Month: January 1970

I found this site to be interesting in concept, but scary when it comes to intellectual property rights. The site has many interesting graphic designs. It is not clear whether the author has created these works on his own, or is he compiling them from other places.

The design of the site is rather simple. It has a typical header at the top denoting what the blog is about. On the right side bar the author has created a list of blogs of interest, as well as links to his past archives. The site has been around since November 2005, so it is still a relatively new blog, but it does have many posts. The author for the most part picks a work of art or graphic design and tells his thoughts on it. He accomplishes this by a catchy and descriptive title or a simple analysis of his feelings into the piece of art.

There are really no extras to the site. If the works of art or graphic designs are from another site, I feel it should have a link to those sites showing the copyright information or a statement on the site saying that he has permission to display these items. The reason I mention this is because in recent months and years, it has been a big concern of copyright infringement on the web. I love the idea; I just think there needs to be some notices on the site.

If you like art or graphic design this blog is for you. The site is very interesting. The works of art displayed on the site are intriguing. I feel the site has great potential and should continue to create this fabulous compilation of works of art across the net. I would recommend to the author to at least link or state where the image came from… As a fellow blogger and webmaster, I would want my information cited or at least linked to. I rate this site as a 3.
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The blog, titled “Eye of Smoog” is a site full of entries with a certain strange wit. The very first entry I read was about quite odd: aliens (I assume) talking about a hoob sock forgotten somewhere which was what earth originated from. I think I got the gist right. But it was weird, reading it. I’m still not quite sure if I got the plot right, but it was a fun and entertaining read.

So, I read some more and found really funny entries. It really is a humorous site. There’s that entry about God and the ganja, the aliens and a bunch of other ridiculous happenings that just seems so hilarious. Some of the entries sound a bit cynical, but that could be my delusions talking. Frankly, I just enjoyed reading the entries, no matter how weird they turned out to be. They were definitely worth my time.

The layout is nice. Nothing flashy, but it was nice, neat, and navigational. What I thought was really cool was the different banners that came up when you clicked on certain link. They all had a theme – that of eyes – and they were just awesome. No other word for it.

I recommend this site to just about anyone. The entries are strange but once you get the ball rolling, well, they’re very funny and enjoyable to read. If you like the strange, well, here’s the place. And even if you don’t, well, I’m sure there’s something you’ll see that you’ll definitely like.NULL

My initial feeling on Pewari’s Prattle was that it had a very simple and inviting layout. It had the “to be expected item” of a blog roll on the side bar. One thing that really caught my eye is how the author found a discrete way to link to the sites archives without stretching this huge list of month, year down the sidebar as well. They were in a simple dropdown menu for quick and easy access.

The blog was created in April 2003, so there is a lot of content on the site. If you select a month from the archives list you will see a brief excerpt of the articles the author presents. This makes it very handy for a reader to see if he or she would want to finish reading the article or move on to the next. The author posts regularly on the site, which always makes for a good blog. It has a green header with the title located in it. A simple white background, where the articles are presented, was used with an olive/green color as a border for the site. The site uses simple black, white, and green text for an easy read. A neat feature built into the site is a blog of the week. This area has a simple screenshot of the blog and a link back to the blog of the week site. Along with the archives drop box, another box appears in the sidebar. It contains category information.

This blog has a lot of personal information built into it, but it does also pose information to women. In the archives, I found a post that lead me to many other posts that were interesting… The top searches for 2005. Being male, I found one of these rather disgusting to read, but I was interested just to see how women talk about tampons and that dreaded “time of the month. The author was surprised that it made the top searched pages, but if you are a woman and you want a review on a mooncup, here is the place to read. Many things are discussed in the blog: husband, child, friends, etc. I feel this is better kept as a personal blog.

The site was designed well and she posts frequently. I would have to say that she has started taking her blog to a new level and developing her posts more than the archives show. Most of the posts are short. She is now starting to pick topics and write about them, as you can see, in the latest post on Feminism. I feel this blog has great potential just for the simple fact that the author does communicate through her blog to her readers. She is always responding to comments on her site, and I feel this helps to make a blog great. She appears to have some frequent readers. Some of the readers post comments to many posts on the blog. I rate this blog as a 3.5.
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Well, guess what, it’s a blog about sex. The blog contains graphic, not particularly original, slightly titillating descriptions of sexual encounters from a woman’s point of view. How old is this woman? I’m not sure. Where does she live? I don’t know. Is there any purpose to this blog besides the sexual stories? If there is, I can’t tell.

The stories are jumbled and rambling. The author is married but has sexual relationships with other men. I was lost in this blog–I’m not particularly interested in reading about sexual adventures without any narrative framing. Without a context for these encounters, I actually find them to be a turn off. The graphic nature of the encounters are a bit disturbing. I am sure that many people, male and female, will find this material quite compelling. The purpose? Perhaps to detail the author’s sexual adventures and fantasies? Seems likely.

The quality of the writing is adequate. Writing good erotica is quite difficult and this author does little more than a pedestrian job. The lack of character development and context is a serious weakness. The details are what makes any story compelling, even if we know it will end in a sexual encounter. The how and why also matter, not just the what.

The site design is pink and sloppy. The right column contains a random mix of links, Japanese-anime style cartoon drawings of scantily clad women, badges and counters. I can’t make much sense of the author’s method of categorizing links, but most them appear to be sexual in nature.

This blog is not my cup of tea, but if you are looking for simple stories of graphic sexual encounters, you may enjoy it.NULL

It’s a pretty site with a picture of the author, Lisa Manzi, right up top. It is a three column format, so slightly busy, but the focus is clearly on the middle column where the content is. The author is a writer–a poet, in fact. Many of the posts contain poetry or are poetry related, but there are also personal anecdotes and political observations.

Not being a poetry fan, I didn’t find the blog compelling. The quality of the writing is good and the author impresses me as a pleasant, happy person. I’m also not drawn to the political writing, though my views are not contrary to the author’s. The author cares about what she is writing and she has been keeping the blog for quite a long time. She is a serious writer and I respect that.

The blog is well designed. The colors are pleasant and easy on the eyes. All links that I checked were functional and navigation is easy and intuitive. Thought has gone into design and it shows.

There are links to the author’s wish list, categories, recent posts, “must have books” (are we supposed to buy these for her?), and some of the typical blog-promoting badges. There is another group of links at the top of the right column with the heading “Published By:”. I couldn’t quite figure out what these links are for; possibly they are places where Ms. Manzi has published poetry or other writing.

The site is well designed but I did not find it a compelling read. If you are interested in poetry and liberal politics, though, you may find something of interest here. The writing is good and the design is pleasing. I am not the right audience for the blog, but there is probably one out there.NULL