The Weblog Review

This blog is the ultimate proof that you do not need to have a particularly exciting and/or sexually-busy ‘real’ life to write an interesting blog.

At first glance, Debbie sounds like the ordinary blogger who gripes about her life in her blog. After a few lines, though, the reader can’t help but get into her story about whatever major disaster she is going through, be it a disastrous day at work, a bad dinner with the in-laws or just a general lamentation about how boring she is. Well, boring she is not. Debbie’s writing style is engrossing, and she clearly has a flair for writing. The tone is consistent throughout, and connected events flow nicely together. Here is a writer who is capable of turning the most mundane of events into a sensational tabloid news. Through her witty descriptions, one can’t help but find her life tremendously interesting.

The layout of the site is simple black and white; not anything to shout about. As for the archives: perhaps Debbie needs to re-post her old links, because the only link that shows up is ’06/01/2001 – 06/30/2001′. That’s a huge gap of more than one year in between.

Debbie writes well, and her blog is a joy to read. Other than the missing archived blogs, which left me feeling rather unsatisfied (deprived, even), this is a blog worth checking out. Who says married career women are boring?

Debbie Does Drivel

Other than the weblog, there’s not a lot to this site. There doesn’t have to be, though. It seems the point of this site is just to give the author a means of release for random writing. Throughout the entire weblog there were excerpts of poetry, mainly in a free verse format, and strings of descriptions that often seemed like scenes from a movie or passages from a short story or novel.

There’s a start to a photo gallery, with a section on the author’s trip to Vegas. The section is laid out very nicely, and hopefully there will be more added to the galleries because our author seems to be a very gifted photographer. Two short stories and a verse of sorts are also available to read through at this site.

Design-wise, there’s not a lot to this site. The design that is used, however, is a nice clean design giving off a simplistic ambiance, which is a good overall description of the site.

Overall, Dreamweapons didn’t leave me with a sense of wanting to come back time and time again on a consistent basis. The writing is very descriptive and very easy to find yourself right in the middle of, and certainly very enjoyable. The personal weblog feeling at this site, however, is certainly not there.

Dreamweapons

Barret Vogel is angry or frustrated or both. His DeadBirds blog has the appropriate colors to go with the general mood of the site: gray and black and grayish blue and darkish green (and some brighter colors in between)… No links, no extras. The “r” in “Birds” is a handgun.

Barret’s writing has a hard, abrasive edge. It’s often powerful, then suddenly drops off only to shoot up again in the next post. There’s often abusive language, but not anything extraordinarily beyond what many people use routinely. You may not agree with such language, but this is obviously part of Barret.

This blog is about his creator’s “precious memories,” we’re told at the very beginning, so “f…k you.” Nice opener. DeadBirds is a darn hard blog to swallow, but, once you’ve read a couple of posts, it can become almost addictive if you’re into tension and resentment that pours onto the (electronic) page straight out of the foundry…

Barret talks harshly about people and about what is happening in his life. Mom is away some place, but within reach; Dad has been living with this woman Barret hates “since I was seven years old;” the post about the woman is long and angry and disturbing; Barret gets good grades, but “Mom still won’t buy me shit…. Someone needs to explain to that bitch that an attitude of negativity without positive reinforcement is no way to encourage me.” Rides at the fair are “…easily the best drug I’ve tried next to acid.” He also gets drunk — often….

DeadBirds is a punch in the stomach, but also a reminder. I had once a student who sounded very much like Barret — and he also wrote outstanding tempestuous prose. I won’t tell you though what he did with his life.

Pay a visit to DeadBirds, if only for the writing. Maybe this blog is the beginning of a book; I can see several threads for short stories here. DeadBirds is no fun. You got to wrestle with it. But I recommend it — highly… and then of course you decide if you’ll go back… deadbirds.net

I have to admit that I’m drawn to blogs that have interesting graphics. The main logo graphic at Zachhale.com is spooky – the eyes of the boy in the infrared shot glow and make me think of horror movies. Combined with the bar code to the right I got the feeling of Big Brother watching me. Zach is an 11th grader from Washington state. When I realized that I thought for sure that this would be another blog filled with typical teen angst crap.

Zach writes about his day to day, what’s going on at school, what’s going on with his family. It’s not exciting blog content, but it’s more like a personal diary. And I’m happy to say that it’s more interesting than other teenage blogs I’ve read – he seems like a pretty mature guy. Zach’s blog has only been around for a couple of months, and most entries are pretty short. I get the feeling that Zach has a lot to say, but nothing is ever really fleshed out in his entries.

Other than the main logo graphic, the design is pretty plain. It is organized, though, and I really appreciate a well-organized layout. I did encounter a couple of broken links in the entries. Also, I received an error message in the photoblog section, and the layout and navigation are a little funky there. The design doesn’t carry throughout the blog – it’s not consistent.

Zach has a photo of the day, which is a nice idea. He also provides an option to translate page into other languages. The photoblog section would be great if he could clean up the design and navigation.

Overall, Zachhale.com is a solid blog. I doubt I will become a regular reader right now, but I might come back in a few months to check out the evolution of Zach’s blog.
zachhale.com

When I was younger I absolutely loved “Go Ask Alice”. I was my favourite book, I though it was so real, so true to life (after all it was a real diary, right?). Well Raindropplets had me waxing nostalgia for those days. It reads just like the beginning of the book, when the author was in her good days, minus the weight obsessions.

Lauren writes long, coherent entries that, at first glance I though I was going to hate. I thought “here we go, another little girl who thinks she’s an adult with “adult” problems”, but they grew on me. Her naïve thoughts are endearing, and occasionally she has some fairly insightful pieces. I adored her entry “Dear Kealing”, which was a letter to her old school. It shows that this girl has some major writing potential. The last line of the letter, “Or have you been ruined by uptight administrators and lazy, ignorant students who don’t care?” really hit home in the way that a good personal blog should.

If I were to talk to Lauren I would tell her to keep on going, her blog is infectious. All the things I thought would make me hate it, made me want to keep reading in the end. Truthfully, unless you are, or once were a teenage girl, this blog probably isn’t for you. But if you are looking for a little reminder of those carefree, naïve days of your early teens I highly recommend this blog to you. The only downside, unfortunately, is the design. The long entries of white text on black did make it hard to read in long periods. Other than that, go, read, wax nostalgia, giggle as if you were a fourteen year old girl again, and enjoy.
Raindroplets