Month: January 1970

As a reviewer, I haven’t yet mastered the art of the News/Links review. I

figured now would be as good a time as any to start getting better at writing

these kinds of reviews. The first thing I noticed was the lack of images.

This is quite depressing, as when you read Bill’s bio and find he seems like

an interesting person. I’ll admit, I have no idea what “Peoria” or “Pundit”

is. I had to look them up in a dictionary. For those of you who don’t know

either so I’ll give it to you here, just as help.

Peoria:

n.pl.
1. A Native American people forming part of the Illinois

confederacy
2. A member of this people.

Pundit: n.
1. A Brahman

scholar or learned man.
2. A source of opinion; a critic: a political

pundit.
3. A learned person.

Having gotten that done and over

with, onto the review.



First of all… go all the way back. Go back to the very beginning of this

blog. When you hit the oldest month, scroll all the way down to the oldest

entry. Now read the whole thing. It’s okay, I’ll wait for you. Just read.



Good. Now that you’re back we’ll get more into the review. Bill’s eldest

entries are scarce. There isn’t a lot of content in the 2002 archives, but

there are, in place of quantity, some quality reviews of sites, and books. The archived entries seem more along the lines of a personal blog. The entries are well written, as I’m sure they would be considering Bill is a Freelance writer and Newspaper Columnist. Bill’s entries are thought provoking and original. He isn’t saying the same things over and over again. I’m at a loss, simply because I’m not quite sure if I should write this review based on the massive amount of external links or the amazingly written content. He signed up as a “News/Link” site, but I’m finding this much more interesting than any news site I’ve run across.

Again, I say, I’m not sure how to review this site considering the large amount of personal entries throughout. There’s a bit of it that falls into the political. While another part of the site falls into personal interest. The author writes a good commentary for the entries leading to links, and makes the reader (at least this reader) want to click to find out the more.

Bill’s entries are interesting in the idea that he almost goes above and beyond what other bloggers seem to do. Most of the month of May is google searches on his name. He’s found some rather interesting articles in his search. The author’s thoughts have a tendency to swing one way, politically speaking, but they’re not extreme.



He’s a wonderful writer and there are many things worth a read in this blog. I don’t generally enjoy blogs like this, but the older entries did a good job in changing my mind. THe newer entries seem to follow suit in how most blogs of this type are. They’re short, sometimes sweet, and “go read it yourself” attitude is a little stand-offish. I’d much rather come back for a read if the entries were as personal as the earlier posts. One of the better parts of this blog?? It’s all interesting news, and not the information you get inundated with daily.Peoria Pundit

One of the interesting things you’ll first notice when you visit this site is the quote in the title area. It draws your attention to the way the author uses the words, and in which way. It makes me a little curious to know what this blog is going to bring when I start to tackle the content. The blogspot attached to the domain is always a slight cause for concern, and archives generally tend to not work for these blogs. As always, curse blogspot, I can’t seem to “get to” the archives. There are plenty of entries on the page, going all the way back to April of this year. Seeing this makes me wonder if there are even anything to be put into archives. I’m not sure, but it’s full steam ahead.



I read through a handful of the older entries, not really sure what to expect. The entries are very well written, almost as though you were getting a sneak peak into the actual life of someone, objectively rather than personally. The entries are a little obscure. The subject matter isn’t very clear, even after you’re read the entry you’re still left scratching you’re head. Probably the oddest thing about this blog is that while you might not know what the author is actually referring to, you continue to read because they’re well written and for the most part very interesting. Danger, as the author has so deemed himself, is quite humorous in a very dry, matter-of-fact sort of way.



The design is much like you’d see passing through blogspot and going to any random blog. It works and is easily readable. The author has actually added a commenting system. The earlier entries are lacking in the comments, and I doubt it’s because of the writing, more so the lack of understanding the subject of the entries. There are a handful of external links, but nothing in the entries.



Danger is funny. Quite funny. It’s actually quite difficult to know anything more about the author than the fact that he writes. Sometimes he makes references to characters that you’d have to know a thing or two about to catch the meaning. “Then I’d be the gas and sell all the stuff to Mario, who would be the funny italian guy in a hat and jump suit who ran the local pawn broker which was really a cover for his go-kart shop (May 2).” The writing is definitely worth taking a look at, but don’t be surprised if you don’t understand the subject matter of what this author is writing about.Mysterious Island Place

Damn the (insert any given object here). The number of times I’ve probably uttered that exact same phrase under my breath is impossible to count. Damn the World isn’t something I’ve ever felt the need to say, but with the topics addressed throughout this weblog, I’d say it’s certainly a title that fits.

I would venture to say the contributors of this site are going to be hard pressed to find readers that won’t be offended by at least one post that’d been made. Catholics, French, Canadians, Americans, and nearly anyone else that hasn’t been mentioned will find at some point in this weblog’s early existence that they, too, have been put in the spotlight of demeaning comments and often overly exaggerated hatred. But that’s just the way Damn the World operates.



The authors’ take on the new signs created by the US Department of Homeland Security was one of my favorite entries and probably one of the least offensive. This entry also serves as an example of the types of things they touch on here. While the latest current events is generally the subject matter at hand, it’s not exactly a site that’s going to be providing readers with anything even remotely close to an unbiased opinion.

While reading this weblog, it’s easy to see that the time that was put into the writing and finding pictures on the web that offending captions can be added doesn’t nearly match the time that was taken on the design of the site. It’s a basic Movable Type template with nothing more than a different banner image added to the top. Design is something that I’m almost certain isn’t something Ryan and Sparky, the authors, are too concerned about.

The authors here do have points to make, but unfortunately, it seems like to actually find that point you have to wade through the frequent tirade that diminishes any hope of credibility in the writing to find it. Rants can be entertaining, sometimes even informative. The entries, here, though, which all typically fall into the Rants category in one fashion or another, aren’t really worth digging through to find the real meaning. It takes a huge amount of patience and understanding to be able to read through each entry without finding yourself to be sometimes fumingly angry what’s being said, and that doesn’t make for a weblog many people will want to come back and visit.

Damntheworld.com

Every once in a while it’s nice to see something with a bit of gentle whimsy, not overly sophisticated but not self-conscious about it, either.

Riftlands Cafe was built by hand by a guy who has a genuine interest in brushing up both his web design and writing skills. Its no-nonsense design and quick-loading extras make it a nice place to visit. There are tons of wedding photos, pix of the family, vacation shots, recipes and etc. I would like to see a few external links permanently displayed. For me, external links give a sense of who this person’s friends and interests are and help round out the “experience.”

Eric puts down his thoughts on a daily basis and you’re glad he did. What makes it stand out for me is the clear glimpse of life here. These are hard-working, honest people who take pleasure in uncomplicated things like cooking and gardening. No, it’s not boring, at least not for me, who spends so much time each day working on things like marketing and promotion. It’s good to be reminded there are still people around who aren’t thinking in terms of millions of page views and “wow” factors.

I bet he doesn’t think it’s much, this blog. But I hope he hangs on to the archives when he updates the site (as I know he will.) This will be valuable stuff in time to come; when his daughter grows up and Eric’s writing something bigger. I’m giving this a relatively high score; because although I wish these lovely people could win the lottery or something, this is the best I can do ;>)Riftlands Cafe

First off, I have to warn you about Damn The World. This site is offensive. Not just a little bit either, but full blown, I want to piss off people, type of offensiveness. Now this wasn’t my first expectation with this site, but I did expect a lot of rants when I would get to the blog.

The weblog itself is very new. It just started in September, and well has a lot of ground to cover if they really want to get their name out in the blogging community.

Even with the infancy of the weblog, we have a weblog that does what it is supposed to do; offend almost everyone. Posts range from Boycotting places, people, countries, to Movie Reviews, and well there are worse things that I cannot even mention.

One of the more interesting things about this site, is you have to read the entire post to understand it. Yes, the posts are obnoxious, and talk about things that you normally would not talk about. But, on quite a few posts I kept saying to myself that this couldn’t be true, it just can’t be. And of course the last line of the post explains it very clearly.

The quality of the writing is just average. The authors do like to swear a lot, and use all kinds of phrases within their posts. However that isn’t a bad thing. It goes along with the site and the goal of it.

The design is nothing to worship as it is a basic two column design. The logo unfortunately does not go with the archives, but then again, there are only one month’s worth of archives. Each post has at least one image with a caption of some sort to sort of help set the mood for the post itself. I found a fair number of these funny, but then a fair number of them were repulsive.

Honestly I could not justify giving this site above a 1.5 at this point in time. The site is still too new to be able to do much of anything. Granted, what they have tried to do is for the most part accomplished. While the small amount of entries did their job, they just didn’t do anything to keep me coming back. I have seen sites similar to this one, but they execute the humor and the posts a lot better. This site is not for the weak of heart, and should not be viewed at work, or around little kids. I also cannot say I would visit this site again. For this site to really bring back an audience, they need to put more work into the look and feel of the site.
Damntheworld.com