Negatively is not the way I like to start reviews, but first impressions really leave a taste, whether or good or bad, in your mouth and it isn’t easy to get rid of that taste. Carlos’ about section gave me a headache when looking at it. His self description was wonderful, but the font just about did me in. The font is something that was probably a neat idea at the time, but to leave something in that font isn’t something I’d really be in favor of.
The layout is a popular one – main weblog on one side, column down one side with all the necessary links and addendums. The light gray text on a black background is a bit hard to read, and the dark blue links aren’t much easier to make out either.
I did like the different sections Carlos decided to fill the sidebar with topics like “procrastination” featuring his “directory of distractions” (which is a great name for the other links he checks out) and “diversion” (which lists recent events he’s attended). He uses multi-syllabic words to describe the things that can easily be done with four or five letters. Hey, it’s something different and I like it.
Alas, this is not The Font Review or The Layout Review, so on to the weblog.
The posts here are what I would call “different”. That’s an extremely vague description and I realize that, so I’ll do my best to elaborate.
Readers are often treated to several posts a day. They’re short and usually pertain to something other than the author’s life. Sometimes a post will be just a quote, a brief bit of poetry, and when we’re lucky, Carlos will drop an opinion or a thought into his posts. When this happens, his words are very well chosen and written.
What I ran in to the most at Mysterium were commentaries about current events or other obscure links Carlos had found somewhere on the Internet, and deemed them worth sharing with his readers. I followed several of the links, and learned something new from each of them. His posts educate you. Now while that may or may not be his goal, that’s exactly what happened.
In a small commentary about a piece of email spam he’d received promoting “getting paid for your opinions”, Carlos mentions that “if being opinionated were the road to wealth, I’d be my own Fortune 500 corporation by now”. More of his opinions would have been a great addition to this weblog. The ones he does share, as I’ve said before, are thought provoking and insightful, just very few in number.