Category: Uncategorized

I have Seoul. It reminds me of adventures and maybe pirates and those incredibly huge ships crossing the ocean while sailors pray so no horrific aquatic creature would emerge from the deep waters and swallow them alive, back in those days where Earth was so obviously flat, when people would kept journals neatly illustrated with ink sketches. So I expect to see just that. A thorough description of a country and pictures of interesting things the author, a Canadian 27-year-old guy currently teaching in Korea, has to offer.

His posts go back to February, 2005 when he was getting ready to go to Korea. He makes clear that his purpose is merely keeping friends and family posted on his life there, which struck me as a ‘don’t expect much’ warning. And maybe it was. I take interest on the subject — adapting to a new country and having all these notes about its culture. I also happen to be an English teacher (although taking my poor English you might think I’m telling a lie or you’d feel sorry for my students), which could make this blog one of my favorites. There is a fair amount of entries on how life really is there or how he interacts with locals. You can check some videos and lots of pictures, which makes the blog interesting after all. Also, I have this feeling that he tries to be humorous, but doesn’t quite succeed. At least the entries are not that funny, but it could be due to the cultural gap here (me being Brazilian), or perhaps I’m just not in a good mood. You know how we girls are always subject to these mood swings. I have to admit I smiled a few times though.

The design of the blog is really simple but that is not a negative point. I myself believe that content should matter much more than looks (and that goes for blogs, books and guys, ha!). You can also check his flickr photo albums. Everything works fine. Archives, comments, links. The only thing missing is a Shaun’s profile (and it’s hard to find his name there).

Overall, it is a good blog as in ‘I could check it monthly or at least every fortnight’. He writes okay, he’s somewhat funny and getting to share his experience in Seoul gives us this sense that we are, as readers, close to him. I’ll give it a 4.
I have Seoul

Initial impression was clean layout, a ripped out notebook page on a wooden background. The text is clear and easy to read and the links work. You see a book on the top right hand sidebar so making an assumption that it’s the blogger’s book was the right call. The title of the blog itself “Doing a Decade: Exploring the Seventies” makes me think of a blog that has the author reminising about the 1970’s, their life, loves and overall view.

Whilst reading through the blog, I found the writing style of the author was easy to follow, although at times I felt myself reading through the entries a bit faster in order to find something that interested me as an individual to the entry. I didn’t find much that did interest me, although the entry about the brine wells nearly got a peek out of me. Various entries relate back to things in the author’s past, but for someone who was born at the end of the 70’s, a link or two to the relevant website might have been helpful (e.g. a link to Loggins & Messina).

The blog itself is fairly new. The template used is one that isn’t very commonly used, but suits the blog and content. All up there are 13 entries, so it is hard to tell how this blog might develop.

I believe that this blog is going to be drawing in a somewhat middle aged crowd, only because for someone younger, I found that I didn’t know what the author was talking about and with no reference points I think it’s a bit hard to follow.

The reason I gave this blog a 3.5 was because of this, as well as there being a lack in the “about” page, or any links on the blog that might have pointed to something a bit more about the writer or relevant entries would have been nice.NULL

“a margin walker” is the title of the blog and I’m not sure what that means. Does the writer live life on the edge? And, if so, the edge of what? The subtitle, ” – Its [sic] about me – life – everything – the random thoughts of a twenty-something scotsman – ” suggests an attempt to speak to the larger world through an individual’s experience–to go from the specific to the general. The blog does not quite succeed

“a margin walker” has only existed since September 27, 2005. There are a total of forty-two posts, several of which are about installing a new template and many of which are quite short. At the one month mark, a blog is still finding it’s feet. In this case, the writer is still finding his voice. He tells vague personal stories, makes simplistic political commentary and is already discussing the searches that led to his blog. Give yourself some time to figure out why you are writing, what you’re going to focus on, what you want to write about and what level of privacy you are going to keep before you start with the meta-blogging. Please.

This writer tells us almost nothing about himself. He refers to a recently ended relationship without giving (many) details. It’s hard to get a handle on who he is. From one post to the next you don’t know whether to expect a rant on avian flu paranoia or a touching story about his mother’s battle with breast cancer. The quality of the writing is not great. There are grammar and syntax problems, but that may be the Scottish vernacular–it may just sound wrong to my ear.

There’s not enough content here. Not enough of a story to draw me in, let me know who he is or make me care about him. I’m sure he’s a nice fellow and I get some glimpses of him, but not enough to keep me reading.

On the design side, the template is pleasant. It is hosted on blogspot, pulled from Blogger Templates and it looks good. It’s easy to navigate and easy to read. The design might be the best thing about this blog. There are no links to speak of and no problems navigating the site.

There is not enough content for me to recommend this site. If the writer keeps at it and finds his voice, it may turn into something interesting. I’d come back in six to eight months and give it another chance.

NULL

The first thing I noticed when I got to this blog was it was WordPress hosted… I personally love WordPress, so this started off nicely. I don’t quite understand the title, but that’s fine as I realize this is a blog dealing with ambulances. (This I learn before reading a single post.)

As I read I learn that Nee Naw is what the blogger (Mark) refers to the ambulance service. Apparently Nee Naw is British slang for an ambulance, based on the phonetic pronunciation of the siren’s noise by a child. Simple enough. Mark blogs about his work in the control center, based on notes he keeps while he works. There are some interesting posts — who knew that being an Emergency Medical Dispatcher could be so interesting?

The layout is one of many that have been created for WordPress, and it looks beautiful. The simple black, white, and green go together well and all the pages match wonderfully. There are no plugins to speak of, except for the search bar that is default with some WordPress layouts. This is nice… simple is good.

This is a really good blog, in my opinion. It’s interesting, informative, dramatic, and gorgeous. Plus, there are absolutely no ads to speak of. I do believe this is the first blog I have had absolutely nothing to complain about, and it would only be fair for the review to reflect such.NULL

I can’t tell you how pleased I was to see this blog on the list of ones to review. I’ve been reading this blog for a few weeks now (it’s even in my RSS feeds list, and it takes a lot for a blog to make it to that). I love this blog… of course this posed for my first impression.

The layout looks very simple at first glance, but it isn’t really. It’s simple enough to not draw attention away from the writing, but it’s got images sprinkled in it so that it’s not the same old everyday template we see ten million times. I don’t like how there are so many posts on the front page, but I’m willing to live with this.

The entries are great, and vary widely on the topic at hand. There are posts about Ellen’s daughter Anna, her husband, herself, and other bloggers as well. There’s quite a bit of content to make almost anyone happy.

As far as extras go, I am quite happy to inform you that there are NO Google Ads. This is great. There also aren’t ten million things in the sidebar, which is also good. If we go all the way to the bottom we see where the extras are hidden. There are 80×15 buttons galore, as well as what appears to be a broken Amber Alert ticker. Other extras are more for statistical or just user-friendliness reasons, such as the ability to subscribe or see how many people are online at a particular time.

All in all, this is a good blog. It’s a bit cluttered for my taste, but it’s the perfect blog for reading in an RSS reader. The content is interesting and Ellen is obviously someone who takes time when writing her posts, in order to make them enjoyable rather than the plain and usual jumble that most people churn out. I’ll give The Reign of Ellen a 4.5 out of 5… Definitely worth reading, and most likely bookmarking as well.NULL