The Weblog Review

Confused. That’s my one word I’ll have to use to describe how I felt after leaving Fosh Dawg.

The splash page is a bit unique and I liked that. I’m assuming, after looking at some of the different sites the author has had his hand in designing, Fosh Dawg is probably in the midst of an overhaul.

Depending on which link you click on to get to the weblog, you could get two different appearances. One’s a VERY simple layout, with no formatting at all – no navigation, nothing. And the other is in a boxed format with different shades of blue, and is extremely hard to tell how to follow the order of posts. There’s also a link to click on for the author’s journal, but it’s the same non-formatted weblog as mentioned previously.

There isn’t much of a weblog to read. When the author DOES decide to write something more than two sentences long, it’s not terrible to read. It’s typically a description of something out of the norm that’s going on in his life, and it’s always good to read things like that.

Hoping the photo section of the website would provide me with some type of substance, I made sure to visit all the different galleries that are set up. Much to my dismay, out of the eight galleries, only three actually had any pictures at all in them.

“Fosh” does have a nice bio section, though. It’s always good to hear that there are still some men out there that are trying to keep the dream of being a gentleman still alive.

I just felt like this site was really incomplete – the design wasn’t fluid throughout the whole site, there were no archives, and maybe only a dozen entries.foshdawg.net

BrianHayes.com is an odd conundrum of links, poems, musings, thoughts and links. I was a little nervous when I first went to the site and was greeted with a yellow hyperlink, which led me to believe that a long load time for a flash application was awaiting me, but thankfully I was spared from that. It wasn’t a flash application but a background that needed to load.

I really can’t describe the site enough to classify it into one category. The blog postings are intermittent with the author even stating in one that he is not sure if he wants to write that day. Some posts are jokes or useless facts while others provide nothing more than links to sites the author found interesting. When the author does give his own personal commentary, the writing is light and fanciful and sorely missed on the rest of the site.

There are links to poetry by the Mr. Hayes which is okay, but that is a heavily biased statement (something I own up to immediately) because I am not a big poetry person. Therefore, other people may enjoy it more than I did. There is another link called “house” which takes you to a site with various other links that for a garden design or a “mantle” or “direct vents.” There really seems to be no reason for this unless the author is building his dream home. If he is, it would be nice to have that written somewhere on the main “house” page to let you, the reader, know that.

Even more annoying was the box where the links to the various sections of the site was located. It could be that my screen wasn’t large enough to prevent it from covering a logo for the site. I could tell that there was writing under this box, but never got to see what it said until I clicked on “feedback” and the box dropped. I was expecting something grand to be behind there (perhaps more links) but I was disappointed to find nothing of real interest.

The links are nice, but I would like more original content.
brianhayes.com

Wicked Persephone – We Have Brains is a feminist centered blog that works to “deal with questions of feminism.” Twice a month a topic is posted on the site as well as through their email list. By looking through their archives, their topics have broached the second and third generation feminists as well as other interesting topics such as “music that defines you” and body image.

April, the author of the site, has a DAZZLING writing style. She is witty, articulate, and knows what she saying without having to revert to fifty-cent university words to make her point. It is written so that everyone that comes there (feminist or not) can relate to her and her point of view. Her writing does not alienate those who do not share her view points but rather she acknowledges them and incorporates them into her writing to prove that she not only understands their positions but respects them as well. Trust me that is no easy task and April handles it with ease.

The site’s design is a nice purplish-mauve-ish color which looks great. With links on the right to guide to you to how the blog started, why it started, and the “rules” of this effort, it’s an easy navigable design that works. My only (and this is so minor) complaint is that the responses to some of April’s fabulous questions aren’t printed in the blog. Most people have taken to posting their replies on their own site which means you must click through to another site to read a response.

Like I said…this writing is fabulous and April has a great site on her hands. I really hope that everything works for her and Wicked Persephone.
wickedpersephone.org

“nothing to see here” is a refreshing look into the life of a Bostonian. The website has a very clean design with the current day’s entry on the first page and a link to the past entries at the bottom. The design is simple and effective letting the reader quickly get where they need or want to go without much confusion.

Upon arrive at “nothing to see here” I was immediately thrust into the author’s journey on the Northeast AIDS Ride. He does a nice job of employing his own personal commentary on his ride and why he does while juxtaposing against why others ride – for those that they know who have passed, to prove that the disease has no hold on them, or even for some good karma to come their way because they sold “one of their Porches” to participate. The archived entries employ the same style of writing that lets the reader into the author’s life as well as have a few laughs with him.

With the blog come pictures of the authors recent trips to London and Iceland (making me vow that I will make it to Iceland sooner or later) and links to the author’s favorite sites and even his music of choice. I have noticed how people on their blogs mention what people are reading, watching or listening to…however this is the first one that let’s us know what they have RECENTLY read/watched/listened to…Kim Newman’s Life’s Lottery seems like an interesting read and I’m going to check that one out…

All in all…this is a nice, clean site with a sense of humor.
nothing to see here

Roguemonkey.org centers around out author Wojtek who fills his blogs with information from entertainment news, links, sci-fi and the odd humour post. Did I also mention that’s he a keen football supporter too? Just reading the first few entries its quite evident out man like his game of football, and by his light-hearted, almost comical way of putting this across, you don’t have to like football to like Roguemonkey.org.

The posts are all top-notch reading, as mentioned above they cover a broad area of topics, which I believe helps avoid the blog become stale and one-dimensional. I think some of the topics are terrific, for example we’re given a Book Review of Desperation by Stephen King, which is kind of in the form of a brief book report, as well as more technical issues such as ISBN number (in case your thinking of buying it). I have to say I enjoyed reading through a lot, if not all, of the site.

The design is very well done, not over the top, but simple blogging with a menu on the right hand side. Colours all work well and the site doesn’t have that cluttered feelings that most blogs have. The large bolded heading also help break up the blog, they stand out and usually descriptive enough to give you some idea about what the post is about.

One thing I was really impressed with was the way all the post are categorized by subject, for example footie, links, sci-fi and so forth. This meant you also had the option of sorting the site by subject, a nice, useful feature. Archive, comments and links are we’re within mouse point reach.

All up Roguemonkey.org did enough to impress me to want to come back, its clean, its readable and most importantly, its just plain good. I give Roguemonkey.org two thumbs up and a 4 out of 5 and urge you all to have a look.
rogue