The Weblog Review

Just like the name suggests, this blog is.. well a blog on Brain’s roommate. The idea is quite original, and here is the introduction in his own words:

This is a weblog devoted to the study of my roommate. All names will be changed to protect the weird and eccentric. For this reason, I will refer to my roommate as “James”. Hopefully, by reading this, you will be introduced to the personality and daily habits of a truly odd individual that I have the unique privilege of being assigned to share a 14.5 x 11 ft. cell/dorm room with. At this point, my roommate is unaware of the existence of this blog, which could make things interesting if/when he finds out, so don’t spoil all the fun by telling him. Enjoy!

The idea is very unique and trust me, it rocks. James is a little whacky kind of a guy from what Brain writes about him, especially when it comes to attending the classes, personal hygiene, and living in a civilized manner.

All this makes this blog a really interesting read. Though the blog started just in January, there are entries for almost everyday. And Brain’s got this style of writing some really uninteresting things into unstoppable laughter-producing entries.
Here are a few posts :

12 pieces of duct tape is apparently insufficient to hold Jim’s poster of Disney princesses to the ceiling above his bed. Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, and Jasmine must be heavier than their anorexic forms would imply.


Jimbo always strategically places the blinds every night so that the Sun will shine right across his face in the morning, presumably to wake him up. Despite the fact that it does not wake him up, he continues to do this every night, then moves the blinds back in the afternoon so that there is no glare on his computer screen. It’s like a giant, solar-powered alarm clock. Somehow Jimbo can even sleep through light that blinds me every morning when I wake up. He’s talented.

Despite the fact that the only purpose of existence of Roommate blog is to incessantly track the life of Jimmy, never once do you seem to get bored. As a matter of fact there were more than just a few times when I could not control laughing out really loud while reading this blog. I would not be surprised if Brain was to write a comedy book and it would turn out to be a best seller.

As for the design, the blog has the standard movable type design. Nothing fancy, but with a blog like this design becomes completely irrelevant as long as you can read clearly (which you sure can).

But alas, there seems to be some unwritten law that all good blogs die soon. It so happens, that on March 18 Jimmy discovered the blog, and the last entry is on March 25 when Jimmy ‘vanishes’ while Brain was taking his shower. Maybe he told Brain not to blog about him anymore, maybe he left the college, maybe there was some alien abduction (which Brain feared many times in the past when Jimmy would vanish like this). Even if the blog is not updated anymore, I would recommend everyone to have at least one read of the entire archives. Which, unfortunately, would easily be completed in an hour; partly because the blog is just too interesting and partly due to the size of the entries.
I personally would keep checking the blog in case James might return someday. 🙂

RoommateBlog

‘Japan Window Photo Blog’, sounds interesting. I’ve been to the site, and I constantly return (it’s even linked in my blog!). The template has not changed, it’s still dark with a black background and light gray text. I think it works, as the font is not too big and not too small. It’s not too hard on the eyes as well. The design’s simple and neat. And for many, that is good.

As I read his entries, I began to wonder who the author is. I finally found the ‘About’ link which is placed on the right side bar. The author is not Japanese (at first, I thought he was). He moved to Japan with his Japanese wife and daughter two years ago. His photo blog is mainly about his ongoing attempt to figure out what Japan is all about. Most people will find this interesting as it’s not just photos of sights and sceneries in Japan, but it also focuses on it’s culture and it’s people. In each entry, he further elaborates on what each photo is all about and his thoughts. He also ponders on his personal concerns, like in his March 09 entry, he says:

“I personally get upset thinking about salary jobs in Japanese companies. I’m used to the idea of eight hour work days, regular vacations, overtime as the exception, and just having a life outside of work. But here I see Japanese kids growing up without having their fathers around, and that bothers me.”.
It’s commendable for a foreigner to have such concern for a foreign country. Furthermore, he tells about his personal opinions on different people he sees and takes photographs of them. Either of two girls praying or old women shopping. Some of his expressions may make you laugh, but in reality they’re generally true.

The layout, as I’ve said, is dark. It’s a black background with light gray text and gray links. It’s clear enough to read, and the font size is just right. The banner’s simple yet says a lot as it has many different photos of Japan.

An extra here is the photo gallery. Here you will find the same photos but placed in different categories such as the author’s top 10 favorites, random moments, youth culture, shrines and temples, festival photos and many more. This will make it easier for you to view photos according to your liking.

Japan Window is a great experience, especially if you’re as interested in Japan and it’s culture. The author elaborates well and his photos say a lot. I think what separates his photo blog from the others is the way he takes his pictures. His pictures made me more interested in what Japan has to offer and it made my visit to the site is worthwhile. Japan Window Photo Blog

Mukiwa.org, tales of a white boy from Africa is a prime example of why we should never judge a book by its cover, or why we should never rely so much on first impressions – in fact pick various similar analogies and apply them here. The reader is greeted with a standard two column movabletype template, with very few alterations – in fact the only real alteration is an image in the left hand column. For those who really do rely strongly on first impressions it would probably be far too easy to pass over and move on, but on this rare occasion I would definitely advise them to persist – it’s well worth it.

Mukiwa combines beautifully well written entries with exceptional photography, and I mean exceptional. There is no about me page, no self obsessed first posting here, it’s straight in and blogging. Maybe the first post didn’t grab me, but as I began to read the more engrossed I became. Each entry is usually supplemented by photography, and so what the template lacks in visual appeal is more than compensated for with stunning photographic imagery. I was, and remain in awe of this individual’s skill with a camera.

Despite fluctuations in posting consistency the author touches on a great many subjects here, sometimes personal, sometimes about issues close to his heart. I particularly liked how he utilized photographs to highlight a point – a real favourite being his images from Zimbabwe. This is someone who really can speak a thousand words with a simple picture.

There isn’t much I can say about the design; it’s a generic movabletype template with very few alterations. But I firmly believe that visitors should put this aside, because the content is more than worth it. There was the occasional error, a broken image here for example, but nothing overwhelmingly annoying.

I enjoyed my visit to Mukiwa.org; it was one of those rare gems to prove we should never judge a weblog by first impressions alone. Yes the template is generic, and as such its a little lack luster visually – but this site really does make up for in other ways – beautifully written entries and stunning photography. Give this site a chance, I guarantee you won’t regret it. If broken images were remedied, and a new template this would be a 5 for me without a doubt, as it stands I’m going to give it a grade of 4.5 – room for improvement.However, it remains a definite addition to my favorites list.
Mukiwa: Tales of a White Boy from Africa

My first impression of this site was positive. I read the title and smiled to myself, even chuckled, at the cute picture and great syntax. I don’t want to spoil it for you, so that’s your first reason for visiting this site. I also realized that, as I expected, this was a book reviewing site. Therefore, I feel honored to be reviewing a reviewing site!

Each review is equipped with the cover of the book being reviewed, which I believe is important if the review interests you and you plan to buy the book. Another neat addition is the rating, complete with little stars and everything! Her reviews are thorough and informative, without giving away too much of the plot. I think it could be very helpful to anyone who likes to read to bookmark this site. I believe this site would be a useful tool in shopping for books because it sorts out the gems from the lemons and everything in between. I think, all though I completely trust her decisions, that she could perhaps have a “Suggestion” link, or something similar, so people could suggest books to her.

The design of her weblog is slightly cluttered on the sides to where you can’t immediately tell what you’re looking at. Once I looked a bit closer, however, I found great information all over the site. Even though her archives were found all the way at the bottom of the blog, I figured that anything she posted would be a review, which she has neatly labeled at the sites’ base. Apart from her very good reviewing, I found that she had links to other sites like hers, which could direct fans of her site to others they might find interesting. I also found on the left side a little information about Book-Mom. After reading the first line of her novel, I immediately decided to purchase it. I can’t wait to see what else is in store from this writer/mom.

The extras in this blog are great. If there is anything even remotely related to books, you’ll find it there. I was impressed to find even products that you can buy to make your reading easier! Now that is true dedication to promoting reading! I am definitely going to bookmark this site and send it to my friends who are as big of bookworms as I am because if there’s anything that’s a reader’s best friend, it’s a list of good books. Despite anything negative I said, I really enjoyed my visit and fully intend to return for more great reviews from the Book-Mom. I was also very happy to see that she had a little line at the top saying, “People, I am so close to being reviewed by theweblogreview.com! It might be up there now!” Here it is!

book-blog

This blog is set on a generic template, very similar to the ones used in a LiveJournal blog. The colors made reading her blog easy, though they were very simple. With this plain look, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from the blog at all. For all I knew, it could be a teenager or an adult so I decided to read a little and find out.

First, I checked the “Who am I?” site and found that the author of the site is Premshree Pillai and she has lived in India all of her life. It was really interesting to read about all the places she’s lived because it would be the equivalent of saying I lived in Denver, Chicago, and Los Angeles. I also found that she’s attending a college, studying Engineering in Information Technology. This was immediately apparent when reading through her blogs. Incredibly, I was also dealing with an accomplished writer and a program writer in the Indian culture. It felt almost humble after hearing of her many publications. Unfortunately, I was clueless as to what she was talking about in many of her posts because I am not completely up-to-date on all of the latest computer terms and such.

The design leaves something to be desired. Although her weblog is merely part of her website, she didn’t have archives or links of any sort except to her scripts so there wasn’t a lot of extra substance to bulk up the site a bit. Apart from this, it’s a very simple template that allows you to move throughout the site in increments of ten posts at a time.

This site has very little in the form of extras, although I don’t suppose her journal is the main focus of her site. She simply uses it as an outlet to tell the people who visit her site how the progress is going on her Python scripts and what’s new in her computing world. When the posts have sites, most of them are related to the technological object she’s creating or using.

Occasionally, however, you find something unique. Did you know that October 25th is Diwali? After googling this day, I found that it’s this festival is celebrated on a grand scale in almost all the regions of India and is looked upon mainly as the beginning of New Year. I think that, if anything, this site has taught me a little about the Indian culture in informing me that there is quite a lot of technology pumping through the ancient country. I think that’s one of the most important things I took from this site.

I think this site would be interesting to the people who check her site regularly for information on technology and those whose hobbies include writing scripts and programs with the many forms of techie code. After skimming through most of her current 166 posts, I came to the conclusion that, dotted throughout all of the computer mania, there are some posts about movies or shows that she’s seen, which makes this not a completely computer oriented blog. I think, since this only applies to a certain type of person, it’s not suitable for teenagers or simpletons but I would definitely recommend this to anyone interested in computers.

Premshree Pillai’s Journal