The Weblog Review

Chum Bucket. Having been raised by an outdoorsman, I knew what a chum bucket was. In case you don’t here is Webster’s on it : 1. animal or vegetable matter (as chopped fish or corn) thrown overboard to attract fish.

Now you know.

The page is a three column layout, which is not my favorite. I feel all that stuff on both sides is a bit distracting to the main attraction, which should be the writing. But it is well organized and everything seemed to be in working order.

I was amused though by the goofy guy with bugs in his teeth at the top of the page, and was starting to look forward to some fun. My hopes were dashed pretty quickly however as I began to read the entries.

It took me a while, but I finally found an entry that explained a little about where our author was coming from. If I were you, I would read this entry first: Saturday 02.07.04 [12:15 am] .
Here he states his desire to become a stand up comedian. And it sounds like he has had some experience with it too. He also describes a little of his philosophy of comedy. After performing with a group of other people, it sounds like he had an epiphany. He describes it thusly: “It was the realization that most of the people on this planet aren’t aware of what surrounds them. I made it my lifetime goal to show you.”
He compares himself to several comedians, George Carlin among them.

Now, to the writing itself. While I give him credit for an active imagination, (he is very clever at making up names for imaginary diseases for one thing) I am afraid that he spoils his brilliance by being shockingly crude and insulting.

I am no student of humorists, but I can think of two who have been able to pull off this tightrope kind of humor. George Carlin is one, and Don Rickles the other. But you have to admit, that even they go too far sometimes. George is a New York curmudgeon on steroids. He’s grouchy. He’s cranky. He’s pessimistic. But he’s not MEAN.

Now I will admit that what is funny to one person is offensive to another and that we are talking about subjective stuff here. But the reason I am delving so deep into this, is that the author of this blog thinks that you have something to learn and he is here to teach you.

He says:”Nothing is sacred in comedy folks.” Which is a quote from a response to someone who commented on his blog. Well, I disagree. (and so did many of the people who commented.)

What is sacred, is the connection between you and your audience. It is a delicate balance that you enter into when you listen to or read comedy. I feel that our author has chosen a comedic path that, no matter how breathtakingly honest it may be, will probably not resonate with a wide audience. The insulting style, the crudity, and the just plain meanness of it, ceases to amuse pretty quickly. Contempt for your listeners, will never draw them into your circle. Without an audience, there is no comic.

It wouldn’t be honest of me to say that there is absolutely no humor to be found on this blog, because I DID laugh a few times. But overall, I ended up feeling abused by the content, and the delivery.

And there’s nothing funny about that.

ChumBucket

This is a very clever guy. He submitted his site for review then changed the URL. Bright huh? I’m English so maybe Chum means something different in the US, but here in the UK it means the stuff Mr Chester’s dad wasted in creating this guy.

The site is simple and straightforward enough. A good looking banner and left and right side panels containing an about me link, contact details and the usual archives and links to other blogs. There is also a drop down menu with a link to his more “satirical” pieces. Some of the links work; some don’t – for instance the chance to add his button to your site thankfully doesn’t.

The actual web log is easy to read; black text on white with a comments facility and a good use of pictures. There are no links from the text.

There is a calendar in the right panel which misdirects you around the site. I tried February 5 and came up with June 7. February 27 fetched nothing and June 7 brought forth June 10. There is also no home page icon which is a drag.

The site showcases the “twisted comic mind of Bob Chester”; a scholar of comedy. These are his descriptions. His posts contain foul mouthed, infantile, moronic comedy at its worst. He takes the piss out of everything with little skill and very quickly finds the lowest common denominator. Bin Laden, New York Yankees, Vikings, Mexicans, karate, the origins of alphabet soup, black people who don’t fit a stereotype, Jesus and Michael Jackson are all targets of his ill aimed wit. The Michael Jackson post is particularly offensive and unfunny.

I usually read a web log through, but stopped and went out before resuming as I thought a different frame of mind might enlighten me to Mr Chester’s way of thinking. No luck. I stopped shortly after starting again. The latest post contains a beautifully written piece concerning Michael J Fox. Mr Chester’s own words can sum up his work much better than any criticism I could make and I quote…”Do you think he knew what Parkinson’s was before he got it? I don’t think so. One day he couldn’t stop shaking his latte expresso all over himself. Then he ran down the street screaming “Doc! Doc! I can’t keep my food in my mouth!” Until that happens to me, I was wondering if you could stop fucking telling me about it. There are only so many times I can think “Holy shit, I wouldn’t want that at a dinner party”, before I change the channel.”

Mr Carter actually states in his profile that we could join him and “Watch as his sense of your humor grows greater every day.” Welcome to the addiction. If that’s the case – where’s the nearest rehab? I can give it no more than a half out of five for the design.

ChumBucket

Reckless Convention. A white page with a two column layout greets me. The purple and red color scheme on the right hand bar doesn’t do too much for me, but to each his or her own. The text is clear, although I am beginning to wonder why the print is so small on so many weblogs. A larger font would make for much more comfortable reading. Bloggers take note!

I launched into the sidebar where promises of “About Me” and Photos and other information resided. But don’t get too excited. In order to access this information, you have to sign up on Journalspace. I did not feel like doing this at all. Of course, this is not the fault of the diarist. It’s the way the site is designed. I don’t care for it.

It took me a while to figure out that our author is female. Even though there is a photo of a girl on the right column, I could not be sure until I read enough entries. I read some of the latest entries and began to struggle to get the gist of what she was saying. I found myself re-reading paragraphs because I had lost the flow of what she was talking about. But in the entry about sharks I found a few eloquent phrases like this one:

“See, there are these caves in the ocean, kind of bubbles, where the water is oxygen-rich. Highly oxygenated water affects a shark, and as a species, they know it. Sharks swarm to these aquatic opium dens and swim round and round, slower and slower, in their hundreds, lost in dreams of death and perfection.”

Very nice.

But as I read on, I was more and more perplexed. The writing was often more rant-like and disjointed than I can deal with in large doses. But then, here and there, would pop up a brilliant turn of phrase. So I kept reading. But in the end I came away with more than a mild case of annoyance. While I don’t doubt the intelligence of the author, I became weary while trying to connect with her convoluted writing style.

But I would be remiss if I did not mention that she has no small number of readers who comment. This means that there are those out there who DO connect. So my advice is to check out this blog and see what you think.

Reckless Convention

My first impression of this blog is that it is rather spartan. While this is good in that it does not detract from the entries themselves, I found it to give an almost monotone feel to the entries. Fortunately the monotone feel is broken up by smatterings of photos and various graphics which coincide with the mood or subject of the entry. This blog definitely falls into the personal category, and whether intentional or not I found enough humor in the writings that it held my interest and had me poking around through the archives to get a better glimpse into what Similar To… is all about.

The writer, a high school student in Sydney Australia, reflects that About Me blurbs seem self indulgent, but I found it helpful to set a point of reference from where this author is coming from.

After reading back a ways in this blog, I felt that this author seems to write with much more maturity than most high school students. It was refreshing to read my way through the entries without having to do mental gymnastics to keep up with the train of thought of the writer. With this writer making entries almost daily, it was quite easy to get a good feel for the personality behind the printed words.

Similar To… is still young, the first entry was on Dec. 6, 2003, but there is enough content to get a good picture of the life of this student. I look forward to seeing how this writer evolves

I have to admit, I have gone back and read the entry from April 28 several times. It gives me quite a chuckle as I’ve seen and experienced first hand this sort of thing before. I have started to feel as if this teenager is perhaps as twisted as I was at that age. You’ve got to love it!

While this is a personal blog, by no means is it a “me-me-me” blog, but rather the writings consist of the views of a young person about the world around him as he travels through it. The writing is well thought out, and presented in a positive manner, with none of the angst frequently found in blogs belonging to teenagers. I give this blog a rating of 4.0.
Similar to…

Upon arriving at Graham’s Page of Stuph (Stuff) I was greeted by an uncluttered, clean page with some wonderfully subtle graphic enhancements. The page was easy to read with its white, gray and blue color scheme and it was complimented with a functional two column layout.

So? What kind of stuph will you find here? Well, Graham is a ‘musician, dancer, bibliophile, perpetual student, and an employee of Blogger at Google, not necessarily in that order. He has been blogging since September of 2002 and his blog has well over 700 entries… so there is a lot of content here. (For a change..) His blog is about his day to day life. Work. Loss of work. Dance. Books. Music. Piano. Housemates. Cooking (well sort of). Computers. Movies. Family. Blogs. Blogging. Blog Design. Ana Ng (which I like too) Naturally as a musician there are many references to this aspect of his life. He plays the mandolin, piano (and always wants to play the piano more) and has been known to teach music as well. The author is a family oriented guy. There are many references to his family and friends, and he never seems to miss a happy birthday wish.

The writing is very matter of fact. I found my interest varying between the many entries. Some entries were very esoteric but others were exceptional. Especially the entries when Graham was reflective and introspective. Such as these:
eknath, life lessons. There are numerous interesting links (You can come across some really silly links when you spend all day looking at random people’s blogs.) which I enjoyed.

Simply put it, a nice blog about a nice guy.
Overall Graham’s Page of Stuph is a very solid blog. I enjoyed the little touches such as a rotating ‘about me’ pic and custom bullets (even if they are from some template?). Huzzah!
Graham’s Page of Stuph