Month: December 2004

Entering Autumnleaph’s page, I instantly got the impression that this girl has a darker, deeper side. The all black background with purple headers and dividers coupled with the very introverted b/w photo (I’m assuming that this is the author)gave the entire site an eerie feel. Prominently displayed at the top is the headline “I’m only whipped in the bedroom.”

The bio information, although brief, is conveniently located on the left hand side of the page above assorted links and such. She’s a twenty three year old living in Pennsylvania. I began reading the first page and, remarkably, this blog has ended. She has given a link to her new page which I decided I’d visit later after reading her old one.

On the left, there’s a drop down menu of the archive, which dates back to August of 2003. The menu, however, had choices dating back to 1999, though there were no posts at that time, so it took me a minute to locate the beginning.

The writing itself is an interesting mix of introverted thoughts that speak of depression and anxiety to musings on general social experiences: Her boyfriend, sex, friends, etc. As I began reading, I was at first put off by the tone, but I found myself reading this blog for over an hour. And there was plenty to read with postings occurring several times a week, if not everyday. One thing I really liked about the posts is that they’re peppered with well-written poems and I enjoyed this creative outlet of hers.

The writing is very attention holding, and the only thing that stopped me from reading more was the white type, which was placed on top of black or alternating colored backgrounds. This really hurt my eyes after a while and I had to stop.

All in all, Autumnleaph’s blog was a thoroughly interesting read, even though the subjects were dark and introverted. Sadly, she put an end to it. With the last post, she gives a link to her new site and announces that she’s getting married. I visited the new blog briefly and, to my surprise, found a much lighter, easier to read layout. Perhaps with this engagement things are turning around for Autumnleaph. I’ll be checking up regularly to see how she fairs. Autumleaph’s ramblings

“Youngest of One.” (The blog that hardly ever gets comments, no matter how desperatly it tries). Those are the headlines at the top of the page. As for the main blog title, I really can’t figure out how the title “Youngest of One” is connected to the entries.

When I first entered the weblog, my first impression was that it looked like another one of those ordinary templates you see on blogspot, but with a bit more color to spruce it up. That’s when I looked up in the address bar, and saw that it was hosted on “typepad. Judging by the archives, (not the largest amount), I assumed the blog hasn’t been around all that long. That was until I clicked on one of the authors links on the left hand side, and discovered that the author did in fact have a weblog on “Blogspot” at one point. It was merely just switched to “typepad”.

Finally I dug into reading the entries(which most of , were extremly long)and came to realize that the blog was basically about the authors everyday life at school. I read every post (except for maybe 2 or 3), which seemed to be about the authors school classes, school dance/fun night ect. The reason I said Almost every one, is because the author strayed away from the subject of classes for a few of the entries.While the author is talking about his classes, classmates/friends are included in the subject,who I might add have some of the strangest nick names I have ever heard. Names like , cheeseburger, Penguin, Lips, Pies, and those are just to name a few.

In the posts where the author doesn’t talk about classes, he talks about seeing a movie with his dad and playing video games with his friends. But as I said, basically the entire blog focuses on his school classes. I wanted to know a little bit more about the author to see if I could get a good idea of the purpose of the weblog. What I mean is, to find out why someone would write so much about their everyday school life. With that thought in mind, I clicked on the link to his “About Me” page.
What I learned from there was , the author was a 14 year old from “Queens”. He spends a lot of time in front of the television and has an interest in movies.

I wasn’t really sure what rating I was going to give the blog at first. I kept an open mind and started thinking. Here is the opinion I have come up with. The author is 14 years old. Basically there is not much for a 14 year old to write about except for school and school activities. To me, this explained why he has written so much about his classes. He has said in his entries, that he hardly ever goes out.

But judging by the authors entries, he seems to enjoy writing. Like I said, a lot of the posts were extremly long. I am sure that in the future he will have several different interests that he will post about. That is if he decides to keep the blog around. Once again, you have to keep in mind that the author is only 14 years old.

I did check out the links on the left hand side, I also saw that the author has an on-line store, where there are many different items for sale such as housewares, mugs, t shirts ect. I found that link to be an added bonus.

To conclude the review, however, I do have a couple of complaints about the blog. The first one being, on the “About me”, page, there wasn’t very much info to tell me who the author really was., except for his age and where he was from. Also, the title “The youngest of one”, really doesn’t match the entries. As he said in the headlines, (The blog that hardly ever gets comments no matter how desperately it tries.) Maybe the author is just trying too hard . To make it more simple, maybe the author is concetrating more on getting visitors, than he is on writing about different topics. It was not a blog that I really enjoyed reading. It fits more into a “teen ” category. As it stands right now, it is not a blog that I would visit on a daily basis. But it is something a teenager might enjoy.Youngest Of One

I was excited to review this weblog – I have never reviewed an interactive novel before and it seemed like an innovative and ideal use of the basic weblogging format. At least I wouldn’t have to read about someone’s pet cat for one review, at any rate.

Unfortunately though, Génécrypt is a great idea waiting to happen. My optimism was slowly crumbled away by a series of disappointments. The first was how the site appeared. Now I figured that with a novel, the reader is coming to read the novel, not look at pictures of pet cats or find out what the author’s favourite weblogs are, so a certain lack of traditional template features would be acceptable under the circumstances. However, this is the first Movable Type weblog I have encountered which uses the Standard Template with no adaptations at all (and the standard template is VERY dull). I find it hard to comprehend why someone would go to all the trouble of installing MT (a feat which is beyond the ken of a lot of people, me included) only to make little or no creative use of the features available. The most infuriating of these oversights was that the comments didn’t actually work (or at least they didn’t for me- I kept getting “An error occurred: Invalid entry ID ‘XX’” when I opened the pop- up window.) Kind of defeats the purpose of an interactive novel if you cannot actually interact with it. Evidently the comments did work at one point because I found a total of five throughout the entries, though what these comments were and how they affected the plot of the story will have to be left to the imagination, as they have been lost somewhere in MT cyberspace hell.

Ok so the template could do with some work. How about the story itself? Well it is pretty good I guess, or at least what’s there. Unfortunately at present this isn’t much. The archives go back to the end of January and although there is an entry for most days in February, there is only one in March. Technically we don’t have to review a site with less than three months worth of archives, so it only just qualifies. And what happened in March and April? Author get fed up and decided he couldn’t be bothered anymore? Again, makes me wonder if a review is needed really, but hey- ho. On a technical note, don’t make the mistake I made and assume the order of entries are the same as most other blogs (i.e. newest first). They are the other way round- just a heads- up for those who are as unobservant as me and wonder why the story seems to make no sense!

Anyway, once I started reading the story from the beginning, I found I quite enjoyed it, especially the ideas behind it. It only took me about half an hour to get through but I was keen to read what was there. It is a sci-fi story set in the future with some really inventive (and occasionally funny) ideas. There are occasional typos, grammatical errors and no real paragraph structure, but I liked the plot. Once again, the only downfall though is that the story finishes before it has really begun- scene setting and a little introductory action scene finish in March and the reader is left none the wiser as to what happens or where it is going. I for one, wouldn’t mind finding out.

I have given this blog 2.5 out of 5 purely because it is a great idea for a weblog and I enjoyed the storyline itself. Given some work (i.e. continued work on the story and fixing the comments for a start), there is some great potential here. Unfortunately at the moment it is sadly unfulfilled.

• Génécrypt • The interactive novel…

The first impression of ‘Fast Eddie’s Bullet’ promises a run ride, from the cartoon Superman to the site’s tagline, which claims that the blog ‘tastes just like it smells’. I’m not exactly sure what that means, but I appreciate the author’s sense of humor. So I dug in deeper to see what I could find.

Len, the site’s author, has provided a rather unique and quirky About Me page — rather than the usual introductory text or ‘100 Things’, Len offers personal information in the form of list of answers to various questions. Among other things, he reveals that he’s married, has kids, is afraid of flying, is currently adjusting himself, and can see through clothes. Again, I’m not quite certain what to make of all this, but it did make me smile.

Next, I dug into the archives, which go back nearly a year to July 2003. Many of the early posts are the type of fun I expected, with jokes, cartoons, and stories from Len’s personal life. But there are also entries with things like political commentary, poetry, and talk about current events. It’s an interesting mix of topics, and Len mixes up the styles well — a short post with an external link here, a long story there, and perhaps next an excerpted news story with personal thoughts appended.

I found that the variety in subject matter and writing style generally kept me interested in what Len had to say. There are a few ‘filler’ sort of posts (memes, reprinted jokes and quotes, etc.), but most of ‘Fast Eddie’s Bullet’ is an interesting read with a sense of humor and a unique perspective, at least in my blog-reading experience. (Len is located in Bruxelles, Belgium; I honestly don’t think I’ve run across a Belgian weblog before.)

All in all, I enjoyed my time at this site. It has most of the standard features you’d expect from a MovableType-powered weblog — comments, trackback, archives, and more. Len has also set up extras like a guestbook, photopages, a reading list, and several blogrolls. Even better, he’s made a serious commitment to keeping the content fresh by posting at least once, and often more, every day. ‘Fast Eddie’s Bullet’ has little to do with Eddie, as far as I can tell, or Superman, and I still can’t tell you exactly how it smells, but I think you’ll find something here you like. I give this site 4 out of 5.fasteddiesbullet….

The layout of FastEddiesBullet is certainly original, and the giant superman image not only grabs your attention, but also loads surprisingly fast. I was put off initially by a picture in one of the blog posts not loading, but I reminded myself that ot was hardly a major flaw and continued reading the smooth white on blue text. Named after the author’s poetry experiment, this site has been going strong since last July.

The style of the blog is a mixture of journal and links, politics, personal narrative, and creative snippets. If the links posted seem generic (latest news story or meme,) the patter makes them worthwhile. The author has perfected the art of being funny without trying too hard or taking himself too seriously. You’ve got to love a guy who tries to increase hits to his site with a tongue-in-cheek entry declaring “LADIES WITH NO CLOTHES ON will be on this weblog next week. WATCH THIS SPACE FOR PICTURES OF BOTTOMS AND THINGS…” Oddly enough, he wasn’t exactly lying.

In the section labelled Bloggers’ Bottoms, you can find pictures of (clothed) rear-ends belonging to Zeno’s friends in the blogging community. In my mind, this is true genius. In addition to the blog and the butts, Zeno’s site features a photo gallery of things he has “seen with his very own eyes.” There is also a creative section of the site, but it appears to be incomplete (only one story is there.) I recommend looking at the picture gallery, and, if you’re brave, reading the story (which is of a pretty controversial nature, in fact, Zeno was brave to post it.)

The design of FastEddiesBullet does leave much to be desired. The layout is tri-columned, with the blog being in the farthest left column. I suppose the author thought a site set up this way would be unique, and it is, but the lack of boundaries makes it somewhat confusing. Furthermore, the quality of the fast-loading jpeg explains it’s fast-loading nature, and this is a bit frustrating to look at. I’d recommend a smaller, higher-quality image of the man of steel. I adore the color scheme though, as I do the motif. The tagline “tastes like it smells,” is wonderfully quirky.

FastEddiesBullet is truly a strange weblog. The design is irksome, but the blog itself is often a gemstone mind. It’s appeal rests on the author being just a regular European guy, and being able to laugh at himself in front of all his visitors. The site appears to be quite popular, but lacks the feel of other popular sites. Lovely.
fasteddiesbullet….