Month: January 1970

I wasn’t sure what to make of the title. As it happens Jenny is Greek… ah!

Thankfully I take notes when I’m reviewing as I’ve stopped getting access to the site… “Hi this is Jenny and thats my personal weblog. On here I write about my family my country and our every day life Because of the personal content and the plethora of weirdos out there you must be registered to view the content If you are already registered on any of my pages then just log in. If not please take the time to register below. Registration must be approved and it usually takes up to 24 hours.” I don’t have twenty four hours. I think I’ve read enough though to give you a flavour of what’s on offer.

On reaching the site I was greeted with a not too pleasant colour scheme. Red and cream I think, but I am colour blind and don’t always get these things right. The design was okay. A banner which acted as a home page and underneath it a link bar to other areas of her site. These contain the perfunctory archives and links to other blogs and sites. There is an about me section, 100 things and nine layers. Nine layers being a new one on me; on inspection it was another way of detailing a life. A kinda of quiz thing based on questions and answers. There was also a right hand panel with a members section, mailing list, stats, credits and a random picture.

In terms of getting around this was the most hassle I’ve had reviewing a blog. You have to go back to the archives each time you want to read a post. When the posts are less than enthralling this becomes tiresome.

There is an extensive family photo album which has some lovely family photos in it. Family is big in Jenny’s life and it informs most of her posts. She has a big desire to have another baby; I don’t know if she has gotten pregnant recently as I was cut off somewhere in April! The web log started in January this year and Jenny has posted regularly since.

She details her life as a wife, mother of two, guide leader and occasional worker. Her writing skills are poor, but she does well as English is her second language. On the whole she gets her message across well enough. She is an honest, enthusiastic lady and has an enthusiastic supportive readership and would appeal to anyone interested in the minutia of the daily grind. A soap opera.

One high spot for me was the regular chuckle as I came across another “I’ve just bought this” or “I’m excited about buying that” from the self proclaimed non materialist!

This was in no way a blog I would return to. However it does have its merits I guess, so for me just a two out of five.It’s All Greek To Me

No offense, but this is a very unattractive blog. Though yellow and brown are usually fairly harmonious colors together, this is just not working for me. The link text to some very important areas of the blog, like the About page and the Archives etc. are infinitesimally small. Why? Our heroine’s photo is displayed in the header. Why is she making a face? Now I’m frowning too.

It took me a while to figure out how to get around here. The archives open to individual titles but when you go to one, the only way to continue reading is to go back to the list and pick another one. No, “next” or “previous” function makes for pretty tedious navigation.

The entries vary quite a bit. Some are quite short, quiz results, or a short note about her kid’s goings on that day. Others are about Greece, sort of a combination history/travelog. Some are just rants about the irritation du jour. The writing is clear and understandable, but didn’t capture my imagination very much.

The one exception is when she writes about her two miscarriages. It’s unfortunate that something so incredibly sad should be the impetus for the only entries that I felt that I was connecting with the author.

She also has links to other sites she has created. They include craft, recipe, web design and discussion forum pages. She seems a very versatile woman. This site might be of interest to other mothers and anyone curious about things Greek, both the place and the food.

It’s All Greek To Me

Her-realm.com is far, far from the typical ‘what is going on in my life narrative blog’. It is the unique poetic journal of Etcetera’s (or The Abstrakt Junkie or Jilly Hunter — yes she has many pseudonyms, I’ll use Etcetera) ‘thinking outlet and mental toilet. My entries are purely the result of mind regurgitation.’ The site itself is clean, uncluttered, easy to read and navigate…

Etcetera is a lover of music (she is a self proclaimed hip-hop head), likes writing, enjoys AC (year ‘round), her dog and sex. While I won’t say this is a full on erotic blog… her sexuality is described openly with a rather confident provocative sincerity which I have yet to find in another blog. She has been writing Her-Realm for well over a year but only seems to write once a week or less in some months.

I found the older entries full of metaphors and a curious blend of romance novel/essay-like/poetic language that reminded of a dirty Showcase special voice-over… The language is very artistic and expressive. One example: ‘My ink falls without a parachute, writhing in artistic agony once its hit the ground, and no one seems to understand why my blues and blacks attempt these suicides…’. Most of the entries are written like this… and depending on what you like, it can be beautiful or boring. I think some readers might find it stuffy and pretentious, and won’t get Her-Realm in spite of her disclaimer: ’ I’d like to think that I can write freely without a million people misinterpreting and critiquing everything they read here, but that million exists.’.

The more I read the more I was strangely intrigued by the uniqueness of her writing style. I actually had to ‘pay attention’ to fully digest her personal poetic articulations. I believe it would be more satisfying to have been able to read these entries as they were posted, instead of all at once for a review. A small daily dose of ‘Her-realm’ would be very satisfying, potent stuff.

I found the more recent entries to be more accessible as they seem to have become more narrative and less poetic, such as ‘sister dearest pt. I’ or the ‘compensation’ entry. I’m not suggesting a dramatic change, maybe just a slight mellowing, don’t misunderstand, none of Her-Realm’s entries lack her poetic zest.

The content jumps around her ruminations about love, lovers, emotions, feelings… which she often expresses with some moving poetry which is scattered throughout her archives. You’ll also find some interesting ‘mixed tape’ track listings and the odd meme, which seems strangely out-of-place in this poetic blog.

Her-Realm is unquestionably a uniquely refreshing, slightly erotic, cerebral read. Her-Realm might not be your realm…but I recommend reading to find out if it is… If you can hear Etcetera’s muse loud and clear, the music is beautiful, symphonic, break-taking, awakening and will leave you sweaty wanting more, more, more…
Her-realm.com

I liked this one. The title suggested dreams and I was not disappointed. “When our conscious sinks and our subconscious emerges, we can only witness what the mind truly has to offer in the night.” I am interested in dream interpretation so what was on offer was appealing.

The design is simple and straightforward – a blog*spot template. The look is okay and easy to read. There is a left hand side panel with links to other blogs and blog related sites. There are links to dream related sites and the perfunctory previous posts and archives. There is a link to site statistics. Some of the links open in a new window; some don’t.

The site has been in operation since May 12th 2004. It is operated by two women. Jen and Karen who contribute postings. Jen more frequently at a 2:1 ratio. Jen is 28 and a student. Karen’s profile is not public.

There is a comments facility in which Karen and Jen occasionally comment on each other’s posts. There is a small amount of other use.

Now to the content – dreams. What I like here is that neither Jen nor Karen tries to analyse their dreams. What we get is pure dream narrative. Both write well and provide descriptive dream sequences. The pair only post when they dream. I like this discipline and for the first time appreciated the space between posts. This lent an air of authenticity. I intuit that both dreamers “lie and dream things (and relate things) true” to paraphrase the quilled one.

I read through all the posts and managed to maintain my interest. There a couple of posts which deal with the mechanics of dreaming and blogging. For instance how to remember – “Whenever I awaken from a dream, I try to write down the key elements, things, feelings, sensations, etc. before the dream slips away from my conscious memory.”

I can’t remember any dreams but will be trying to when I wake tomorrow. Perhaps I’ll be haunted by Zaque? He, he.

I liked this web log which has a nice unpretentious feel to it. It made me laugh on one occasion too. Meow Hitler! I will be popping back and hopefully may contribute a dream or two. A well deserved three and a half out of five.Nocturnal Elucidations

It’s curious you know. Whilst I was thinking about how to write this review, I realised that this weblog has all the potential to be a complete flop in my book. It hasn’t got the prettiest template in the world, it is a blogspot blog, it is purely personal, has a lot of stuff about family life and is written by a middle aged woman. I have slated blogs before now for having one of these characteristics, let alone all at the same time.

However, I am not going to slate this blog. Oh no. And here’s why.

Firstly about how it looks. Ok, it’s blogspot, which has almost become a by-word for lazy blogging in my book, but not in this case. Firstly there is no advertising box. Good start. Secondly there is a really cute little weevil (which I think has been designed by one of her friends) which adorns the title bar and the sidebar throughout the blog. Granted, the rest of the blog is a bit drab, but all we ask here at TWR is that people make a bit of an effort, and clearly this has been done. She also only has stuff in her sidebar which should be there, i.e. links, favourite blogs and some more information about her. No javascript gimmicks or flashing things thankfully. So my mood lifted slightly as I perused the site initially.

Spotting that a few of the links were the same as the links on my blog, I thought I might have some stuff in common. So I had a look at the “100 things” and found out that this woman is clearly a happy, bubbly, positive person and also lives in the same home town as me! Blimey. It was weird reading through the blog and here her talk about places and streets which are familiar to me every day. Did this affect my objectivity as a reviewer? Yes, absolutely. I found it very refreshing. However it wasn’t just congruent geographical locations which enabled me to warm to this author.

Like I say, it is mostly personal, day to day things she writes about. She seems to post every day and a lot about her family. Some of the posts are in fact rather pointless. One tip though, is to bear in mind the “who’s who” link at the top – the author uses nicknames for various people she knows and it can occasionally get very confusing – “who’s who” clarifies it all.

However, there are two very important things which this author possesses which make this blog stand out from the crowd. She is funny and she is literate. I can’t express strongly enough how important it is, for a reader, to be able to read a weblog that is fundamentally entertaining. If I can laugh out loud whilst I am reading, it makes so much difference to how much I enjoy a review. Good writing skills are also (obviously) another important facet in a medium which is based almost solely on text. Again, the author excels at this – she is intelligent, knows lots of cool words (I wish I could think of a cool word to describe someone who knows lots of cool words, but I can’t), she is imaginative and she can tell a good story. My only regret is that I wished I had time to read all the entries, not just some of them.

I have scored this blog fairly highly and I think most people will find it as amusing and positive as I did. However, because the author is from my home town, it will be added to my list of favourites too.Weevil Stepmother