Month: November 2002

Rhys is 18 years old. This weblog is the art of Rhys-isms, which according to the author’s definition the art of “rhys-ism” is the ability to say stupid, meaningless things. That is certainly an accurate overall description of the weblog.

Back to the beginning of the site – the weblog begins at the end of the school year in May of 2002. I noticed right away that the author was mainly logging the events of his personal life, and this works fine – if you’re the author or involved directly in his personal life. I had no idea who the people were that he was talking about, but as the weblog continues on, you learn more and more about these people.

The majority of the posts and entries at this weblog deal directly with Rhys’ life – updates on how school and/or work might be going, reviews of recent movies, and also just general information on what Rhys and his friends do from time to time. It’s a very personal weblog.

One of the best features of the site are the games that Rhys has created himself and linked to on the right hand column of links. There are several games available for download.

I don’t like focusing on the design of a site right offhand, because this isn’t the Design Review. However, it’s a difficult when all I can think of is how thrown together and tacky the design looks. It’s a standard Blogger template that’s been tweaked enough just to make room for more images of Rhys’ favorite cartoon characters. While the colors aren’t combination, this site could certainly stand a revamp on the design side of things.

This summer, Rhys made an interesting post to his weblog. An excerpt of it is as follows: “One of the best things about having a blog is the amount of crap you can put on it, compared with a normal site.” How true. While having one’s own blog is an easy way to display whatever you feel like, it doesn’t always warrant a high rating on when getting that particular weblog reviewed.

The Art of Rhys-isms

My initial impression was a long, low — Whoa!! followed by an appreciative
pause. Some really good design and layout on this site.

Since this blog is new the navigation is yet fairly simple. There are links
to a bio, a links page, a guestbook, etc. on the left, but the blog entries are
all right on the main ‘news’ page.

This is a personal blog, with entries typical of that genre. It has the less
wordy flow of your average ‘guy’ blog (girls tend to say much more about
themselves) but does get into the author’s hobbies (college, gaming, hip-hop,
etc.)

What makes a personal blog good (well, in my opinion, anyway) is how well the
author allows the reader into their mind and life. This blog has a good
beginning, but the author needs to improve his writing style so that we’re not
having to run after him so much (as in trying to figure out what he’s saying) as
well as tell us more about what’s going on. What was the argument with the
friend about? Was this a guy friend or a girl friend? Believe it or not, your
average reader wants to know these things, why else would we be there. Some
people might call in voyeurism, I prefer to think of it as the natural desire we
all have to bond with others, to get to know people and like them. I got to know
Sean (the author of this bog) a little bit, and liked what little I saw. A blog
is an amazing tool for letting all those unnamed, faceless potential friends get
to know you better.

For now it’s a little shallow on the personal bit, but since it’s a new blog
that could very well change. The potential is certainly there.

OFFbEaT – Mixture Online

First impression? I have no idea what to expect. The website is called Demonblog. I almost think I should be scared.

I read the very thorough “personal” section of the site to get to know the author before diving into weblog, and was glad I did. I learned a lot of information about Marcus, our weblog author, and immediately looked forward to reading more about his life in the Demonblog.

The site design is very … white. With white and black being the only colors used in the design scheme, one would expect the appearance to very dull. However, in this case, Marcus has used the shadowing tool in Photoshop to make the site design a little less boring.



One of my favorite features of the site is a random quote listed between each weblog entry. From lots by Robin Williams quotes to Denis Leary’s perils of wisdom, these random quotes add a bit of good humor to the site.



The posts themselves are also quite entertaining. The majority of the posts involve Marcus giving us the latest information on what’s going on in his life, whether it’s going out on the town or his thoughts and opinions on what’s going on in the world on a national or worldwide level. Just from reading his posts, Marcus portrays himself as being quite worldly and intelligent, so it makes reading things through Marcus’ eyes more entertaining and seem more real.

Another highlight of this site for me was the link to “games” at the top of the site. I played a little mini-golf, which I really sucked at, but Marcus has several links to flash games that can certainly provide hours of entertainment.
Urban Scrawl

There’s not much to the weblog portion of this website. From the end of September, there are only about a dozen entries. None of these entries are extremely in depth, with the longest and most heartfelt one being a brief review of the movie Jackass.

Aside from the brief weblog, there’s also a very well put together photo gallery, a separate portion for rants and raves, and a section called “Cult of Mac”. The ranting and raving portion of the site is by far the most opinionated part of the site, and it’s really the only place where you can really read how Sean feels about certain topics. From the available rants and raves, Sean covers everything from girlfriends to the saga in the Middle East to anything and everything technology-related.

Overall, the writing is just okay. There were too many grammatical and spelling errors for me to say it was anything better than that. This is another place where the lack of entries hurt any type of rating I could have give Sean.



The updates don’t come as often as they probably should to keep a steady stream of visitors coming back to the site.

The layout of the site is nice. The navigation menu on the upper left hand side of the site is very slick. The sidebar of links is also a nice touch and lets readers see what Sean is currently reading and listening to. The design is very clean.



This isn’t a terrible site. In order for it to be a great site, however, I needed to see more quality AND more quantity. Once that happens, this could definitely be a site worth visiting.
Shaghaghi.net

When I find myself saying “Holy crap, me too!” in the three paragraphs of the first entry I read on a weblog, I know it’s gotta be a good one.

Instantly, I liked the design of the site. It’s somewhat simple, yet it’s effective and works well with the site. The blue that’s used for the background give the site a bold, yet not overly bright look, and the goldfish image that’s used is perfect for the site. A great navigation system thrown into the mix makes the overall appearance of this site one I’m definitely impressed with.

The first entry of the site wasn’t the only one I felt connected with. The way Nicole writes combined with the general type of person she seems to be through reading about her daily life makes me feel some type of a connect with this writer. And I don’t think I’m the only one that this applies to.

I like the “cast” section of the weblog. One thing about beginning to read a brand new weblog is having no idea who the heck the writer is talking about. Sure, the author knows exactly who it is and perhaps those that have been regularly following the weblog also have an idea. For those of us just discovering Go Fish, the brief explanations of each “cast member” help us grasp a better understanding of who Nicole refers to.

The archives of this site goes all the way back to April 2002, and Nicole does a very consistent job of posting entries regularly enough to make people come back on a daily, if not more frequent, basis.

After thorough consideration, I couldn’t find a reason not to give Go Fish a 5.0 rating. Keeping that in mind, I’d certainly recommend anyone stopping by this site and reading what Nicole’s up to for the day. I bet you find yourself as entertained and nearly addicted as I did.

Go Fish