Category: Uncategorized

Right off the bat, Averyl informs readers that her weblog is “fortified with wholesome links and images”. After reading from day one of the weblog, “Informed Bliss” is just that and even more.




Averyl is a writer by profession; so naturally, the writing was top-notch reading material. She covers topics from the news to the weather to pleading for donations to her favorite Guinea Pig Rescue location. Lots of humor fills the majority of the posts made here, and naturally, that makes reading each and every entry not only informative but educational.
While entries and especially complete weblogs that have that general feel towards them can accidentally give off a stuffy feel, Averyl writes in a casual manner that’s explanatory enough to give anyone at least a somewhat general idea of the topic at hand.




And the wholesome links and images described by the author herself in the title portion of the site? Definitely there. There are truly some amazing photographs, taken either by Averyl or her father, sporadically posted throughout the site. The photos are both pleasant to look at as well as a great way to break up monotony of constant text.




Things that would improve this weblog? Perhaps an “About the Author” section and a different site design. The weblog works without both of those, but after reading so much about the author’s life, I would have loved to learn more about who Averyl actually is. And there’s nothing actually wrong with the site design, but with such awesome content, a unique or somewhat different design would add even more appeal to this weblog.




Averyl’s Weblog is still in its beginning phases, having only started in November 2002. It’s already, however, off to a fine start and definitely one worth checking out.

Informed Bliss

When I was younger I absolutely loved “Go Ask Alice”. I was my favourite book, I though it was so real, so true to life (after all it was a real diary, right?). Well Raindropplets had me waxing nostalgia for those days. It reads just like the beginning of the book, when the author was in her good days, minus the weight obsessions.

Lauren writes long, coherent entries that, at first glance I though I was going to hate. I thought “here we go, another little girl who thinks she’s an adult with “adult” problems”, but they grew on me. Her naïve thoughts are endearing, and occasionally she has some fairly insightful pieces. I adored her entry “Dear Kealing”, which was a letter to her old school. It shows that this girl has some major writing potential. The last line of the letter, “Or have you been ruined by uptight administrators and lazy, ignorant students who don’t care?” really hit home in the way that a good personal blog should.

If I were to talk to Lauren I would tell her to keep on going, her blog is infectious. All the things I thought would make me hate it, made me want to keep reading in the end. Truthfully, unless you are, or once were a teenage girl, this blog probably isn’t for you. But if you are looking for a little reminder of those carefree, naïve days of your early teens I highly recommend this blog to you. The only downside, unfortunately, is the design. The long entries of white text on black did make it hard to read in long periods. Other than that, go, read, wax nostalgia, giggle as if you were a fourteen year old girl again, and enjoy.
Raindroplets

With a URL that looks like a 100-car freight train, A Sunny Place for Shady People (http://www.sunnyplaceforshadypeople.blogspot.com/) won’t be an instant memory-for-blog-addresses pleaser, but it should be added to your Favorites nevertheless.

This is how The Old Buzzard (Tom Milner?) defines his Blogspot-hosted blog:

Pithy, contrarian, politically incorrect and curmudgeonly rants on sex, money, power and politics and religion and philosophy. In short: Nothing matters, everything changes and there are no guarantees. The rest is rationalization and bribery.

I am instinctively reluctant to heed such bold introductions to a blog, but scrolling down The Old Buzzard’s page convinced me that, in this one case, the flag statement was very much on bull’s eye.

This is not your plain vanilla Blogspot Weblog. The page design is imaginative and an eye catcher. A reading area with a white background rests on a page that has the appearance of a pin-striped black suit with purple lapels and a purple shirt collar at the very top. There are no links other than those to Home and Archives and they’re both buried deep at the bottom of the page. The Old Buzzard has paid the small dollar price required and has liberated his page from those irritating ads hovering at the top of all free Blogspot pages.

Now, the writing. Hard-punching, frequently irate, with a cutting edge, quick and sharp. The Old Buzzard stands by his guns and he does not hesitate to tell you right off the bat (otherwise he wouldn’t be blogging, I suspect). Consider this:

These Anti-Smoking League Nazis remind us of the environmental fascists alluded to above, who also run amuk too often, sheltering the damn snails, turtles and wildflowers and spouting the fables of “Mother Nature.”

Or this:

And, one dares not, anymore, use the word “niggardly” in speech or even writing, for fear of being labeled racist.
This is patently silly.
“Niggardly”‘s etymology is Scandinavian and unrelated to bigotry. It simply means stingy, as in “that niggardly Oslovian.”
And “Chinaman” is taboo, but not Chinatown, wherein reside not Chinamen but refined Asian gentlemen.
Let’s not even consider the crazed feminists’ complaints about utilitarian phrases like “Men at Work,” or the frantic lady Sabbatists who insist on, minimally, genderless deities or, more starkly, just plain goddesses.

These are not lines that would enthral the “moderates” and the “diversity”-bound, but they spring from what sounds like strong conviction. The Old Buzzard, in effect, says: “Here it is, take it or leave it”. Fewer and fewer people are willing to make this statement in public nowadays.

Blogging is, first and foremost, all about freedom of expression, and the A Sunny Place for Shady People is a perfect specimen of just exactly this premise. The Old Buzzard sweeps over broad territory and uses a great variety of “mainstream” stories as incentives for well constructed posts. This is a “war blog” in a broader sense.

The Old Buzzard’s domain is not for the insipid and won’t offer pleasure to “balanced advocates”. And I bet the Buzzard’s ideas draw strong opposition; a large crowd out there would find him humorless and “bigoted”. The only way to decide for yourself though is to visit The Old Buzzard’s blog. I sure will return to his part of the woods — and will do so often. A Sunny Place for Shady People

Only up and running, according to the weblog archives, since June 2002, this weblog has clearly already become a hit with its readers. And after reading through it, I can certainly see why.

This is a group weblog. As of late, however, it’s mainly just two Girls in the Bag posting to the site – Emmie and Ellie. In their posts, they cover things from how they’d spend time in a peep show booth, thoughts of romances from the past, and quite a bit of sex.

There were some posts early on that I was completely in the dark about. Other times, I found posts that I could completely relate to and found myself saying “Wow, me too” from time to time. There’s just such a variety of things to read about at Girls in the Bag, and all of it is just so good.

The layout and overall design of the site? I loved it. The pinkish/purplish colors used throughout all coincided very well with one another. After hanging around the site for a while, I almost felt as if I wanted to buy toothpaste in 1950 – some type of a nostalgic feeling with the specific colors and black and white photo used in the layout. Weird, I know.

I really wanted to know more about the Girls in the Bag. After reading some of the entries, though, I can see how it could quite possibly be important to remain as anonymous as possible. There’s nothing hidden in these entries – except for the secret of exactly who these girls might be. I guess that’s just part of the “feminine mystique” this site is filled to the brim with.

This is, for the most part, a site where there are no rules, no limitations, and no reason for any reader not to want to make return visits to this site.

girlsinthebag

I like a well-organized, well-designed blog. Big Picnic was immediately attractive to me for this reason. It has a simple yet interesting feel. It has a professional look to it, which clued me in that there would be some good writing.

Big Picnic is only a few months old [or, at least only has a few months worth of entries]. It offers commentary on current events, links, and various reviews. The commentary is involved and interesting. An interesting piece is the writer’s contemplation of sumo wrestling. A good percentage of the entries are well written and thought provoking.

Extras include a section of links, ability to post news bits, member listing [those that have accounts], good search capability, a store with Big Picnic merchandise, and categorical archives. There is an About link, but it doesn’t really link to anything that could be construed as informational. One could consider the ability to create an account at Big Picnic an extra, but I found no good reason to create an account. If you want to leave a comment that includes your name, you have to create an account and log in. I’m an instant gratification type of girl, and needing an account to properly comment interferes with that.

I really do like the look of this blog. It’s a clean and professional look, and site navigation is obvious. I do recommend making a change to the archival setup. You have to scroll through six pages before getting to the first post, and I’m not sure that all entries even came up through the archives list. I think I would prefer just a list of titles with the dates. One other thing I would recommend is putting up Next and Previous links with each entry to make navigation just a little friendlier.

I might visit Big Picnic again in the future. The thing that’s stopping me from really being enthusiastic about the blog is my confusion over navigating the archives. Overall, Big Picnic is a good blog and worth a read.

Big Picnic