The Weblog Review

Merialc opens to a very pleasant muted sage green color scheme with a photo of the seashore. Very restful and elegant. There are two thumbnail photos of books she is currently reading. I can say she, but it took me quite a bit of reading and searching to find out about the author, as there is no about page.

I know we here at Weblog Review harp on this feature or the lack of it, probably more than any other thing. But trust me, one little sentence in your header can encourage people to read further. The most cursory of reference points can go a long way to welcome new readers.

I found out bit by bit from reading the archives, that our author is an engineering student in her last year of college. And to my great joy, about a year ago, her father loaned her a camera. She set out to learn how to use it. And learn she did.

If you do nothing else at this blog, you must go investigate her photography. I was thoroughly enchanted by what I found there. I explored the literally dozens and dozens of photos of everything from a study of wine corks to wonderful shots of the English countryside, complete with artful shots of decaying castles. There is also a section devoted to pictures taken during a trip to Pakistan.

Her blog entries center around a few recurring topics. Movies and books she has seen and read, what’s doing at college, work, and a some personal observations about the world around her, all done in a readable style.

There is a link to a commercial site hosted by Cafepress, where you can purchase some of the author’s photography. A nice touch, especially if you see something in her photo log that strikes your fancy. All in all I had an enjoyable visit. And I encourage you to do the same.

Merialc.com : Life in Reverse

Lost Together opens to a black and white photo background of a child watching some ducks in the water. The photo is nice, but it makes a rather busy backdrop for the text of the entries. A larger font size would be helpful to the reader.

I read the first entry of this blog, which was in April of 2003 and found that the title comes from the lyrics of a song that is meaningful to the author. But I could find precious little else to help me get to know who was writing. It took me quite a bit of reading just to decipher the gender of this blogger. Even the most rudimentary profile is helpful to the new visitor.

The entries center mainly around the author’s work situation. The good days and the bad days. But again, they reveal only small hints about the writer. Holding your cards this close to your chest makes for rather. . . how can I say this? Floating entries. There was very little real flow or connectedness to them. So they become uninteresting after a while. Not to say that ALL the entries were this way. From time to time, there would be one that delved into some aspect of the author’s life, or an observation about society in general. I wanted to read more entries like that.

While the writing itself was certainly clear and understandable, I came away with the feeling that the blogging was a bit of a bother, or that the author didn’t really care that much about it. And so to a certain extent, neither did I.
Now it is entirely possible that this is not at all true. But this was the impression that was projected. Ah, I think what I am trying to say is that for me at least, this blog lacked “passion”.

There are only the barest minimum of other features here. Three drop down menus with links, blogs our author reads, and the archives. All were in working order at the time of my visit.

I think this blog has the potential to become more engaging if the author chooses to share more openly. Just because there has been a certain pattern up until now, doesn’t mean things can’t change. After all, in the immortal words of Scarlett O’hara, “Tomorrow is another day…..!”

Strange and Beautiful

I didn’t know I arrived at the right site to review when I selected Strange and Beautiful. There isn’t a site banner and the URL is ‘lost-together.blogspot.com’, maybe the site should be named ‘lost-together’? The site functions well however in its cramped two column layout. The menus are all drop down menus so everything is easy to access.

Things became clear after reading the archive. The site is named after ‘Lost Together’ by Blue Rodeo, which starts ‘strange and beautiful are the stars tonight that dance around your head’. Great song! Then the author admits to a lack of web coding savvy… so the blandness of the site is understandable. I would still like to see a site banner and an about page. It is hard to enjoy a blog when you don’t know who is writing.

The namless author (entries are signed as Lost Together) works at a Call centre, in spite of an admitted fear of the telephone. She reflects in one entry how ironic that is. Indeed! At the start of the blog she was working the night shift and longed to get out during the day. You can learn a lot about this author from her blog, her interests, passions, things she likes, dislikes and what annoys her. The topics covered in entries are as diverse as I’ve seen. From wondering how women can pee standing up to reflections on a translation of Plato’s Republic. I couldn’t make that up if I tried.

She also talks about her job, to quote, ‘I hate my job. I hate my job. I hate my job!’ which gets upgraded to ‘I hate my fucking job’ a few months later. She later says, ‘ For a company who prides itself on providing great customer service you would think they would know a thing or two on how to treat people nicely, and with respect. If I had a dollar for every blog I read that mentioned how inept management was, and how poorly most companies treat their staff I would be rich. Clearly there is a lot of truth to it, which I have never understood. Let’s hire staff, train staff then treat them poorly so they will want to leave…I think the author is on to something. Family is also mentioned, ‘My whole life growing up I haven’t heard my father say anything overly positive about any of us kids’. Clearly sentiments reflected by many bloggers, sometimes family isn’t as supportive as it could or *should* be.

This blog was great to read. It made me feel like everything was ok with the world. That someone else has crappy days, hates their job and wonders about their relationship with various members of their family, their friends and their significant others. There is comfort in reading you aren’t alone in what you are feeling. Now the blog title ‘lost together’ makes a lot of sense. One of my favourite lines: ‘ I can train my dog how to rollover in an hour, but I can’t teach a human how to go to www.hotmail.com.’

Don’t let the uninspiring appearance of Strange and Beautiful deter you from checking it out. Reading it reminds you that in this big world, in some way we are all lost together.
Strange and Beautiful

Two words. Blogspot Textads. Ok, I have made my point. On with the rest of the review. My first impressions of the site were good – fairly simple design, but minimalism has never been a bad thing in the world of blog templates and probably never will be. Less is more and all that. The author had a blogger profile to look at which was somewhat uninformative – name, geographical location and one-word lists of music and interests. But hey-ho, better than nothing I guess. Incidentally, she is American and erm… a she. Pretty much all you need to know to enjoy the blog. All the archives were on the main page (about three months worth) which seemed a little extreme, especially as her archive links actually seemed to be working well. Again, pretty titlebars aren’t essential to get a good review, but I don’t think they can ever do any harm. Three words. Free Blogger Templates.

Ok, so the blog isn’t the best looking blog. But the writing. Hey. Well. Groovy. I liked the writing very much. The first entry made me laugh. And the second. In fact all of them really. All the entries were the of the usual personal fair – childhood stories, what I did with my weekend, family stuff, job hunting stuff and um… tap dancing too! The entries are quite long, but my God, they are so much fun to read. The author seems to have tapped in to an effortless kind of writing which is just MADE for blogging – funny, interesting, self effacing. No spelling mistakes I could find, good grammar, some long and interesting words used. This girl can write. The only question is, why has she only been blogging since June? A natural if ever I saw one.

Ok, so this isn’t a life changing blog, I didn’t come away from here a better person and I didn’t learn anything particularly helpful. But I did come a way with a smile on my face and I did come away having had some fun, which is perhaps more important. Highly recommended – I hope this blog goes on for some time to come.run jen run

Jen describes herself as hanging around literary and artistic folk so as not to be too corporate. She is not a writer and began to worry that her post topics were wearing thin.

She may have majored in Marketing alright, but her writing seems certainly fine to me.

Jen only recently began her blog, in June of 2004. She’s comfortable revealing every-day details about her life such as her cats, her family get-togethers, her addiction to infomercials, her unemployment and the interviews she’s had to face, her fear of getting a roommate, and occasionally, a story or two about her past. It all makes for fun reading.

Jen’s strength lies in her ability to post her musings on a variety of day-to-day topics while not boring the reader. I also admire the fact that her posts are never incomprehensible one-liners, on the contrary they read as though they were well thought out.

The only complaint I could have is the Blogspot template. I’m not going to complain about Blogspot itself, as it is my home as well, but I will say this, with a little knowledge of html you can do miracles and make your blog so much more appealing. Blogger standard templates usually reveal nothing of the author in visual terms. The blogger profile is loathsome, as it offers little or no information on the user and the effect you create is similar to that of a cyber-communist utopia: “Our blogs are all alike, there must be no differences among the blogletariat.” The Blogger comment option is also a headache to use and even read.

Run Jen Run could use a little make-over and more background information on the author. The kind you get on first glance, such as an “About” link. Most every interesting detail you know about Jen comes from reading each and every one of her posts.

Summing up, this blog has very, very good possibilities. If only the template could do the blog justice, then it would surely kick off.
run jen run