The Weblog Review

This isn’t the type of weblog where you’re completely lost if you just happen to stumble upon it one day. Mick’s entries range from information about what’s going on in his personal life to what’s happenings in the news, with various other topics scattered throughout.

Mick’s one smart cookie, but also a funny guy. As always, that makes for a nice combination when reading each weblog entry.

The site design is very clean, functional, and looks good all the way around.

Aside from the weblog, there’s a really great photo gallery section that houses some really nice-looking, professional quality photographs – and they’re fun to look at, too. The obligatory “about” section is there, which is always a biggie on sites I review.

There’s humor, there’s news, there’s a nice design, and there’s just about everything else you can think of that would make you come back time and time again to Mick’s Excessmemory. You know, and I’ve finally found someone else that agrees with the idea of Coke tasting different coming from a can as opposed to coming from a bottle!excessmemory

::excess:memory:: has a super clean, easy navigable design. Employing a combination of hyperlinks and a drop down menu, there is no confusion as to where the user can go or how they can get there. My only problem was that the drop down menu never took me where I wanted to go. I tried moving from the blog to the gallery and wound up back at the blog. I had to head back to the home page and move from there. Maybe I needed to wait and the page would have taken me there directly, however, not being a patient person, I clicked “go” and wasn’t too happy to be running in circles.

The nice orange and white color combo is easy on the eyes and, am I mistaken, or is that an artichoke in the logo? Oh wait…now it’s a watch on this screen…cool…I’m totally digging it!

Our 37 year old British author has a widely varied background. His “about me” page goes into detail about our author’s life history sprinkled with pictures from his past. He was an adorable five year – I can attest to that!

As for the blog itself, the writer has a wonderful tongue in cheek attitude. It goes from commenting on the World Cup soccer musings of the “local crack addicts and muggers” to a pretty insightful commentary on plagiarism in the arts. You really get this author’s use of humor and sarcasm and know when he’s being funny and being serious. It’s sometimes a hard line to define but in this case the line is very clear.

Although the author’s gallery showcases some wonderful pictures, my favorite part about this site is the Random Excess Memory Project. Here the author places a word such as “anger” and requests that the readers respond with what memories that word brings up for them. I have to admit it’s something new and brings a nice interactive side to the blog that you don’t see as much or, at the very least, in this format.

All in all, ::excess:memory:: is a great trip. If I could get an explanation as to how the drop down menu works that would be great. But, regardless…the trip is more than worth it!
excessmemory

Flombaum.com opened up to a nice display. I’m a big fan of people who know how to use color without making it look garish or disgusting. The nice varying shades of blue was a nice entrance that made you feel somewhat welcomed into the life of Avi Flombaum.

Sadly, upon venturing through the blog itself, it was less on quality content as much as it was big on trying to make itself seem as funny and entertaining as the writer himself would like us to see him.

There are only two blog entries under the “Daily Dose” column. For something that is supposed to be a “Daily Dose,” it’s odd that almost two weeks past between the only two entries on the page. In fact, if the link to the archives is supposed to be active it’s not. There are just the two blog entries – the second of which apologizes that he has not written more often.

There are plenty of places to go on the site. From Flombaum’s own writing (The Mystery of Bathrooms was a fun read) to his artwork (I loved that yellow flower picture) this seems to be the heart and soul of Flombaum.com. Perhaps this should be more of an artistic blog where our author focuses on his creative endeavors with the occasional shout out to let us know what is going on with his life.

Other links include Avi’s webcam which I did try but no picture came up. In fact, the window that should have popped up at least show me that nothing was on didn’t even active. Perhaps it’s my slow as molasses PC.

Overall, the design of Flombaum.com helps override the lack of blog content. Once our intrepid author decides which stance he wants to take on this site, I think it deserves another review.
Flombaum Dot Com

Something about this site caught my attention from the beginning. I couldn’t place my finger on it, and after reading all of the posts, I still am not able to quite put my finger on it. But hopefully while writing this review, I will think of it.

So the design of the site is pink, and lots of it. Not that bad, considering I really don’t like the color pink. The design of the site could be used with any color, and it would look cool. Maybe that is why I liked the design, because I knew it could easily swap colors and it would be good. Maybe adding one of those color switcher css code things would be helpful, but maybe not. I had two minor problems with the site design, the first being that there was an iframe in the center of the big box. Nothing too annoying, as I just had to click inside the box in order for my scroll mouse and down arrow key to go down, but still, something that annoys me. The other thing that needs to be fixed is her permalinks. They all reference her C: drive, particularly her macromedia directory. That should be fixed.

But moving onto the weblog itself. The author is of Malaysian decent and currently lives in the UK. She posts about her daily life stuff, as it happens. Some days have a lot of stuff going on, while others, do not. It all depends on her mood.

Her writing style is rather interesting, probably because of her background. Being that I am from the US, I speak a different version of English, than the people in the UK do. Nothing major, but you can notice subtle differences. Also, the author doesn’t seem to like the shift key, as nothing is capitalized. No big deal, but it can be somewhat distracting if you are not used to seeing this.

Overall the site is an enjoyable read. I still can’t quite place my finger on what it was that captured my interest, but I think it has to do with her reminding me of a friend from a long time ago. I know it isn’t the friend, but there are a lot of similar qualities. The 3.5 rating is because it is better than your average weblog, but doesn’t have anything completely unique. Yes there is the photo section, but nothing that struck me as wow, this site is a lot better for having this section.
{where.dream.lives}

Entering the site of eightface was pretty interesting. The design of the site was nice and clean, which made me more interested in what was going on with it.

Unfortunately the weblog itself isn’t near as good as the design is. Most of the posts are short little posts about what happened that day, be it school, or work. He has seen lots of movies, which he always lets us know in a post when he has seen one. Most recent posts are about his job at a golf course, and are not all that interesting.

The quality of writing was there though. You could tell that there was more to the author than what he was posting about. Almost like he was either holding back in his posts, or he was being held back. Some of the posts read just like they were posted for postings sake, which isn’t all that great.

But then I found the gem of the site, and that is his written section. He writes for one of his school’s publications, and has a lot of ability. The things he writes here are short little stories that are supposed to be funny. Most of them are, and I was laughing quite a bit. His ability to write is clearly shown in this section of his site.

Over all, the blog is nothing to take home to mom. Just your typical “I did this” or “I did that” type posts, which are fairly repetitive. The writing section is worth visiting this site for, and I hope the author continues to write those short stories even though school is out.
eightface