Category: Uncategorized

Upon arriving at The Transplant I was greeted with a striking banner graphic and a clean (but very busy) website. The author of The Transplant is a twenty something that lives in Seattle. The ‘about me’ really didn’t tell me a whole lot about the author other than he’s : ‘perplexed by the simple act of tying my shoelaces’ and ‘I have not a single reason for a website, aside from reading to myself my very own words. Fodder for the ego. My very own hyperreal self.’ . While this was interesting content… More specific information would have been useful as a starting point. It took several pages of reading to know where the author was, that the author was married and the author’s gender. Hmmpt.

This blog consists mostly of short curious observations by the author. The entries are often about things the author is interested in… such as TV shows, bands, and the odd personal reflection. The blog is well written but at times exhaustively verbose, such as the entry ‘We shall ride in silent’. While I believe the author is trying to be funny somehow… I’m not sure all readers would hang in to read the whole entry. The entries are categorized by: Body Parts, Luminaries, Nonentities, Pointless and the Inbetweens. Curious categories indeed. In Body Parts you’ll find the author’s suffering with his mandible, Luminaries is mainly movies and music, Nonentities was strange descriptions of people presumably in the author’s life, Pointless: mostly amusing observations and Inbetweens is generally personal reflections. Sometimes entries aren’t explained, such as ‘&*!@#&!!!^*’ which reads, ‘Food, then drink. Food, then drink.’ Huh? Which is the down side to Transplant… sometimes you’re left wondering “Huh?”. Clearly this blog is often more for the author than the reader.

If you are looking to read a different perspective this blog may appeal to you.
Some of the more eclectic entries ‘Is Sweden better than the United States?’, ‘Onomatopoeia, Frenzy and Glocked Bus Trips’ and ‘You best not steal my Blockbuster card’ have a uniquely aberrant wit to them which I’m sure some readers would enjoy. Check out The Transplant to see if this wit appeals to you.

The Transplant

A self-proclaimed “non-blog,” Waveflux is actually an online journal, so it declares itself in its very first post. The author is not identified but lives in St. Louis, is married, works for a non-profit, and definitely does not like George W. Bush. And boy, he knows how to make you laugh. And think. And do all the things that the world of blogs—-er, online journals is supposed to be about.

There are no links for comments on Waveflux, for it does not “willingly collaborate.” It’s just this guy’s opinions, take them or leave them. Oh, and also photos of his cats. (People with cats always put pictures of their cats on their websites, don’t they?) The site’s design is a movable type platform, very clean and unassuming, just like the author himself. (Well, okay, I don’t know how clean he is. We should ask his wife on that.)

He has tons of links on what he’s talking about (red links! Argh. Not a fan of the red type, Wave), so you know he’s doing his homework and not just some shmo spouting off crap he heard on talk radio. His posts are all categorized neatly in one of the 3 columns, and one category is devoted to The Amazing Race. Ya gotta love that.

So, so many of his posts made me laugh. Including the title of one from April 2004 “Please, God, end it now” with a photo of William Hung (bad American Idol singer) underneath. The Tyra Banks post (08/06/04) was hysterical. The political posts are smart and insightful as were the posts on pop culture, sex and gender, and even who he is currently crushin’ on. I especially like the conversations he has with his wife. What an entertaining house that must be!

In short, I will spend the next several hours reading each and every one of his entries again. I will bookmark this site and read it every day. And it doesn’t hurt that he does look like Andre Braugher.
Waveflux

Musings of a Caffeinated Mind was quite interesting. I found that it fulfilled my expectations in some senses, but not in others.

Let’s go over the obvious.

It’s a blogger website with a comment system from HaloScan. Everything works. We have personal links, former posts, a decent design, and a profile. Everything looks good.

The weblog itself focuses on a few different things. We have Scenes from the Forklift (about his job), Boring Childhood Stories (self-explanatory), Analyze This (about his dreams), and Photo of the Week.

I found his work stories to be very entertaining, and his Photos of the Week are very good. I read a couple of his dream stories, I find them hilarious, and sometimes just plain off the wall. The childhood stories were ok, but that’s a minute point.

One thing that the author writes about a lot is sports. (Did I mention he’s from Canada?) And like any Canadian, he’s in love with hockey. Can you blame him? I don’t. Bloggers write about what they know and love, and since I knew nothing about hockey (though I love to watch it), I found his articles about the sport informative.

In conclusion, the reason I didn’t give this blog a 5 was that his design is one that I’ve seen everywhere (probably because it’s blogger), but nevertheless, I always like to see a more custom look. Another thing is that it may not have been quite quirky enough to give the blog title justice. But with that being said (I hope as constructively as possible) all in all, the author has a very good thing going. Go Canada.

Musings of a Caffeinated Mind

As a contributor to BlogCritics.org, Scott Pepper knows nearly exactly how and what to write when reviewing anything, whether it be a movie, television show, or whatever other type of pop culture he’s indulging in at any given time. Reviewing a weblog like this, a site that’s primarily filled with reviews, was obviously an intimidating quest.

Scott’s not kidding around when it comes to the quality in which he watches the movies or television shows that he reviews. In this post, which begins his first of many reviews of the high definition format, his Sony 32-inch Plasma TV and THX optimizer definitely make his television watching experiences enjoyable.

Getting to know Scott poses a bit of a challenge as there’s really nowhere to go to learn more about the author of all of these well-written reviews. As with most Blogger templates, I was hoping for at least a link to his Blogger profile, but even that was non-existent. With a site that deals with reviews, a personal note probably isn’t necessary to some. You gather that with his writing experience through Blog Critics, the way general writing style, and the fact that he’s sitting in front of a 32” plasma TV most nights, he’s not just some schmuck writing for no reason. Scott’s a thorough writer whose experience behind the keyboard or with a pen in hand of certainly paid nice dividends.

The layout, as previously mentioned, is one that comes standard with Blogger, but Scott has done some tweaking to it by placing images of the recent books, movies, and CDs he’s reviewed in the sidebar. This is a nice touch and comes off as user-friendly.

One of the best features of Scott’s site happens to be the variety of reviews that he does. There are episode-by-episode reviews of the past third season of Fox’s American Idol for those that have been sucked into this type of television programming, but there are also reviews of independent films that your Average Joe probably hasn’t heard of, like Scott’s review of the DVD, Nothing So Strange. With the DVDs that are reviewed, not only do you get a rating from the author about the movie, but also what he thought of the DVD and the extras attached.

Scott’s weblog, which is only titled “scott aaron pepper”, is one that’s a sure hit with anyone following the pop culture scene. It’s well-written, fun to catch up on, and above all, very informative.

scott aaron pepper

As a new reviewer, I’m not familiar enough with xanga’s blog templates to know if eeore’s is a standard design, but it is legible and pretty easy to navigate through. This is a very british blog: Jeremy is from the U.K. (his photos indicate a large metropolitan area) and writes with the slang and inside jokes unique to that side of ‘the big ditch’.
Jeremy writes openly and honestly of his vices and attempts to quit them, he’s apparently now giving up cigarettes after claiming to give up marijauna. He has not been blogging at xanga for too long, and there is a definate difference in his writing styles from his first posts to his last. Looks like he either quit smoking pot, or discovered spellcheck… Much of the space in his blog is taken up with ongoing discussions with his friends and readers. There seems to be a great deal of back and forth concerning feuds and other blogsites, which I found mildly interesting at first, then somewhat tedious. He has a close-knit clique, and without being part of it personally, the references and inside jokes were lost on the casual reader.
His sidepanels feature cartoons that I’m guessing he’s drawn, some quite funny. He is a self-proclaimed poet with links to his poetry, some of which is quite well thought out and expressed. The opening page appears a bit ‘busy’ or crowded, but not overly difficult to read.

Overall he seems to fill a niche with his readers, he’s quite prolific and opinionated about a lot of topics, and seems well liked by his peers. He’s listed as an artistic blog, but despite the cartoons and poetry, I considered this much more of a personal blog. It’s a peek into an Englishman’s life, not badly written, but not edge of the seat fascinating either.eeore’s missing tale