Month: November 2004

Musings of One Sweet Chuck. Interesting title. The sub-line of this blog is “’tis just stuff I think of…”. It’s immediately clear how fitting this small statement is.

Sweet Chuck is a fellow with a very over active mind. And emotions, for that matter. He writes at length about the things going through his head. I found myself saying “me too” to many of his thoughts, and scratching my head at other times.

On occasion I would actually have to get up and walk away from my computer after having read too many posts in a row. Was it because they were horrible? Not at all. In fact, the posts are generally so well written and thought provoking – not to mention deep – that I was emotionally exhausted.

Sweet Chuck has many things in life he ponders about. He speaks quite frequently about his relationships – or lack thereof – with people. He wonders why he can’t find a certain kind of connection with others, to which I can relate. (As I’m sure can most of the population.) The writing style in this blog is extremely intimate (no, not in that sense), as if you had looked at him and sincerely asked “What’s wrong?”, and the blog entries would be your answer. Not only was I blown away at the touching posts, but they are – at times – extremely philosophical, which I liked, but the writing is top-notch. The quotes sprinkled throughout the posts are a wonderful added touch.

I was disappointed to find no ‘about me’ type of page, though the personal style of the posts, and the first few posts from the beginning of this blog, certainly cover anything you want to know about the author. At no point does Sweet Chuck seem to hold back anything we may find interesting. He seems to just ‘let it all hang out’, for which I was very thankful.

The design of this blog is on the minimalist side of things. The colour scheme is a simple white on black, which really suits the content, here. There’s nothing that really catches your eye, though nothing at all is missing.

I was very impressed with the pictures in the ‘photos’ section. Yet again I have had the fortune to be treated to a visual feast while doing a review. I feel spoiled – the pictures here were especially fantastic. I was happy to find that Sweet Chuck has a list of music, books and movies listed. It was even more of a glimpse into this interesting fellow.

Overall I thought this blog was fantastic. It’s unique due to the intense content. It certainly held me captive for quite some time. In fact, since I wasn’t able to get through everything, I’ll be stopping in frequently to read it all. I have no complaints about this blog whatsoever. It’s interesting, thought provoking, well written, and well designed. For anyone who thinks they feel alone in this world, you’ll love this blog. For everyone else, I think you’ll love it, too. I can’t image what would need to be improved, here. It’s simply wonderful. I hope Sweet Chuck figures things out, and when he does, he’d better post about it, because I know we’ll all be hanging on the edge of our seats poised to read it.
Musings of one Sweet Chuck

I clicked over to review The Blog Formerly Known as Queen Medb’s Castle, thinking that something seemed familiar about the name Medb. Not being able to figure out why the name was familiar, I set off to begin my review. The first thing that caught my eye was some red writing in the header image that basically states that this is her blog, and she’ll do what she wants with it. I liked this! I wondered what lay ahead.

A good majority of the posts here contain pictures. Some pictures posted are for Theme Thursday, where the ‘assignment’ is to find a picture containing a colour, or some other theme. I found many of the pictures quite moving and creative. Other pictures were of the random, spur-of the moment variety, and I enjoyed these quite a bit. This was my favourite image, and the post that goes along with it was very sweet.

The written content of this blog is generally light and breezy. Medb has a very free personality, as far as I can tell from her posts, and I enjoyed feeling like I was included in her day and interests. There’s nothing overly interesting about this blog. No story line I was caught up in, no major view point I found interesting, yet I found myself reading through the posts well past the point of having read enough to give a review. I attribute that to, as mentioned before, Medb’s seemingly free personality. Somehow you just want to know what’s going on in her life, and see what pictures she’ll post next. She’s quite a photographer. Unfortunately, I never came across any gripping written content I was hoping to find.

The overall design of this blog isn’t anything that would get me excited. The colours are fine, the layout is fine. Everything is fine. I think the fact that the font is quite large made the design of this blog seem a little sloppy. Otherwise, I found it quite pleasing to the eye, and certainly quite legible.

I liked that in the about me page there is a picture of the author. (This is also where I realized the name Medb was so familiar – she’s the wife of Stoney, from Rebel Yell, a blog I reviewed yesterday) The ‘100 things about me’ page was nice to read though as well. When I read Medb has over 900 books – I was floored. All said and done, the pictures in this blog are by far what interested me the most. As they say, a picture’s worth a thousand words, and that’s definitely true for the pictures to be found here.

Overall this was a nice blog to visit. An enjoyable read. I have no major complaints about it, but I also don’t think it’s a blog I could read daily. If you love photography, this may be a blog you’ll enjoy checking in on.
The Blog Formerly Known as Queen Medb’s Castle

My first impressions of Patriot Paradox were that here I had a serious news and current affairs blog. After reading the About Me section, I came to realise that this was a news site with a fairly definite slant on it. But before I go on to the slant and the content, I will briefly describe the technicalities of the site.

It looks fine- has a fairly tasteful title bar with a picture of a US flag and a quote by Patrick Henry, though don’t ask me who he is (or what the quote actually means for that matter). It is a fairly standard three column layout with the usual paraphernalia in the sidebars- blog rings, links, favourite blogs and such. No photos though (in the sidebars or the posts) which was a bit of a shame. Archives go back to August 2003 and there are plenty of them. I also like the extensive use of the “Read More” facility, as it made scanning the archives very easy. There is not much more I can say about the layout- it is nothing out of the ordinary, but is functional and easy to read.

So on to the content then. To save any messing about, I may as well make it clear straight away that the blogger is a pro-life, Christian, Republican, patriotic American. I have made this clear from the start because these viewpoints colour nearly all the postings to be found in this blog. I feel it only fair to also point out that as a reviewer, I am not an American, and if I were I would probably be a liberal, so my assessment of the content is probably biased, though I will try to keep my personal opinions to a minimum.

The content is all well written and seemingly well researched. The author almost always argues his case intelligently, whether it be an argument for going to war in Iraq, or the case against contraceptives being used. He often quotes from other sources and clearly has built up a large network of blogs which also have similar viewpoints. I did tend to find the arguments to be very one-sided though and there seemed to be little tolerance for other’s viewpoints. The concept that others (quite validly) may see the world differently from the author seemed to get a bit lost in some of the posts, I felt. There also are a number of posts which seem to get in to the direct criticism of other blogs and bloggers, for holding differing views. Quite how serious these little wranglings are to be taken I am not sure, but they seemed to be more along the lines of petty squabbles rather than rich political discourse.

This blog also loses points because it tends to be a bit blinkered in its remit. For those of us who don’t live in a US-centric world, the arguments and content tend to become superficially interesting but ultimately irrelevant. We have nothing in the UK which compares with the pro-life/ pro-choice debate for example. Also Christianity seems to be much more hardline in the US too, which I had trouble identifying with from my own experiences. Ok, there are a few general posts to be found here (funny news stories, personal entries, film reviews and the like) but I found that these were rather few and far between.

I also took off half a point because I fundamentally disagree with many of the arguments presented in the blog – my prerogative as a reviewer! Particularly, there are some homophobic viewpoints widely discussed in this blog- you have been warned.

Overall then, this is a blog which Christian, US Republicans will probably love. Anyone who wants to get in to a political discourse with people like this will also be able to engage with the content. Those of us who are, quite frankly not interested in US politics, (and I include myself in this category) may as well move on and find something more interesting to read.Patriot Paradox

I Work With Fools dot com – oh, how I can relate to this URL, and I’m quite honest someone else has it. When I blog, I blog so much about the fools that I work with, this should sometimes be the title of my own personal site! I was definitely looking forward to finding out what type of fools this author works with, and especially excited to compare them with the own moronic stories of my own co-workers!

For starters, IWorkWithFools.com is a community based weblog. People from all different types of workforces can submit their own stories here. I found this to be an interesting concept, but it definitely makes sense. It insures more frequent updates and also provides readers with a wide variety of writing styles, as the creator of this website posts the submissions exactly how they’re sent. The site is typically updated once a day, which makes it a dependable source of humor.

I was not extremely impressed with the layout of the site. It’s made up of several different blocks of color on a black background, and loads very quickly. The bold colored blocks do set the different sections off from one another. It’s not a terrible layout by any means at all, but with such entertaining content and such a unique focus on each post, I would have liked to see something a little more original. The original logo that can be found throughout the site is such a great start and could easily be implemented into a new design.

There are a few “extras” I noticed when visiting this site, which just added to the site’s appeal. The author has a section called “ our mission“, which explains the reason behind this site in a very entertaining way. The boss key, which can be found on the right hand side of the weblog portion of the site, allows readers to click on the image, which brings up a blank browser window, hiding the content of the website you were just viewing. A clever addition to this site!

Having been rolling since June 2003, this site is certainly a fun one to visit. It’s unlike other weblogs in the sense that a random reader can stumble upon it and not need any background information to understand what each post is regarding. This site is a great idea, and one that anyone that spends time in the workplace can truly appreciate the humor that can be found here.iWorkWithFools.com

Alright. I admit. I was curious about IWorkWithFools.com. I didn’t know what to expect, other than it was a humor blog.

Well, first things first, the layout of the blog is certainly not as spectacular as it’s name suggests – it’s a very simple Blogspot layout that’s been slightly reworked and that’s something I believe should be improved upon. The idea behind the blog is great, I do believe it should have a layout that reflects the actual content. A very annoying factor was the Boss Key. It’s a floating graphic that gets in the way of the text and I didn’t appreciate it. Having a huge picture that says “Boss Key” each time you flick to various entries also totally defeats the purpose of having such a function when it can be easily read from a few feet away (and face it, if our boss is sneaking up on us, we’re not going to know he/she’s there until the very last second anyway).

The archives are set out nicely by category and are easily to go through, there’s even a handy-dandy search function. The list of their favorites is also pretty good – lots of stuff to waste time at work and build a case to have someone complain about you through IWorkWithFools.com.

Their “About” page really sums up the blog nicely:

“Well there is not much to say except that this site is a collection of stories submitted by people just like yourself dealing with the very same problems.

Sometimes the only way to get through these damn work days besides surfing sites without getting caught is to have a good laugh. “

And that’s about it, only I don’t find people complaining about their jobs particularly funny (it’s a personal thing). It’s interesting to see what people have to say about their bosses or the people they work with (supposed “fools”) but it’s not hilariously comical I’m afraid.

If you like sites along the lines of CustomersSuck.com and NotGoodEnough.org, you’ll like IWorkWithFools.com.

iWorkWithFools.com