The Weblog Review

I liked the simple, tranquil design with soft gray colors right away. A row of soothing photos along the top added color. I was immediately curious about Bhikku. Is this the author’s name? The blog had been updated on July 17 with a series of what I think are electron-microscopy photos of pollen grains. Each is unique and beautiful.

I can’t find an about page, so Bhikku remains a mystery. The archive page shows an image of a modern painting. A clue about Bhikku: he or she is an art lover. Bhikku posts images of art or photography regularly. I think art lovers would like this site. Buddhists also, and those interested in Buddhism; the site contains virtual prayer wheels for your computer desktop that are worth exploring.

Bhikku.net is full of thoughtful, impressionistic writing and quotations that are quite beautiful. Recent posts include descriptions of a trip to New York City from the UK, literary quotations, and lots of art images accompanied by poetic but mysterious text. This site is a labor of love, and the author is a talented writer with a penetrating eye for beauty. The design is consistently simple and lovely, and all the links work.

I found this site impressive and felt not-quite-qualified to judge its contents in depth. I need to spend more time with it and maybe then I can slowly get to know Bhikku. Without being able to say a lot about the site, I’ll just say visit it if this description intrigues you, and you won’t be sorry. For uniqueness, beauty, and quality, I rate the site a 5.

bhikku

I wasn’t quite sure how to go about interpreting this site since it’s not as straightforward as most blogs are, though I did find myself enjoy reading it.

The blog was interesting to read. The author takes snippets from different written sources ranging from the Bible, to unknown writers to more familiar writers such as Steinbeck and William Blake. You’ll also find historical references here which were neat to read since it’s not something you tend to read in blogs. Once in a while you’ll find pictures which usually refer to text, like a picture that fits a poem and so on. The site seems to be gear towards those who are well read and educated.

The layout itself is pretty simple, nothing fancy. The font could be a little bigger though. The graphics when begin to search through the archives change at the top which for some reason threw me off about where I was on the site. It might help if there was a link to the main page.

Over all, it’s a pretty good site and a nice read.
bhikku

Upon entering through a well designed splash page one is struck by the highly patriotic (American patriotic, that is) nature of the imagery of Kim’s FragileSin blog.



A moment later one is hit by the pop up advertisement. I realize (or hopefully assume) that these pop ups, that continue to pop up regardless of whether or not you’ve seen it already (don’t they know how to use cookies?), are not Kim’s fault, they still do manage to detract from the overall pleasure of the visit.



Prepared for a Buddhist-like read upon reading, “… so spend the moments smiling and just push the anger away in favor of kindness and good vibes.” the further I read I found that Kim’s patriotic imagery and positive karma were not based on blind views as she was able to rise up with a strong opinionated voice that she summarized as follows, “I’d rather be a free ass than a domesticated, oblivious sheep.”



An enjoyable blog that Kim has interspersed with images and photos on a well laid out attractive Site.


Fragile Sin

Most of the time entrance, or splash, pages tend to be an annoyance (at least to this surfer). In the instance of Ten-Fifteen, Jeremiah McVay has utilized a simple well positioned splash page to set the mood for the rest of the Site.



Upon entering the blog one is struck by the contrast of the vibrant photos against the steel blue background of a well laid out page. The photos of the ocean lapping upon soft sands were enough to make this viewer envious, being stuck in dark confines surrounded by glowing monitors.



Though an attractive Site, I was disappointed when attempting to use the “Features” drop-down only to find that it didn’t function. Further disappointment was to come when switching to the image links in the upper left-hand section of the page, those too, alas, provided an “Error on page” message.



The only way that one may view the photographs is by browsing through the “Archives” drop-down, many of which are well worth the view, though there is a degree of frustration having been teased with the potential of viewing the photos by category instead of by event.



Ten-Fifteen, once one manages to overcome any frustration at the non-functioning technical aspects, is worth visiting for to view some of the entertaining and interesting images with which Jeremiah provides his visitors.


TEN15

My initial impression was a sinking feeling caused by the blog being a dark shade of lime green against a light shade of Lincoln green. This is a very bad contrast, meaning poor legibility. This initial poor impression was deepened by the realisation that the blog lacked capital letters. I expected to find the introspective scribblings of a semi-literate teenager. My tearing hand reached to my hair.

I found nothing interesting, funny or gripping in the actual content. It’s a personal journal that would sit happily on the hard drive. It does not speak out to the audience, it appears to be oblivious to the audience, and there are references to places, events and people that have no meaning to strangers. There is no attempt to explain and no sense of a personality behind the blog. Her actual use of English is of high standard – non-capitalisation apart. However, she does tend to use colloquialisms which are near unintelligible to me (I am a foreigner), and which, I suspect, are an unconscious imitation of the books she reads. Many of her entries refer to the books she read, but, like many of the other entries, require a prior knowledge to appreciate. I was struck by her seeming existence in a vacuum, with no reference to the outside world, that I searched for her September 11th entry. That only proved how trite and insular she is.

The design is unexciting, with few ‘extras’ – no “About” page, no illustrations, and the rare contrast coming from the bright orange of “Powered by Blogger”. It is the equivalent of a piece of paper with some addresses in the margin. She made few entries in July, and June is non-existent, or unarchived.

I would strongly recommend not visiting this site. The target audience is Lauren, and, possibly Joe and Paul. That’s it. The writer is highly proficient in sentence construction, and I would be happy for her to write reports for work, but that does not make her a writer. There is nothing excrutiatingly awful about the site but very little of any merit.

kidchamp