The Weblog Review

Weapons of Mass Distraction is certainly an original, intriguing title for a weblog. I naturally expected it to focus on current events, and was correct in this assumption. I initially found the layout creative and aesthetically pleasing, though I was naturally miffed to discover the site’s navigation was cut off on my screen.

We have here a Canadian news blog which discusses news pertinent to Canadians. As an American, many of the topics were, well, foreign to me. However, I did not find this the least bit alienating. In fact, I was all the more interested. WMD is a news blog, no doubt, though it is pleasantly interspersed with what one could call editorializing, and the author seems to enjoy taking an online quiz now and then.

In essence, we have a very accessable news blog that readers of non-news sites might use as a bridge to new material. We have here the pundit-ish links to news sites accompanied by the author’s thoughts, but we also have subtle strokes of the personal weblog, with pleasantly humanizing diversions from this format. Readers quickly come to trust the author, whom they can easily feel a connection to.

I was especially charmed by the author’s occasional feature, “Saskatchewan or Mars,” which challenges the reader to guess which locale the photo shows. Equally charming is his occasional digression from news into discussing the downfall of porn magazines and various bands. This blog isn’t very old, but the quality of it’s content makes it absolutely adorable. With another six months on it, it would indeed be a very high-quality read. To the author of this site, I say: Blog early, blog often.

The site loads quickly, and opens with a large sketch of the human head, showing the blood vessels and muscles in blue over a black background. The rest of the page eloquently continues this color scheme, with fairly legible white text. Unfortunately, though, the site appears optimized for large resolutions, and in order to view the navigation, I had to change mine. I could not help but think that, were I not reviewing this site, I would not have bothered with it. I recommend the author review his stylesheets and fix this error. I also recommend adding biographical information, which is almost always a plus with any blog.

I recommend that Danny of WMD keep writing in this digital topos koinos of his. While this isn’t a trove of news, it needn’t be. I suggest readers look at it as a bridge between the world of personal journals and the world of the pundits. All in all, Weapons of Mass Distraction succeeds fabulously at being one man’s outlook on an information-drenched world.
Weapons of Mass Distraction

Warning! Peaceblog alert! I groaned when I read just the URL of this one, let alone saw the site (but because of the rules of being a reveiwer for The Weblog Review I couldn’t skip it). I’ve read peaceblogs before and I’ve never been impressed with them, either because the authors of the site cannot get their point across without trying to push their opinions onto the reader (passive aggressiveness is always fun – not), or they cannot back up their reasons for whatever it is that they are arguing about. That doth not a happy reader maketh.

Now, my general impressions of the blog on first entry. Very organised. Not anything spectacular as it’s a re-coloured version of a standard MT layout as far as I can tell. Everything’s very easy on the eyes with little fanfair to distract from the writing. There’s loads of features down the right-hand colum from most recent entries to recent comments. It’s not a very old blog, having started in October 2003, but what is there is A-grade stuff, but I’d love to see a design that reflects the nature of the site a little more.

I got a little confused to begin with as there’s no mention made of the fact that there seems to be more than one author at this blog – Morgan and Rachel, though the creator of the blog is clearly Morgan.

Now about the content. Alright, it’s better than expected. I checked out the “About Me” section but had to laugh upon reading the first sentence…

“My name is Morgan Daly. I am 24 years old and I have some ideas on how I would like my/our to look and how we are going to get there.”

Our what? Morgan, your bio needs fixing! It’s all important in the blog such as this.

So, reading the bio and the information page, we find out that Morgan felt he had to share his ideas with the rest of the world about his views for world peace and general huggy-feeliness. Very noble, and a very different way of approaching the topic of peace. Morgan concentrates on ways to achieve peace and not just the fact that he wants peace.

What I truly liked about this site was that there is no pushing. It’s not all “I am right, you are wrong, nyah nyah nyah” which is quite commonplace with some of the blogs I’ve read with a peace theme. Morgan puts his thoughts to the reader and then leaves them for the reader to decide on whether or not they agree. That is truly admirable. Morgan has literally said that he is critiquing the Peace Movement. He’s not entirely happy with it at the moment, he wants things to change and he encourages that change. There is no browbeating and I think that will really appeal to his audience and make World Peace One a very popular site, especially if it continues in this strain. Well done.World Peace One

I am sure regular reviewers here at TWR will be able to back me up on this, but sometimes there are reviews that we don’t want to write at all because we would much rather just keep reading the blog instead. I have been reading “SuperSteve for the last two hours (which has got me through the front page and a couple of the archives) and if it wasn’t for the fact that it is now gone midnight, I would much prefer to carry on reading and not bother with the review at all.

Anyway, write the review I must, so here is what I think of the site. I was a bit dubious at first when I entered the site. Don’t get me wrong, it looks great, is his own original design and has an overall “Superhero” theme. I had to get passed the introductory page first, which was reasonably impressive (had an animated gif amongst other things) though admittedly was a bit pointless. The blog itself included his own art work, streaming audio and each post had a cool little movie quote at the end. This guy could have got a five simply for having “The Littlest Hobo” theme tune available to play whilst reading! I couldn’t help feeling though that with all this work carried out on the theme, the appearance of the blog, there is no way the content was going to measure up. This guy was overcompensating with his design for the lack of anything interesting to say, I was sure.

However, I was wrong. This is a personal blog- the majority of the postings are about Steve and his life. There is not even an “About Me” page, let alone Photoblog, dedicated reviews section or other things which tend to attract a high score. So what makes this blog a 5, whereas others which do have these things have to make do with 3 or 3.5? Well firstly, there is no need for an “About Me” page, because his whole blog covers this. And who wants to see photos when the writing is so creative, funny, interesting, personal, honest and er… I am running out of adjectives here, but you get the idea. It’s a good read. And Steve has that great knack amongst a few bloggers of writing for the reader, not for himself. He is often back-tracking and making sure readers are “up to speed” with things, so you don’t ever feel like you need to read the entire archives to work out what the hell is going on now.

Now it is rather fortunate on Steve’s part that he does seem to have a great life – a new job (and even at the old job which he hated, everyone seemed to love him there), lovely girlfriend, loads of friends, interesting opinions but most importantly, a great way of conveying all this loveliness to the reader. (This abundance of affability might also explain why he has recently been averaging 14 comments per post, too). There is no pretentiousness or arrogance to be found, but simply some genuine gratitude and a love of and involvement in life. Even when he is feeling crappy he manages to write a letter to Santa about it.

I don’t know what else I can say really without you all getting bored about reading how much I enjoyed this blog. To summarise then, I thought the blog was accessible and life-affirming – it will also be added to “my fave blogs” list (which is actually harder to achieve than a 5 out of 5 – a rare accolade indeed!)SuperSteve.Org

As soon as I got to this site, I laughed. The bloggers own description? “Rants of a sweaty emotional Italian”. I have to admit I was amused. I assumed (and correctly I might add), that this would be a laugh.

The blog is hosted by Motime, which appears to be less template-y (Im making up words here), and free of the obnoxious Blogger Ads, but has a really annoying bar on the top. I knew ad free was too good to be true. The site is pretty sleek in design, with a simple yet artsy picture of the blogger, some perma links and quotes. The archives are easily accessible and all the links seem to work. Continuing with my curse, there is no About Me page which I miss dearly. There are however bios of friends (possibly roommates?) of the writer.

The blog is personal in nature, but nothing is so in depth that you would need to be inside the writers social circle to understand what is going on. The posts are light, not a lot of passion but still pretty entertaining. I have found a bias love for the site, as the writer is a Canadian student in Montreal. I find a Canadian outlook on life to be refreshing at the best of times, and a French Canadian one just adds that much more. I don’t see any specific audience in mind (although the writer thinks otherwise). People close to him in real life may find more humour in some things, but over all it is easy to get wrapped up in his writing.

One of the cool things I found about this site, was the links to the other bios. It seemed to give a bit of insight into the other players in the stories, as they don’t have the chance to explain their side.

I really did enjoy this site, and found it to be a pleasure to read. The only suggestion I would have is to add an About Me Page, as it makes it a bit easier for any new reader to get into your writing.
I NEED A GRIP!

“I’m an ordinary bloke, but I feel as if I’m living the life of another. For the past five years, I’ve lived almost every dream I’ve ever had. Several careers and a lack of direction all came together when I was 30 and I found a previously untapped ability to use my experience and make things happen. It doesn’t feel like work.

I’d pay to do my job. I am the accidental journalist and this is my story.”

What an introduction, eh? Rarely am I struck by a blog that offers such wisdom and intelligence as is shown in Someone Else’s Life. Blackrat (as he’s known on his blog) is a truly remarkable individual and I found myself absolutely riveted by his writing.

My first impression of the blog was a general “WTF?!” as I tried to maneuver my way about the various links, it all eventually fell into place for the most part as I stumbled through the archives to read. You do need a full resolution of 1024×768 though, as all the content and layout (and there’s lots of it) takes up the entire screen, however it’s very easy to read and the photos that are frequently posted aren’t so ridiculously big as to slow me down much (always appreciated by a surfer on a slow connection). It has several sections, though I mainly concentration on the “This Life” blog, easily traversable through the calendar.

Immediately upon my arrival at the blog, I read the introduction and then jumped into the “More about me” section where I found out how this man got to be a freelance journalist, one of the few professions I truly admire and straight away, his entry struck me…

“Freelancing is tough; it’s a competitive market and money is tight, but the rewards and perks are out of this world. Most Bloggers could do what I do. Writing is half the battle. Add in your unique and diverse experience allied to a thirst for knowledge and a love of English and you could argue that you were born to do it.”

Apply that to any of the millions of well educated bloggers out in the webisphere and you’d have millions of freelance journalists giving poor Blackrat a run for his money. Even I got a bit of a tingle when I thought about journalism as a possible profession for myself.

You can already tell that this entry set the tone for the rest of the blog (i.e., a very good one).

Blackrat is a great observer of people, life and everything that surrounds him and it’s demonstrated in his writing. Always optimistic, even when he say’s he’s not feeling 100%, I came away with the impression that this guy never gets so far down as to be depressed.

“Journalism has opened up all sorts of doors to me and I’d have been foolish not to indulge my love of aviation as a result of it. For me, there is nothing quite like that feeling as you punch through thick, impenetrable cloud into clear, endless blue sky dominated by the sun. It’s a thought that’s always with me in my lowest moods – however bad things are, above the clouds the sun shines always. It’s always summer at 30,000ft – and the views are fantastic.”

Obviously you’d be hard pressed to be pessimistic with thoughts like that bouncing about the inside of your skull.

Something that also struck me about this blog was the photos, they are terrific, and if you can’t get into the writing, then the photos are sure to impress, they’re unreal. This is definitely one for the favorites, no matter what your tastes!Someone Else’s Life