Month: September 2003

So, Mr Harpoon was sounding good. He used to be a baby model, everyone thinks he’s a “nice guy”, he writes, can put both his legs behind his head and has great personal hygiene. But then he began to show a disturbing obsession with Liverpool FC and admitted that he thought Paul McCartney gave off “mystique.” Why is it that just when a man is beginning to sound interesting he brings up the two most boring subjects in the world: football and Paul McCartney?

Luckily theharpoon.net provides a separate page on football, so if it’s not your thing you can avoid that page and stick with the main weblog. This is quite media related and a typical day’s post will discuss MP3s or films/movies. There is a large variety as the author seems to have quite eclectic tastes so you never really go a page without seeing a comment about a film you’ve seen or an album you enjoy. The personal aspect of the site is delivered mostly through quizzes and surveys, such as the Friday Five. Coming back to the football though, you never quite escape it. Somehow it creeps into every page.

The site’s layout is simple with a red and grey colour scheme. I’m guessing it’s another Liverpool thing. The layout worked okay, if a little dull, but I found the writing hard to read against the dark grey background. It was also frustrating to be greeted with a ‘password needed’ message when I clicked on the pics link. I’d like to think that there are illicit photos in there of the author himself, but seeing as you can email him for a password I imagine it’s just a personal thing.

I get the impression that for other die-hard Liverpool supporters this site would be a dream come true. For the rest of us there’s something to be found in the more personal and entertainment related posts. The only advice I’d give the author is in regard to the layout and football: a lighter background and some therapy are needed.
theharpoon.net

[an exercise in narcissism] at first sight looks like it won’t be easy to read mainly because of the color scheme. Later I found out that not only the colors make it difficult to read, but also the actual writing.

While most times the posts tend to get overcomplicated, some of them are undeniably poetic and some beautiful phrases stick out in the middle of long paragraphs.

The design adds to the complicated and heavy atmosphere of the blog. The dark colors fit the theme of the blog, but a better color scheme could help in making this a more readable blog. In the blogger’s defense, this is a very new site so the design obviously still requires lots of tweaks, or maybe a whole makeover.

As a writer, there is not doubt that the author is very talented. Most posts are well constructed and the choice of words is perfect. But the problem is that there seems to be no purpose behind this site, at least no purpose that’s clear to a regular reader.

The writer has the possibility of turning this into a really good blog, but it needs lots of work and maybe a change in the way it’s focused. As this is a public weblog, the author must think about the people who will actually read it.
The blog feels too much like something that could be a private collection of poetry. The writing is beautiful, but most times it just feels like it’s coming from too far away. [an exercise in narcissism]

After having read this blog on and off over the last few days and having no clue as to where the title’s name derives from, I finally discovered that the name, Azarok is the name of the character A. J. (the writer) created to play the game EverQuest. Hm … sometimes you just need to probe a bit more in a site to find out what you need.

Now that the mystery of the title has been solved, who is this A.J? A.J. who is also known as “Teefies,” “Big Sexy the Giant Killer,” and “Little Dancin’ Buddah,” resides in the city of Dallas, Texas. He’s currently living with his fiancée, Michelle and their five “gatos” as he refers to them and enjoys hanging out with his fiancée and his friends.

On to the blog we go!

A.J. in the last month or so has been keeping his readers notified of website’s updates since he’s been changing his layout. I found his blog so-so overall. He mostly writes about his weekends, little events he’s going to such as birthdays and comedy nights, etc. I liked though that sometimes he posts pictures with his entries because it gives more of a visual sense of his life. I particularly liked some of his more lengthy posts, such as one in January where he discussed gays in the mainstream and another post in December entitled, “Time to stir things up a bit” which I’ll let you go read for yourself. His site read okay, but some of his posts could go through a little editing so the words flow a bit easier.

Other areas of the site are links to other blogs, a bio with info and pictures of friends, a bunch of photo albums, jokes and reviews of comedians and a media section containing games, music and little movies. I found though there was a bit too much “extra” stuff on this site.

The layout’s pretty simple. I like the blue title graphic and how the image on the left hand side changes. The pictures give you a sneak peak at A.J’s life and also what to expect if you check out the photo album.

I didn’t find anything that really set this blog apart from the many I’ve read. If anything, this site gives the reader insight into A.J’s life and what he enjoys doing apart from his time spent online.

I give it a rating of 3.
Azarok.com

I’d glanced at this site several times before it was submitted to The Weblog Review, often finding it linked off of someone else’s site. The content is hard to jump right into and grasp. Some background of where Ruzz is coming from and what he’s about is helpful, and I was able to latch on to that through reading the archives of the site.

In the very first month of journal archives, I knew Ruzz would be covering a huge variety of topics when he quotes Bette Midler and not more than five minutes later remarks about Nine Inch Nails. That is variety at its finest.

The design fits this site quite well. Never does Ruzz proclaim to be cheery or bright, and the dark layout he uses certainly doesn’t portray that. It’s a pretty simple layout and it’s easy to navigate. The colors that were chosen work great together. The daily photos that run down the left side of the weblog are a clever addition and present some nice photography work, as well! Another feature that popped out as one of my favorites is the “inputing” section of the site, where Ruzz gives us brief reviews on the books he’s reading. I’d normally point out the spelling error in “inputing”, but thought it might be intentional, sort of like a combination of the words input and computing… A couple of the older archives are a different format then the rest of the site.

Ruzz has been adding bits and pieces to this weblog for almost three solid years. And by solid, I mean multiple posts every day, rarely having a day go by without some words of wisdom to share with his following. From reading the comments and posts, it seems that those that have been following Ruzz and all he blogs about are people that have been reading up on him for quite sometime.

When the weblog first started taking its shape in the latter months of 2000, Ruzz was a wordy guy. Posts were paragraphs and paragraphs long, but they meant something. They were deep and they had you thinking.

This guy, who always seems to be in the middle of some type of website coding, takes time out to really let readers get involved into what’s going on in his head. It could be something as widely discussed as the latest in world events, a new personal goal for himself, or even how he’s battling with his own emotions and self trials. You find it all and you can’t help but really get into it all either.

Not all of the posts are as deep and philosophical as others, but they don’t need to be. As I said earlier, variety is certainly a key element with this site. Snippets from chat transcripts fill some posts, and usually these are the posts that have you chuckling to yourself or just shaking your head because it’s such a contrast from the multi-paragraph post to entries before discussing Thoreau.

It’s hard to discover that which is Ruzz from just reading a couple of posts here and there. It wasn’t until I’d gone through month after month of entries that I felt like I might be “getting” the guy. The only thing I can think of that would aid in getting brand spanking new readers to “get” this site would be an about section. Having said that, I don’t really think that the purpose of Ruzz’s site is to draw as many new visitors as he possibly can.

It’s definitely a site worth checking out. But if you were to check this site out, I would definitely recommend going back in time through the archives to find out a little bit more about creator behind this weblog.

ruzz.ca

Whenever I review a blog, I’m typically able to guess something about the writer just by looking at the title. Not in this case. The title ‘ruzz.ca’ was obscure enough to make me want to go and delve into this site and find out more about Ruzz, the writer of the blog. When you load up the blog, I found myself facing a plastic bottle over a black background – more obscurity. As I began to read some of Ruzz’s entries, I remained puzzled – the titles of his entries are vague – “blah” , “gah”, “.”. However, after reading for several minutes, it dawned on me that this obscurity is what makes ‘ruzz.ca’ the type of blog that I enjoy – one that encompasses the author’s feelings and thoughts, whether or not anybody else can understand them.

One of the things that confused me about Ruzz’s site is that reader’s comments are listed underneath that day’s entry. For a moment, I thought I was dealing with a schizophrenic blogger. Even after coming to this realization, I often found myself wondering what Ruzz was talking about – he can be highly philosophical at times and downright artless other times. Many of his entries make references to friends, which sometimes makes his blog incomprehensible to outsiders. Not to say that there is anything wrong with this style of writing – my own site is written in this manner – directed towards a smaller circle of friends and acquaintances. It is, however, something to keep in mind when you are reading Ruzz’s site and thinking to yourself, “What’s he talking about??”

Ruzz.ca has a very boxy design and the yellow and black complement each other well. I enjoyed looking at the daily photos, many of them of everyday objects – a picture of a bench, for example. Another feature I liked on Ruzz’s blog was the mouseover that accompanies each link. I found myself running my cursor all over the place to find out what Ruzz had to say about a link. Ruzz also has an interesting box entitled “inputing” in which he discusses material he is reading – sort of like a personal book review.

I recommend you visit ruzz.ca primarily for the interesting perspective he offers and the occasional comment on current events. The pictures are also a part of Ruzz’s site that you will want to check out while you’re there. All in all, Ruzz’s site is apparently ordinary at first, but becomes more innovative as you delve further in to his world.

ruzz.ca