Category: Uncategorized

As soon as I got to this site, I laughed. The bloggers own description? “Rants of a sweaty emotional Italian”. I have to admit I was amused. I assumed (and correctly I might add), that this would be a laugh.

The blog is hosted by Motime, which appears to be less template-y (Im making up words here), and free of the obnoxious Blogger Ads, but has a really annoying bar on the top. I knew ad free was too good to be true. The site is pretty sleek in design, with a simple yet artsy picture of the blogger, some perma links and quotes. The archives are easily accessible and all the links seem to work. Continuing with my curse, there is no About Me page which I miss dearly. There are however bios of friends (possibly roommates?) of the writer.

The blog is personal in nature, but nothing is so in depth that you would need to be inside the writers social circle to understand what is going on. The posts are light, not a lot of passion but still pretty entertaining. I have found a bias love for the site, as the writer is a Canadian student in Montreal. I find a Canadian outlook on life to be refreshing at the best of times, and a French Canadian one just adds that much more. I don’t see any specific audience in mind (although the writer thinks otherwise). People close to him in real life may find more humour in some things, but over all it is easy to get wrapped up in his writing.

One of the cool things I found about this site, was the links to the other bios. It seemed to give a bit of insight into the other players in the stories, as they don’t have the chance to explain their side.

I really did enjoy this site, and found it to be a pleasure to read. The only suggestion I would have is to add an About Me Page, as it makes it a bit easier for any new reader to get into your writing.
I NEED A GRIP!

It’s not very often that a site I’m supposed to be reviewing turns out to be one I read through so quickly I’m disappointed there’s not more to read. When I found my way to “The S-Train Canvass” today, I was more than pleased to find myself breezing through the site not only enjoying what I was reading, but also actually taking something away from reading the author’s daily entries.

The entries that can be found here have subject matters all across the board – there’s a little bit of sports, bits about his African pride, the occasional political post, and, without sounding overly cliché, the list goes on and on. Each post is written with the terminology, sentence structure, and general understanding that nearly every person that stumbles upon this site will be able to understanding what they’re reading.

There are two different people that post to this site – “S-Train” and “Aysel”. For the most part of the posts on the site, you’ll find that S-Train is responsible for the updating. It’s only within the last couple of months that Aysel has joined the posting ranks for The S-Train Canvass.

The layout shows up in what seems to be the standard weblog layout as of late – a main column for the actual weblog content and a smaller column along the side containing anything from links to other weblogs to information about the people that are posting at the site. The original logo at the top of the site, designed by Aysel, is a great start to a layout. The rest of the layout looks a little “clumsy”, for lack of a better word – the black borders around the boxes are on the verge of becoming a bit too overwhelming. It doesn’t take away from the reading, though, which is the reason why people visit weblogs, isn’t it?

Honestly, there’s not one thing I could think of that could be added or changed to this site to make it a better weblog to read.

The S-Train Canvass

Infiniti… Is it a purposely misspelled version of the word infinity? Infinity: something that goes on and on and has no end? Is this what I am to expect when I get to this blog? Something without an end? I guess that is actually what is ideal with a weblog; to always be updating it. We shall see.

The first thing I noticed was the very unique layout of the site. There is a wonderful animie logo at the top. The site uses a vast assortment of the color pink which was surprising. Then I noticed some things. My mouse pointer had changed. It was now an arrow with a question mark, and when I mouse over links it changed to a double sided arrow instead of the hand I am use to. I really hate when people mess with the mouse. It doesn’t add to the experience of the weblog, and it is distracting. I also noticed that the layout wasn’t lining up properly, or at least where I expected it to line up so I fired up IE just to check, and it still was not lining up correctly.

The weblog is written by Jei and she is, wait, let me quote this directly: “i’m a vampire girl who lives in the philippines with the ethnicity of 1/4 japanese, 1/4 chinese and 1/2 filipino.” Interesting. With this said her English is very good, but if I remember correctly English is one of the main languages in the Philippines, so I wasn’t too surprised. I was however very intrigued by the vampire girl aspect and how that would play into effect with her weblog.

While I was reading each post I noticed I was actually getting further away from the author the more I read. There was something that was just pushing me away from this weblog, and I couldn’t figure out what it was. Something about the way the weblog is written, it seems oddly familiar, but what was it that was pushing me away? Was it the vampire girl aspect or just where she was blogging from? After some research I found out that Jei is only 16 years old. There is that link I was missing.

The posts read a lot like other teen blogs. What is going on in the person’s life: most notably school, friends, music, online quizzes, generic blog type posts, etc… I decided to see if it really was like a standard teen blog and re-read the posts completely out of order and it still read the same. This is a disappointment to me, because hidden underneath all this general stuff I bet are some amazing things. Some posts start to hint at this, but don’t completely shine.

I would love to rate this blog higher because I can see some great potential with in the blog. But unfortunately I have to base it on what is actually there, and not what could be there. I really want Jei to let go and really take a chance at standing out from the crowd of webloggers. If she did this I can see this weblog going places
Infiniti

The Waiting Place intrigued me from the beginning. It’s tagline, “…Contemplations on those who left, by those who were left behind.” The image of two women, one veiled, increased my curiosity. Reading a few entries, I learn that this is a “warblog,” of sorts, but isn’t easy to categorize as so. The writers aren’t your average armchair pundits, in fact, much the opposite.

Trish and her daughter, Eva, have been blogging since April of 2003, mostly regarding the situation in the Middle East and their own deep connection to it. Meran, Eva’s husband, is a Kurdish Iraqi who emigrated to the United States in 1992. There, he fell in love with and married Eva. Last year, he was called back to Iraq to translate for the Department of Defense. I found this to be a powerfully human and eye-opening story, and the blog is an eloquent expression of it.

The entries, though far from regular, are full of details, and easily read. This blog focuses more on the human aspect of the Middle East conflict, and this is marvelously refreshing. The authors speak of the situation facing Kurdish natives of Iraq, very personal to them. Be sure to read the poem on the left of the page, as it helps to give cotext to the rest of the blog. Eva writes about life as an American Muslim, both stateside and abroad. Despite its somewhat ethnic flavor, this blog has incredible universality.

By far the most enjoyable part of this blog is the occasionally-posted letters between Eva and her husband. These are truly touching, and give readers a portrait of a genuinely loving marriage, and what happens when two people who love eachother are torn apart by circumstances. Amid Meran’s sweet missives of love to his wife, we learn of his experiences overseas and the job he does. I was most moved by Meran’s dutiful assurance to his wife back in the states, “I am a man of this century and the next.”

Be sure to follow the links in the right-hand column, to other blogs and complimentary sites. Beneath the picture, Meran’s name is linked to a page showing the Kurdish area of Iraq and an brief bio of him by Trish. The sheer quality of the blog itself makes up for any design issues. However, the page appears somewhat off-kilter. I would move the main picture to directly beneath the title. Also, on my screen-resolution, there is a horizontal scrollbar. This isn’t a big deal, and could probably be remedied by cropping the edges of the photo of Meran and Eva in the right-hand colum.

This blog is a must-read for anyone in the blogosphere wanting to be well-informed about the war in Iraq. In all honesty, however, the blog is not about the war in Iraq. It is about a woman, her mother, and the man she loves. For that reason, I recommend this site to anyone and everyone. The Waiting Place

On entering the blog, everything in here gives a ‘punk’ feeling. There is this image in the sidebar very artistically distorted. Then there is this bar on the top having five images(apparently three of them are author’s own) all highly unrelated and all have been worked upon again to give the ‘punk’ feeling.

The author, Ryan Matthew, in his own words is ‘a humble university student locked into a meaningless liberal arts degree with too much time on his hands’. There is no formal introduction page apart for this and ‘what will you find in here’ type of a bar which hogs the entire main area, bringing the actual entries of the blog downwards.

The blog is fairly new, the oldest entry being on 7th Feb which, by the way, is pretty interesting; something that starts with a mildly humorous round up on the 80s and 90s, then before you know it things get revolutionary and it ends with the mourning over the death of Kurt Cobain. Despite its quirkiness, the entire thing makes sense and is quite a powerful entry for the first.

If the name of Kurt Cobain has inflicted interest in all the grunge rockers out there, I am sorry to disappoint you (and get disappointed myself), there is no mention of KC anywhere in the rest of the blog.

What had started out quite splendidly then whimpers to be just another blog of a university student, with an extra dose of Canadian politics. The blog has the usual share of politics, reviews (mostly movies), life in a university, etc. Nothing that would keep you stuck to the computer screen, but nothing to repel you either. There is a mixed type of humor used in the blog; you come upon really sarcastic, oh-so-subtle humor (e.g. Being a studebt…err I mean student is the life of riley) as well as the regular type.

In case you were wondering why the blog is so called, you can get some of the explanation here(topmost entry).

The design is just OK. The problem with the entries going downwards which I mentioned in the beginning is some template problem, about which RM knows and hasn’t done much about.

All in all, this is one of hundreds of college-student-blogs that you come upon. You might be more impressed with it if Canadian politics interests you.

Drivel, Blasphemy and other unrelated magic