Author: admin

This site is written by an American musician (A harmonica player) and the tag line “Thoughts floating around in my head” immediately tells me what kind of blog this is going to be. Before I could say “here we go again..” I was pleasantly surprised to find that Harmonic Man can write.

As a fellow musician I felt an immediate rapport with this guy and his stories of band life. However it was his recent foray into snowboarding peppered with curses that had me laughing out loud in the post “Im Too Old for This.” Its funny how the lives of strangers, however distant or diverse can be engaging when written well.

The blogger template is slightly customized and the white background is easy to read over, but of course the layout still seems overly familiar. I also downloaded a recent MP3 posted and while I found Harmonica Man to be technically proficient, realized his musical tastes were somewhat different to my own. Still, it was nice to actually hear a sample of the band he writes about and his band is pretty good.

View from a Cloud has regular updates which is refreshing and is worth a visit. The posts are lengthy but not overly wordy and easy to read and the guy is likable, which is certainly a good thing for a personal blog where personality is really the biggest thing a blog has going for it. View from a Cloud looks good from the ground. NULL

This observational blog is actually fairly amusing, so I was disappointed to see that it hadn’t been updated for over a month. Ok sure, maybe the author has a life that is far more exciting than mine and he is out *observing* stuff, rather than sitting at his keyboard, but in the blogosphere familiarity does not breed contempt. There are so many blogs out there that there will always be a little redundancy, but everyone writes differently and has their own take on things.

I enjoy the post dissecting the photo of a “fat man” and his links to other, funny websites such as the “church sign generator”. The posts go serious for a moment with a band shout-out before it gets back (a month later) to some Robbie Williams frivolity.

The template is an oh-so-familiar blogger CSS and the overall presentation is somewhat bland with a bright yellow title that fades away into the bright white background. “The Bench Press” needs a better brand. The content itself if fine, even perhaps good but 4 months worth of posts I think could have been better coming over one week which would certainly made the site a worthwhile bookmark.

I like David’s sense of humor and while the site appears to have no central theme or basis, an observational blog is as a good as reason as any to run a blog if presented and maintained correctly. With a bit of work on the template, and more posts more often, perhaps The Bench Press could be a pretty decent site.

*Note, the title is a play on words based on the authors name and has nothing whatsoever to do with gym equipment. NULL

The first thought I had as the page loaded was “interesting” because of the great header graphic which stood out nicely against the black background. First impressions with blogs are very important.

As I sifted through posts, I was enamored with the writers ability to randomly throw out thoughts of an at least semi-jocular nature which I have been hard pressed to find amongst many other blogs. I’d say she has a decent talent for writing which will only get better with time and experience. Although I could have done without the almost random curse words, I still managed to enjoy reading her posts.

The overall design leaves a little to be desired. Though you can do many things with a black layout, solid borders rather than beveled borders would do this blog a little more justice. Maybe a little cell padding to top it all off.

I would recommend this blog as a semi-regular read when you need a good chuckle. (I mean that in a good way)NULL

Initially I though “oh great, I’m not even going to be able to read this blog” because of the title and since I’m not anywhere near being French, but I was mistaken. All joking aside, I thought it looked very clean and easy to read, which it was.

Although I’m not a big fan of “man bashing” because well..I am one, Gloria is quick witted and has some pretty humorous posts relating to ex-boyfriends she’s had. I especially liked the one about the lawyer. Gloria seems to be very intelligent with a free independent spirit and she shows it in her writing.

The design is very nice “for a girl’s blog”, just kidding! No really, the design of the site is very nice with subtle color blends and is a very easy blog to read. She doesn’t write using run on sentences or boring descriptions which is very nice. This is a blog I could easily sit down with a cup of joe, relax and enjoy (in a manly sort of way of course).

I would definitely recommend this blog to others. Especially other guys who’d like that little bit of woman’s insight in their lives.NULL

Home Fires is a blog maintained by a woman going by the name of Lois Lane, an American residing in Illinois. According to her first post way back in December 2004, she was roped into the blogging world by an evil princess, a bulldog and a few family members. I must take this opportunity to thank all those involved in persuading Lois to blog because this site is home to one of the most talented bloggers I have ever come across on the internet!

Thankfully I learned as a child not to judge a book by it’s cover because the template did absolutely nothing for me! It’s based on one of the preinstalled blogger templates with a strange combination of green, cream and black which doesn’t really work well. The navigation bar images are also ugly however the names of them are well thought out and go well with the title of the blog.

All my reservations about the design are forgotten though once I start reading the posts! When I started reading this blog, I forgot about everything and I was engrossed with it! I had never before been this emotionally attached to a blog. Her posts are rich with emotion and her own dash of humour and like a good book, once you start reading it, you find it hard to stop until your finished!

In her most recent post, she relives the experience of giving birth to “Lane 2”. She describes the post as being an emotional roller-coaster ans that’s exactly what it was! At time’s I nearly cried, other times I laughed but at all times I was hooked to it! After a while I found myself reading down through pages and pages of posts and being shocked and entertained from start to finish!

If you do happen to get bored of this blog there are plenty of links to other quality blogs. Some may argue that there are too many links but I don’t mind a lot of links especially when they lead to other good sites and blogs.

To bring things to a close, this really is a must visit site. Whether you want to have a good laugh or a good cry there is something here to suit your tastes!NULL