Month: January 1970

The first thing I thought when browsing onto this blog was, “Oh no, another same old layout.” However, as I read into the entries, the generic layout didn’t seem to even have my attention anymore as I skimmed the Nomad’s blog about his life.

This is the blog of a South African/British blogger (he declares that he’s not sure which category he would fit into), talking about his life and times. As I tend to be drawn more towards personal blogs, this was nice. The most recent entry is about confusion (I can relate!) and the one after that is about the decision of whether or not to answer the unexpected, unknown number call… I can relate to that as well. The entries are well written and drew me in right away.

The design is… well… fairly boring. It’s the basic white Blogger layout that we see all the time, but it’s got its own touches, such as sidebar content that isn’t on every single blog out there. This is definitely a plus.

Let’s take a look at the extras. Some of the links are somewhat interesting (I checked a few of them out) and there’s a picture of the author as a child. Overall, not bad at all.

If we examine the site as a whole, it’s above average, but it just doesn’t have anything entirely unique. While definitely a good read that may be making it onto my blogroll, most likely it’ll be just a site to fall back on if I’m bored and get the urge to read something new. I have to give this one a 4 out of 5. With a little work it could easily become one of my favorites.NULL

When I first arrived at this site, I was somewhat disappointed by the layout. It’s a very common layout that’s used all the time and I love things that are a little more… well, unique. As I read through the entries, I wasn’t as amused as the title led me to think I would be.

In this blog, we do find exactly what is promised to us: useless information. This is the blog of CK, an obsessive-compulsive microbiologist from Michigan. In his blog he writes about his life living with his wife (MK) as well as the aforementioned useless facts.

As far as extra things go, there aren’t really any. There are links to a few different places, Google ads (if you could consider those extra), and some lists of current reading and listening material.

I already sort of got to the design, but I’ll reiterate. The layout is very basic, the Minima Black theme from Blogger. (I’ve seen it often enough to remember the name.) I liked the design the first hundred or so times I saw it, but after awhile it gets a bit dull.

In the end, I really wanted to like this site. Useless is sort of my specialty, throwing practical knowledge out the door and preferring things that won’t get you anywhere. However, after going through the site, I have no choice but to label it average. I’d say it’s worth checking out, but it won’t be making it to my personal favorites list.
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I was delighted to see “The Ex-Girlfriend Project” up for review because it is a blog I started reading a few weeks ago. It is relatively young but it is one of the densest most content-filled blogs I’ve ever read. It reads like a novel or a very circumspect diary. Unfortunately, the blog-format is not the best venue for the content. This story begs to be told in forward, not reverse, chronology.

The blog is the writer’s attempt to understand his relationship problems by telling the stories of all of his important past relationships. He lays out the purpose of the blog in excellent “about” and “about me” pages. Read them first and you know what the blog is about and who (more or less) is doing the writing. You are never at sea.

He begins at the beginning, in high school, and chronicles his entire history for us in amazing detail. While he tries to stick to talking about his ex-girlfriends, the stories about his group of friends and their lost, searching drug-filled lives are compelling. When you read this blog you enter another world, another time, and you are completely there, though it can be a bit exhausting. If you miss a few posts you find yourself hours in the hole. The author works “as a freelancer on the fringes of the film business,” which apparently affords him plenty of time for blogging.

In terms of design, I have some quibbles. I don’t care for color type on a black background. I find it harder to read than any other template style. The author uses a different color type for each of his ex-girlfriends. It’s a good idea, but in practice, I don’t like how it looks. I don’t think the gimmick is necessary to keep the women distinct. Reading the story is sufficient.

If you like long-form, narrative blogging, you should read “The Ex-Girlfriend Project.” It’s a good read, good writing and I highly recommend it.NULL

My first impression of this site was… Great another Bush loving site… I have to say I generally shrug my noses at sites like that, but I can assure you I am not biased in reviewing the site. I understand there are different interests in the world and that is what makes America such a great nation. I did have a quick turn off from this site, and that was the pop-ups. I despise them, and recommend the authors of this blog to remove them from their system. The google approach is best if advertisement is needed, simple text on the side that does not aggravate the visitors. Other than that, I feel that the layout was clean and crisp and was interested to start reading what the other side of the democratic system of America had to offer.

The weblog is composed of many articles ranging in subjects. It is mainly a political blog speaking out the Conservative mindset. It has 2 authors who work together to produce the blog. It is hosted by blogspot with a basic blogger theme. I was impressed by their writings, they spoke how they felt on different issues throughout the democratic society and encouraged readers to comment on their feelings.

The design is a general red, white and blue theme with the background being blue, red being the title bar, and white being where there is text. They have a tag-board at the bottom right for simple chatting while on the site. The tag-board is what I suspect is causing the pop-ups. I would suggest actually purchasing the tag-board or writing your own code for it rather than using the free one because of the advertisements attached. I have used the paid version and it is very nice.

In conclusion this site is very well laid out and is for a particular party, in general. Persons with other viewpoints can read the blog, but I think they would probably want to spout out nasty comments, which is never appropriate. There were a couple things referenced on the blog that I was curious to want to know more about from their standpoint, maybe in the future. I would have to say overall I feel this blog deserves a 4.
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When I first arrived at this blog, my thoughts were that it was just your average Blogger blog, but… with a deviously ingenious layout? And links that actually have a point? OK, so this isn’t just your average blog, and you can tell right away.

Let’s take a moment to think about the layout. As I said, it’s somewhat devious, but ingenious. Why? Well, it’s not your basic, everyday, run-of-the-mill Blogger template, and I love that. It’s got a dark edge to it, but it’s bright enough to not make me want to dye my hair black. Goth templates aren’t cool, no matter what anyone’s told you.

Then we get to the writing… while the lack of capitalization struck me as odd at first (I’m a stickler for spelling and grammar), it didn’t detract that much from the posts. The writing is quite intelligent, and much above the average blogger out there. There are some cuss words, which I don’t entirely agree with but also don’t entirely object to. It’s definitely not a blog for the timid.

The links and other whatnots we have are actually relevant… big plus there. There are links to the author’s favorite games, webcomics, other blogs, and various 80×15 banners that you could click to give referral points. Everything just fits so nicely together.

In the end, I loved this blog and have just now added it to the link bar on my own blog. It’s definitely worth checking out, so long as you aren’t easily offended by swear words. That’s the only thing that I didn’t find absolutely great about this site, in fact, and that’s not nearly enough to keep me from going in the future.NULL