Month: January 2001

To be quite honest, I had no clue when entering this site, and no clue when leaving. Ok, that is a little extreme, but it is close.



The site has a nice picture of Alice from Alice in Wonderland up at the top. I guess this ties in with the Advice from a Catepillar title. Below that is a standard three column layout all done in two different shades of pink. I never thought pink could work for a site, but for some reason it made this site work. Maybe it was because of the black background, or maybe because it wasn’t a “pretty pink site.” I don’t know.



The weblog itself got better and better as I read it. At first I thought the author was someone who was high on his own being and was placing judgments on things, but soon after that thought, I realized he wasn’t. The more I read of this site, the more I liked. I really was trying to get to understand the author, when suddenly I ran out of posts to read. I think that some of the archives were not working but that could be a Blogger thing.



I noticed that there wasn’t an about me section, rather a learn me. This section was very confusing and provided no insight about the author as far as I could tell. About me sections need to be there for the readers. It is an easy way for readers to figure out if they will make a connection with the author or not.



Over all it is a very good site to read. I really enjoyed reading this site, and I know that I will read it again.

Advice from a Caterpillar

With a name like Paranoid Ramblin, what is one to expect? Is this going to be about how something thinks differently of everything that is said or what? That is for you to decide.



Upon entering the site I noticed a blog template whit some slight modifications. This design works well for the author, though I would suggest widening the blogging area. It is rather quite narrow and could easily be stretched.



The blog itself is rather entertaining. It is about a 19 year old and the daily life of him. There isn’t anything to out of the ordinary that he is posting about; however he does point readers to some very good links. I was glad to see that the links were to things of interest, rather than just linking stupid things.



Overall I think the site is a very good read and has a lot to offer to everyone.

Paranoid Ramblin

This is an outstanding site. A lot of people are complaining of sites not being as good as they used to be or sites don’t compare to this site. Well this site is a site that people should be compared to.



Upon first entering the site, I noticed a completely original design. I have never seen a site that looks as smooth as this one. And it should look good considering the author is a graphic design person. The only flaw I found in the site was the blog area was too narrow. I like the blogging area to be wide, not narrow. To me, getting 3 maybe 4 words on a line is to small. However, this doesn’t detract from the weblog itself.



Every post to me was very entertaining. It was almost as if the site was a teacher that I enjoyed attending class for. Every post was interesting and stimulated my thinking. Some posts made me laugh very loud while others just had me thinking.



If you have an hour or so to just browse a site, this site is one you should look at. Besides the weblog, there are many other sections which I found to be of interest also.



Overall the site is a knock out. Everyone should be reading this site if they aren’t already. I cannot recommend it any more.

Cynthia, Inside

It’s a common tradition to have soup when you’re sick and have a cold or just are home being lazy on a cold day. There are a ton of different kinds of soup from the classic chicken noodle to vegetable to beef stew to pea soup. “The Joy of Soup” is a weblog dedicated to soup and everything associated with it. The Soup Lady runs the site and since the site is fairly new, it looks like it will be a tasty site.



The site’s layout is your basic Blogger template which is okay. But go beyond that, her site’s pretty informative. She posts about soup in the news, like a little story about Campbell’s soup now being offered at McDonald’s. There’s something you don’t hear about everyday. But it makes me wonder if there will be a lawsuit about someone getting soup and spilling it on themselves and claiming the soup was too hot?



You’ll also find recipes for soups, I mean how can you not have a soup site that doesn’t have recipes? So far she has baked potato, cabbage and a few others. I noticed she also posted a reader’s recipe for sauerkraut soup. When I began reading the ingredients for some of the different soups, it got me all hungry for a nice, hot bowl of soup.



She also discussed some different cooking books which she has and what she liked about them. And as strange as I found it since I don’t regularly cook or even open a cookbook, I found this amusing when she was discussing one book she had,



“Aside from the intriguing recipes, the amount of information contained in the book is astonishing. The stench of junior high Home Ecomonics [sic] hangs heavy here as the difference between a hot oven and a quick oven is explained.”



I have no idea what the difference if between a hot and a quick oven.



She later notes there are chapters which discuss specifically carving and pickling. How many pages can you go on about just pickling??



The site also includes some handy links to refer to if you want to know more about soups and other types of food and recipes.



I liked this site not only because it’s helpful to those who like cooking but of course to those who LIKE TO EAT! There are definitely some useful sites and information which anyone who enjoys cooking would like. Plus it’s just plain interesting. This site will definitely get you craving for a bowl of hot soup of whatever flavor your little heart desires. I’m quite tempted now to go into the kitchen and make my myself some soup!



Soup, I must say is a very underrated food.The Joy of Soup

Simply Lee did not stray very far from the tried-and-true formula for a personal weblog site, but it was more solid and well-kept than many I have seen.

I often enjoy reading sites that are maintained by people over the age of 25, as this one is. There are very few of these sites out there. Such sites have a way of bringing a fresh perspective to the Internet, which is usually dominated by teenagers and 20-somethings.

The weblog entries in Simply Lee never delved too deep into personal issues or topics the average reader would not care about. In fact, many posts were one or two lines long, yet they still seemed to be long enough to be relevant or interesting. I found a good number of funny items, and left feeling that I had learned a little about the author’s clever personality.

As stated above, the site clung to the basic weblog recipe, except for the page that contained actual recipes. I found that page to be a unique suprise. The design of the site was very simple, which often gets good marks in my book, but it was so simple that it verged on being boring. A few more well-placed colors or images would not hurt at all.

If you want to see a weblog that throws out all of the obnoxious things a weblog should not be, but implements the basic elements of what a weblog should be, stop by Simply Lee.simply Lee