The Weblog Review

I laughed at the photo of the boy!! It made me smile which is always a good start when you first click onto a journal! Then I noticed the nice neat boxes and was struck by how organised it all looked. Then I saw how long the list of links was and felt abit overwhelmed!!

This is a personal blog with an insight into Lee’s mind. It is exactly as it says, a journal. You can share and read Lee’s thought and feeling on everything from her packing up smoking and drinking, to what she thinks of awards shows!!! Follow her as she turns from nice to a cigarette starved woman on a mission! Her about me page suggests that she values her privacy, but I think that you get a good idea of the woman behind the blog with her entries.

The design is nice and simple. Clean cut and easy to use and read. There is a list of her more notable blog entries, the Apartment Guide is a must!! Then you get a list of her archives, and then a list of her blog categories. You can go in and read all her rants which I found quite good fun!! I just hope her mum sees sense and removes the picture!! There are alot of links though, I did find these slightly overwhelming, but she is obviously just a popular girl!

I think that the categories are the best ever bonus feature. I liked going through and reading Lee’s rants, then going back and reading all the humour entries. I really liked the feature, and it gave me a chance to find out alot more about the author. The clean cut and easy to use design was a feature.

I liked this blog because posts made me laugh, made me think and made me feel in tune with Lee. I liked the way that it reflected my idea of a blog, a personal insight into someone else life. The real nitty gritty warts and all entries of one persons life. I think that I will probably pop back, once every so often, just to see if her mum moves the dreaded photo and to see how the giving up smoking goes!! Best of luck Lee!
Malarkey, Tom-Foolery and Guff

It’s been a while between reviews, and what better way to delve back into the reviewing business than to start of with this classy blog. You won’t find whizz-bang graphics, bells, whistles or any odd error-alerting coding on the site. It even loads pleasantly quickly, considering it’s a Blogspot blog. I’m a simple girl, with simple tastes, and this blog really appealed to me from start to finish. Firstly, it’s very easy to read, I cannot stress how much this affects my reviews. I found the colours so refreshing and easy to look at for a long period of time – which I did when I was scouring the entries.

As it says in the header quote: “A somewhat daily chronicle of the events that concern D. Kelly Smith (and I’ll call him “Kelly” for the purpose of this review) and the world around him.” And it certainly is. As it’s a personal blog, I immediately searched out the “about” section to find out a bit more about the person behind the blog, and I wasn’t surprised to find a simple statement about himself and a few lovely pictures of his family. Hell, he’s even got his own theme song which I think is rather novel.

Kelly’s love and concern for his family is evident in his blog – it’s something you see straight away as you read them. He questions the motives of people and organisations around him and worries about the effects they could have on his family, this is what makes his blog so personable. I enjoyed Kelly’s thoughtful responses to what is considered “pop culture” as well (probably because I found myself agreeing with him much of the time) and found myself nodding along or whispering the same sort of sentiments to myself as I read.

The blog possesses a quiet intelligence that’s subtle and quite nice to read. There’s nothing in your face about it. He doesn’t rant about how people should agree with him, he just puts his point across politely and without much fanfair. I think that has a more profound affect on any reader than the simple “agree with me or eff off” sort of blogger.

One final note, as I was clicking through the archives, I came across Kelly’s post for 9/11. This awesome quote is from that entry:

“We talk about racial issues, socioeconomic issues, regional issues, and religous issues, we talk about all of the issues that divide us as a nation, we laugh and scoff at the President and our Congressional Leaders without the realization that in one way, we are all the same.”

Thanks for this awesome blog, Kelly.

Weblog Afficianado

My initial thoughts about this site were that I would be entering the blog of a hippy and it would be all psychedalia and good karma- after all, mythic flow has that sense to it. This was certainly an erroneous assumption, but in all honesty I am not entirely sure what I found instead.

At first I thought the layout of the site was ridiculously simple, with just a titlebar and the posts, until I discovered substantial linkage starting at the bottom of the page (though to be fair, it starts at the side of the page in the archives). Unfortunately I could find no information about the author or what the point of the blog was amongst the many, many links to be found. I did find another blog by the same author, but I ignored it as I still hadn’t got the hang of this one. The archives could have been easier to navigate too, though this maybe the fault of the blogging system (the name of which I could not ascertain) and thus out of the author’s control. The template isn’t though, and it could do with a bit of rearranging really.

Anyway, being none the wiser from my intial poke around, I had no choice but to crack on with the posts themselves. My first impressions of the writing style were good- the articles were generally amusing and the subjects covered on the front page included sport, religion, blogging and the author’s Mum- a good combination I thought! Some links were included in the postings too which all seemed reasonably appropriate.

Once I got in to the archives though, I seemed to lose my way with it all somehow. Again, knowing nothing about the author to begin with, I could find little in the posts to establish what the whole “feel” of the blog was meant to be- a link to an author profile was sadly defunct. In strictly personal blogs this doesn’t matter as you simply learn about the author’s life as you go along, but there were very few personal entries to be found. Instead there were a lot of theological and political debates, all written in a very academic style. Some were interesting and engaging I admit and the comments helped, but I also must confess that still other’s went over my head completely and I missed the point altogether.

Unfortuantely I found this weblog too inaccessable to give it a higher score, both structurally and in regard to its content. It won’t take much to get it on track- but an About Me page is a must. Once it is clearer what the aims and direction of the weblog are, it will be more enjoyable to explore what are undoubtedly the interesting viewpoints of the author. At the moment though, it is just a collection of random and sometimes difficult posts waiting for a good home.mythic flow – methinks

When I saw the title of The Millions: The First Ever Internet Bookstore Blog, I was intrigued. Anything to do with reading or books is, in my opinion, terrific. But what exactly is an online bookstore blog? I decided to start at the beginning and find out.

Launched in March of this year, The Millions began like many other blogs. The author, a young man named Max (an avid baseball fan and, I quickly discover, a prolific reader), lives in Los Angeles, co-owns a fledgling record label, and works at a bookstore. The first month of entries are typical blog fare: descriptions of parties he’s attended, a bit about his job, some excerpts from articles he’s written, etc. But very quickly the focus of The Millions narrows. The author has a passion for books, good books, and he thinks you should too. As he states in his manifesto (of sorts):

given that you and I will only be able to read a finite number of books in our lifetime, then we should try, as much as possible, to devote ourselves to reading only the ones that are worth reading, while bearing in mind that for every vapid, uninspiring book we read, we are bumping from our lifetime reading list a book that might give us a profound sort of joy

Slowly, the concept behind The Millions emerges and the tagline begins to make sense. Max explains that his dream is to one day own a real bookstore but until then he’ll settle for an online version. Books, old and new, are discussed in each entry. Included is a link to Amazon.com’s listing of the title. Each time someone clicks that link and buys a copy, Max get a small referrer’s fee. Thus the “internet bookstore” description.

It’s a good idea, and Max is sufficiently well read to pull it off. Although he occasionally comes off as a bit pompous, his genuine love of books and his ability to get the reader excited about them as well is what makes the site noteworthy.

The design of The Millions is a simple two-column layout in blue and orange. The site looks good in the major browsers, but the text is a bit on the small side at higher resolutions.

Ask A Book Question is a new feature at The Millions, and as the site grows I believe it will prove to be useful and fun. Send your question to the author and he will post it on the site, so that the blog audience may discuss it.

It will be interesting to see how this blog develops. If you love books, stop by The Millions and have a look around. Not only will you find up to date reviews and discussions of classic literature and what’s popular today, you’re also bound to find some titles you’ve never heard of before. It’s a solid addition to the world of literary blogs.The Millions (A Blog About Books) AKA Ask a Book Question

When I first arrived at The Bachelor Blog it took my eyes a few minutes to adjust. With a bright yellow background, blue links, and red and black text it’s a little harsh. The second thing I noticed was a large blurb at the top of the page announcing that The Bachelor Blog had recently been featured in Psychology Today magazine. I searched for some sort of biographical information on the author (an “About Me” page) but could find none, so I jumped over to the magazine write-up thinking it would give me some idea of what I was in for. What I read intrigued me. Psychology Today had the following to say:

Self-Absorbed single guy gives online dating (and bachelors and, for that matter, men in general) a very bad name. What women fear men are really like.

I wasn’t sure I would like what I was about to read but I figured that it had to be interesting. I’m not easily offended. I was pretty sure women were going to get some harsh treatment here, but that didn’t bother me. If it’s done right, written well, and above all funny, crude humor can make for a fantastic blog. I hoped that was what I would find in The Bachelor Blog.

I was wrong.

The Bachelor Blog is a site with an identity problem. It doesn’t know what it wants to be. It’s clear from reading through the archives (beginning in April of 2002) that the author is trying to present himself as some sort of player, stringing along multiple women by cheating, lying, and manipulating. He strives to create something cool and humorous (albeit coarse) and perhaps if he had a flair for writing, a decent sense of humor, or a spell checker, he could have pulled it off.

As it is, the site is flat and lifeless. Instead of a boorishly funny take on the dating scene, The Bachelor Blog is just plain boring. The entries are poorly written with many misspellings and grammatical errors. A few mistakes here and there are no problem, but these occur so frequently and are so awkward that it makes many entries downright difficult to read. The never-ending procession of women runs together after a bit until you can’t tell any of them apart anymore, even though the Bachelor is kind enough to provide a guide to the rotating cast of characters.

The author designed the site himself and although it’s not the worst blog I’ve laid eyes on it could definitely stand a few improvements. The colors are harsh on the eyes and there are some long stretches where the author uses different fonts, colors, and font sizes for each entry. Combine these with the previously mentioned careless errors and boring subject matter and reading The Bachelor Blog becomes a frustrating experience.

If the author concentrated a little less on slapping himself on the back and a little more on crafting well-written posts, The Bachelor Blog could turn into something interesting. Until then, it’s merely one more wannabe in a sea of vastly superior blogs.The BachelorBlog