40 or 50 words

in the first place. There are no

images or graphics other than the 10

little buttons leading to various other

weblogs, and there was not much to

look at, do, or read about.



So why would one want to visit such

a place? If you want to follow

random links blindly, if you want to

read ever-so-short movie reviews (“I

saw Legend of the Drunken Master

last night, and it was a very cool

movie. The fight scenes were

awesome. “), or if you are a hardcore

minimalist, then you may love this

site.



Personally, I couldn’t get into a

weblog that offered no info about

where I was going or whose words I

was reading. With no context for the

website, I was unable to leave

feeling or knowing anything different

than when I arrived.

Thou Art God

The stresses of the A-Level Tests. You have to feel sorry for those who have to takes these tests because it’s obvious and clear that it’s stressful to take them and then to see the results. Alex, who had to go through this along with thousands of other kids from the UK, spoke about how much of an impact these tests have on his life and where it will lead him.



Alex talked a lot about this test results and what he hopes to study later on in the future. In one lengthy post, he said he was reading a book on American and British politics and posted a quote which was geared towards the current US President, George W. Bush which was stated by comedian, Lily Tomlin: 98% of the people in this country are decent, hard-working, honest Americans. It’s the other lousy 2% that get all the publicity. But then – we elected them. I found that as a pretty accurate statement, I living in US, hehe.



Despite the fact there weren’t any archives to sort through — his site’s going through some changes — he did have some good stuff today. One thing I liked a lot which he said as a result of his tests: [it’s] the most important day of our life so far, the next 3 years of our lives will be decided on the events of today and it seems unfair that some will succeed where others fail. Even thought he’s talking about his results, you can pretty much apply this to any life changing moment, like graduating, starting a family, getting married or anything else which has a lot of meaning to you.



His site is nice and simple with just some links to other weblogs and cute little “Yoshi’s Land” icons which was done by a fellow friend of his who altered his site a bit saying, “It’s influenced by two major interests of my life at the momment [sic], Dawson’s Creek (the title font) and Yoshi’s Island (the various little sprite images).”



My only beef with the site is it would have been nice to see some archives. Over all it’s a pretty good site.

The Secret World of an Average Guy

Upon first glance, VerseGuru gave

me the impression that it might be

rather mundane. The design was

nice enough, with easy navigation

and nifty buttons, but the first couple

of weblog entries were not exactly

attention-grabbing.



Upon reading further into the weblog,

the author redeemed himself with a

plethora of interesting links and

information. I spent a lot of time (at

least an hour) checking out these

links, finding new thing after new

thing that I bookmarked for later

reference (including his site). A

major plus was the fact that he made

descriptive comments about each

link, so I always knew what I was

getting into, or if I should bother

checking them out at all. The weblog

entries were still splattered with

some random blurbs about things

such as garlic and the wonder of

bullet points, but there was enough

tech talk, cool links, and interesting

matter to pull the weblog through.



Several of the navigation buttons led

to unfinished pages, which was a bit

of a disappointment. Backing out to

the main index page, I felt as if I had

been led to the end of the website

rather than the beginning. The

weblog page definitely seemed like

the hub. I liked the fact that the

weblog archives were listed by

quarter rather than by the typical

month or weeks.



VerseGuru is a must-see if you are

technically aligned and you want to

spend some time checking out

some fresh and interesting links.

With time, I feel sure that the author

can round out the unfinished parts of

the site with more worthwhile

content.VerseGuru