Month: January 1970

This is a nicely designed blog about the day-to-day life of the author, “Pewari Naan.” She uses a pseudonym, but is far from anonymous as she occasionally posts pictures of herself and, most recently, her dog (note: the photo in question was taken by the author’s child, but is not, in fact, her dog).

Pewari’s Prattle has been around since April 2003 and there is so much material that it’s hard for a new reader to get oriented. Luckily, Pewari has a “N.S.F.A.Q.” (not sure what “N.S.” stands for) where she introduces herself and the cast of characters for the blog. She does not discuss the theme of the blog.

I found the content, observations and stories, to be mildly amusing, occasionally confusing due to lack of context, and sometimes very interesting. The quality of the writing is excellent with no grammar, spelling or syntax issues. It is a pleasure to read a well-constructed sentence. While there doesn’t seem to be any particular focus or theme, each post is self-contained and well constructed. There are reoccurring characters (the author’s children and husband) so you do get a sense of the author’s life from reading several entries. The author recounts bits of her life through describing her experiences–there is something inherently interesting about seeing the world through someone else’s eyes, even if it’s only a small corner of the world and a small corner of that person’s life.

The design of the site is excellent. The template is spare, content is central and navigation is easy. The simple grey text on a white background is easy to read. All links work and the F.A.Q. and links to popular posts are right up top. There is a prominent Flickr badge, if you are interested in seeing the author’s large photo collection, and lower down there is an extensive blogroll.

I liked the site, but I don’t know if I would visit again. If I were acquainted with the author, it would be a great way of keeping up with her. As a casual reader, while I like her writing style, not knowing what to expect from the blog might keep me from returning. I’m not sure who the audience for the blog is–perhaps that’s something the author could answer.

It’s a quality site, well designed and well written. The lack of a central theme keeps it from being of greater general interest. NULL

The “Eye of Smoog” is brought to us by a 30-something Canadian woman, who describes a life epiphany involving a brain tumor, though the blog overall doesn’t tend to dwell on this at all and this fact is dwarfed by the scale of the rest of the content. The author’s profile is a good summary of her life including the brain surgery and like the rest of her site, is very, very well written. See what I did just there? I had to repeat a word to describe the quality of the writing instead of taking the time to decide on a fitting adjective.

Smoog is an odd online psuedo-nym, but our author is decidedly odd, and happy to admit it. Her oddness lends itself to some fantastically devious posts full of wit and sass that are a pleasure to read. She mentions that in real life she has a slight speech impediment and a kind of ”verbal dyslexia” which is hard to believe reading the articulate posts, she should be writing for television, this stuff is gold.

Her latest post about religious tolerance (and intolerance) is great, and sums similar feelings for me of rampant evangelism and futile attempts by traveling faith peddlers to offload their wares to good-old-fashioned scientifically learned people. She goes on to describe her sarcastic Flying-Spaghetti-Monster retort to an unsuspecting god-botherer. I love this girl!

The site itself is neatly packaged with a rather odd looking logo of an eyeball in a nest as the site header. The only thing that distracts me is the vacant space in the top right hand corner which just looks like something should be in there. Overall though the site reads well and is really, really (I did it again!) genuinely funny. Well worth the read, a highly recommended site for readers who like their blogs spicy. NULL

The site is called “Not Another Dating Angst Blog”, but guess what? Well, it is.

Joseph Jacobson, a college student, is the author of this weblog that details the past several years of his dating habits. Since the site is still so new, these dating habits include to girls during his time in high school. The entries are short and easy to read, making the site very easy to jump right into at the very beginning an read until the latest entry.

I’m a big of the layout for this site. The header graphic was made specifically for this site, and it livens up the appearance of the entire design. Normally, the pale yellow background wouldn’t be very high on my list of colors to use on the background, but Joseph coordinates the color of his entire design quite well. The layout is the very popular two column layout, where the author includes the typical blogging material – contact information, archives, other links.

The reason this site didn’t score higher is based solely on its content. Yes, it’s a content-driven site, which is wonderful. However, instead of a current weblog written about things happening in the present, this site focuses, quite obviously, on things in the past. While the subject matter is interesting, it read more like a short story, rather than a blog.

The site has great potential. It is very early on in its life in the blogosphere and the author is certainly at the age where dating can be entertaining. I’m hoping with time, Joseph begins posting about his current dating woes. Regular readers may start sticking around for a while once the content is something they can currently relate to, instead of reliving their high school dating days.
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Not another Dating Angst Blog was an interesting blog. I read through every post to date. It is a fairly new blog and I did not anticipate it having much content. I was not sure exactly what to expect for I didn’t know the meaning of angst. I did look it up and it simply means “existentialist dread.” I am not sure if this blog actually fits the description of the title. Another interpretation of the title is: “philosophical movement centered on individual existence.” Interesting enough I do feel the blog read more like a series of short stories.

The blog is simply about Joseph’s dating experiences. The topics covered so far are three girls: Laura, Ali, and a girl he had a 23 hour relationship with. He takes you for a walk through his relationships starting when he was 12 until the present. He is currently 21 and in college. So far all of his relationships he discusses are High School sweethearts. He tells a story about, Laura, a girl whom he practically drooled over for many years when all it came down to was him being put out to pasture. I would have to say I truly felt sorry for the guy, knowing the feeling of being shy and not wanting to specifically say the dreaded words: “would you like to date me?” He is currently just starting his discussion on Ali and I anticipate a lot more to come with this relationship. It appears that he learned from his first relationship and is not sure what to do at the moment.

The site has a very simple design. It has a pale yellow background with red and black text. I really liked his Title Banner, I felt it gave the site a personal feeling. He also has a picture of him on the site and a link to his blogger profile. On the right hand side, he has the same common links for blogs: recent posts, favorite posts, highlighted posts, and links to other sites.

I would say that this blog was interesting to say the least and some of the other readers of his site left comments about how good of a job he was doing describing his relationships. I feel there needs to be some more content, which I am sure he is preparing. His posts were well developed and read like a story. This blog is young, it only started in December of 2005, but it has been updated regularly. I feel his site is more of a personal reflection site. If you like reality TV shows or teen magazines, this blog might be for you. I rate this blog as a 3.75 for it does have a well developed theme and good posts using proper grammar and spell check, but I feel it needs more posts. It is still young and has great potential.
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I would have to say my first impression of this site was: Oh no not another man bashing site on the internet. Then I began reading items that the author posted. I noticed some man bashing information on the blog, but the majority of the articles are simple girl talk. The site has a lot of eye candy which makes a site more appealing.

The weblog takes you into in-depth thoughts that the author has about various issues facing women. Whether it be what kind of clothes to wear or what pop culture to accept, she will discuss it all. She posts frequently which always helps a blog. There are currently 19 posts on the site and I suspect that this blog is going to be around for a while with posts occurring more than once a week on average. The authors posts are not short, so if you think you will be able to sit down and read through the blog in a short setting, I have news for you. I really enjoyed reading the articles because they were well developed and thought out.

The design of the site was simple. There is a menu bar on the side, as well as random pictures that she appears to find interesting. There are some broken links to images and something that appears to be an advertisement throughout the blog. I would recommend getting those fixed.

I feel that this site appeals to young women who are looking to read another woman’s thoughts. I felt that the site was well thought through and enjoyed it more than I thought I would. I probably would not return, but I am a guy and girl talk does not appeal to me. I rate this site as a 4 due to the broken links. It would get a higher rating if these few simple problems were fixed.
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