Category: Uncategorized

So you see, there is this Teddy Bear, yes you heard me right, that stuffed animal we all love and cherish. This cute adorable Teddy Bear gets sent all over the place, in fact it is now making its way across the world as I pen these very words of wisdom. You see, Teddy started out from way far away in Scarborough England, and he has made a perilous journey across the Atlantic Ocean to Ohio, Oregon, Texas. He is now resting for a time in Vermont. Teddy is coming and going.



On the weblog you can see proof of these travels in the form of lots of pictures. There is Teddy sitting down, there he is wearing a cute straw hat, and there he is again with Winnie the Pooh in has lap! Teddy is very photogenic for a stuffed animal. There are even more of these kinds of action photos for your pleasure. In various poses and positions, very cute. That is, if you are really into Teddy Bears you might like this site. This weblog is part of a webring dedicated to postal workers all over the world. Let’s reward these hard working folks by sending them Teddy Bears.



If you find this confusing because you speak another language, no problem, just click on one of the links to get the site translated into German, Portuguese, French or Spanish. If your mother tongue is something else, do not worry because more than likely you understand the universal Teddy Bear language. For each hotspot in the world, there is a link that brings up a short report about his adventures there with more pictures as proof. There is even a map of the world showing where Teddy has been.



Would you like to have a Teddy Bear sent to you? If so, then you can sign yourself up on a list, but you have to be a postal worker. Sorry to let you down, but those are the rules. Believe it or not, there are already no less than ten enthusiastic people out their just dying to get their hands on this cuddly little furry creature, take pictures of him.



I was letdown a little that there wasn’t more to read about, something deeper. Triggered by the pictures, I was hoping that there was some more depth, witticism or whatever. But I do not believe that that was the purpose of this place. I was easily bored, but that is because my interests lie elsewhere. Maybe I am just limited.



For a weblog you could say this provides an original idea. There is potential, but as far as weblog entries are concerned, and the actual content, there is not that much new and exciting. Sorry if I am offending all you Teddy Bear lovers out there. That is the farthest thing from my mind right now. But I feel you could even go so far as to say this is a little boring. Unless of course you like Teddy Bears, like them alot. If not then I am afraid this weblog is not for you. Maybe in a year or two when Teddy Bear has traversed the Earth more, collected a long list of exotic places, crisscrossing the world, the weblog will be more impressive.Isabella’s Teddy’s Travels.

Beeb has been keeping her journal since August of 2001. She likes Keanu Reeves and enjoys taking online quizzes. Her posts consist of run-of-the mill updates about her day-to-day life. She hasn’t updated since February 18th, but her archives are pretty extensive.



Though design is surely not the be-all/end-all to a good journal, it can surely make it difficult to enjoy the experience. In this case, the colors are quite painful on the eyes. A lavender background with a split baby blue/pink filled table on top, along with teeny-tiny magenta text is the perfect recipe for a headache. Literally. Highlighting the text helps a bit, but one shouldn’t have to do that. I found many broken images on the site, but the navigation works relatively well.



All-in-all, this is not a journal I could recommend due to the strain it takes to read.Pink Ranger

Delirious is a group blog described by it’s makers as “five crazy time-wasting, ranting, throwing-objects teenagers”. Upon reading it and browsing the archives you quickly come to understand that it is actually a means for 5 teen friends to communicate with each other.

This reaches almost to the point of excluding outside readers by the nature of their content. There is virtually no external linkage or reference to outside interests. As I read the site in more depth I began to wonder if they were even aware that the general public might happen upon their site. It’s probably more true to the point to say they understand what they want from this “one year old” blog and it really doesn’t involve the rest of us.

With that in mind it seems to serve its purpose for them given there is one or more blogs every day and they’ve passed the magical one year mark. I found the design for the most part easy to follow and find what you want but the color of the text made it a bit hard to read (at least on my monitor).

I gave it a 2.5 because I didn’t have any major objections to the site but also found little that would attract me back. Take a look for yourself, I suspect if you are closer to their age group you might be able to get more involved in the flow of the blogs.Delirious

As soon as my modem finished gathering the relevant information for the starting page of Adversity I was already impressed. Unique, clean, and descriptive it had everything I needed to know about the site displayed in front of me over the map of the British underground. I immediately clicked on the bio of the author, hoping desperately to get a background before I started on the weblog. The description of the author, Blair, despite being brief was enough for me to start with, I at least knew whether or not she was male or female and what some of her strong beliefs were, it makes reviewing a blog so much easier.

After reading a little I noticed how strong and opinionated the blog was, and not just your normal whining but direct, precise and informative opinions. I found this style of blogging refreshing and quite digestible and you can really see that the author certainly has some writing ability as I found myself reading through the blog post after post. Despite some very obvious opinions here and there the blog certainly is centered on the day-to-day proceedings of the author and I really didn’t come across anything that made me want to skip past a section.

The design is fantastic, a nice cream background with neat fonts, headings and subsections make for easy and pleasurable reading. Navigation wise I can’t complain, everything’s there for you to click and browse, all the links worked correctly, and yes, I was quite impressed. The blog does lack graphics, which is fine because I don’t believe blogs should be about graphics, and it also means more entries can be posted before being archived (there was 20 long entries). Perhaps this could be cut down though I don’t think this would be a problem for most people. The only annoying feature was the lack of an index for the archive posts, it was a case of next 20 or previous 20, and you couldn’t jump to say a specific month or period. Again, hardly anything that most people would be too fussed about.

Extra site features like articles etc ensured there was plenty to see around the site. I got wrapped reading one article written about ‘Teen pop stars and culture’ which I found most stimulating to read. Such controlled and intellectual writing in personal sites are few and fair between, but I do like to have the option.

Overall I was pretty impressed, in fact I’d go as far as to say this was the most enjoyable weblog I’ve reviewed of the 10 or so I’ve have done before. I give Adversity a big 4.5 out of 5, which ok, sounds a little high but I think if you check it out you’ll be inclined to agree with me. Two thumbs up and I highly recommend Adversity as your next stop after reading this.

Adversity

Attention Future Post-High School Students: Kiss Mom & Dad goodbye, and get a real education! Study abroad at The Indiana Jones School of Management, awaiting your fevered, spongelike brain! Here’s all you need to know about your future:

The Dean: Geof L. Morris, employed at a systems engineering firm in Alabama, has just received his Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering, and is a self-proclaimed Southern Christian who enjoys:

Reading (mainly O’Reilly-published techie bibles–don’t we all?),
Baseball
Monty Python
CS Lewis
Baseball
Christian Studies
…and lots of things that other vibrant, intelligent young adults enjoy.
Did I mention baseball?

Admission: Free.

Aren’t you packing your bags yet?

Syllabus: Don’t let this school fool you. The site menu says so, but there’s no actual schedule, curriculum, lessons or even bona fide lectures. The dean says, “Even though this isn’t a real school, this doesn’t mean we can’t make people think that it is.” A brilliant web marketing ploy? Indeed. Students go searching at Google for school stuff and what do they find? A place to goof off. With a capital G. Oops, I’ve let out the big secret. Read on anyway! Folks, what this site really is, a little corner of the world, offering “Lecture Notes” (blog entries) that promise the readers they can: earn a B.A. degree in Slackerdom (a term I’m not fully sure the author is the one to have coined) or get a Master’s degree in Time Mismanagement. Just a little over a year old and chock full of quotes and personal thoughts of the author, The site is a place where he and his ‘colleagues’ and ‘students’ hang out and waste massive amounts of time. In truth, it’s really nothing more than a personal web site/blog that just happens to belong to a pretty clever individual.

Report Card: Definitely a school blog to visit if you’re truly bored with the average John Q. Public weblog of daily activities or news commentary. I forgot to mention, even though the site implies something of the kind, it’s not an Indiana Jones site, the author’s hardly even a fan of the adventurer played by Harrison Ford, so don’t go running over there in search of memorabilia, movie posters, links, sound clips, and the like.

What you will find is a well-thought-out site catering to the hungry mind. As far as a blog goes, it has its entries–where if you don’t really know the author or share something in common–you can be sort of wondering about. Even so, it boasts life lessons to be learned. Here is an individual who, for all intensive purposes, has put up his daily rants and thoughts up for the world to see, not uncommon these days…but in a different fashion. Throughout most of the author’s trials and tribulations, he remains ever witty and thoughtful and has a positive outlook on life. I’m no advocate of rays of sunshine myself, but tIJSM is a truly refreshing experience.

Web site owners that have a hard time marketing their sites or believe in the Field Of Dreams formula (If you build it, they will come), can definitely take a clue or two here: This is a really good example of a site that has potential for a large–and maybe even devoted–readership. Yes, declaring it to be a school is sort of false advertising, but I’ll bet you dollars to donuts that the people who bump into the site find something interesting here. I did. To me, it’s so far one of the most astonishingly creative ways I’ve seen, in which to deliver a personal site.

And I’m damned picky. Diploma Earned. Grade: 5.0The Indiana Jones School of Management