The Weblog Review

NOTE: Mango Parade has changed into doublethinker.com

[www.doublethinker.com]

Closed. The Mango Parade has left the building. The blog seems to be DOA. Hah, this must be a sign I think to myself, seeing as this is my first blog review. Oh no wait, there’s a promise of action on the bottom in little letters. It mentions a new domain. I enter doublethinker.com(the new domain) and prepare to be dazzled.

The arty-farty, scratchy quality to the images and the face of a girl not looking particularly happy on the left-centre makes me automatically think this might be another one of those “I’m a girl and I hate my life and I’m edgy to boot” blogs. I shudder at the thought of having to endure post after post of swearing and how much guys suck. However, the background oozed with cool blue-greeness and since it’s not a gross blue-green tinge I attempted to read the blog.

I feel relieved because the blog is very well written and thoughts are expressed in an articulate and mature manner. Some entries are pretty long but somehow I can’t help but keep reading on. Caitlin mostly writes about her relationships with people, her trying to kick her internet addiction and her beef about her place of employment. It all sounds like regular blog stuff but I’d read 10 days worth of posts in a row and still had the stamina to read a few more.

The layout is simple but classy just like the blog itself. It all works together and it’s easy to navigate around. One major gripe is maybe the font used is too small, it looks very cool with the layout but it made reading that much more difficult.

This blog is best read by people who are between the ages of 15-20’s since individuals in that age range will probably be able to relate to the issues that arise in this blog. I think Caitlin’s blog is certainly worth a closer look.Mango Parade

To be honest, the only thought I had about IntellectualMusician before I visited the site was that of John Cusack’s character Rob Gordon in High Fidelity. I really thought this was going to be a blog form of the “I know more about music than you do” attitude that was displayed in the movie.

The layout of the blog was intriguing to me. It didn’t really feel like a blog’s layout, more of just a general article site layout. The site’s design is a spin off of 2 or 3 column layout with the main content being on the left and navigation (or ads/navigation) on the right. The main content area is a two column tabled type layout with each article taking up the exact same space as the next. Of course this is just a ruse as it is just a snippet of the article and you must click on the “continued” link to read more.

Which brings me to another grievance I have with the design/layout/functionality of the site. When you click continued, you are taken to the “more” section of the blog post. Considering most people I forget instantly what they I just read when the screen changes, I had to scroll up to re-read the intro. Especially in cases where it broke in mid sentence.

Enough with the layout/functionality already. I know you are all wondering about the content. Well lets start with the first post which states the primary purpose of the site:

“IntellectualMusician.com is a website built and maintained by musicians, for musicians. The basic idea is simple, gather a superior group of extremely talented and well educated musicians and give them an outlet to share their knowledge.”

So with that said, I am expecting well basically what I originally thought before visiting the site. Now I am not one to practice music, but I do know a fair share so this should be fun. But wait, the posts are about how to play music, and practice and well how to make the instruments sound the way they do. The posts to me seem like they are just re-written out of a book and that this blog is more of a “music class” than a “group of musicians sharing their knowledge”.

Since I couldn’t find what I thought I was going to find here, I decided to look around at the other parts of the site. The owner took the time to make some Web 2.0 type graphics for the “Home” and “Forum” links. The forums are very green and really need more people. However what is there, with the lack of users is good. Again, it is more talk about the playing and learning of music. So that kind of bummed me out.

Since I am not a musician and don’t have any interest in learning to become one, I thought I would ask a buddy of mine to take a quick glance at the site since he teaches drums at the local high school. His quick impressions was that the layout needed work, but the articles were actually good for him. So there you have it, if you are a music person, you will probably enjoy this site. If you are just a listener, you probably won’t. The design needs some serious improvement, especially in the archives to make the site more accessible. Overall I give the site a 3.25 due to the layout issues and that the site is geared towards a specific niche of people. That niche will more than likely enjoy this site.
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My first impression of WoF:SPRFW: You can’t have “culture” without “cult”, is that the title is about as long as the blog itself.

Furnace, the name of author, is 24 years old, lives in Canada, and that is all I was able to find out from reading. There is no archive section and the blog has only about a month of entries. Just to make sure I didn’t visit the site on a bad day I brought up Google’s cache of the website and it was pretty much the same thing (although I got to read a few more entries). There is one funny entry about the author and some friends accidentally visiting a house of prostitution, but that is pretty much as entertaining as this one got.

The author uses blogspot to host the site, nothing wrong with that, some of the best blogs out there are on blogspot, and the author picked a pretty good template. Along the left side of the blog there are some of the authors likes i.e. book, movie, and a qoute and some links to other sites.

All in all, this was just not a very interesting weblog. It needs archives, and some more info on the author (I don’t even know if the author is male or female but I think male). I don’t even know what the title of the blog means. One star, check it out if you are really bored.

WoF:SPRFW: You can’t have “culture” without “cult”

The interesting name of this blog is Syaffolee, which is derived from S. Y. Affolee. This is the literary pseudonym and self-proclaimed scapegoat of the author named Thea, a non-nerd biology student at Caltech. The initials come from the first letters of her Chinese name, which means “sea poem”. The last name is the feminine form of a French word meaning “fool”. Unlike so many other people nowadays, Thea writes in the biography that she avoids wasting her time watching television or partying like many of the other university students. But don’t you dare calling her a “troll” for being that way, because in this fine blog she has alot to offer. In that regard, we should be thankful that she redirects the usual energy spent by students her age on partying on her blogging endeavors, for she does a pretty good job.

This fine blogger created the site because she was plain tired of being drowned out by people louder than she. Thea states: “Here I can be vitriolic and cantankerous without people in real life hanging me by my toes.” One wonders what experiences she might have had before while hanging in such an uncomfortable position in life. Inspiration for this blog?

The blog called Syaffolee is in itself an interesting combination. Daily activities centered on student life are mixed with reviews and reactions about news items she has read and to which she wants to react: genome secrets, hiv problems, university suicide, a pill to stretch your day, etc. Her writing style is sober and down-to-earth. Alot of the subject area keeps returning back to her biology background, but this is understandable and refreshing. The style reminds me a lot of a mix between Richard Dawkins and Stephen Jay Gould, but that is probably because they are also authors of biology science. Her blog archives go way back to the beginning of the Millennium, and there is plenty to peruse. One notices that in two years time, her writing has matured significantly, and this is an interesting process to follow. More depth, more concern with the outside world, an inner growth of someone coming of age. Good blogs, and this is certainly a good one, allow the readers to take part in this process of inner and outer discovery.

Other sections provide balance and escape at the same time. In her page called “Decoder” there are a number of interesting definitions of common and not-so-common terms related to her student life. In the page “Chrono” she reflects back on her life according to the books she has read, and one is immediately moved by the numerous titles she has read with gusto. From a children’s picture book about a bear to Harry Potter, H.P. Lovecraft and Angela Carter, it is all in there. You might also want to have a look at her small gallery where she displays stuff about Gustav Klimt and more.

Anyone admitted to Caltech has by definition got his or her act together. Thea is one smart cookie that is for sure. There is a tendency towards intellectual expression, but Thea tempers this well with simple ideas that make you think. The no-nonsense design of white text on a black backdrop makes the thinking that much more accessible. Not bad for someone who claims that she does not work as hard as she should. I can recommend this site very highly, not only for students but also for the many readers out there who are still at heart “students of life”.syaffolee

Monkey Farts was part of leafbud.net at one time. As I enter the Monkey Farts blog, I am told this. Cool. Thanks for telling me. A fact confirmed when I find the ‘skindex’ of templates to choose from, one of which is resembles the leafbud site. This one, however, has different photos on it. One of the photos is supposed to be of the author’s pet fish, but on first glance looks like a purple elephant whose got a santa hat on its trunk. The other templates are more nifty, if templates are your thing, and I guess if template-picking were my thing, I’d pick the western one as the best.

Anyhoo, my immediate guess about the author is that she’s one of those people to whom ‘blog is her life and life is her blog’. This is apparent because she actually invests money into blog itself. As for me, content is of utmost importance since I am a thrifty blogger–I once paid to get rid of a banner ad–that’s it. I also immediately got the impression that this person is not an American, has perhaps a computer-related job of some sort, and seems very in-tune with herself, but semi-self conscious, all at once.

A little more looking around led me to find the author’s ‘about’ page, which proved me correct. It states that the author is a 22 year-old Australian web designer, and exclaimes “What more do you want from me?????” Well, then. I suppose peoples’ ‘about’ pages can only be what they WANT to tell us. However, in the case of Monkey (she LIKES to be called that), let me say that if your ‘about’ page is a collection of online quiz results, a fact which I find both amusing and detestable, I have no choice but to refuse any less. I must demand more.

*sigh*

Moving on through the archives, I see links indicating that the blog started under a year ago, and so I start following some of them. I am pleased to find entries that are frocked with sarcasm and wit, which impresses and sometimes intimidates me, although I’m sure it’s not her intention. In fact, I actually enjoyed the archives. Unfortunately, she does not carry enough of this brevity and lovely thought-provoking text into her more current entries. They retain her usual cutesy-ness, but seem mostly trite and silly: “Soon I shall have a hit counter that doesn’t count my hits and STILL has managed to reach 5000!(w00t)…Soon I will think of something interesting to blog about.” I find bloggers who express concern outloud on such things like their hit count seem semi-narcissistic in nature, and having ‘something interesting to blog about’, is sort of a hackneyed premise for an entry. Also, could someone clue me in to just exactly ‘w00t’ is? Call me dumb, I’m truly, really unsure of this. The guestbook seems to be more of a message board for people who know the author, and its older pages are all broken links.

All in all, the blog seems important to at least the author and her gaggle of followers/friends/chums/what-have-you. So that’s got to count for something, right? Sure!

I really, really, really strained hard to give Monkey Farts a 3.5, only because I miss her old entries’ style. Bring that back, Ms. Monkey, and you have won my heart.Retarded Monkey – Monkey Farts