Month: March 2005

Vern Beachy’s Raves is exactly that. Vern raving, or linking to various news/sports/entertainment pictures &/or articles with a few lines from himself every so often. Before getting to the site reading the blog name gave me the impression of finding one person’s raves on whatever may have caught their attention, which is basically what you get set out on a simple blogger template.

Going back through his archives though I had a few troubles. The first archive of July 2004 warps the template and has two columns of posts with no relevant links in the side panel that were on the initial blog page. I don’t know if that’s because blogger doesn’t play nice with firefox or not, but it happened a few times with various archive entry’s. I also think that it might be wise to shrink some of the pictures in the sidebar to a more manageable size as they are outside the actual borders of the sidebar and I just find that a bit messy.

Some of the entry’s in this blog caused me to chuckle, some of them I just bypassed as they didn’t interest me at all. There is such a broad spectrum of articles here that one can skim and choose.

The author doesn’t really share anything of himself, his about page is brief and tells that he’s a “former radio and TV journalist and married…”. I’m not quite sure why this is listed in the personal section. I think it belongs in the news/links section.

Overall I gave this blog a 3.5 because of the problems I encountered whilst trying to get into his archives, the template outages and my own partial interest in the content.

But if you like news clips and sometimes funny finds online, then check this blog out.
Vern Beachy’s Raves

Barbed wire love. I thought, yes, here we go, something that is going to throw curve balls at me in regards to love in this day and age, barbed wire included. What you do actually get is a plain white blog, with a picture of house roofs at the top and a little blurb in regards to the blog, here’s the first few lines: “Had a book sitting around… needed a kick up the backside to finish it…”

I believe the author is trying to write a book. The blog is so brand spanking new that it’s only got 2 entry’s on it. Which made it easy to read, but a bit lacking in content in regards to the story.

I found the story, as little as there was of it, a bit engaging, a bit humorous and a bit dragging on. I’m sure this is still at draft stage, considering that it’s not even a chapter yet. I just hope that the author is going to engage a bit more. There just doesn’t seem to be any direction to the story as yet.

But then again, in the first chapter of quite a lot of books you don’t get much direction. I hope that the author finds the direction that is going to capture readers, because at the moment there isn’t enough there to capture the imagination.

The score of 2.5 was for the fact that there just wasn’t enough development there to give incentive to a reader to come back. It’s way to early to tell the story as yet.
barbedwirelove

!! omg blog!! Yes that is a great title for this blog. I was expecting shock and funny when I read the title and that is what I got. Nothing wrong with getting what you expect.

So the site opens up to a black background, white text, blue links, and pink separators. It looks like a template that has been modified, but I am not sure. Either way (template or not) it works for this site. Simple, easy, and clean are the words to describe this design.

The blog is funny. The author has definitely honed in on how to present material. He is funny and sarcastic, but not over the top. I recommend reading this blog from the first post to the most recent as the writing and wit get better as he blogs.

No topic is safe from his writing. He blogs about Howard Dean, the election, parties, even the death of the famous groundhog named Phil. My only downside to this blog is the lack of updates. Some months have quiet a few, but most have about 1 every other day. Maybe it was the fact that I was laughing and enjoying myself that it seemed like not enough.

Over all, this site is a great site. I would add it to your weekly updates, preferably your Monday read list to help make the day go that much better. !! omg blog !! is just that – omg blog!
!! omg blog !!

Cali’s blog has a very mystical feel to it. It gave me the impression that I was coming into a personal world, a blog about a person, instead of anything else. Inside the Mind of Cali reflects this and her little blurb in the side panel “Everyone has a ‘catch all’ space where keys, wallets, purses, change, pens and mail are dumped and forgotten about until needed again. This blog is my mental catch all space, a place for me to write down thoughts, impressions, dreams, goals, memories and anything else that comes across my mind until I can connect all the dots and figure out where it goes or what to do with it. Some of it is in bits and pieces and strewn here and there so watch where you step.” tells you what to expect.

The blog is reflective, intrapersonal and very insightful towards the author. There are the usual things you find in personal blog, references to her work life, quizzes, some poems & pictures.

The design of the weblog I find suits the writing style of the author and content of the blog. Because most of the content is personal, involves deep thought processes & experences of the author I find that the dark colour and the image compliment the blog.

I believe that Cali’s blog is something that she writes for herself. Her entry’s show glimses into her mental process. I think that Cali’s blog is hard going at times, but that is only because I do not know her, yet some entry’s I found to be very inspiring & thought provoking. A world of self discovery I believe is a better line for this blog.

Cali’s blog is well presented, well written and worth a read for someone who is looking for a blog that is honest, upfront and meaningful.Inside the Mind of Cali

Cali starts her blog with this, “Everyone has a ‘catch all’ space where keys, wallets, purses, change, pens and mail are dumped and forgotten about until needed again. This blog is my mental catch all space.”

It also catches just about every color and type style and type size under the sun. The blog is done on a black background and the majority of type is light blue. And Aqua. And blue-green. It’s as if one of those html color charts exploded, leaving every blue code on this blog. There is also a butterfly gif that flies all around the blog as you are reading it. If you don’t like cute little flying gifs, then beware.

Cali says she’s 25 and writes in her blog regularly. She pretty much pours her heart and soul into all of her posts. Some posts are poetry, some are snippets of fiction. A lot of her posts are written in the third person, so you are never quite sure if she’s talking about herself or not. And she posts very anime/sci-fi/gothic pictures on her blog regularly (similar to the one at the top of her blog’s main page). I admit, they are not my cup of tea, but they seem to go well with Cali and her blog.

She puts this disclaimer after EVERY POST, “All content is copyrighted by California Stryker © 2004” Goodness gracious, this seems way beyond overkill, doesn’t it? I think a simple disclaimer in the sidebar mentioning the Creative Commons License would suffice. However if she insists on continuing to use this disclaimer (in very LARGE type) after every post, she should please change the year to 2005 at some point.

I would say that this blog is a very personal one to Cali, but it’s so fragmented and doesn’t know what it wants to be. Is it personal or fiction? Philosophical or autobiographical? I’d rate it a bit higher if it weren’t for the identity crisis the blog appears to be having.
Inside the Mind of Cali