Month: January 1970

At Jefitoblog, I can tell what the site is about right away by the tagline – poking pop culture’s soft white underbelly with a sharp-witted stick.

This site is nicely designed and pleasing to the eye – too bad I can hardly read the small type. I sure wish bloggers would figure out how to alter the stylesheets on their blogs in a positive way. If you use settings like x-small or other relative settings, the user can actually increase the font size. As it is, I really can’t read the site, but I can tell it has a review of Jude Cole, and it has a really funny take on a cereal called Mini-Swirlz. The complaint is that the cereal looks like small pieces of poop, and from the pictures I have to agree.

Other postings cover CDs and TV, exactly what you’d expect from the tagline. The posts go back to 2002 on the archive list, so this blog has been around a while.

I finally get an author name at the very bottom of the page, Jeff Giles. No email link though, which is a personal pet peeve.

All in all, it’s a great blog, I only gave it a bad score because the type was too small for me to read.jefitoblog

Okay. I read the title of the blog and I think, ‘Hmmm. A sisters’ blog. I might be cool. It might be interesting to get to read a blog written by two sisters. Family stories can be funny. I know a lot of mine are. Let’s give it a chance’. Then I read the second line and I go, ‘Hmmm. A Christian blog. Maybe this is not for me after all, since I’m more into “secular” stuff myself’. But hey, I can’t just not read it, right? If I got to choose, I wouldn’t, but this is about a job I have to do. So let’s just do it.

I don’t know if it was me, – and it probably wasn’t just me-, but the whole blog is permeated by this JC-is-everywhere kind of mood. So I kept reading and reading, and, let me tell you, there is a lot of stuff there to read and if you dig their style and if you dig JC, you won’t stop reading. They tell these little facts about their lives and how watching a movie about a car that has a life of its own is fun, but mostly, they talk about their faith and how their lives are guided by it. Not something that is very appealing to me. It’s not appealing at all. But again, if it’s a subject that you take interest in, go for it.

Design-wise, this weblog is hideous. I’m sorry, but it is. The font color doesn’t help with the reading and it gets tiring after some time. I know, you might say it’s green over black and it seems simple and not hideous at all, but check it out and you’ll see what I mean. Everything works okay, though. I tested a lot of the links and they work fine. Also, you can read everything in their archives and they’ve got quite a lot of history there.

Now, you can read a lot about Sue and Katie. And not only their blogger profile, but also their wish lists and another profile they’ve come up with by themselves with the basic ‘likes & dislikes’ and other things. There are links to interviews and oh, I could go on and on. Although there’s lots of info on them, there’s not much more you can read apart from the posts themselves. And they are long. And sometimes, I’m sorry again, they are boring. Because, really, it’s not very interesting to read about someone retelling jokes or how this couple was mad for not being able to pay for whatever it was with a check. Not to mention the religious content of it, about which I’m abstaining from commenting, so I don’t seem disrespectful. And here, dear Editor, you can totally delete this last sentence (which I believe is more of a rant than anything else).

So, no. Not a good blog. Not interesting and the design is, hmm, bad. I know I won’t check it any time soon.
Sisters’ Weblog: It Bloggles the Mind!

When I first read the title of this blog, Sisters’ Weblog, I thought it would be a blog by an African American. I was somewhat disappointed when I saw two middle aged white women in the photo. I’m the same race and age, so that isn’t a slam against the bloggers, just commentary that I would like to see some African American blogs.

The site is easy enough on the eyes, even though it uses a lot of strong colors for text on a black background. I always appreciate seeing a photo of the bloggers, and it’s even better when the site has ample contact links like this one does.

The tagline for the site is “We hope to glorify God by sharing all He is doing in the lives of two sisters in Christ.” Currently the site has some review type posts on “The Jesus Creed; Loving God and Loving Others” by Scot McKnight. As a single, I appreciate a post stating that they were put off by a Marriage series at church. I also liked the blow by blow of the Extraordinary Faith Conference.

Overall, the site is easy to read and is a great addition to the list of Christian bloggers.Sisters’ Weblog: It Bloggles the Mind!

From the moment I entered this blog, I felt a warm “family-like” feeling about it. As I began reading posts, it appeared as if my intuitions about the blog were true indeed.

The Sisters are actually fairly humorous when you attempt to visualize the stories being told in several of the posts. After a long, busy day at the office, it’s a refreshing read.

I really enjoyed Sue’s post about her “watermelon mishap” because I could actually visualize myself doing exactly the same thing in that situation.

However, I feel that the design leaves a lot to be desired. I mean, it’s very practical and has a clean appearance but maybe using lighter colors and adding a header graphic would do it some justice. Overall, I would recommend this blog to others.

Sisters’ Weblog: It Bloggles the Mind!

What first impressed me about this blog was the simplicity of the design. A graphic of a strip of lawn tops the page just below the one line tag: “Poking pop culture’s soft white underbelly with a sharp-witted stick.” It gave me the (accurate) idea that the blog would contain the author’s reflections on pop culture.

The blog contains the author’s opinions and reviews of movies, tv and music, combined with some personal anecdotes and a few political rants. I agree with the author’s politics but these posts don’t seem to . On the front page (as of July 2005) there is an exceptionally long and comprehensive overview of Randy Newman’s career, complete with descriptions of all his albums and links. It was an interesting and well-written piece. Digging into the archive a bit, I found a few other “Complete Idiot’s Guides” to different artists. These entries are different from his other posts and might be gathered together in the sidebar for ease of reading. The music reviews are interspersed with reflections on politics and an amusing tale of bad roommates (I found this the most engaging piece on the blog). There are also occasional time-limited downloads from the author’s extensive MP3 collection.

I enjoyed the author’s self-deprecating sense of humor and no-nonsense writing style. Almost all of the posts are well-written and well-thought out. You know where you stand in relation to the author and what his perspective is (at least after reading a few posts). He does not purport to do anything other than offer his own well-honed opinions, but he does so without reserve or second-guessing.

The design is simple, easy to understand and emphasizes content. The sidebar has a search box on top followed by categories, archives, links, and a flickr badge. (There is something called “Themes” on the sidebar that appears to be a heading but nothing follows it.) The content is on the right and takes up about ¾ of the page. The design is intuitive and easy to navigate. An “about me” section might make it easier to get oriented. You do have to register if you want to leave non-anonymous comments (why?). There are two Google ads placed unobtrusively at the bottom of the page. I found html problems through March 2004. The entries show the html language rather than hyperlinked or formatted text. These issues are resolved after April 2004 but it makes reading the archives a cumbersome task.

This is an interesting site with an emphasis on popular music. Music posts are interspersed with personal stories. Movies, tv and politics are touched on but music is the main focus. If you read the blog regularly you will get to know Jeff, the author, and something about a few of his favorite musicians. I recommend the blog.
jefitoblog