Author: admin

Pala and Al are the hosts and authors of the “Ask About Love And Sex Blog.” According to them, they have had a web presence for their business, publishing and advice forays since 1996, and are considered to be some of the web’s earliest adapters to conducting business on the web.

Their business is offering advice, through publications and textual instructions, on how to, shall we say “do it.” Only, not to “do it” like a couple of fumbly teenagers in the back of dad’s Beemer. But to do it respectfully, lovingly, and with a tantric twist.

The content of the site is revealing, to say the least, and often Not Safe For Work (NSFW). But one would expect that with the category at hand. There are a lot of added on widgets that kind of pull it into a web 2.0 format, lots of links like AdBrite, Blog Rush and MyBlogLog community boxes.

Content wise, the bulk of the material is text from their books and workshops. Each entry is footed with a giant assortment of “spread the word” style links, so readers can “digg” or or “del.icio.us” the content around the web.

The one real fault I find with the blog is that the title is “Ask About Love And Sex” but I never saw a Questions from our Readers kind of forum where questions were answered. It seems that the content is all about the answers to questions not voiced through the blog, and perhaps the title should be changed to Answers About Love And Sex. But I get the feeling that the goal is to make money through the website by propagating content, monetizing the site, and stuff like that.

Like I’ve said in dozens of reviews before, everyone wants to make money through blogging and I fault no one with that. I bet Al and Pala are tremendously friendly and helpful, loving people. And I can tell they have a sense of humor because the categories section has a “sexy jokes and quotes” topic. I give the site a 3 rating and wish Al and Pala the best in their ongoing efforts to help the world “do it…” better.

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I’m always looking for a new weblog to add to my list of daily must-reads/distractions. When I read the about section of catsandbeer.com, I had a good feeling I might be visiting it again and again: “Catsandbeer.com began as a pet project of Superbad co-creators Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg and evolved into a humor website that has nothing to do with either of them.”. If you’ve seen Superbad (or watched any of Da Ali G Show), then this tells you exactly the sense of humor relayed through this site. If you haven’t seen Superbad, well, you’re dead to me.

Just last week, a friend of mine sent me the link to a recent entry called “The Top 10 Rap Songs White People Love”. I’m only black when I’m singing Kanye West in my car, and the rest of the time, the ten songs that were listed turned me into the best cliché rapper in all the land. One hundred and fifty one comments on that entry alone give readers a view into the type of crowd following along at catsandbeer.com – raucous, opinionated, and, according to the commenters, better qualified to choose that list of rap songs.

Some people Live Blog things like the MTV Video Music Awards, but not catsandbeer.com – they live blog a caterpillar that’s found its way to one of the authors’ front porch. Instead of deleting spam, the same author analyzes line-by-line the bulk email sent to him from the Penis Enlargement Patch factory’s marketing department. While it may not be humor to all, it’s damn funny to me.

Aside from the fact that this weblog matches my sense of humor, there’s more to see. There’s an occasional poll that seems to be most popular when it’s either picking between killing Frenchie Stewart and Chris Kattan, or deciding which notorious rap song was erroneously left off the aforementioned Top 10 list.

The layout’s a simple three-column layout, and the authors have filled the sidebars with a poll, and various ways first-time visitors can navigate around the site – the most popular articles, most recent comments, and various ways of archiving the entries. It’s a clean design and works well with the site as a whole.

I loved catsandbeer.com, but I don’t think everyone will. I wish everyone would, because it’d clearly make the world a much happier place.
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The first thing I thought when I read the title “I Am Woman, See Me Blog” was that the site had better not be some Grrrrl Power blog, because I’ve never found one of those that didn’t make me roll my eyes. I was very pleased when I read the author’s Blogger profile explaining that the blog is all about her (most of the time), which means no overload of political feminist statements. Yay for that.

As the site loaded, I was greeted by a custom-made design, which is so nice to see among all of the standard Blogger templates that come up time and time again. The simple two-column layout has the typical blogger tools and information down the sidebar (i.e. archives, blogroll, etc.) and the main content fills up the bigger of the two columns, like most other weblogs. The archives of this site start back on August 2006, but the author makes mention of transferring old posts from a previous blog to “I Am Woman, See Me Blog”, so it sounds like she’s done this before.

Lizzie, the author of the site, does a good job of responding to a lot of the feedback that’s left in the comment section of each entry. Whether she knows the people commenting or they’re just first time visitors, she seems engaged by everyone, which is a great way to maintain readers.

Most of the posts deal with her daily life in the Philippines, and over the summer she made it a point to highlight other bloggers about once a week. She participates in the typical meme from time to time and occasionally posts some absolutely beautiful photos of the area she lives in. Variety is a big component of the posts you’ll find on this blog.

Over the past month, Lizzie’s been going back and forth between taking small blogging breaks and at the time of this review, is in the midst of another one of those breaks. It’s obvious from her writing that she doesn’t throw up a post just for the sake of having some content. She puts great thought into what she’s writing and it makes it easy for people to read and understand.

“I Am Woman, See Me Blog” is definitely a personal weblog. The focus of the entries usually falls around the author’s personal life, and because of this new readers can easily find themselves lost. This is prone to happen with any personal blog and certainly doesn’t draw away from the value of this particular weblog.
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“This blog is dedicated to abstract expressionism and abstract art, open for all artist to make their contribution with their opinions on my art, on abstract art, expressionist art, whether it be positive or negative.” I had to copy and paste from the weblog’s “about” section, because I didn’t know how else to describe Pollocks the Bollock’s Weblog.

I like the layout of the site right away. It uses a four-column layout that doesn’t make an appearance on many weblogs. The author has filled this one with many links, but has managed to keep the sidebars short, so it doesn’t take readers all day to scroll all the way down to the bottom. The menu of links throughout the site is also located at the top. This layout gives readers incredibly simple options of navigating the site.

The archives only go back to mid-August of this year, but the author has shared a substantial amount of information in that short time. The majority of the entries serve almost as informational essays to familiarize readers with different types of art and various artists the author finds interesting. Often times, there will be examples of the artist’s work, in both image and video format.

Sometimes the information is a bit overwhelming. The entries, while very well written, can easily give off the same vibe as an encyclopedia. People looking for information about this particular artists, or those people with a real thirst for this type of knowledge will really be in heaven while reading this weblog. The average reader, like myself? Lost most of the time.
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I like movies and I like them a lot. When I realized the primary focus of “Tomorrow’s Entertainment” was movie new and reviews, I was very excited to jump right on into the posts.

The layout is kind of obtrusive to look at when it completely loads, and the white text on a black background is always hard on the eyes. The very large image at the top of the layout is a bit overwhelming at first, but the film reel and spotlight graphics do fit into the nature of the weblog. It’s a standard three-column layout with all of the typical blogger fare – archives by date and category, recent posts, and all that jazz. “Tomorrow’s Entertainment” has been nominated in a couple of different categories in the Blogger’s Choice Awards; however, the author of the blog nominated it.

There is a plethora of movie review sites all over the web and there are very few that really pop out as something special or unique. This one’s been up and running since June 2007, but it has yet to establish itself as a front runner in originally or even content. It seems like the author is going back and forth between making it a very professional-like site or a casual news and review site. The writing style doesn’t seem proficient or entertaining enough to compete with major movie review sites around the ‘net.

The author of the blog is able to sneak into several previews and can provide readers with brief reviewed of movies before they’re open to the general public. In doing so, he/she never gives readers any spoilers at all. He/she also includes still image shots or trailers in many of his/her posts, which is also another nice touch.

While movies are the main focus of “Tomorrow’s Entertainment”, the author also does some writing about television shows, books, and even professional wrestling. It seems like there’s a bit of passion behind the writing, but I really felt like the site is just being used as an entertainment-related blog that the author keeps for himself.
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