The Weblog Review

I put “Verbal Diarrhea” in the -ADULT- category for the basic fact that you are met immediately with a picture of a fat hairy ass and I wanted to give the reader as much warning for that experience as possible. (thank me later)



Okay and now for the review. *cough*



This site frightens me. I don’t like the twisted and blunt world that is Hasan’s. It’s smoke-filled and smells I’m sure.



Each day you’re met with new antics and such from the blunt and otherwise trashy webmaster who loiters at Verbal Diarreah (and shouldn’t). Most of the entries are slightly entertaining. Hasan can write decently which is a surprising fact indeed.



But first impressions are almost everything. My first impression of this site wasn’t anything special. I envisioned West Virginia and the word “hick” as soon as the page loaded. Judgmental you say? I’m a reviewer folks.



In any case…

The design for Verbal Diarrhea is okay. The writing reflects the man. *sigh* And so this site got a 3.5.Verbal Diarrhea

Thoughts of an Elf is a delightful site that blends interesting linkage with a few tidbits about the writer’s personal life. Each entry is short, sweet, and to the point, usually containing at least one link and, in this case, somehow ties in her personal life to the relevance of said link:

every monday, the boy and his guy friends get to together and sit down to watch wwf raw. on friday the world wrestling federation lost its case against the world wildlife fund for the use of the intials wwf. i have never even heard about the world wildlife fund. whenever i hear wwf, i immediately think of the silly men prancing around in tight clothing pretending to wrestle. it is a soap opera really.

We now know the author has a special someone in her life “the boy.” This is the manner in which she tends to divulge information about herself. For the reader who’s interested in learning more personal details, there are links to the her photo gallery and journal (broken link… hopefully a temporary glitch!)



This site is well laid out. There is a table for the content, which takes up the majority of the window. Other miscellaneous information, such as links, can be found to the left. The color scheme is light blue, with an accompanying winter theme – complete with an animated snowglobe. The archives section dates back to June of 2001.



While reading through a large part of the past entries, I was pleasantly satisfied with the consistency of the content of each entry. The author does a really good job of giving the reader just enough information about her and her interests by means of the sites she links to or by simply throwing out bits and pieces about her. The only problem this presents me the “dilemma” of deciding whether to classify the site as a links or a personal site! Either way, these particular Thoughts of an Elf are most definitely worth checking out.

.thoughts of an elf

Libertarian Samizdata? The name is a clue that you are not entering a teen blog on Brittany Spears. No, this is a site about politics – actually if you read deep enough it is about the libertarian meta-context – but stick with me.


The subject matter is politics and culture from a libertarian perspective. The overall libertarian slant, however, does not stop the blog from being interesting. They cover subjects ranging from gun control, economic policy, and the theoretical underpinnings of various political groups to popular culture, sex and pornography, and the personal travails of the bloggers.


Speaking of the posters, they come from all over the world – the main group are in London but they have posters from Belfast, Croatia, and NJ to name a few. One particular poster Natalija Radic, a feisty Croatian, is particularly interesting as she posts evocative pictures of herself at various social functions. She certainly spices up the posts – her non-photo based posts are interesting as well; especially to those of us reading stateside as we get little news with a Croatian perspective. Overall, the writing is good and the subject is interesting and varied.


Although the site is basically a hybrid Blogspot template it is designed well and easy to read. There are links for each post and it is easy to identify when the posts were posted and by whom. They integrate graphics and pictures throughout to add visual interest. There are handy explanations on the left hand side and a host of good links to both other blogs and more libertarian sites.


If you are interested in international politics, foreign affairs, philosophy, and the adventures of an international cast of bloggers than Libertarian Samizdata is interesting and thought provoking. If you are a diehard libertarian – why aren’t you reading this already? If politics bore you it might not be the site for you. Overall, I think it is worth regular visits because even if you don’t agree with them they are almost always interesting.Libertarian Samizdata

When I first arrived at Acid Mascara I was very pleased with the layout, and of course the picture of Britney Spears. This site was aestheticly pleasing to eye, and gave you a lot of information on the author as soon as you arrived.



This site is not about Britney Spears so do not categories and dismiss it as such. Spears is just the ‘motif’ that 16 year old Kate from Austraia uses for her blog. I liked how the author was very honest with her feelings about herself and others (brutally honest at times), and when I see that I know that the person writing just doesn’t use their blog as an ‘ego’ site. The posts were well written, and easy to understand. There was also a great added bonus; there is a ‘cast’ section on the blog that enables you to learn about the people the author is writing about. This is a great feature, it takes the guess work out for the reader.



I really enjoyed the design of the site and all the added bonuses. There is a webcam, a photo gallery, a guest book, and a very easy tool to email the author. You can tell that Kate knows a thing or two about web design and is able to take what she knows, put it all together, and really make it work.



On the site Kate mentions that this is ‘Version 11’ of Acid Mascara, after reading and seeing what I did I almost felt bad because I had missed out on the previous ten. This site is also best viewed in 800×600 resolution, which is nice, its the most common of all resolutions used. The only disappointment is that I could not find any archives. There was a link to a Live Journal site which didn’t work. I can’t fault the author for that though, that seems to be a problem a lot of Live Journal users have been having. I would categorize this as a teen blog but only because most of her readers are of that age. There is nothing ‘teen’ about the site design though.



All in all, a superbly designed, well written site, with a lot of added bonuses (but not too much as to take away from the writing itself), I liked it a lot, and enjoyed my time there.



Acid Mascara

Simplicity seems to be the new fad nowadays, and Justin has taken this fad to a very nice looking level with his site design. In just black and white, sans all the bells and whistles, the reader’s attention is adverted straight to the weblog entries.



The life of Justin and his wife Kari is the main focus of “blaix.org”, with sprinkles of college life and good old fashioned tech-talk thrown in from time to time. Justin writes in a way that’s easily understood and very casual.



The weblog goes back only to Feb 9, when the site was started fresh with a new layout. Any archives that existed up to that point were removed from the site as well.



If you decide to check this site out, be sure and follow the links to “the strip”. These are comic strips that Justin’s came up with on his own, and I’ll guarantee a laugh or two from them.



blaix.org