Month: March 2003

Upon first glance, Spreegirl.net resembles countless other online journals. Nothing jumped out at me screaming “Woah, this is something I’ve never seen before.” But it was clean and spare and easy to read and I’ve always maintained that the true value of an online journal lies in the writing itself, so I jumped into the archives to see what the author had to say.

Spreegirl is Ren (short for Erin), an Australian woman in her mid-twenties with plenty to say. Passionate, honest, foul-mouthed and funny, Ren doesn’t hold back. She rarely discusses politics, preferring instead to focus on her personal life. From her rocky relationship with her father to her exasperation with her fiance, Ren lays it all out and she doesn’t mince words. One gets the sense that Ren is a woman who says exactly what’s on her mind, something I find refreshing. I can tell from the snippets of stories she posts that she’s a good writer, but her day-to-day entries have a relaxed, uncensored, rough feel that I like. My personal favorite entries are her work-related rants. She’s a customer service representative who works a helpline and frequently journals some of the more difficult customers she’s forced to deal with. I’ve been there, and I feel her pain.

The author is a quite creative. She’s a photographer, a writer, and a graphic artist. She spends a lot of time creating “dollz”, pixelated figures which I had never really seen much of before. She’s very talented.

The design of the journal itself seems to be a fairly standard, slightly modified Moveable Type template. It’s visually appealing but nothing we haven’t seen before. The author has a ton of personality, and it would be nice to see some of that reflected in the design.

I enjoyed the time I spent at Spreegirl.net. It’s not the most outstanding online journal I have read, and a design that reflects the author’s raucous nature a bit better would be a nice addition, but I’ll be going back for more.The (mis)Adventures of Spreegirl

Well, when I first arrived at soulis.co.uk I thought I was in for a treat. It hat great graphics, flash animations, very nifty eye candy. It had clean, crisp layout with nice bright colors. Then I started looking for the weblog section.

Content? Where? I really have yet to find some serious content. Any site I can read in less than ten minutes is not a weblog. What he does say is somewhat intriguing. Somewhat being the key word. All or most of his posts seem to have little or no relevance to anything important. Many posts are just about random pictures he has made or an animation he had made, Martian vs. Cow, which happened to be top 7 on lycos.com. Soulis.co.uk has a total lack of any real edge-of-your-seat content.

The design was one high point. Great effects and nice molding of flash make this a decent looking website. Although black and green has become slightly overused in my most humble opinion after the release of the XBOX, he makes it look good and flow rather well. Perhaps less time designing and more time writing some content is needed.

One thing I do like about the site is his pictures and a part he names “splash screens,” or the main image/animation on the main page. He also has a very funny animation Martian versus Cow. It itself isn’t funny; the fact that somehow it made top 7 on Lycos is funny. I thought it was just about as humorous as a box of rocks.

Well, rules at TWR state that I cannot give a rank higher than 2.0 due to the fact that this site has no archives or an amount of posts that would warrant such a section. Also, my handy “reviewer’s guide” tells me I shouldn’t give it a 0.0 because I was not urged to vomit during the review. So I give it a 1.0 or as my reviewers guide says “1 – The site is really bad, but has one or two good things about it.” Stated rather simply this site is bad, it does have its pictures and its nice graphics, but a weblog needs content. This site is in dire need of content worth reading.
soulis.co.uk

Hmm, initial thoughts about this one? I thought it would be just about as interesting as watching grass grow in a desert. Layout is not very sharp, very dull colors making me think about it raining, I thought I would be in for a really exciting hour or two. Then I actually started looking around.

I soon found the reason, as I read weblogs in reverse chronological order, so I understand better where the blogger is coming from. “My philosophy with this site is that as far as possible it should be ‘pure’ hypertext, and that there should be no intrusion of the machinery of web navigation into the surface level.” That was one wonder out of my mind. Another huge plus, for me, is that there is not repetative posts talking about how his day at school went. Each post has a point, and instead of 500 posts telling a story, he tells many short stories to explain his views on life. Every blog is more of an insight into his life that a review of his past 24 to 48 hours. This blog lets you into his life between how his father battles cancer, to his rather funny views on batteries. It is intrigueing as it is a roller coaster ride, one post can be on the humorous side, followed by sadening news about his father, and once again followed by a blog about a historical event. Sadly the blog is only in its infancy. A short eight months with with anywhere from five to ten posts a month.

As stated in his philosophy of what he wants from his site, eloquence was not his main goal. I think this idea matches his style, hes dirrect and does not feed you dirt. Afterall a weblog isnt about looking at backgrounds. In my mind, he does not have to compensate a lack of decent blogs with a great looking website. Every blog is great, and once you start reading his blogs, design is an afterthought. Although it is easy to read, it is not the easiest to navigate, it took me a good minute or two to find the link to the archives.

A Feature I found VERY attractive is his comment system. Anyone can post their ideas about his blogs. It’s a little touch of interactiveness that I find a wonderful addition. Also quite amusing is that he lists his blog on a virtual Stock exchange called Blog Shares, found at http://www.blogshares.com/blogs.php?blog=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theculture.org%2Frich%2Fsharpblue%2F

I give this site a 3.5. It has wonderful blogs, even better storyline to read. Great for someone with a few hours to browse a website. Gramatical errors are relativly prevalent, but nothing that cannot be made out. A better navigation and more enticing colors may be a good addition but as we know, it is all about the content, and this site has it.Sharp Blue

Is there a general reaction when you see that someone is on a blogspot blog? For me, personally, yes. It’s not necessarily that I assume that the writing is bad, or that I’ll find myself utterly bored with the content of the site, it’s just a matter of knowing that anyone and anything can sign up for a blog on blogspot, and you have to wonder the kind of people who do. However, it seems that the blogs that sign up for a review are different than the average blogger. When you first come to Edna’s blog you see a sketch of the author, or the assumption is that it is the author. It’s always nice to know who you’re reading about, whether it be from an about me page, or from a picture.

Whether it is from my own secret obsession with England and its neighboring countries, or the fact that this author is humorous in her strangely foreign way, I found myself taken by the first entry I read (June 2). You get the feeling that you’ve somehow been transported into a book… particularly Bridget Jones’s Diary, which I loved and adored. The even more amazing thing is that there’s a link to another blog that contains works of fiction by the author. For the average American reader, you might find some of the phrases a little difficult to understand, and you might even find yourself reading parts two and three times just to understand, but the good thing is that even if you do end up doing that it doesn’t take away from the entry. You’re still very absorbed into the daily life of Edna.

Edna has this amazing way of making moments in life, which are easily overlooked, appears to be beautiful and tragic. It’s like reading a novel, truly, and finding yourself completely absorbed within the pages. You feel the tragedy of life when she speaks of her friend with cancer (May 29) or when IE dies on you (November 19) which we have all experienced. And you relish in her joy when she talks about the simple meanings behind small words. This blog seems to be her part of the net, and I’m very glad I got a chance to share in that.

The design is simple, but it works. There is a nice list of books that seem interesting enough for me to want to pick up and run to the bookstore and find some way to buy yet more books that I truly don’t need. Especially for an adult who reads the Lemony Snicket series. As with most other blogspot blogs the archives have a fickleness to them, sometimes they show, sometimes they don’t. You can learn more about the author through links to other blogs. But I have a feeling you get your best feel for Edna in her entries and her writings.

Overall, this site is a truly wonderful read. You will find yourself getting lost in her life as though it were some kind of story created only for you. I’d recommend this blog for a general audience, and allow you to experience things through her.

Editors Note:
Name of the site was just the url of the site before and was changed to what appears to be the title of the weblog itself.Lighters, Lipstick and Tampax

Yes I’m a gamer. So when I saw a site sub-titled: “3d accelerators, PC hardware, movies, music, books, games of all sorts, and things to do in san francisco..” I figured it would interest me, and for the most part it did.

Will’s site is entitled ‘What’s your game?’ The layout is uncluttered and simple, the blog is powered by Movable Type 2.63. Will is a writer for a Gaming magazine so that gives him clout with me. He offers a lot more than this sucks or this is soooo l33t!

Will offers some pretty insightful (and gamers-wanna-know insightful) reviews and comments on games. Here is one example on Rise of Nations:

‘The more I play this game, the more impressed with it I become. At the end of every real-time battle, in with all the other stats about technology and land controlled, is a section that tells you how you use the game. It tells how many formations you made and how many times you use them, how many hotkeys you press, how many clicks you make in the game field and in the UI. It’s extroidinarily cool, and I wish more games would give you those kinds of stats. A fighting game that saves profiles that tell you how many attacks to the head you take versus the number you dodge and other in-depth stats would be badass.’

Then later on the game game:

Rise of Nations is still a blast. I’m playing through my third Conquer the World campaign now, this time as the French. I figure if I can beat the game as the French on the Hard setting, I’m ready for online play. The turn-based Conquer the World section is good enough that it could be it’s own game. Hopefully, the Medieval: Total War people will tweak their turn-based game to be more Rise-like.

Will also has a few amusing personal entries, such this one about his party-hard-y neighbours:
4:00 PM Sunday: Dear Lord, will it never stop? What kind of maniacs leave the radio on for 30 hours? Are they doing some sort of unholy psychedelic drug in there and are just starting to come down? Did they die with the radio on? What’s wrong with them?. Heh. Who hasn’t been there?

Will talks about many, many games, some of the games mentioned : Planetside, Doom 3, Half-Life 2, Everquest, Tribes, Rise of Nations, Super Mario Sunshine, GTA: Vice City, Return to Castle Wolfenstein: Tides of War, Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee, Desert Combat .35, WaveRace: Blue Storm etc. etc!

A solid site for gamers. It is always great to read someone elses take on a game before you cough up your coin for games. (Especially in light of how expensive they are becoming!) I think ‘What’s your game’ will help sort the must-haves and the ‘forget-about-its’.What’s your game?