Month: January 1970

Before I even jumped into the weblog, I took it upon myself to see what else Gary, the author and creator of GaryHolifield.com, had to offer readers and anyone else that were to stumble upon this site.

Gary’s “about the author” section is set up in an interview type format, and covers everything from where he grew up to the ever-pressing question of boxers or briefs. Gary certainly doesn’t leave much out as he covers nearly aspect of his life, which gives readers a great idea of who they’re about to start reading about on a regular basis.

The section marked “Coming of Age” features an assortment of school event and growing up pictures of Gary and his friends. When visiting the Club Reviews section, look out for some animated .gifs and a little background music action while Gary gives his opinions of various clubs that he’s visited. His “My DVDs” section also has the nice feature of the movie title, an image of the DVD case, Gary’s rating of the particular movie, the genre, along with whether or not that particular DVD has an Easter egg hidden somewhere.

There were several more links along the left sidebar that led to other places Gary’s store information – such as a link to the 2000 Election under the heading “The Art of Politics”, a welcome video that plays in Real Player, his resume, and several different links that lead to different photo galleries Gary has put together.

The layout that’s used looks like so many of the other weblogs on the ‘net – the actual weblog portion of the site in a center table, with a table on either side featuring various links, menus, etc. It doesn’t appear as if Gary uses any particular weblog tool (i.e. Movable Type, Blogger, etc.), but instead updates the site manually.

I have a strong feeling that anyone that actually knows Gary in person would find his site to be convenient to keep track of what he’s up to and what’s been going on in his life as of late. However, being someone that’s never known Gary, the sometimes infrequent updates make it a bit difficult to feel connected to him. The posts are short, but right to the point of what’s going on in Gary’s life. He often covers such topics as the media, the entertainment world, and many times he touches on how his work in the pharmaceutical sales industry is going.

With archives dating back to Feb 2000, readers do get the opportunity to experience a lot with Gary, providing they go back that early to read; however, it’s a bit hard to come into the site and just be able to feel “right at home” with this site.

If I were to have found GaryHolifield.com on a whim by just surfing right to it, I don’t think it would be a site that I would come back to daily, and that’s just because Gary doesn’t update daily. If you’re looking for a site that’s updated just every so often, this isn’t a bad one to go ahead and add to your list.

gary holifield

I laughed at the photo of the boy!! It made me smile which is always a good start when you first click onto a journal! Then I noticed the nice neat boxes and was struck by how organised it all looked. Then I saw how long the list of links was and felt abit overwhelmed!!

This is a personal blog with an insight into Lee’s mind. It is exactly as it says, a journal. You can share and read Lee’s thought and feeling on everything from her packing up smoking and drinking, to what she thinks of awards shows!!! Follow her as she turns from nice to a cigarette starved woman on a mission! Her about me page suggests that she values her privacy, but I think that you get a good idea of the woman behind the blog with her entries.

The design is nice and simple. Clean cut and easy to use and read. There is a list of her more notable blog entries, the Apartment Guide is a must!! Then you get a list of her archives, and then a list of her blog categories. You can go in and read all her rants which I found quite good fun!! I just hope her mum sees sense and removes the picture!! There are alot of links though, I did find these slightly overwhelming, but she is obviously just a popular girl!

I think that the categories are the best ever bonus feature. I liked going through and reading Lee’s rants, then going back and reading all the humour entries. I really liked the feature, and it gave me a chance to find out alot more about the author. The clean cut and easy to use design was a feature.

I liked this blog because posts made me laugh, made me think and made me feel in tune with Lee. I liked the way that it reflected my idea of a blog, a personal insight into someone else life. The real nitty gritty warts and all entries of one persons life. I think that I will probably pop back, once every so often, just to see if her mum moves the dreaded photo and to see how the giving up smoking goes!! Best of luck Lee!
Malarkey, Tom-Foolery and Guff

It’s been a while between reviews, and what better way to delve back into the reviewing business than to start of with this classy blog. You won’t find whizz-bang graphics, bells, whistles or any odd error-alerting coding on the site. It even loads pleasantly quickly, considering it’s a Blogspot blog. I’m a simple girl, with simple tastes, and this blog really appealed to me from start to finish. Firstly, it’s very easy to read, I cannot stress how much this affects my reviews. I found the colours so refreshing and easy to look at for a long period of time – which I did when I was scouring the entries.

As it says in the header quote: “A somewhat daily chronicle of the events that concern D. Kelly Smith (and I’ll call him “Kelly” for the purpose of this review) and the world around him.” And it certainly is. As it’s a personal blog, I immediately searched out the “about” section to find out a bit more about the person behind the blog, and I wasn’t surprised to find a simple statement about himself and a few lovely pictures of his family. Hell, he’s even got his own theme song which I think is rather novel.

Kelly’s love and concern for his family is evident in his blog – it’s something you see straight away as you read them. He questions the motives of people and organisations around him and worries about the effects they could have on his family, this is what makes his blog so personable. I enjoyed Kelly’s thoughtful responses to what is considered “pop culture” as well (probably because I found myself agreeing with him much of the time) and found myself nodding along or whispering the same sort of sentiments to myself as I read.

The blog possesses a quiet intelligence that’s subtle and quite nice to read. There’s nothing in your face about it. He doesn’t rant about how people should agree with him, he just puts his point across politely and without much fanfair. I think that has a more profound affect on any reader than the simple “agree with me or eff off” sort of blogger.

One final note, as I was clicking through the archives, I came across Kelly’s post for 9/11. This awesome quote is from that entry:

“We talk about racial issues, socioeconomic issues, regional issues, and religous issues, we talk about all of the issues that divide us as a nation, we laugh and scoff at the President and our Congressional Leaders without the realization that in one way, we are all the same.”

Thanks for this awesome blog, Kelly.

Weblog Afficianado

My initial thoughts about this site were that I would be entering the blog of a hippy and it would be all psychedalia and good karma- after all, mythic flow has that sense to it. This was certainly an erroneous assumption, but in all honesty I am not entirely sure what I found instead.

At first I thought the layout of the site was ridiculously simple, with just a titlebar and the posts, until I discovered substantial linkage starting at the bottom of the page (though to be fair, it starts at the side of the page in the archives). Unfortunately I could find no information about the author or what the point of the blog was amongst the many, many links to be found. I did find another blog by the same author, but I ignored it as I still hadn’t got the hang of this one. The archives could have been easier to navigate too, though this maybe the fault of the blogging system (the name of which I could not ascertain) and thus out of the author’s control. The template isn’t though, and it could do with a bit of rearranging really.

Anyway, being none the wiser from my intial poke around, I had no choice but to crack on with the posts themselves. My first impressions of the writing style were good- the articles were generally amusing and the subjects covered on the front page included sport, religion, blogging and the author’s Mum- a good combination I thought! Some links were included in the postings too which all seemed reasonably appropriate.

Once I got in to the archives though, I seemed to lose my way with it all somehow. Again, knowing nothing about the author to begin with, I could find little in the posts to establish what the whole “feel” of the blog was meant to be- a link to an author profile was sadly defunct. In strictly personal blogs this doesn’t matter as you simply learn about the author’s life as you go along, but there were very few personal entries to be found. Instead there were a lot of theological and political debates, all written in a very academic style. Some were interesting and engaging I admit and the comments helped, but I also must confess that still other’s went over my head completely and I missed the point altogether.

Unfortuantely I found this weblog too inaccessable to give it a higher score, both structurally and in regard to its content. It won’t take much to get it on track- but an About Me page is a must. Once it is clearer what the aims and direction of the weblog are, it will be more enjoyable to explore what are undoubtedly the interesting viewpoints of the author. At the moment though, it is just a collection of random and sometimes difficult posts waiting for a good home.mythic flow – methinks

When I saw the title of The Millions: The First Ever Internet Bookstore Blog, I was intrigued. Anything to do with reading or books is, in my opinion, terrific. But what exactly is an online bookstore blog? I decided to start at the beginning and find out.

Launched in March of this year, The Millions began like many other blogs. The author, a young man named Max (an avid baseball fan and, I quickly discover, a prolific reader), lives in Los Angeles, co-owns a fledgling record label, and works at a bookstore. The first month of entries are typical blog fare: descriptions of parties he’s attended, a bit about his job, some excerpts from articles he’s written, etc. But very quickly the focus of The Millions narrows. The author has a passion for books, good books, and he thinks you should too. As he states in his manifesto (of sorts):

given that you and I will only be able to read a finite number of books in our lifetime, then we should try, as much as possible, to devote ourselves to reading only the ones that are worth reading, while bearing in mind that for every vapid, uninspiring book we read, we are bumping from our lifetime reading list a book that might give us a profound sort of joy

Slowly, the concept behind The Millions emerges and the tagline begins to make sense. Max explains that his dream is to one day own a real bookstore but until then he’ll settle for an online version. Books, old and new, are discussed in each entry. Included is a link to Amazon.com’s listing of the title. Each time someone clicks that link and buys a copy, Max get a small referrer’s fee. Thus the “internet bookstore” description.

It’s a good idea, and Max is sufficiently well read to pull it off. Although he occasionally comes off as a bit pompous, his genuine love of books and his ability to get the reader excited about them as well is what makes the site noteworthy.

The design of The Millions is a simple two-column layout in blue and orange. The site looks good in the major browsers, but the text is a bit on the small side at higher resolutions.

Ask A Book Question is a new feature at The Millions, and as the site grows I believe it will prove to be useful and fun. Send your question to the author and he will post it on the site, so that the blog audience may discuss it.

It will be interesting to see how this blog develops. If you love books, stop by The Millions and have a look around. Not only will you find up to date reviews and discussions of classic literature and what’s popular today, you’re also bound to find some titles you’ve never heard of before. It’s a solid addition to the world of literary blogs.The Millions (A Blog About Books) AKA Ask a Book Question