Month: January 1970

The weblog’s title “A Wacky Southern Housewife” (AWSH) piqued my interest. The site did not disappoint me.

AWSH is written by “Call Me Scarlett,” an Atlanta mother of three children (including a set of twins), a wife, and a keeper of interesting pets. This material provides ample material for humor. Call Me Scarlett, however, manages to offer amusing anecdotes not only about her family but current events. She also intersperses a nice mix of graphics, photographs, and jokes throughout her entries.

Let’s talk about the design. It’s a blogger site that features Scarlett O’Hara from “Gone With The Wind” wearing a southern belle dress on the ground of Tara. The graphics, links and type display well and are easy to read. You can also comment on the entries, a feature I like on weblogs.

My favorite entry in this weblog is one of the more recent ones. It’s titled “Why My Dad Has Resided In My Closet For The Last 5 Years,” and it reveals the development of this blogger’s writing since she started her weblog in March, 2004. Although occassional misspellings appear in the site, the material and presentation make this a worthwhile weblog to visit.

wackysouthernhousewife

Politics in Alabama. This wasn’t exactly a title that jumped towards my interests, but then again, it’s probably not geared towards someone that’s not from Alabama.

As far as I could tell, “Politics in Alabama” has just started blogging on February 21nd of this year, or at least this is only as far as the archives go back.

This site is one that is ideal for someone interested in the political scene of Alabama. The author does a great job putting his thoughts down into words and giving readers enough information to make them feel somewhat knowledgeable. He also includes text from specific news article and almost always provides links to those articles for readers to explore.

I learned some things. For instance, who knew someone named Twinkle was the chairman of the Alabama Republican party?

The layout is a standard three column layout. As it goes with “Politics in Alabama”, the layout works fine for the site. The left side gives viewers a contact email address and also a few different Google ads to see. The right side is the list of typical blogger additions: archives, a blogroll, a site counter, etc. Nothing special at all about the design of the site, but with this blog, people certainly won’t be surfing in to check out the latest layout or design.

Obviously, this isn’t a site for everyone. Will I visit again? No. If I lived in Alabama, would I visit again? Absolutely. Aside from just Alabama folks being interested in what Jeff has to say, other huge politic junkies may find the actions of another state’s politics to be of some interest, too.

Politics In Alabama

Constant Trek is the name of the site. Trek towards where? The stars? Towards finding the meaning of life? There’s not much time for doubts, though, as there’s an introduction explaining the basics of the site’s purpose. So forget about space, Enterprise and Spock, forget philosophy, think of two adventurers in their way from London to Morocco. 10,500 miles through 16 countries and all of that on foot. (*exclamation marks all over*) They aim at nothing less.

Design wise, the blog, as well as the whole site, does not deserve an award, but the least we can say it is user friendly. All links work perfectly. The colors chosen remind of sand, which is meaningful considering the ultimate destination of the author, Paula, and her husband Gary. I’m not a frames fan, but it can hardly be considered a flaw. The column where the posts are published is quite narrow which gives the impression that the text goes on forever and you’ll never get to the end of it, which can be tiring if you’re looking for quick reading.

As a child, I read a journal written by Hans Staden, a German soldier. In his diary, he tells about his trip to Brazil way back in the 1500’s. As you can imagine, his impressions on the people and the land were very detailed and illustrated with beautiful sketches. Paula, the author, succeeds in providing as many information she can about the places she passes by. No sketches, but lots of beautiful pictures throughout the text that can be enlarged. If you don’t have a broad band connection, my guess is it would take forever to load the pictures. I only missed Paula’s personal considerations about the people and the places. It was all very informative, but I’d like to know more about what she thought and felt in those places. Of course that can be a cultural thing, since I’m Brazilian and she’s Australian.

What impressed me the most as I entered the site was the number of sections it contains. You can find anything from recipes — although there aren’t so many — to a book marker. Seems a little random? It’s not, believe me. All content is well linked and makes perfect sense. Reading about the preparation for the journey, the contents of their bags (they only carry 2 changes of clothes!, wow!) sets the context you need to get even more involved while reading the weblog.

If you are up to an adventurer’s description of the world and you’d like to know what kind of things to expect while walking all the way down to Africa, this is your blog. It brought me back these memories of a child reading a sailor’s journal and it is sure a weblog I’ll keep visiting.
Constant Trek

“It’s a dogs life” could well have been one of two things, a dog owning obsessive or someone who genuinely believes it really is a dogs life. Thankfully, it was the latter, although I was a little disturbed initially by the warning at the top o the right hand column “Warning-This Blog May Contain Adult Oriented Material”. After a brief read of the about me page, which formed a basis for what was to come, I ventured into the archives. I was fairly impressed.

I found the first entry gave me a better feel for the author than the profile, in one paragraph he managed to capture why I started blogging, and from that moment on I was very interested in what he had to say. It was what I expected, very personal. Its very much a log of day to day activities, with a few thoughts thrown in for good measure. There were the odd entry which was, shall we say, very adult orientated, but they didn’t bother me. They didn’t necessarily interest me that much either. But, on balance most of the entries were interesting, and written well with just a little wit. It didn’t necessarily touch depths I expected after reading the first post, but it didn’t disappoint either.

The design certainly fits both the author and its content, and the banner was a bright and colourful edition to the otherwise black and grey design. I’m not a great fan of light text on a black background because I find it hard on the eyes, thankfully this colour combination merely affected the side column.

A few links of interest aside, there are no real surprises on this weblog. There are some links to blogger templates, which may interest to other blogger blogspot users for example.

“It’s a dogs like” is precisely what I expected it to be, a personal web journal detailing the everyday excursions in the life of its author. From its first post I had expected a little more, something inspired by his own statement “I always feel like I am behind a fence, peering out at the world, restricted by the collective weight of friends and family protocol can be crushing” for example. If personal blogs are what you love, chances are you may enjoy this site. It probably won’t knock you back with its depth, but it may well interest you enough to keep coming back for me. A promising 4.it’s a dog’s life

My first thought of it’s a dog’s life was “Oh God. Please don’t let this be a blog from the point of view of a dog. Please. I know its been done, and people like these things, but please, let this be different.” Thankfully it was VERY different.

The page loads with a black background a header that is really cool and original and grey boxes with the blog posts in it. It is a modification of a template, but a good job was done with this design. I noticed that the header image didn’t have a dog in it, and in fact had a motorcycle in it.

My eyes quickly drifted to the quote that said “Warning-This Blog May Contain Adult Oriented Material” and below that is a picture of a male with a leather jacket and a long beard playing the guitar. At this point I knew this wasn’t a blog about a dog’s daily activities.

The posts on this blog are about things that are going on in his life and things that have happened. They are all very well written and easily enjoyable. I do have to stress that his little warning of Adult Material is very true. This blog is not for the young or the weak of heart or stomach.

Now normally I like it when people include a bit about themselves in a seperate section. It gives me a quick idea of what the blog should be about, things to expect and what not. Of course there is the standard blogger profile, which gave me a nice little bit. But then I noticed the link for “My Liver Transplant”. This took me back a bit. Without revealing too much – just know that it sums up his 2 year ordeal with needing a liver transplant and his will to live. Read this FIRST. It will give you a great understanding of the author.

Its very hard for a blog to move me so much as to give it the score of 5. Over the years my pickiness has increased, and thus it has made it harder for any site to earn a rating of a 5 from me. This site has everything I need in a blog – good writing, original posts, well written posts, and the feeling that the stories being shared are those that are told between good friends over a beer at a bar. So with that I give It’s A Dog’s Life a rating of 5 because it captured everything I want in a blog.it’s a dog’s life