The Weblog Review

Whew! I’ve been to the Wilson’s, and I’m ready for a nap!

It’s a Wilson Thing has a pleasant color scheme of teal and lilac that appealed to me. Very soothing and calm colors. How very deceptive though! This place is FULL of action. The three column format of course is not my favorite, and unfortunately there are a huge number of links on either side which just distract from what turns out to be one heck of a family circus.

Our author is an American in England, living with her military husband and their 5 girls. Evidently such large families are rare in jolly old England because she seems to take a fair amount of flack over it, poor thing. They seem to be handling their situation just fine, with joy and humor thank you very much.

The entries are loaded with photos, mostly of the children in all sorts of humorous and adorable situations. With the exception of the rather graphic photos of the ravages of the chicken pox that frankly was a bit more information than I needed on the subject. But the writing is full of good humor and homespun philosophy that is a rollicking good time. This is a Mommy Blog on steroids. I had a ball reading descriptions of a typical morning getting 5 girls washed and dressed and fed breakfast, the aftermath of one of the little ones “helping” with soap in the dishwasher, and a cute exchange between the author and her husband in an intimate moment. (May 9, 2004)

As an American myself, I especially enjoyed the photos of the English countryside and towns, and I am VERY jealous because I want to go to the Lavender Tea Room on Market day with the author and her friends!

The blog also has a recipe page and separate pages of photo albums that were fun. My only disappointment was the excess linkage. It was just a bother and seemed to clutter up an otherwise perfectly delightful family web page. Let your writing take center stage!

It’s a Wilson thing

Upon arriving at ‘Misc Karen – Taking the Dumb out of Random‘ I was greeted with a fresh spring coloured blog templated journal. The author, Karen, describes the site as ‘ offering my rambling musings in the hopes that I will get a bit more disciplined about writing and journaling.’

That certainly makes sense. Karen is an English Literature grad from Notre Dame (Go Irish!). This raised my expectations…which weren’t groundless. Misc Karen is a well written, engrossing topical blog with entries that occasionally have an inspiring motivational essence to them. At the start of the blog she had recently moved to California and was looking for work which would surely be enough to keep anyone awake at night. Karen was no exception. She used some of this financial worry induced insomnia to write some very honest down to earth entries about where she wants her future to go and the reality of her current situation.

The content varies… sometimes daily reflections, politics (there was a great ‘Open letter to John Kerry), an amusing celebrity one night stand list and how to react when you receive a preachy e-mail from mom with a subject entitled ‘agree or delete’. Phew…. I felt comfortable reading Misc Karen… there were no hidden agendas or pedantic rants but some clever reflections on the world around her. Karen seem eager to get a readership and I certainly believe she deserves it.

She is the ‘Mean old lady’ that became ‘a Pretty Lady’. (Read to find out what that is about, -smirk-) Misc Karen is the enjoyable and accessible read of an evolving writer who has a bright future ahead of her. The dumb is clearly right out of this random.Misc Karen – Taking the Dumb out of Random

Well I wasn’t sure what to expect from this site. At first I didn’t understand what “ArklahomBoy” meant, but I figured I’d find out and wasn’t disappointed. There are several links to other blogs or blog rings, so I was expecting something interesting to read.

The posts are sometimes about a movie, or the blog rings the author belongs to, but mostly is a political blog. It started out in a more personal way, talking about an evening with Skynard and another experience when his car broke down, but turns into posts about the military (which he is a part of) and politics. If you don’t read the links in the posts, you’ll be totally lost, as there is not even a brief description of what the link was all about. In one post there was 5 links within 4 sentences.

There’s only one author of this blog, and as previously stated, he’s a part of the military. He’s also got a proud sense of home, which lends to the name ArklahomBoy. This affects a lot of the posts, and makes for some strong points of view.

If you’re looking for the views of a military boy, I suppose this will do. If you’re looking for news or anything worthwhile, I’m not sure you’ll find it here. I didn’t really find anything that interested me.ArklahomBoy

Arklahoma Boy is the name of this blog and that says it all. Upon entering the site, I saw that it was a simple 2 column setup in light blue with links and such on the right and the writing, in standard blog-entry form, on the left. Now what is Arklahoma? That’s what I ask myself. Luckily, there was a link on the right titled “Arkla What?” that answered my question.

Arklahoma is the name given to the Fort Smith region on the Arkansas/Oklahoma border. And, logically, Arklahoma boy is from that region. Simple enough I thought.

Next, I read the about section to get a feel for the author. It’s set up as a simple numbered list of personal qualities and beliefs. And let me tell you, this is one opinionated guy. He loves Lynyrd Skynrd. He’s an Iraqi war veteran. He was raised a Southern Baptist and is a die-hard Republican. He loves beer, hates France and is the only person I’ve ever come across who actually wants to hear the song when some guy yells “Play Freebird!!!!” at your local bar.

After reading this, I thought of that movie quote “I came here to do 2 things: Drink some beer and kick some butt. And it looks like we’re almost outta beer.”

Now that I have an extremely good idea of what this guy is about based on all of the stereotypes you’ve heard, I began reading the archives, which were located right below links for Alliance of Free Blogs, The Rebel Alliance, Blogs for Bush, Dixie-net and Military blogs.

Unfortunately, this blog got started on May 19th and I read the whole thing in about 15 minutes. The entries that he did have were a smattering of opinionated posts written on topics that you’d expect from Arklahoma Boy. Lynyrd Skynyrd, women in the military, sissy French people, and Ronald Reagan were some of the topic highlights.

So, there wasn’t much to review and, frankly, what I did read was very expected. Perhaps I just can’t relate to this guy, but I wish he had more to read so I could form a better opinion other than the stereotypical one I was left with. ArklahomBoy

ily ily ily…A plain blue page with large white letters greets you upon entering. The “Hey baby…. phrase at the top, is sort of cryptic. An indecipherable and ambiguous statement, that begs explanation, and I go seeking one.

I start with the About link where I find that he has added it only because of discovering out how much we prefer them here at Weblog Review. He seems to resent the whole exercise. But hey, remember, when you publish on the internet, strangers are going to come to your site. It seems odd to be overly mysterious in such a public place. If you really want to be anonymous, make your diary private. That’s my take on it anyway.

So we find out a little about the author there, but not much of real substance. Some confusing slight of hand (pun intended) references to who he is. It’s like watching a fan dance. The words, reveal and conceal at the same time. And perhaps that’s the way he wants it. Okay fine.

I read on. The entries jump from subject to subject, some giving you the impression that you are walking into a room and joining a conversation already in progress. Disjointed thoughts, sometimes tender, sometimes poignant, sometimes shocking, along with a liberal dose of covert anger fills the posts. There are some fairly explicit conversations of a sexual nature, and frequent references to anorexia.

All these entries add up to the painful details of an unhappy life. An unhappiness that spans so many levels, one is overwhelmed by it. I must admit though, that I found it hard to connect with compassion with the author because of the seeming self-destructiveness that flares so often. These are the words however of an eloquent writer, make no mistake. But the bleakness of the subjects makes for depressing reading, and the raw nature of the emotion revealed here is not for the faint of heart.

There are only a few links on the page, to other weblogs, which seem to work fine. Not much else is going on in this blog but the author’s thoughts, which frankly are intense enough without a bunch of other distractions.

It is difficult to give a rating to this weblog. He submitted it in the creative writing category, and perhaps it succeeds to some extent in that way.

I would not recommend this weblog unless you are interested in reading a lot of details about a desperately confused and painful life. I consider this material adult in nature.

ily ily ily