The Weblog Review

The first thing I keep looking for (often in vain it seems) is a context for the blog I’m about to review. Why do I care what you have to say? Tell me about yourself so I can relate to what you have to say. Even a few simple lines to contextualize your blog for the reader IMHO is essential. Please add an ‘about’ page! (I’m a skipping record on this issue aren’t I? Bah…)

Ruzz’s let it all hang out philosophy on blogging:
“I see blogging, inter-blog discussion, comments, debates and the like as an organic entity which is uncontrolled. I don’t trim my bonsai bush I let it grow how it grows. My focus, my concern, is not on the resulting controlled perfection, man over his elements, type beauty. Rather, my blog is a seedy bar where every night someone gets shot, gets stabbed, falls in love, finds out their wife is their cousin and so on.” .

I felt ruzz.ca had a decent layout. The photos along the left column were different and interesting, as was the background image. Ruzz updates the blog many times a day, often with short little observations and additions. What seems a little different about this site is comments to ruzz.ca form the main content of the blog (with Ruzz’s comments as well…). So, basically anyone can contribute (and is encouraged to contribute) to ruzz.ca.
“See. I trade you writing for writing. I write, you write. This is the system we have going here dear readers. Nothing is more annoying than pounding out 1300 words, most of which are blatant lies, only to end up with one comment. If I simply posted “Hello” I suspect my comment script would break from the frenzied replies. Nothing more annoying.. well, actually there is: Heartburn. ” It leads to a far bit of discussion by the regular readers of ruzz.ca. For the most part, I didn’t enjoy, the soap-opera like banter of his *regular* posters, but you may.

Ruzz has a lot of pointless entries in his blog which he is happy to admit, “I have no real content right now.“. But there are also many great entries where he makes some honest observations about life:
“If I treated my daughter the way some people who claim to love me treated me I couldn’t live for the shame. Love is not a condition. It’s not a mood. It’s not something you pretend to award when you are lonely and want to be around somebody. It’s something real and tangible. But it can end. It is not infinite. That Disney-esqe idea has ruined more than one person I know. But if its there, when its there, you just don’t offer and retract it based on the level with which you can tolerate your life or yourself. It simply does not work like that. That isn’t love. That’s using a person in the worst way. For those of you who do this, in your defense, the people who lap that shit up and keep taking it, like an abused house wife -beaten then rewarded- deserve what they get. I deserve what ever I allow another human being to put on me. In fact, the entire purpose of the relationship would seem to be nothing more than a construct in which to act out the parts and serve each other’s unhealthy needs. So don’t go pitying the housewife and hating the husband. They are together because one of them has the ability to be cruel and one needs the cruelty to validate their own worthlessness.
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There is tons of content in the ruzz.ca archives. One month of entries on ruzz.ca would equal a year’s worth of entries on many other blogs. If you buy into this idea, of having to contribute (and not just passively read a blog) this site will certainly appeal to you. An interesting concept. Check ruzz.ca out and see if it motivates you to write. Ruzz gets the last words: “The highest highs and the lowest lows. The sweet and the sour. This is life. enjoy every fucking minute of it people.”
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ruzz.ca

The first thought that crossed my mind when I loaded up #include {web.Log} was that this site wasn’t designed for the everyday blog reader. From a technical aspect, the site is optimized for a 1024 x 768 resolution. Many viewers are still running 800 x 600, and the need to scroll to the right to completely view the weblog was an annoyance. The design of the site is pleasant, but otherwise nothing out of the ordinary.

The programming syntax in the title of this weblog led me to the conclusion that #include {web.Log} was going to be a very computer oriented site. Although this was true in certain aspects of the site, such as starting blog entries with “opening connection” and ending them with “closing connection”, the content of the site is fairly diverse. The author talks about everything from socks on Ebay to his school textbooks. Nevertheless, the general theme in this blog is that of criticism. The author brings together different articles he finds and attacks them. As far as the quality of this criticism, I admire the author’s ability to transcribe his thoughts in a clear and presentable manner. As I read the weblog, I wasn’t lost in complex ideas and thoughts. Quite the opposite, I was able to easily follow the thoughts and opinions of the author. Unfortunately, the author’s thoughts and opinions were the only way to learn about him. His “about” link opens up a small window with cryptic information. I realize this lends to the cyber-crazed identity seen throughout the site, but I would have liked to have seen a little more biographical info.

One of the things I liked about #include {web.Log} was the way that the title of each post is written. The title of the post is written over the date and time it was written. Yes, I realize this is a minor aspect of the blog, but this method of presenting the title adds a unique flair to the design. The author uses software to write his blog which utilizes modules, or blocks of information, on the site. This makes the site easy to navigate, but draws away from individuality.

Should you visit #include {web.Log}? I say ‘yes’. However, I recommend you visit the site more for a chance to find some interesting articles than to read the author’s criticism. Despite all of the intriguing things I learned from this blog, I still missed out on one of the most important aspects of a weblog – the author.

#include {web.Log}

My initial instinct with regard to this blog is that it’s very simple. There’s nothing out of the ordinary, unless you count the “parental advisory” logo at the top of the blog. While I take this with a grain of salt, this may be forewarning for visitors that are faint of heart to not venture this way.

I avoided the recent entries in hopes of getting a feel for the author from the previous archives. I started with the very beginning. It is right for him to put the warning on his site, as there is a bit of language. For the most part this author sounds like your typical teenager with normal dislikes and likes. He talks about a concert that he went to and all the fun stuff that he experienced when Kid Rock came on stage, and the closing number with Aerosmith and Run DMC. This author speaks about how he’s “bored” more often than not, and he uses a lot of slang, so if you’re not up to speed on the language of the youth today, you might need a slang dictionary to decipher what this author is actually getting at.

Some of the entries are interesting enough that as a reader you’re not bored as well, but a lot of them are the same “hum drum” that most younger bloggers write about. He’s not a bad author, he just has a tendency to write as though he’s talking to one of his “homies,” and while some are “down wit da lingo” other’s might not understand.

The design is very basic. It’s black with white text and red links. A visited link turns blue so you can’t read what it is after you’ve clicked on it. The titles are bouncing marquee’s which is annoying for most people who want to read some content. The archives, however, work, and so do most of the links (though there aren’t many of them).

There aren’t many bonus features on this site, which is kind of sad. There’s no “about me” page, there’s nothing to give you a little more understanding of who this author really is. If you hope to find a little bit more based on the entries, then you might find yourself reading an awful lot for nothing in particular.

The good content is hidden somewhere, but it’s rare and quite far between. The bouncing text is distracting, and the language is often hard to get around. Lucky for me I understand what most of it meant, but even then he used the strange spellings. I would’ve scored higher if there was something more to make this site worth a visit. Without being trite, this site is hard on the eyes, in more ways than one.The Illusion of Safety

Right away, I wondered how I was going to enjoy or even relate to the weblog of Jeff, who just happens to be the Executive Director of the Libertarian Party of Illinois. I didn’t struggle with that worry for very long, though, and thus began my reading of Random Act of Kindness (RAOK).

Jeff links to his “about the author” section in a fresh manner – he includes it in his list of archives, giving it the month and year of which he was born. Obviously, weblogs weren’t quite the happening thing in September 1970, so when I saw a link for that timeframe under the archives, my curiosity was piqued and I had to check it out. There, I found a very extensive autobiography that really let me learn a lot about the author, and really find out where he’s coming from with the things he writes about from day to day.

The layout is the typical three column layout – weblog in the middle and two columns of informative links on either side. The links that Jeff does feature on both sides of the main text, aside from the Blogroll that’s a mile long, are all helpful links in understanding where Jeff’s getting the information he uses, as well as sources that would appear to come in handy in any type of research.

Being so heavily involved in a political party, naturally the majority of Jeff’s entries relate to politics in one way or another. He’s often focusing on the happenings in Illinois, simply because that’s where he’s based out of and that’s what’s familiar to him. From time to time, he’ll share a personal anecdote with readers, which often tie in very closely with the political arena, but yet his storytelling capability ranks pretty high in the keeping attention department.

The archives are only available through May of 2003. According to Jeff, this site has been around much longer than that. Reading from the beginning is always fun to see how far a site has come, but even from just the few months that are available, the writing standards and output of Jeff’s thoughts have been done consistently well.

RAOK isn’t a weblog that will be something average readers will grasp or really want to grasp. I’ll quickly admit that politics are not something I follow closely, nor are they something I find myself wanting to read more and more about. Amazingly, Jeff keeps his writing basic enough for even those that have no political background can follow and still find interest in.

RAOK is probably best suited for those web surfers looking to get more personal, in depth information about the political happenings in Illinois. If that’s the case, Jeff’s Random Act of Kindness to those people would be this weblog.

Random Act Of Kindness

Wow. See, when a weblog that I’m about to review first loads is when I start forming my initial opinions. Maybe the site loads slowly, maybe the layout is a very crisp and well done design, or maybe it’s just your average every day weblog. When the Catalyzer Newsroom started to load, I honestly had no idea what to think. Just “wow” was about all I could come up with, and it wasn’t necessarily a “wow” that would indicate any type of amazement or long lasting positive impression.



The layout just baffled me. How anyone is supposed to be able to make heads or tails of where things start and end is beyond me. It’s a standard three column layout, but the different colors, the random images, and extra tables that have been added and slightly altered just give it almost a nauseating appearance.

The sidebars do have some helpful and informative links about current events, such as “current campaigns” and “presidential endorsements”. They have a section where they’re “always seeking submissions of opinion pieces, original writing, etc.!”, which does feature some nice viewer submitted pieces.




Only about two weeks of archives are posted on the front page of the site. The entries are typically quite lengthy, so this is close the perfect amount of writing to leave on the main page. It doesn’t take forever to scroll down to the bottom, but it also gives newcomers to the site a chance to get some background on how the entries are written and what the primary focus is of each of them.

Each post features a headline type table at the top of the post, giving the title of what’s about to be written, the time and date it’s posted, and a method of contact for the author. While reading each post, you realize that the majority of what is being written is just copied and pasted from the actual article that is being linked/discussed. The opinions or thoughts of the people behind this weblog would be a great addition to this site. Readers connect better when they get even the slightest bit under a writer’s skin and not just reading the surface, which is just information that’s taken from one source and regurgitated to sound as if it were ones own.

I wish I knew why the Catalyzer Newsroom was started – what inspired the creators, what motivates them to continue providing content, and what classifies an outside link as one they want to list on their many sidebars. It’s obvious that it does take a lot of time, hard work, and research to find all of the links and information that they provide their readers. The authors of this site certainly know where to find the information they’re searching for.




This weblog is geared on current events and the thoughts/opinions that the publishers of this website have on them. If you can manage to find a method of reasonable navigation through the site, it might be worth a visit or two.

Catalyzer Newsroom