The Weblog Review

Disclaimer: I read basic Spanish only, so this review has been made possible with the help of my Spanish dictionary and the Babelfish translator. I do apologize to the writer of eCuaderno if my translations are off.

Jose, the sole writer of eCuaderno [literal translation: eNotebook], is a Communications professor. The reason for his blog is to share “news about Cyberculture and Weblogs.” eCuaderno really looks like a news blog. The design is very plain, but very functional.

Jose does accomplish his mission of sharing news, but it’s truly dry reading. It really is the quintessential news blog — just the facts. There is rarely any commentary on why a reader might find the facts interesting or useful. You’ll find information on a myriad of things that are happening online. Not everything is strictly of interest to the Spanish-speaking community.

If you have interest in keeping up with things that are new online and can read Spanish, you might really enjoy this blog. I would likely not return, as I have little interest in the subject and it’s too much of a hassle to translate everything.Cuaderno de Bitacora

“Bow. James Bow.” is The Journal of James Bow and his Writing. James, according to his own “Who Am I?” box on the page (complete with his photo) is “a 30 year old aspiring writer and web designer living in Kitchener, Ontario”.

The blog, powered by Movable Type, is crisp and clean and filled with a whole load of links. Despite this dense live-pointer population though, the blog’s design is such as to not overwhelm the visitor. Everything is neatly ordered and categorized on the right-hand side of the page and you can proceed step-by-step and click to your heart’s delight.

The archival structure of “Bow. James Bow.” is one small gem. A list of “Recent Entries” allows you to jump directly to recent posts without clicking archive links and scrolling down “deep” pages. The “What Have I Posted?” section is in effect the total archive of the blog and allows you to go straight to groups of posts by month and subject. No clicking buttons and dates and reading here and there. You’re directed to what is available from the word “go”. All is well organized and flowing. Kudos to James for this simple but extremely effective idea that makes for effortless touring of the blog.

“Bow. James Bow.” is also a pleasure to read. James writes with the steady pace of someone who enjoys putting words together to produce pieces both “average” and “advanced” readers can enjoy.

This may sound a “natural” characteristic of anyone who devotes a good part of his/her time to writing (and, of course, has the talent to go with it), but, in real practice, it is rarely achieved without laborious effort (which is not always successful). It’s obvious though that James doesn’t profusely sweat over his keyboard; he’s what I call a “glider”, someone who points his mind this or that way and, presto, commits the sentences to paper… ummm TFT display (?) flat monitor (?) — or whatever.

Posts range over a variety of subjects. Scrolling down the “What I Have Posted?” list you encounter family life, politics, tech issues, and several others. I clicked and clicked and wherever I went there was always a piece that was interesting and enjoyable. And when James chooses a current issue (like the post of December 12th), he demonstrates he has done his homework. This is what I call “respect for the reader”. I found that James’s blog achieves something few bloggers truly arrive at: “Bow. James Bow.” is not boring.

If we were putting together samples on “How To” in blogging, I’d nominate “Bow. James Bow.” as a top contender. Technically, it is darn near five-star. Content is varied, interesting, and readable. And presentation is straightforward and reliable. Do I need to say more?Bow. James Bow

First impressions were good. Some effort was made to create a graphic/colour theme which works well for the blog the site.

I –however– found the right column, containing Admired and Loved, About the girl etc. etc. VERY hard to read. Arial narrow; font-size: 9px? ACK! With the background image being the same colour as the text, some of the links were illegible. (Change the rollover to something other than white please…) 😉

But this is a blog review and the blog itself is very good. Tamsin is a witty, honest, intelligent writer who has a lot to say. The blog is mostly day-to-day events entries and personal reflections. Presently she is figuring out which University to pursue (or which will pursue her…).

A little taste of her writing:

“I’m not going to class today, I’m staying home. It must’ve rained enough to drown a small elephant this morning, and I’m not willing to sacrifice my dryness for two Pure Maths classes. I’d honestly rather have a lobotomy. Thus, it looks like today I will be: staying home, watching some Wobbl and Bob (perhaps interspersed with a little Gonzo – I love those sock puppets), and pretending to do some work. If work is now defined as “shopping for things you can’t afford at amazon”, then I should get a decent amount done today. *cough* “.

Heh,lobotomy you say?


In spite of a few missing pics, (yes the lovely red “X”) and the eye-straining arial narrow… the blog was good enough to pull the grade up a notch. A site to follow as I’m sure things will be improved. The author seems intent on learning more Photoshop and other web magic. An enjoyable narrative voice, I wish there were more entries…
24org

With a URL that looks like a 100-car freight train, A Sunny Place for Shady People (http://www.sunnyplaceforshadypeople.blogspot.com/) won’t be an instant memory-for-blog-addresses pleaser, but it should be added to your Favorites nevertheless.

This is how The Old Buzzard (Tom Milner?) defines his Blogspot-hosted blog:

Pithy, contrarian, politically incorrect and curmudgeonly rants on sex, money, power and politics and religion and philosophy. In short: Nothing matters, everything changes and there are no guarantees. The rest is rationalization and bribery.

I am instinctively reluctant to heed such bold introductions to a blog, but scrolling down The Old Buzzard’s page convinced me that, in this one case, the flag statement was very much on bull’s eye.

This is not your plain vanilla Blogspot Weblog. The page design is imaginative and an eye catcher. A reading area with a white background rests on a page that has the appearance of a pin-striped black suit with purple lapels and a purple shirt collar at the very top. There are no links other than those to Home and Archives and they’re both buried deep at the bottom of the page. The Old Buzzard has paid the small dollar price required and has liberated his page from those irritating ads hovering at the top of all free Blogspot pages.

Now, the writing. Hard-punching, frequently irate, with a cutting edge, quick and sharp. The Old Buzzard stands by his guns and he does not hesitate to tell you right off the bat (otherwise he wouldn’t be blogging, I suspect). Consider this:

These Anti-Smoking League Nazis remind us of the environmental fascists alluded to above, who also run amuk too often, sheltering the damn snails, turtles and wildflowers and spouting the fables of “Mother Nature.”

Or this:

And, one dares not, anymore, use the word “niggardly” in speech or even writing, for fear of being labeled racist.
This is patently silly.
“Niggardly”‘s etymology is Scandinavian and unrelated to bigotry. It simply means stingy, as in “that niggardly Oslovian.”
And “Chinaman” is taboo, but not Chinatown, wherein reside not Chinamen but refined Asian gentlemen.
Let’s not even consider the crazed feminists’ complaints about utilitarian phrases like “Men at Work,” or the frantic lady Sabbatists who insist on, minimally, genderless deities or, more starkly, just plain goddesses.

These are not lines that would enthral the “moderates” and the “diversity”-bound, but they spring from what sounds like strong conviction. The Old Buzzard, in effect, says: “Here it is, take it or leave it”. Fewer and fewer people are willing to make this statement in public nowadays.

Blogging is, first and foremost, all about freedom of expression, and the A Sunny Place for Shady People is a perfect specimen of just exactly this premise. The Old Buzzard sweeps over broad territory and uses a great variety of “mainstream” stories as incentives for well constructed posts. This is a “war blog” in a broader sense.

The Old Buzzard’s domain is not for the insipid and won’t offer pleasure to “balanced advocates”. And I bet the Buzzard’s ideas draw strong opposition; a large crowd out there would find him humorless and “bigoted”. The only way to decide for yourself though is to visit The Old Buzzard’s blog. I sure will return to his part of the woods — and will do so often. A Sunny Place for Shady People

Mojtaba Akhtari is an Iranian medical doctor living in London, from where he posts to his Letters from London blog hosted on Blogspot.

Mojtaba looks a lot out of some library window, where he spends many hours studying, and generally lets his eye wander over the London skyline. The scenery he sees is of course pure Londontown, the green dome of the Imperial War Museum near his flat being a prominent landmark (which places Mojtaba’s perch on good ol’ Lambeth Road, London SE1 6HZ).

Letters from London uses a simple template — one-column reading area with yellow background on a light gray page. There is only one very short archive, the blog being not even a month old. There are no links or any other distinguishing marks on the page.

Motjaba generally goes over his daily life, which evolves around reading, working in the hospital, performing procedures, planning for visits with friends and such. He seems to be happily married to a wife who treats him to delicious vegetarian dishes. He sounds quite at peace with what should be a hectic schedule, because apparently he is a junior doctor, maybe just a “houseman”, as the Brits call young doctors doing their specialty and working nonstop 130-hour weeks (including weekends of course).

The writing could use some polishing, but the tone is relaxed, attuned I guess to the pace of a daily routine well under control. Motjaba does not wrestle with existential dilemmas so prevalent in so many personal blogs. He’s not crying his heart out over lost or broken liaisons and he’s not hurling his whining and moaning upon readers, just like your average “I’m-here-to-tell-you-how-shitty-the-world-is” personal blogger. Letters from London is maybe unexciting, but steady and well-balanced.

Motjaba’s posts read like a short story. This is perhaps the blog’s strong point. On a technical note, the good doctor should get used to inserting a space after punctuation — space after a full stop, space after a comma or semicolon. This will make his page a lot clearer and easier to read.

I liked Letters from London. This is one honest, level-headed blog. Letters From London