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When I read the title “Jim Abroad” I knew exactly what this blog was going to be. It was going to be about Jim and his travels outside of the US. Why he was traveling, and where he was traveling to, I had no clue, but I knew this was one of those blogs about his traveling.

When I got to the page, I knew I was right in my assumption of what the blog was going to be about. The design of the site has a “poloroid” picture of a building in Spain and the logo Jim Abroad has a plane in it. Outside of the header the site is using a two column layout with the left column being used for navigation. I was pleasently surprised that he has kept his side bar to a minimum to allow his posts to shine.

The posts are lengthy recaps of what/where he is. Jim is traveling all over most of Europe though he is staying mostly in Spain. Some stories will make you laugh, others will leave you wanting more and some I could have done with out. As I was reading the blog I was wanting to know why he was traveling. There was a bit on the navigation about his first trip ever, but nothing about why he was traveling. Then I found the about Jim and all was made well.

This blog took a little bit to get into, but once I did I couldn’t stop reading it. To clarify I have been to this blog about 5 times in the past week and it wasn’t until about the 3rd time that the site really clicked with me. I suggest randomly reading the posts as it doesn’t really matter which order you catch up on them in. This is a good travel site and I look forward to see where Jim goes next.
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Inquire Within is a personal blog by Derek Johnson who I am gathering, from fragments within the site, is some kind of lawyer. Maybe he is just some kind of legal fetishist, but I’ll take a wager he is an American lawyer living in London, enjoying its cosmopolitan lifestyle and blogging for the folks back home, only Derek writes well and his readership probably extends further than the family and friends missing their free-legal-advice buddy.

The site is real tidy, kind of what I would expect a lawyers house to look like, clean, swish, very high brow. The column structure is laid out nicely with various links one comes to expect, other blogs, favorite posts, a profile etc. The muted color scheme also works nicely and is really visually pleasing. The top header however, which is a nicely composed photo of a two people walking down a long avenue, is fairly low res which gives some pixel artifacts and blurriness which lets the rest of the design down.

Derek is a regular guy, although he comes across as very educated, well read and written every now and then his posts come back to the simple day to day observations typical of personal blogging, which is welcome relief between the heavier law posts and creates and interesting dichotomy. They are all written well and even the legal speak is dumbed down enough for a left wing cyber hippy like me to read and understand.

Inquire Within is a nicely penned, and easy to look at personal blog that is moderately superior to the internet’s propensity for worthless navel gazing and Derek’s openly legal discussions are relevant and topical. Being familiar with law, you wont see any out and out defamation or read any intimately voyeuristic posts about the author, but you will be sure to read a blog of rare quality. Kudos for using his real name too, this is the sign of a truly earnest blogger. If legal jargon gets you all hot and sweaty under the collar, prepare to bookmark. NULL

Traveler ? Check. Blog? Check. Flickr? Check. Rambling posts about the joys and the trials of traveling around the world? Check. Blogging while traveling has is the contemporary equivalent of the old dog-eared travel diary but without the same romantic appeal. Much like a regular personal blog, but with the added bonus of something to actually talk about.

Jim admits in his profile that he is looking to chronicle his journey in Spain and attempt to rise above the travel cliches by reviewing culture, day to day travel, conversation and interactions and anecdotes. Unfortunately these are all part of the cliche! Thankfully though, Jim is a very thorough author and succeeds all this in very lengthy posts that are not very regular. What he lacks in regularity is made up for in verbosity however.

He has ventured further than Spain though, and this travel addicted blogger exceeds even his own scope, easy to do in Europe with so many shared borders. The posts are good and probably very informative for family and friends back home, however in this case, less is more. In the latest post at the time of reading for example, I enjoy reading about Liverpool’s quirks, the music and even the endless drinking sessions along the way. I start to lose interest when he starts talking about what was on television while he had breakfast.

Generally though, the writing is good and the site design is a wonderfully simple wordpress template that is not overcrowded or self indulgent like a lot of blogs are, its not terribly original but its easy to view and navigate and the fonts are great. Jims photos aren’t professional, but thats the beauty of digital photography these days, and his shots give us a great unbiased look into the cultures he has visited, venues he has frequented, and drunken escapades he has facilitated.

A decent travel blog that unsuccessfully tries to avoid the cliches, and in doing so has created a blog marginally better than most of your average travelogues. Not too bad. NULL

What’s in a name? When I read the name “Mystickal Incense” my immediate thought was “Here we go…”. I guess I’m not a fan of spelling magic, or mystic with a k. But I’ll forgive Stephanie this since “mysticalincense.com” was taken. But the fact remains, incense itself isn’t really mystical is it. I mean, sure it is sometimes used in rites and ceremony, but only because the sacrifice is a bit on the nose eh? We all know incense is best served as a means of cloaking the smell of the last visitor to the bathroom or that stuff you were smoking in the college dorm before your folks dropped by. Doesn’t matter though does it? They still think your hair’s too long and wish you’d get a real job.

But lo and behold I was pleasantly surprised by a really cute little website, wonderfully designed and with a color scheme that doesn’t scream “Fauvism” and causes my eyes to water. Stephanie Davies’ blog is an extension of her business making and selling candles and incense, so she used her real name which is a good thing. Like most blogs she tells us about books, movies, other blogs and reviews them for our discernment. This is broken up by occasional posts about what’s going on in her life, or a new product or promotion from the store. Every now and then she discusses Tarot readings and tries to keep up the community spirit and interest in her site by bribing her readers with competitions and other interactive things.

Stephanie is a self confessed net citizen with a few other interesting little quirks I’ll leave you to discover from her website. She is only a couple of weeks older than me but she has an 8 year old kid already. Its funny when you meet someone exactly your age and can’t help but compare paths, and Stephanies is certainly an interesting one. She is a crafty girl with a flair for design and a good mind for business, so its good to see all these things come together in her blog. Well done, keep it.. er.. mystickal.

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All your blogs are belong to us!

If I was a stalker, and enjoyed stalking psudeo intellectual middle aged web developers, “All your blogs are belong to us!” would be in my bookmarks. Our Author AJ, admits freely in the tagline “It’s just stuff”. And he is right.. its a whole lotta stuff, mostly trivial little things that somehow turn into pages and page of text. Its not bad text, no. In fact its written very well. Some of it is really straight from the heart and fairly interesting, and some just isn’t. Less is more sometimes.

If AJ hadn’t admitted to being a web designer I might have been a bit more forgiving, but there is no excuse for leaving the blogger template pretty well as-is since 2002. Surely a web designer would rip that blogger headline bar out of the CSS template before uttering a word.. but I don’t think AJ’s main reason for blogging is the design at all. Like most personal blogs I think the reason for writing varies. Sometimes its to vent, sometimes to laugh, and sometimes its just to order ones own thoughts by writing them down.

AJ doesn’t hold back and doesn’t make any apologies for his wordy, sometimes fragmented raves. Some of his favorites are interesting and there some genuinely well written posts in there, but unless you get caught up in AJ’s world and his friends, the posts probably won’t entertain you for long. Not a bad effort overall and with a few loving touches to the CSS it could even be a little better. NULL