Month: December 2004

My initial impressions of My Drivel are as one would expect in terms of a Blogspot site. The design isn’t particularly spectacular, however, I was charmed by the teddy bear at the top of the page. It added a certain feel of innocence to the tranquil colors of the site. I also found the About Me portion of the right-hand column to be particularly witty and clever, and it heightened my expectations for the rest of the blog.

From the first entry I read, it became apparent that this blog is by no means ordinary. The author rarely mentions the every day. Indeed, he seems to forgo the normal diary format of blogs in favor of a memoir approach. This approach, with it’s myriad possibilities, should pique the interests of most readers who’ve grown tired of the usual “So today I went to work…” It also works on the level of familiarity. The blog could easily be an actual memoir one would find tucked away at a library.

What’s more, the author is eager to air his laundry, dirty or otherwise. He talks about childhood run-ins with pot, being shot on the same night as Bobby Kennedy, and other anecdotes of his family history. When I eventually got around to reading the biographical page, (I was engrossed in the blog) I learned that this was what the author intended it to be: a collection of memories to pass on to the next generation. This in and of itself makes the author likable, and his tales more entertaining.

We feel genuine empathy for him. It isn’t that his stories are extraordinary, in fact, it is the direct opposite. His stories have wide-ranging appeal, and he seems to have the Rumplestiltskin-like ability to spin gold out of everyday life. Come for the teddy bear, stay for the wealth beneath it.

In addition to the blog, which spans all of 2003 into 2004, we’re given an extra rare to the blogging world: actual family photos. This makes perfect sense, given the Mr. Hernandez’s admitted motivation in writing, however, they had volumes to the site’s appeal.

The design leaves some to be desired, as is to be expected of most Blogspot blogs, but this isn’t a flashy design sight. It’s great value is solely in it’s prose. My advice to Mr. Hernandez would be to switch the archives from weekly to monthly, so as to make the right-hand column more user-friendly. I also recommend adding a search feature, if possible, so an inclined reader could find each and every entry about Steve.

Overall, My Drivel is a great read. It sparkles with originality and comfort. The concept of memoirs-via-blog is an ambitious one, but here we see it executed with near flawlessness. With gentle, empathetic charm, it makes an excellent and unique daily read.My Drivel

At last, a different template. The trouble with the blogs is that most of them carry similar templates, thankfully the template of this blog is quite unique, with the sidebar taking about 40 % of the space. Also, Hugo has put the links in a drop-down menu, something that I have not seen in any other blog.

The writer is a Dutch school going kid who, like any other school kid, is influenced by sports, school-violence and other such school/teen-related stuff (penpals, school schedules, etc)

Now, let’s get a little into this blog.. This blog has started just on October 2003 and up to December Hugo maintains the blog as one would maintain a diary.. literally. What
happens in life.. what happens in his life and more what happens in his
life. Take for example..

Am waisting my time at school here. Was supposed to finish something but the messed up mail didn’t include the add-on, so that didn’t happen.



Got my grade back from German, from the test week. Had a 5.7 first, but after a sharp checking by me it was raised till a 6 round.



I’m mighty happy with tests weeks; barely have to do anything, and have most of the day off. What could be better (except for my marks :-P). We need to do this more often is what I figured.

An entry like this once in a while is not uncommon in any given blog, but in here, almost all the entries are more or less like this.

Yes, blogs are nothing but online dairies but there is some degree of difference; and there is expected something other than just the blogger’s life. Perhaps, Hugo seemed to have realized that by the start of Jan 2004, because after that there is a visible improvement on the style of writing. From January there have been many instances of News-related entries, also he adds in some humour in titling the posts. (eg 2nd teacher down, Faceless exchange student, The exchange students gets a face, etc)

Though we are still faced with truckload of personal stuff,
some of which is really boring. (Infact he himself has titled the blog
“Life of Hugo *Booooooring*.)

A little more into site design.. Despite the initial good impression about the template, it turns out that the sidebar vanishes when you are looking at previous archives. As for the colour schemes, they are standard grey text on white background.

There is lots of scope for improvement, in terms of both the site design as well as the writing-attitude. You can call this your average blog next door.

Life of Hugo

Splash pages, I never understand the point of a splash page which contains little more than jaunty slogan and a hit counter. Absolute waste of time. Now I have that out of my system I shall continue with the review. Wyre Forest Liberals is just one of a growing phenomenon of politically run weblogs, a concept I find particularly interesting if channelled in the right direction – i.e. addressing questions relevant to people in their constituency. The design of the site isn’t particularly striking, it’s a plain two column with a brief introduction to each member in the left hand column. That said, I imagine potential audiences for this weblog are going to be more interested in quality of content rather than design.

The weblog has been in existence since September 2003 and during that time it seems to have attracted a fairly substantial audience – at least for a new weblog. As you would expect the content is largely political – addressing items deemed important to local members of their constituency. The problem is I find it very area orientated, which means there was little there that concerned me as a non resident – planning applications and local politics are likely to be of interest to a local population but unlikely to catch anyone’s attention from outside. As an idea however I wish it could be adopted across the board – an open more transparent attitude to information can only be a good thing.

As said the design is not particularly striking – it’s functional to the extreme but with no real errors and working links it doesn’t detract from the content. There were however a couple of teething problems, which although based on personal preference really did taint my surfing experience. Much of the information is provided via pdf file, and while these are OK for the occasional download, to provide biographies and other information via this means is disappointing. I would prefer html alternatives, again this is simply a personal preference. The multicolour fonts did nothing for me either, the occasional quote in a complementing colour is fine – huge paragraphs in varying colours is too distracting.

This new transparent attitude to politics is something I find particularly appealing and Wyre Forest Liberals have taken their first step towards this. With modifications this site really would be of use to members of its constituency, although unlikely to attract readers from outside the area. I imagine however this is their aim, to serve their community, and in which case this site succeeds. The design is functional and not very striking, but as a first step on the blogging ladder its not a bad effort – 4/5
Wyre Forest Liberals

Here we have a site entitled Britney Spears: In The Zone. In all honesty, my first impressions of this site were quite negative. The color scheme is extremely dark, and, furthermore, the site has not been updated since December 17. I also found the blog itself somewhat confusing. It appeared to be written in the voice of Britney Spears, and there was no visible explanation of this.

I initially wondered if perhaps I was reviewing a kind of roleplaying journal, like one sometimes stumbles upon on Livejournal. Eventually, however, I found a very small (and difficult to find) disclaimer of sorts indicating this site to be part of a collection of “immersive fabrications of your favorite celebrities’ innermost thoughts, words, and deeds, carefully woven into satirical weblogs for your viewing pleasure.” With this firmly in mind, I continued reading the weblog.

I couldn’t help but think of how much satirical potential an endeavor such as this blog could have, but I was ultimately very disappointed. There are a total of six entries to this blog, beginning in July of 2003. While there are a few funny bits, this site is miles short of being what it could be. The most recent entry is a half-hearted attempt by the author to poke fun at celebrities who try and make political statements, and features Britney bemoaning the war while receiving over-the-top fan letters from Uday Hussein. Other entries try too hard to contrast Britney with “real artists.” Clearly, on this blog, the author’s attempts to satirize the music industry are as subtle as a sledgehammer, and a lot less humorous than one. Interspersed through all the drivel and cliché observations, we are met with reader comments, most of which consist of “OMG! IS THIS FOR REAL? IS IT REALLY U BRITNEY!” As scintillating as all of this is, any wise weblog reader would move on.

The design appears to be a poor execution of the standard MovableType format. By some fluke in coding, the right navigational column is shoved to the bottom of the page, below the blog, and is very hard to find. As mentioned before, the color scheme is too dark, and despite the light text, is difficult to read. Design issues that elsewhere could be tolerated here detract further from an already lackluster weblog.

Overall; this site was a disappointment, especially considering the potential the concept had. Aside from gullible teenagers who actually believe this is Britney writing, I doubt there is any reason for anyone to visit this site. For readers seeking poignant and original satire, there are too many, far better alternatives.Britney Spears : In the Zone

My initial impression of this site was more of less good. The layout was quite sane for a “Gap Girl Gone Mad”, not that I’m complaining in the slightest. Everything seems to be in its place, although the lack of color proves to be quite a turn-off, in my opinion, suggesting a lack of character or creativity being put into the blog. This was quarried, however, by my immediate attraction to the cute pictures on the side, showing a very cute couple I could only assume was the author and her special someone. Enough analyzing, let’s dig in.

While looking through her blogs (which were very easy to view, I must add), I found that her blogs mainly fell into two categories: Stories of her everyday life and Recipes. I also read (to my relief) that I was correct in thinking that the pictures on the side were of her and her hubby. This site is very general and simply tells of Rebecca’s life as it comes. I would definitely suggest possibly putting some opinion into her writing as well, or maybe talking about what’s going on outside her life, such as in the news or something. I feel like I get to know her life but not her personally. Past that, the writing is very fluid, if not simple at times. Overall, the substance is very fulfilling.

The design is very basic. Nothing particularly jumped out at me as being bad, although the same can be said for good things as well. It’s nice to see that the author spent time constructing the template for this blog, but I think most of the sweet stuff (no pun intended, Rebecca) is her writing.

Amazingly, even though there was only a very brief section under “Bio”, it explained just about everything you needed to know to understand Rebecca’s blogs. At first I was worried I wouldn’t know enough to truly understand her posts but I was pleasantly surprised to find that it would be quite easy to follow along. Other than that, there aren’t many extras to take the attention away from the content, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

I think the audience for this blog would be of an older, female stature. The combination of stories about her son, Cody, and recipes to try at home make this a very feminine weblog that I’m sure a woman would enjoy. Teenagers might find it too different from their everyday lives to be greatly interested, and the same can be said for some males. I think this blog will get better as time continues, seeing as how it’s only been alive for three months.

Musings of a Gap Girl Gone Mad