The Weblog Review

The random number ‘168’ for the title of a weblog: clever, mysterious and technical at the same time. The author of this extensive site is Yazid. He is a fourteen year old who was born and raised in Brunei. This country is in Southeastern Asia, bordering the South China Sea and Malaysia. Yazid started blogging last year October when his current site was born. As he writes in his very first entry, “..And here, thy one.sixty.eight thoughts was born, to reek havoc through-out the cyber world…” This site looks good and is a pleasure to read, providing a refreshing break from all the usual blah-blah weblogs, via the thoughts and actions of Yazid himself.



In no time at all he has collected quite a number of detailed entries covering just about every aspect of his life. Yazid’s favorite thing to do in the weekend is what he calls “slack” around. If you are wondering what this means exactly, I quote from an entry titled: Just another episode in the mall. “Boredom kicked in and everyone thought it would be a good idea to go to the arcade. so played a few rounds. got out, and out of nothing-to-do-ness, we all went back to play a few rounds of pool again. we all agreed whoever lost the game would pay for the table.” This is not a typical entry, but to be honest there is no typical entry to be found as each one comes and goes in its own unique way.



What does a fourteen year old write about? Well this weblog provides pretty much a complete answer to that question. You might say that his many words and sentences span the complete spectrum of emotions form extreme boredom, to being head-over-heals in love, to producing social comments about this or that. An advertisement for Wendy’s, a book he saw, why he thinks that James Bond is the coolest guy out there, getting pissed off on a flight, those sort of things. Sometimes Yazid can come across as a bit too much fixated on the opposite sex, but what do you expect from a young healthy male at that age?



The value of ‘168’ is after all not that random, I would say. This very readable weblog proves this fact. If you do not understand what this means, then I recommend highly just having a look here to see if you can discover why ‘168’ is not any other kind of number. Hey Yazid, keep up the good work.WtF

My first thought on visiting The Blissfully Bitter Blog was “Well, this should be easy, its a blogger template site, there are no archives, pretty simple, okay layout, easy review.”. Well, what is that saying? ‘Still waters run deep’? On cursory examination of this site there is not a whole lot to it. Until you start reading, and read I did, and read, and read, and read, and I loved every minute of it.



This weblog doesn’t have archives (as yet as the author notes) and even though I strongly believe that archives are one of the most important aspects of a weblog, I have to say, that this site doesn’t need them. The author, in her own words, doesn’t use her blog as a diary, she only uses it for ‘stupid quizzes’ and venting. How can such a weblog recieve a 4.5 from me? Well if you look (just a little bit) past the blogger template, you find the authors main site. I don’t have enough room in this review to even come close to writing about how much content this site has. The author is a web designer, and a writer. A REAL writer. Anyone who would disagree with me I challenge them to read the articles entitled ‘White Trash Honeymoon’, ‘Everything Is Coming Up Roses’ and ‘Just Say No To Love’. My favorite line of her writing (from ‘Roses’); “A bunch of flowers ripped from their roots and wrapped in plastic delivered to me to rot in my fridge for two weeks. How nice. This says, “Our love, like these roses, is expensive and will eventually rot and die.” When you follow the link to the main site (listed under ‘OttoIgnatius’ on the left side menu) you come to find a treasure of information about the author which includes all of her writing, pictures, and a hilarious and extensive biography. Trust me, you will know this author.



When you go to this weblog, please follow thie ‘Ottoignatious’ link on the left hand side, and click on the ‘Written Word’ typewriter photo to the right. Thats where the real gems are. Ten minutes after I did my printer was making copies of two articles that the author wrote (I read twenty two of them, I even forwarded one story to my mom). These articles make you appreciate the internet, without its free flowing exchange of ideas and writing, I would never have read what I did today.



In summation, I read a blog that did not have archives, used a blogger template, had broken links (‘resume’ was one but if you are not looking to hire someone who cares) and yet I still spent the early afternoon and most of my evening reading. Oh yea, did I mention that the author is a web designer and the site I reviewed said to ‘come back later, this site is in the middle of a huge update. please bookmark and come back later.’ I’m glad I didn’t. Had I not had to dig for all the content I found I would have given this site a ‘5’, but I guess thats what happens when a writer starts a weblog, they think about what is in between the cover and back page and concentrate on what is in between.

Blissfully Bitter Blog

josephmarkovitch.com is, of course, a personal blog. For once, this is a personal blog that actually means to be personal, honestly and openly so.

Joe has pictures of himself on the front page and on top of every other page. He has an autobiography. He writes about his life with all evidence of honesty. All these are refreshing, letting readers access Joe’s life with no trouble at all. Other than that, Joe addresses readers by the pronoun ‘you’ and occasionatlly refers to himself as ‘Joe Boy’ or ‘Joe Joe’. It’s either friendly and cute or just plain smacks of adolescence for a 23-year-old, but whichever way, this blog invites interaction between reader and blogger.

The layout of the site is clean and classy, which isn’t that much of a surprise since Joe owns his own web business. However, the links are a bit obscurely titled (‘oh that joe’ for his autobiography, ‘my head’ for archived blog entries, etc.). Also, the entries of September and October seem to be missing.

All said, it is the straightforward way Joe talks about himself and his life, without hiding behind anything, that makes this blog a pleasant read. He rants and raves about his problems, he cheerfully informs us about his triumphs – he shares his life with us. Another plus point is the way Joe constantly invites readers for feedback. A regular Joe? Maybe. But a Joe who is obviously comfortable in his own skin, which is an endearing trait.

josephmarkovich.com

“Mixed up musings on real life and fantasy from within the Hall of Mirrors” is the byline that greets a reader at the journal, Hall of Mirrors. The site itself is pretty plain – it’s gray. The site has an organized look to it, and it reminded me more of a very serious news site than a personal blog.

Deb Atwood, the writer of this blog, keep this blog as a sort of daily writing exercise. She writes small scenes from her life, sometimes like little vignettes. Other times her entries are more like personal journal entries that seem more like Deb just wants to capture what she did that day for posterity. She writes a lot about her kids, and there are also entries on role-playing and quiz entries. There are occasional book reviews. Deb is a good writer.

The design of the blog doesn’t quite match up with Deb’s writing. As mentioned, the site is very plain with not a lot of personality. Perhaps the writing would be better served by a design that reflects the interests of Deb. But the design is functional and organized, and all of her links work, and that’s important.

Hall of Mirrors links to several of Deb’s writing projects. There is what seems to be two novels-in-progress, a weight loss journal, a journal devoted entirely to role-playing games, and a journal written in the voice of Deb’s young daughter. If you’re into reading comic strips, Deb has a pretty big section of links devoted to comics. One of the superior things about Moveable Type [which Deb uses to run her blog] is the ability to list your entries by subject category – it’s one of my favorite things to find in a blog. It makes it very easy to read all of Deb’s book review entries, for instance. Hall of Mirrors does not have an About the Writer page [that I could find]. I would suggest adding one. I’d like to make one other suggestion – make a separate area for quiz/meme entries. Reading quiz/meme entries breaks up the flow of regular entries.

If you like children and are interested in their development, or you like role-playing games, or you know Deb and want to keep up on what’s going on her life, Hall of Mirrors will likely be a journal you enjoy. I wasn’t particularly excited by this blog, but it is worth a visit.

The Hall of Mirrors

The creator behind this massive site is Sarah. She’s a 19 year old college student, who seems to be proud of her religion and is certainly a focused individual.

Hidden Beauty has a very pleasant design. It’s a relatively simple looking design, but it holds together through the entire site, giving the entire viewing experience at Hidden Beauty a very fluid appearance.

I really liked the idea of “The Aquarium” that Sarah has set up for links to other websites. It’s an original way to display a ton of links without worrying about finding a clever way to display them – this does just that.

Another section that I was particularly fond of was where Sarah explained her beliefs in regards to her religion. Some people can tend to be rather forceful about this type of issue, but the way Sarah comes across is very friendly and non-preachy.

You’ll find lots of the typical “Friday Fives”, or other such meme posts scattered frequently throughout this weblog. While it doesn’t require a lot of creativity to answer some pre-fabricated questions, it does allow the readers to learn things about all facets of Sarah and her life. When the weblog first rolled out, it seemed that the entries were more directly from the author, rather than just the question/answer scheme. But clearly from all she is involved in, Sarah posts when she can and what she can.

Those that are fans of this website welcome the posts that they do get, and for any newcomers, it’s easy to feel right at home.
hb.net